(Militarism) Some Live Aid Money raised for Africa 'goes to civil wars'

           
       Quote: Ethiopia, 
for example, received $1.8 billion in foreign aid between 1982-85... including a large contribution from Live Aid; $1.6 billion of that... was spent on buying military equipment.

 ' Money raised for Africa 'goes to civil wars'"

Billions of dollars raised for African famine relief by celebrities Bono
and Bob Geldof have instead funded civil war across the continent, says 
terrorism expert Dr Loretta Napoleoni. Acording to a report by Linda Herrick 
in the New Zealand Herald

 London-based Napoleoni, in Auckland to appear at the Writers & Readers 
Festival
 Her latest book, Rogue Economics, studies the destabilising effect of
economic globalisation, focusing in part on why more than half a trillion
dollars worth of aid sent to Africa since the 1960s failed to reach the 
intended destination - developing the nations' economies.

That huge amount of aid, which includes money from the United Nations and 
donations generated by Live Aid for Ethiopia, organised by Geldof, and the 
Live 8 concert in 2005, organised by Bono, has instead "served as a rogue 
force, notably as an important form of terrorist financing" in countries
such as Ethiopia, Somalia, Sudan, Zimbabwe, Tanzania and Kenya. Ethiopia, 
for example, received $1.8 billion in foreign aid between 1982-85,
including a large contribution from Live Aid; $1.6 billion of that, she 
points out, was spent on buying military equipment.

 "The money has ended up making Africa poorer and more violent because the 
money has been diverted towards warlords, weapons and armed invasions,"
she says. "The problem of Africa is corruption."

 Napoleoni says there are parallels with Burma in the aftermath of the
cyclone as aid organisations appeal for donations. "What is happening in
Burma is a good example. You can have the best intentions but getting the 
money to the people in need is very hard because you have to go through
the bureaucracy. The problem is the governance. You also need expertise.
What the international relief organisations are saying is, you should send 
people from our team who know exactly what to do in these circumstances."

The cult of celebrity means that people who are famous for nothing more 
than being pop or movie stars speak out on issues they don't fully 
understand. "People like Bono and Bob Geldof are not ill-intentioned," she 
says. "But the simple fact that being a celebrity puts you in a position 
above everybody else is unacceptable.

 "These people don't realise they are being manipulated by politicians and
others. That is the case in the relationship between Bono and American 
economist Jeffrey Sachs, who is among the people who caused the chaos of
the transition of the former communist countries into free-market
economics. Sachs has been trying to relaunch himself as a sort of 
economist celebrity so he has been linking himself to Bono.

"Bono is repeating what he has been told about Africa. I am sure Bono 
hasn't got a clue about economics."

 Napoleoni, who knows Geldof as a neighbour in the London suburb of 
Battersea, says he told her the first Live Aid was the "worse experience
of his life because he found it very difficult to control where the money 
went. He suddenly realised it's easy to put famous musicians together to 
make money but to bring the money to the people in need is another matter."

 Napoleoni adds that there is a certain amount of hypocrisy among stars 
linked to good causes. Nobel Peace Prize-nominated Bono and the other 
members of U2 were last year outed as tax-evaders for diverting their 
funds to the Netherlands, circumventing their democratic responsibilities 
to their home country of Ireland.

  And Brad Pitt, Napoleoni points out, may drive a hybrid car , but he and  Angelina Jolie use a private jet. Their trip to Namibia a couple of yearsago, she notes, burned up enough fuel to take Pitt's hybrid all the way to
the moon.
 
Re- published on the Internet  at :

http://iraqwar.mirror-world.ru/article/164501     

comment:

Only socialism  can bring real developement and  not for profit environmental sane lving conditions for all humanity.

Charity of course helps out in the worst emergencies but in the final analysis Charity sucks ..