Here it is..part 1
June 28, 2002
From CBC TV Transcripts:
SHOW: THE NATIONAL ( 10:00 PM ET )
June 27, 2002, Thursday
ANCHOR: PETER MANSBRIDGE
The front man
PETER MANSBRIDGE: He's known simply as Bono. Short in name, long in reputation.
As the front man for the rock band U2, he uses his fame to get the world to listen, to
hear about global poverty, the need fro foreign aid, but especially the problems of Africa.
We spoke to Bono a few hours ago in Monte Carlo where he had just received the final
communiqu from the G-8 summit. That interview in a moment, but first why he's a rock
star to be reckoned with. In a world of music, no band is bigger than U2 and no lead
singer of a rock group more political than Bono. He's been mixing politics and music
since the late 70's. And since 1984 when he sang in Band-aid, Africa has been a priority
for Bono. This year in New York, Bono and Bill Gates announced a new plan to help
Africa. It's called the data agenda and it aims to resolve the continent's debt problems.
With Bono behind this initiative, Africa has received a lot of attention. He's toured the
continent with the U.S. Treasury Secretary. He's met with the Presidents of France,
Russia, Britain. And to ensure Africa was front and centre at Kananaskis, Bono met with
Jean Chretien in February.
Bono, earlier this year, you had hoped that this Kananaskis G-8 could produce the
Marshall plan for Africa. You've seen the final communiqu now, is that what you're
looking at?
BONO: No. No, I'm not looking at that at all. And it's, there's a lot of people's hopes and
not dreams, but real work dashed here as far as I'm concerned. And you know, it was
an inspired thing, I think of Prime Minister Chretien to have the African leadership
present. It was inspired to have as a centerpiece at this year's G-8 but really, what I'm
looking at is a lot of rhetoric, a lot of the 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 is some smart things on the debt they've done looking at debt sustainability
in this. There's a little bit more money going around but no, none of the vision we were
hoping for. Basically, the scale of the response does not match the scale of the problem.
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 when you have
a crackpot like that, it just reinforces what a lot of people think about Africa, that it's a
hopeless case, you know. But it's not a hopeless case. There is new leadership. There's
some, there's some great people like Obasanjo who's there in Kananaskis. There's
Thabo Mbeki, even though he's been slow to turn on the AIDS problem, he's a very
brilliant man. There is a great new African leadership and they deserved, in my opinion
a new and historic approach to this problem. And you know, it's all our problem. You
know, that's the thing. People say well why, you know, why should we care. It's a long
way. It's Africa. And there is some sort of, I mean, there's some sort of I guess inherent
racism in the fact that we can, we can let this problem go on and on and on. But I think
also being fairer. I think it's more just to do with the fact that people think it's a hopeless
case. Well it's not.
MANSBRIDGE: Well who's, who's not getting it then? I mean, you've met with a lot, many
of these leaders. You've had access unprecedented really for somebody who's been as
concerned about an issue as you have, who's not getting it?
BONO: You know, they're not, they're not bad guys. They're just busy guys, you know. It's
just bureaucracy. It's that old thing, you know. It's just, it's heartbreaking really. I mean, I
know how much Tony Blair has put into this and Gordon Brown has put into this. I've
been on a tour of Africa with the Secretary of the Treasury of the United States, you know.
I'd like to tell you these people are the devil. Well they're not, you know. They're, they're
people who want to put this right. The problem is when it comes down to it, people are
dying for the stupidest of reasons. Money. I mean since last year's Genoa, the G-8 in
Genoa, 2.3 million Africans have died of AIDS. I mean there's drugs available. We have
interventions that are great advertisements for our ingenuity and innovation in the wealthier
countries. They're not getting, they're not getting to the people. They'll always say oh, the
delivery systems aren't in place. It's too difficult. That classic line. Africans don't have wrist
watches. And so they can't take these medications. I've been in Africa. I've been in clinics
in South Africa where the nurses and the doctors are saying to us, we could do, we could
do 200 percent more than we're doing now, if we had the money. Others saying, you
know, we could do a thousand percent more if we could do the money. You know, but these
are the old excuses and it comes down to money.
MANSBRIDGE: You now, I've got to tell you, you not only sound disappointed, you look
disappointed. But one assumes you're not going to give up as a result of this. What
happens now?
BONO: No, I think, I think, I wanted for especially in Canada, you know, Prime Minister
Chretien said to us a year ago, I'm going to put, I'm going to give you your voice and I'm
going to give you your chance meaning the movement. And it's a worldwide movement
that wants to put the relationship between the developed and the developing countries
right. I mean it's a relationship that's been wrong for so long. We just, this is the time and
stop, the message we are trying to get to the politicians is don't move in baby steps. Make
a giant leap here. We'll give you the applause. This money that we're asking for, I think
they're talking about $6 billion a year en masse if the Americans agree, and that's still I
think $24 billion less than what the UN are saying is necessary to deal with AIDS and
hunger and starvation in that continent. But $24 billion, it sounds like a lot of money, but
when you think of the cost of, for instance, the war in Afghanistan and you realize what
happens, you know, it's cheaper to prevent the fires than to put them out. There's another
ten Afghanistans potentially in Africa. I just thought they'd have the imagination to make
a giant, giant leap here.
MANSBRIDGE: But do you think, still think that something can happen? You're not going
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. And guess what?
It's such a strange panoply of characters here. You have the churches. You have student
activists. I mean we're people who don't normally all hang out together. And people are
waking up to what George Bush himself described as a genocide, referring to AIDS and
I see us as complicit by our inaction in that genocide. And it's bewildering to me that we're
not treating this as an emergency. I think the penny is slowly dropping. I think people are
getting out on the streets. You know people criticize the globalized, the anti-globalization
people. They feel that they're, you know, they haven't figured out an agenda. But you know,
there's some, there's some you know, nut cases, I agree, out on the streets, but a lot of
these people are responding at a gut level to what they see as the ever widening gap
between the richer countries and the poorer countries. In history, within our own borders,
we know that when that happens, revolt is around the corner.
I was in Zimbabwe for my Peace Corps stint and I can testify to that....
NOW I'm STARVIN
