Much of the Live Aid money went to buy weapons...

[max_tranmere]

This is sad, but something I always suspected:

[Jonone]

Quantify 'much' ? The report says:

"At least some of that money was likely to have come from the ?150 million raised by Live Aid and Band Aid."

'That money' is a total of aid money, some of which was misappropriated. There isn't an audit trail you can follow in order to arrive at a reliable conclusion that 'Much of Live Aid money went to buy weapons' as the message header states.

[Dick Moby]

I'm not surprised at all and I'd be very interested to hear comments from some of our more "understanding/forgiving" posters. Probably won't happen though.
Most likely comment -------- at least 56 pence went to the needy !!!!!!

[Arginald Valleywater]

Which is why I only support my local charities. Last year a black Harvard professor actually said the rich countries should stop wasting their money by sending it to Africa. Approx $1trillion dollars have gone to waste in Africa over the last 50 years and it is still in the shit. However Savile Row, Mercedes and Cartier all do very well. Ever seen an African leader in a cheap suit????

[David Johnson]

Yup, the rich and powerful steal from the poor.

They do it in Africa and they do it in Britain.

And your suggestion is Dick?

D

[Dick Moby]

No suggestions as such.But I'm not aware of Britain receiving money as famine relief and using it to buy arms.
If it makes people feel good to donate to such causes then let them do it. I will continue to donate to charities I support and I've yet to hear of a lifeboat station being equipped with machine guns.
I'm paying for such disasters as famines etc through my taxes, which I have no control over but I can donate voluntarily to the charities of my choice (yes I know money can be creamed off from them too).If people are gullible enough to donate 50 quid at midnight on a Friday night (when they're pissed or trying to impress) to Children in Need in the mistaken belief that ?49.50 will go to the needy then maybe they should take a reality check.

[max_tranmere]

There was a lot of mis-reporting in the West about the state of Ethiopia in the 1980s. People should bare in mind that the average man and woman in the street in the West, prior to 1984, had barely even heard of Ethiopia. Rather like how the Falkland Islands became world known because of that war, and that place is now known to everyone, how Kuwait is now as famous as India or the USA because of the first Gulf War, and so on, Ethopia became a world known country because of Bob Geldof and his famine relief work assicated with that place - and especially because of Band Aid, USA For Africa, and Live Aid. Therefore most of our knowledge of what supposedly went on there came as a result of those things, and particularly through the wide media coverage that came as a result.

I knew someone who lived in west Africa for years (west, not east, Africa) and who worked as an ex-partriot there for a European company. He knew a lot about how many African countries worked and he said to me some time later, regarding Band Aid/Live Aid, etc: "I'm sure a lot of very dodgy people made some money out of it". He actually went on holiday to Ethiopia not long after that period and he said to me that you couldn't take photographs anywhere in the country and that the whole place was Communist run. He did take some photos around the capital Addis Ababa, discreetly, however, and I saw them. There were huge banners of Karl Marx with "Workers Of The World Unite" slogans underneath them hanging on buildings.

He also said there were many millionaire districts in the city - huge mansions with swimming pools with several expensive sports cars outside each one, and so on. No one in the West seemed aware of this, and nor was I until he told me about it. We all had the impression that the country was poor from top to bottom and that its leaders, and every citizen, would have done everything they could to help the starving in the northern desserts but were unable to because the whole nation was poor. This wasnt the case at all. There were regions that were very poor indeed and it was tragic. People in the West, including me - although I was only a teenager at the time - donated some money. So little was really known by the average Joe Bloggs in the West as to what was reallly happening there.

[David Johnson]

"There was a lot of mis-reporting in the West .."

Do you mean like the way you convert the "at least some of" in the story to the "Much of the Live Aid money went to buy weapons" in the subject of your message"?

Cheers
D

[Deuce Bigolo]

You may have thought that but seriously who on the ground would really know let alone be telling the truth

I'd question the motivation for anyone spilling the beans so long after the event


Having said that i never give to one off appeals as for mine thats the job of governments worldwide...many of which pledge support for disasters but very few,estimated 20%,actually end up giving the pledged aid


You only need look at disasters where not all NGOs can get access so what exactly is the money being raised by appeals going towards - existing programs...sneaky fundraising I call it


Sponsor a child via an NGO and know the money is getting there and leave the disasters to governments...as we speak there are only a handful of countries who actually meet their agreed foreign aid targets which I believe is set at about .7% of GDP