Bono presents a petition of seventeen million signatures
to the German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder

Peace Times 12

The world famous Irish pop star Bono of the group «U2» delivered a petition to the German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder on Saturday the 19th of June at the Cologne Summit held in Germany.

The petition, with more than seventeen million signatures collected throughout the entire world, by the Catholic inspired movement called «Jubilee 2000 Coalition», asks that the advanced, industrialised and powerful countries comple-tely cancel the debts of some of the world’s poorest nations.

Together with Bono Vox, more than thirty thousand other people, from Europe, Canada, the United States of America, and even from South Korea, formed a very lengthy human chain around the beautiful historical city centre of Cologne, with the objective of urging the leaders attending the G8 Summit to «climb to the top of Mount Everest» symbolically represented by the debts owed by third world countries.

«They managed to arrive half way, which without a doubt is a long way. But now they have to climb all the way to the top of the mountain if they really want to give the world a new era».

In total, the debts owed to the richest countries by the poorest fifty-two nations of the planet amount to more than three hundred and seventy billion dollars.

The petition partially reached its objective: the heads of states and governments attending the G8 Summit decided to renounce claims to at least seventy billion dollars loanedto third world countries in the past year. This is very welcome news for the poorest nations, as it offers them a real chance to break free from the vicious cycle of under-development and misery.

According to the organisers of «Jubilee 2000 Coalition», at least two hundred billion dollars of debt should have been cancelled. Anyway, at least thirty-six of the poorest nations will benefit from the decision.

Also present in the human chain stretching throughout the city were other international artists: the Senegalian musician Youssou N’Dour, Thom Yorke of the group Radiohead, as well as Bob Geldof, the British singer and veteran in the battle to help poor countries (he organised the «Live Aid» concert to collect funds for the starving children of Africa).

p.t.