G8:Irish aid activist Bob Geldof has dismissed the G8 summit as a "grotesque, expensive pantomime", its leaders "creeps" and its aid to Africa promises as "bollocks".
In a blistering joint press conference, Geldof and U2 singer Bono admitted that their good cop, bad cop strategy to get leaders to deliver on 2005 aid promises in Gleneagles had failed. From here on in, they said, it was bad cop, bad cop.
On the final day of the G8 summit, leaders said they would give at least $60 billion (€44.5 billion) to fight Aids, malaria and tuberculosis. "We are conscious of our obligations and want to fulfil the promises we made. And we will do that," said German chancellor Angela Merkel.
However, they were vague on the timetable - promising the money "over the coming years" - and didn't identify how much of the money had been promised in previous G8 summits.
Bono criticised the 25-page declaration on African aid as a "labyrinthine maze of language that is designed to lose us, but we are not lost, the G8 is lost".
Aid agency Oxfam criticised the $60 billion promise yesterday as a collection of existing promises of old money.
"They are still set to break their Gleneagles promise to the tune of $27 billion," said Max Lawson, senior policy adviser at Oxfam. "Creative accounting will not save lives - only delivering on promises will."
Bono and Bob Geldof saved their harshest criticism for Ms Merkel, who chaired the summit and who, they said, had failed to deliver aid promises she made to them ahead of the summit.
"Intellectually she gets this and emotionally understands this but her political mindset is that of a coalition builder and I just got a sense she was held back by that," said Bono. "Either that or she was pulling the wool over our eyes."
Geldof said the G8 summit, and Dr Merkel in particular, had left him "smarting".
"Maybe I trusted too much," he said. "I am not a naif, I'm too old for that. I do trust her. I think she's a good woman but I am sorely disappointed in her leadership today."
The omens were bad all week after Bono said he'd had a "huge row" with German officials over their aid promises. The dispute focused on Germany's promise last week to increase its Africa aid by €750 million (€556m) annually from next year for five years. This was not enough to meet its 2005 promise, he said.
African Monitor, a body set up to track the Gleneagles goals, said promises had been broken.
"We want to see an expression of political will through action. We see promises, we see pledges, but these are general statements that are not legally binding and cannot be traced down to actual disbursements," said Nahmla Mniki of African Monitor.
The two Irish activists vowed to continue their fight, in particular to eradicate malaria.
