Did ‘LIVE AID’ really offer aid to Ethiopia?
The Concert For Bangladesh, organized by former Beatle, George Harrison way back in the early 70s was perhaps the first of a musical extravaganza which helped garner aid for the refugees of East Pakistan (now Bangladesh).
Fifteen years later 1.9 billion people around the globe, watched ‘Live Aid’ on July 13, 1985, a star-studded pop concert that took place across two continents to raise funds for the famine-stricken country of Ethiopia!
Its been more than thirty-five years to that momentous event but there are questions which still remain unanswered.
ü Did the Live Aid funds make it to the lakhs of starving Ethiopians?
ü Was a large chunk of the funds diverted to the war-loads to buy arms from Russia?
ü Bob Geldof was well-informed about the situation but still went ahead with his so-called humanitarian initiative. Why?
British journalist & newsreader, Michael Buerk, who presented BBC News from 1973 to 2002 had compared Ethiopia to a living Hell! The images of protruding ribs, bloated tummies, weak and sickly Ethiopians haunts many even today. Michael had called it, “A biblical famine in the 20th century”.
The hunger crisis had ravaged through the Ethiopians resulting in more than 1 million deaths. Gaunt faces, scavengers and dead bodies streamed across the 425 television stations around the globe and had evoked feelings of sympathy and even guilt in some…
English television presenter and writer, Paula Yates, was inconsolable as she saw the tragedy unfold on her television set. Her then boyfriend and later husband of ten years, Irish musician, Bob Geldof realized the severity of the African country and along with Paula pledged to garner as much aid as possible for Ethiopia which had long been torn by both civil wars and government policies.
At the start, the Irish rocker was keen to produce only one single. Geldof and friend, Midge Ure, the frontman of the band, Ultravox, penned down the lyrics for ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas” and released it on the 3rd of December, 1984. The credits were given to ‘Band Aid’ that included the biggest pop stars of the 80s like George Michael, Bono of U2 and Boy George. The song peaked to the №1 position on the UK Charts raising 28 million dollars!
On the other side of the globe U.S. Pop artists performed “We are the world’ written by Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie. The collaboration better known as “USA for Africa” included the most popular musicians of that time like Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, Stevie Wonder, Cyndi Lauper, Paul Simon and Tina Turner to name a few. A chartbuster, it helped raise $44 million and Live Aid raised $127 million. The massive publicity of the cause engendered support in the form of large quantities of grain from Western nations.
Having raised substantial funds, Geldof realized that the challenge did not end there. The delivery of large amounts of food, medical supplies and even farming equipment was the most crucial aspect of this charitable cause and what was required was the right type of transport! Fearing there could be a dearth of funds, the overzealous Geldof decided to plan a mammoth concert to raise more funds. This set the pace for two concerts, one at Wembley Stadium in London and the other at the John F. Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia. Geldof’s astute sense of networking helped him bring on board more than seventy-five artists notably amongst whom were popular musicians like Elton John, Queen, U2, Bob Dylan, The Who, David Bowie and Madonna some of whom performed in London and some in the U.S. The Wembley Stadium saw 70,000 attendees and the Philadelphia Stadium, 100,000 attendees. The only artist to perform at both the venues was Phil Collins who had zipped across the continents in a Concorde!
Both the events were beamed ‘live’ by thirteen satellites across 110 countries with a billion people glued to the shows with at least 40 nations organizing telethons during the live broadcast. The soul-stirring shows evoked a host of emotions in everyone.
The horrifying truth:
Everyone knows how susceptible Ethiopia is to a famine of varying degree every single year but that year it was a cynical genocide because the government had napalmed rebel farms! Mengistu Haile Mariam, an obscure army officer overthrew the then ruler, Haile Selassie I, the man behind the modernization of Ethiopia and started his reign of terror, better known as ‘Red Terror’. His rule was gruesome. He had solicited funds and arms from the Soviet Union during Ethiopia’s war with Somalia. Mengistu, used the funds of the Western nations to buy sophisticated weapons from the Russians to defeat the opposition. It was no surprise then, that Ethiopia, then rated as the 3rd poorest country in the world had the best equipped army on the African continent!
Word has it that at the onset, many global relief agencies had contacted Bob Geldof and apprised him about Mengistu’s dictatorial evils, that included cold-blooded murder, resettlement marches and dismantlement of ethnic tribes all of which resulted in the death of 100,000 people; but the success of his initiative had probably made Bob Geldof bask in his own glory. He stated to all and sundry, “I’ll shake hands with the Devil on my left and on my right to get to the people we are meant to help”.
Perhaps the adulation was too much for him to handle. Geldof hugging Mengistu and handing the funds to him is something which still haunts many people. One wonders, who was the megalomaniac then, Geldof or Mengistu whose hands were already soaked in blood.
The impressionable media couldn’t get enough of Geldof and gushed about his humanitarian efforts. It was the American Music Magazine, SPIN that had smelled a rat from the word go. According to them, if Ethiopia was in the midst of a war, moving aid would be a herculean task. They delved deeper and approached Geldof for an interview who was only too happy but when he realized what SPIN wanted to discuss, he stepped back. SPIN even sent him 2 recording cassettes to record his answers and keep a copy — such was their earnestness to understand the truth but to no avail.
Finally, in July of 1986, Robert Keating of SPIN decided to go ahead and expose the bitter truth for the world to realize the murkiness behind the much-touted Live Aid event. A furious Geldof hit back as did much of the other media but slowly and surely everyone realized the aftermath of what was anything but aid to the ones who needed it the most! It was man slaughter on an unbelievable scale that included bombings and concentration camps.
The funds found their way into the wrong hands. The tons of food transported by LIVE AID were confiscated by the government to pay its army in the form of grains or buy arms from the Russians.
Bob Geldof’s great act of benevolence was the catalyst for the incremental suffering of the Ethiopians. Thirty-five years later Geldof, christened as ‘Saint Bob’ by his fans, something which he never fails to mention in any conversation even today, believes that his effort did change things for Ethiopia, even if a little bit!
Sure, the event was truly ambitious for its times and made Geldof a global celebrity but the harsh reality is that it did nothing for the suffering masses of Ethiopia. Absolutely nothing! All it did was add to the disease and death, something which should haunt Geldof, if it hasn’t already.
The funds continue to flow into Ethiopia, even today, and though the skyline is dotted with hi-rise buildings, the silent torture and oppression of the citizens continues. Civil rights are a far-fetched dream and protesting leads to being silenced.
Saint Bob are you listening?
Canta Dadlaney
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