Bono's Crusade to End Poverty
N E W Y O R K, July 22, 2000 -- If you get an email from Bono, it’s no imposter; the lead singer of U2 is sending notes to Internet users around the world in a campaign to forgive third world debt.
The singer has become a champion of Jubilee 2000, an international campaign to convince G-8 leaders to wipe out the $376 billion dollars in debt owed by some of the world’s poorest countries.
The group is staging protests at the G-8 Summit in Okinawa this weekend, urging the world leaders to further develop programs which allow third world countries to use their debt payments to finance healthcare and education programs
“It means they can’t pay for vaccines, they can’t put their children in school. We can’t get anywhere with these countries unless we free them of this debt burden,” said Bono during a November 1999 Sam Donaldson webcast. G-8 leaders have promised to address the issue of third world debt rescheduling.
Bono and the Pope
The flamboyant Irish singer also previously met with world leaders, including the pope.
“[Bono does] hands on lobbying and sits down with these people and argues with them a little bit. Last year, he visited us in Washington and personally met with Senators, representatives, particularly Republicans,” said David Bryden, Jubilee 2000 outreach coordinator.
Scores of celebrities are lending their names to the campaign, including Radiohead lead singer Thom Yorke whose Web site has extensive information about the issue, along with Dave Matthews, Macy Gray, Aimee Mann and Live Aid founder Bob Geldoff.
“There’s an amazing picture of Bono and Geldoff arguing with Tony Blair, himself a former musician,” said Bryden.
17 Million and Counting The email campaign is gathering signatures for a global petition with the goal of reaching 22 million names by year’s end. Jubilee 2000 has collected 17 million signatures so far, and enjoyed a boost of a million signatures when the celebrity letters went out on the Internet. “It’s been very very helpful,” Bryden adds, “I actually think we have a lot of people turned off about politics, so I think it’s really valuable. People get more excited about Bono than their own members of Congress,” said Bryden.
Bono says the debts are particularly unfair because of the history involved, “They weren’t a lot of the times honestly incurred. The truth of it is … a lot of these loans were made irresponsibly in the first place, to dodgy dictators who ran off with the cash, and it’s not fair to have the next generation carry that debt burden,” said Bono.
“If you defaulted on a loan your bank manager would have to take a slap on the wrist, and you would be called bankrupt. Your children wouldn’t have to take the hit, or your children’s children,” said Bono.
Next Stop: New York Jubilee 2000 has made concrete progress in its campaign, notes Bryden, adding that world leaders have cancelled about $10 billion dollars of the $376 billion dollars in debt. “We feel we can take some of the credit.”
The relief has been felt mostly in Honduras, Bolivia and areas of Africa, “This is making a difference in peoples lives. These countries not having to pay on this, putting interest payments into healthcare, hiv prevention,” said Bryden.
Jubilee 2000 is gearing up for the U.N. Millennium council in September when world leaders will gather in New York. Bryden says their goal is to convince the finance ministers to stick to promises they have made, “and to go beyond that, to realize even the programs they’ve devised so far, and they are some good ones, still should go deeper, broader.”