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Bono blasts G8 'bureaubabble'
08/06/2007 21:04 - (SA)
Heiligendamm - Rock star activist Bono on Friday accused the leaders of the world's wealthy nations of using "bureaubabble" to hide their failure to help Africa in their latest package.
The U2 frontman, who met US President George W Bush and other Group of Eight leaders at their annual summit here, said a pledge to provide $60bn to fight Aids and other diseases was full of false promises.
The G8 also renewed a commitment made two years ago to increase aid to Africa by $50bn a year by 2010.
"This summit outcomes document isn't readable in any language," stormed the Irish singer.
"It's called a communique but it seems to have been deliberately designed not to communicate the real facts. Do they think we can't read or count? We are looking for accountable language and accountable numbers. We didn't get them today."
'Labyrinthine' language
Bono said in a statement released by his Data pressure group that the G8 countries had to lay out "clear year-by-year steps" as to how the promised aid would appear.
"But this labyrinthine language offers no path - it's a maze designed to lose an ever-increasing movement of engaged global citizenry.
"But we are not lost; right now it's the G8 that are lost.
"G8 leaders say they are serious about keeping their promises from 2005, but today they have made their job seriously harder," Bono added.
"They say $60bn for Aids, TB and malaria and it sounds great, but that's not earmarked for Africa, it's a global figure and there's no timeline."
Not just statistics
Bono said that the money was not just a question of statistics. "These are hospitals without the electricity or clean water they've been promised, schools without roofs. Mothers without vaccinations for their children.
"The bureababble reveals a struggle within the G8. Some leaders have been stepping up but collectively they are slipping up. We've had plenty of fights with them this week - but they've had more with each other."
- AFP
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