The Editor

Sydney Morning Herald                                                              June 13, 2005

So Bono & Bob Geldorf have welcomed the G7 decision to write-off US$40billion in debt owed by the world’s poorest nations (‘Debt deal just the beginning, says Geldorf’, Herald, June 13)?

Would it were true.  

Sadly, our well-intentioned prancing pop stars, like those they so badly wish to help, seem to have fallen victim to the latest cynical instalment of the west’s ongoing imperialistic shell-game.

Only US$10 billion owed by the world’s poorest is to be ‘forgiven’, as this is the amount owed to multilateral institutions such as the IMF & the World Bank: the rest is owed to individual countries & the private sector.  

Further, suggestions by British Chancellor, Gordon Brown, that aid to poor African countries will rise to US$50 billion over the next three years are also misleading, with the funds concerned to be raised through the international bond market in the first instance but to be backed by future government aid promises ie: no new money.

The reality is that the proposals approved by the G7 offer very little in the form of genuine debt reduction & the little that is offered is conditional on the countries concerned adopting policies supportive of the activities of trans-national corporations in exploiting their natural resources, in particular oil & minerals.  

Hidden by the noise of the G7’s latest self-congratulatory announcements was news from the World Bank that more than US$20 billion or 40% of the world’s current aid budgets is misdirected or recycled in the form of ‘fees’ paid to consultants & has no direct impact on poverty.

And, if further perspective is required, British arms sales to the ‘new wild west’, as George Bush refers to Africa, have quietly quadrupled to more than £1 billion annually in the past four years, whilst the US has spent US$200 billion thus far on its war to bring ‘freedom & democracy’ to Iraq.  

Keep busking boys.