Scum

It was barely 2 months ago that the G8 leaders and their apostolic henchmen Geldof and Bono left Gleneagles after signing the ‘historic’ deal that really would (this time) end poverty and inequality in Africa. This agreement was different from its predecessors, it made for a real change, lives would be saved, nations would be given the chance to build and develop, to stand on their own feet. Right?

Wrong.

It was all a sham. A photo opportunity. A chance to garner a few good headlines amidst the unremitting bad news from Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel and of course London. Now the truth is dripping out (thanks Matt)

Immediately after the summit, as the world's attention shifted to the London bombs, Germany and Italy announced that they might not be able to meet the commitments they had just made, due to "budgetary constraints".

A week later, on July 15, the World Development Movement obtained leaked documents showing that four of the IMF's European directors were trying to overturn the G8's debt deal.

Four days after that, Gordon Brown dropped a bombshell. He admitted that the aid package the G8 leaders had promised "includes the numbers for debt relief". The extra money they had promised for aid and the extra money they had promised for debt relief were in fact one and the same.

Nine days after that, on July 28, the United States, which had appeared to give some ground at Gleneagles, announced a pact with Australia, China and India to undermine the Kyoto protocol on climate change.

On August 2, leaked documents from the World Bank showed that the G8 had not in fact granted 100% debt relief to 18 countries, but had promised enough money only to write off their repayments for the next three years.

On August 3, the United Nations revealed that only one-third of the money needed for famine relief in Niger and 14% of the money needed by Mali had been pledged by the rich nations. Some 5 million people in the western Sahel remained at risk of starvation.

Two weeks ago, we discovered that John Bolton, the new US ambassador to the United Nations, had proposed 750 amendments to the agreement that is meant to be concluded at next week's UN summit. He was, in effect, striking out the Millennium Development Goals on health, education and poverty relief, which the UN set in 2000.

Yesterday, ActionAid released a report showing that the first of these goals - equal access to schooling for boys and girls by 2005 - has been missed in over 70 countries. "Africa," it found, "is currently projected to miss every goal." There is so little resolve at the UN to do anything about it that the summit could deliver "a worse outcome than the situation before the G8".

Have you seen Geldof on the news shouting about this? He must be chuffing furious surely? His silence is deafening, if not surprising. The professional politicians ran rings round him. How they must have laughed as he left. The poor fool, did he really think the G8 would end centuries of rape and pillage in Africa and the third world? The loan deals and IMF/World Bank grants come with so many strings attached that it would be more honest if we took a couple of slave ships each year and transported a few thousand negroes back to Europe or the US to turn our soil, sew our clothes or roll our Bensons.

We continue to put profit in front of people. The bottom line ahead of the poverty line. There is an old Cree Indian proverb

Only after the last tree has been cut down; Only after the last fish has been caught; Only after the last river has been poisoned; Only then will you realize that money cannot be eaten.

The human race, with its greed and avarice can only be a few generations away from proving this correct.