The scale of the response by the world's most powerful leaders to the crisisin Africa does not match the scale of the problem, says Bono, talking to Peter Mansbridge of CBC TV's The National.
Watch the whole interview on video here
www.cbc.caRead highlights of the interview below:
CBC'S PETER MANSBRIDGE: Bono, earlier this year you had hoped that thisKananaskis G-8 could produce the Marshall plan for Africa. You've seen thefinal communiqué now, is that what you're looking at?
BONO: No. No, I'm not looking at that at all. There are a lot of people'shopes and not dreams but real work dashed here as far as I'm concerned. Itwas an inspired thing, I think, of Prime Minister Chrétien to have theAfrican leadership present. It was inspired to have as a centerpiece at thisyear's G-8, but really, what I'm looking at is a lot of rhetoric, a lot ofthe old numbers just kind of fiddled with.
There is, I mean maybe I'm being disingenuous. I'm feeling disappointed.There is some progress here. There are some smart things on the debt they'vedone, looking at debt sustainability in this. There's a little bit moremoney going around, but no, none of the vision we were hoping for.Basically, the scale of the response does not match the scale of theproblem.
MANSBRIDGE: Well, what do you think happened here? Where did it break down?
BONO: Well, I don't think Mugabe's efforts helped in Zimbabwe. I mean whenyou have a crackpot like that, it just reinforces what a lot of people thinkabout Africa, that it's a hopeless case.
But it's not a hopeless case. There is new leadership. There are some greatpeople like Obasanjo, who are there in Kananaskis. There's Thabo Mbeki, eventhough he's been slow to turn on the AIDS problem, he's a very brilliantman. There is a great new African leadership and they deserved, in myopinion, a new and historic approach to this problem. And you know, it's allour problem.
That's the thing. People say, 'Well why should we care? It's a long way.It's Africa.' And there is some sort of I guess inherent racism in the factthat we can let this problem go on and on and on. But I think also, beingfairer, it's more just to do with the fact that people think it's a hopelesscase. Well it's not.
MANSBRIDGE: Well, who's not getting it then? You've met with many of theseleaders. You've had access, unprecedented really for somebody who's been asconcerned about an issue as you have. Who's not getting it?
BONO: You know, they're not bad guys. They're just busy guys. It's justbureaucracy. It's just, it's heart breaking really. I know how much TonyBlair has put into this and Gordon Brown has put into this. I've been on atour of Africa with the secretary of the treasury of the United States. I'dlike to tell you these people are the devil. Well they're not. They'repeople who want to put this right.
The problem is, when it comes down to it, people are dying for the stupidestof reasons. Money. I mean since last year's Genoa, the G-8 in Genoa, 2.3million Africans have died of AIDS. I mean there are drugs available. Wehave interventions that are great advertisements for our ingenuity andinnovation in the wealthier countries. They're not getting to the people.They'll always say, 'Oh, the delivery systems aren't in place. It's toodifficult' that classic line. Africans don't have wristwatches so theycan't take these medications. I've been in Africa. I've been in clinics inSouth Africa where the nurses and the doctors are saying to us, 'We could do200 per cent more than we're doing now, if we had the money.' Others saying,'We could do a thousand per cent more if we (had) the money.' But these arethe old excuses and it comes down to money.
MANSBRIDGE: I've got to tell you, you not only sound disappointed, you lookdisappointed. But one assumes you're not going to give up as a result ofthis. What happens now?
BONO: No, I think I wanted for especially in Canada, Prime Minister Chrétien saidto us a year ago, 'I'm going to give you your voice and I'm going to giveyou your chance' meaning the movement. And it's a worldwide movement thatwants to put the relationship between the developed and the developingcountries right. I mean it's a relationship that's been wrong for so long.This is the time and stop.
The message we are trying to get to the politicians is don't move in babysteps. Make a giant leap here. We'll give you the applause. This money thatwe're asking for, I think they're talking about $6 billion a year en masseif the Americans agree, and that's still I think $24 billion less than whatthe UN are saying is necessary to deal with AIDS and hunger and starvationin that continent. But $24 billion, it sounds like a lot of money, but whenyou think of the cost of, for instance, the war in Afghanistan and yourealize what happens, it's cheaper to prevent the fires than to put themout. There are another ten Afghanistans potentially in Africa. I justthought they'd have the imagination to make a giant, giant leap here.
MANSBRIDGE: But do you still think that something can happen? You're notgoing to give up. People who agree with you are not going to give up.
BONO: No, no, we're not going to give up. We're not going to give up. Andguess what? It's such a strange panoply of characters here. You have thechurches. You have student activists. We're people who don't normally allhang out together. And people are waking up to what George Bush himselfdescribed as a genocide, referring to AIDS, and I see us as complicit by ourinaction in that genocide. And it's bewildering to me that we're nottreating this as an emergency.
I think the penny is slowly dropping. I think people are getting out on thestreets. People criticize the anti-globalization people. They feel that theyhaven't figured out an agenda. There are some nut cases, I agree, out on thestreets, but a lot of these people are responding at a gut level to whatthey see as the ever-widening gap between the richer countries and thepoorer countries. In history, within our own borders, we know that when thathappens, revolt is around the corner.
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