Geldof in four-letter tirade against West over African poverty

By Anne Penketh, Diplomatic Editor
The Independent Online Edition
12 March 2005
The air in the Great Court of the British Museum turned blue yesterday when Bob Geldof launched into a four-letter tirade as he challenged rich countries to dig deeper into their pockets to relieve poverty in Africa. Geldof, a member of the Prime Minister's Commission for Africa, said Tony Blair should tell President George Bush that proposals outlined in the commission's report would cost the United States "fuck all" to free the African continent of the shackles of war, poverty and disease.
Mr Blair and the rock star were on a panel presenting the 460-page report to an audience of diplomats and aid workers. Geldof made an impassioned case for the commission's package to be implemented, arguing that for the rich members of the Group of Eight, the cost per day of doubling aid to assist African recovery was equivalent to "half a stick of chewing gum".
The commission's main recommendations, expected to be the centrepiece of the Gleneagles summit in July, challenge rich countries to double aid to Africa, end trade barriers and stamp out corruption. It urges the international community to immediately double foreign aid to Africa to $50bn (£25bn).
But Mr Blair faced questions about whether he would continue to press the Americans to stump up the necessary finance, after the US rejected a core UK-backed proposal on funding in the report. Referring to Geldof's four-letter outburst, Mr Blair said: "Because I'm a politician in a suit, I wince at the occasional word but actually what he said is really what I think."
Commission sources shrugged off Geldof's language, saying: "He didn't swear any more than he usually does." Earlier, on Radio Four's Today, Geldof said he would "keep on crapping on" about helping relieve African poverty.
Mr Blair, who is calling for a "new partnership" between donor countries and Africa, sees the report as part of a process that will culminate in the Doha Round of global trade talks in Hong Kong this December. But he made it clear he was committed to pursuing the commission's agenda, with or without full G8 backing.
"There can be no excuse, no defence, no justification for the plight of millions of our fellow beings in Africa today," he said. "There should be nothing that stands in our way of changing it. That is the simple message from the report."
Aid agencies have welcomed the report, which has been described as ambitious without being radical because many of its recommendations would hold donor countries and African states to respect existing mechanisms to help the continent break out of poverty.
Richard Dowden, director of the Royal African Society, said that report, for the first time "integrated in a single analysis what Africa has to do, what the rest of the world must do to support Africa and what the rest of the world must stop doing to stop damaging Africa".
But like many others, Mr Dowden was sceptical about the implementation of the recommendations, which have time-frames. British officials say because the commission includes leaders in power, including a majority from Africa, that is an incentive for success.