The G8 complete failure

international | anti-capitalism | opinion/analysis Saturday July 09, 2005 02:08 by paul o toole

As suspected the G-8 / Live 8 failed

London’s bid to hold the Olympics in 2012 was a great success. The video that was
made for the occasion to the I.O.C. featured mainly black children crossing finish lines in
slow motion, very encouraging, even tear-jerking. Two days later what emerged from
Gleneagles G-8 was disappointing to say the least. Africa’s 50,000 deaths per day it
seems, does not rate very high on the ‘to do’ lists of richest G-8 statesmen. But at least
for Britain, little black kids serve the greater good of Londoners to help with their image
to the world.
The promise to double aid to Africa’s poorest was greatly less than expected, only about
12 billion in new money. The promise of debt relief was not delivered, only 18 countries
will benefit from relief now. These debts have not been dropped from the World Bank,
they will be recouped by increasing the interest rates to other ‘not so terribly poor’
African nations. And as for the crippling trade tariffs on goods from Africa coupled with
subsidies from the EU on our goods which help sustain this 18 million unnecessary
deaths a year, it seems that they will have to wait till they all meet again.
While the G8 is an undemocratic gathering of the leaders of the wealthiest nations on
the planet operating without any specific mandate, they have utterly failed to address the
singularly most important issue of all about Africa. That is - without Africa’s oil which
floats 20-25% of all our western economies, they would all collapse-instantly. So it
would seem that our lifestyles will continue to flourish on Africa’s oil and gas, theirs will
slump into an even deeper abyss. This meeting was hailed as a success by Tony Blair
tonight.