Africa needs justice not charity, says Bono

Wednesday, 29 September 2004 12:00 AM

U2's lead singer and debt campaigner Bono has told the Labour Party conference today that Africa must have justice, not just aid.

In his guest speaker's address to delegates, Bono said: "It is not about charity it is about justice". He told his listeners that the situation in Africa "would never be allowed to happen anywhere else."

6500 Africans dying every day due to preventable diseases, he said, is not just an "emergency but a crisis" and needs to be treated as such by the media and governments, Bono argued.

Bono is the latest in the series of high profile international figures to address the Labour Party conference, following on from Nelson Mandela, Bill Clinton and the new president of Afghanistan Hamid Karzai.

Focusing on the UK's presidency of the EU and G8, he called on delegates to hold the leadership to account, saying that the promises already made by Tony Blair and Gordon Brown can save 100,000 lives, and gave his backing for the idea of the Africa Commission, the Chancellor's international funding facility and the commitment to meet 0.7 per cent GDP in aid.

Adding: "If Britain can't turn its values into actions . . . then the critics tomorrow will be right that I am Tony Blair's apologist pulled out of the hat for the conference."

"We have the cash, we have the drugs, we have the science. Do we have the will to make poverty history. Some people say we can't afford to, I say we can't afford not to!"

In a backing for the Labour leadership, he said that Mr Blair and Mr Brown are the "John and Paul of the global development stage" (John Lennon and Paul McCartney) in that they had the prospect to change the real world.

But, he warned delegates that it will cost, but this can be the moment when the world puts "right a relationship that has been so very wrong for so long". The UK, he said, is in a position to act as an interface between the "have nots and the have yachts".

However, the rest of the world must be dragged along, especially the leaders of the other G8 countries. He made an impassionate plea for a reform of the Common Agricultural Policy, and for democratically elected governments, not international organisations like the World Bank and the IMF to decide on international trade policies.

Finally, Bono suggested that the war against terror (he was an unequivocal opponent of the war against Iraq) and the war on poverty are connected. 'Brand UK' is in trouble across the world, and to tackle the problems in the developing world is not only moral sense, but practically will "give us a chance to re-describe ourselves in a dangerous time."

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