BOB GELDOF FOLGORATO DA “DUBYA”: PER L’AFRICA È IL MIGLIOR PRESIDENTE DAI TEMPI DI KENNEDY…
Bush ha trovato un difensore che difficilmente si sarebbe aspettato: Bob Geldof. L’ex leader dei Boomtown Rats, organizzatore del primo grande evento benefico della storia del Rock, Band-Aid (la canzone “Do They Know is Christmas”, ricordate?) e il concerto Live-Aid, e da allora attivo ambasciatore dei problemi dell’Africa e della fame nel mondo. Geldof ha dichiarato al “Guardian” “Penserete che sono matto, ma vi dico che l’amministrazione Bush è la più radicale – in senso positivo – nel suo approccio al problema africano, dai tempi di Kennedy”. Tutto questo in contrasto ad un’unione europea “pessima e patetica” e anche facendo il paragone con i tempi di Clinton, che “era una brava persona ma non faceva un cazzo!”. “Clinton faceva tante chiacchiere e poi se ne fregava. Bush non parla, ma agisce.”
Il primo ad essere sorpreso delle sue dichiarazioni è Geldof stesso, da sempre militante di sinistra, che ha dovuto ammettere: “Puoi ritrovarti a fianco dei politici più assurdi…”.
Alcuni organizzatori che accusano Washington di usare gli aiuti umanitari ai paesi africani come copertura per dare sovvenzionare agli agricoltori americani, sono rimasti a dir poco sorpresi dalle dichiarazioni del cantante...
Geldof back in Ethiopia
'You'll think I'm off my trolley, but Bush has the most positive approach to Africa since Kennedy' : Geldof, back in Ethiopia, praises Bush
Rory Carroll in Addis Ababa
Wednesday May 28, 2003
The Guardian
Bob Geldof astonished the aid community yesterday by using a return visit to Ethiopia to praise the Bush administration as one of Africa's best friends in its fight against hunger and Aids.
The musician-turned activist said Washington was providing major assistance, in contrast to the European Union's "pathetic and appalling" response to the continent's humanitarian crises.
"You'll think I'm off my trolley when I say this, but the Bush administration is the most radical - in a positive sense - in its approach to Africa since Kennedy," Geldof told the Guardian.
The neo-conservatives and religious rightwingers who surrounded President George Bush were proving unexpectedly receptive to appeals for help, he said. "You can get the weirdest politicians on your side."
Former president Bill Clinton had not helped Africa much, despite his high-profile visits and apparent empathy with the downtrodden, the organiser of Live Aid, claimed. "Clinton was a good guy, but he did fuck all."
His comments, made on the first day of a week-long visit intended to put Africa on the agenda of the G8 summit in France at the weekend, caught off-guard some aid organisations that have accused Washington of using its food aid as a covert subsidy for American farmers.
They had also tempered praise for a recent US pledge of $15bn (£9bn) to fight HIV and Aids in poor countries with criticism that too much was tied to campaigns promoting sexual abstinence - in deference to Christian lobbyists who oppose the use of condoms.
The US has also been accused of planning to bury a radical French plan that would help some of the world's poorest farmers by ending the dumping of subsidised western food in Africa.
Geldof, however, lauded the US and Britain for supplying the bulk of the 1.15m tonnes of food aid that has been pledged to Ethiopia to plug a food shortage that threatens 15 million people.
But another 365,000 tonnes of food aid are needed, said the World Food Programme.
Lord Alli, the aid activist who is accompanying Geldof on the trip organised by the UN children's aid agency Unicef, echoed his praise of the Bush administration.
"Clinton talked the talk and did diddly squat, whereas Bush doesn't talk, but does deliver," Lord Alli said