Leaders at the G8 summit gobble while many starve

Last week’s meeting in Japan of the world’s richest nations will be remembered not for historic pronouncements or for President Bush’s “Yo, Harper” shout to get the attention of Canada’s prime minister, Stephen Harper, but for the sheer gluttony of the participants.

Indeed, the leaders of the United States, Canada, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Russia and Japan will long be suffering from heartburn given the worldwide criticism of their wining and dining ways.

Last Monday, host Japan laid out a six-course lunch and a mouth-watering eight-course dinner. And, to top it all off, the Japanese organizers made the menus available to the press.

Here are two paragraphs from a story filed by reporters of The Times of London:

“The leaders tucked into truffle soup and crab as they discussed Zimbabwe and aid to Africa’s poorest people.

“The evening feast of 10 separate dishes included caviar, smoked salmon, diced fatty flesh of tuna fish and milk-fed lamb with aromatic herbs.”

To wash all that rich food down, the leaders were served five different wines, including champagne, a burgundy and sake.

The earlier luncheon of six courses included white asparagus and truffle soup, crab and a supreme of chicken.

But the atrocities of the G8 Summit didn’t end with the leaders’ palates. The total cost of the event that focused on the world’s poorest people was a whopping $570 million.

The Times put that tab in real life context: The $570 million would have bought 100 million mosquito nets to save Africans catching malaria.

Even the press was pampered. Japan built the International Media Centre at a cost of $48 million for the three-day event. The center was dismantled after everyone went home. The fiber optic cables for the press center cost an additional $86 million.

Such display of unrestrained spending becomes all the more unpalatable when viewed against the backdrop of the millions of starving people around the world.

Impending humanitarian crisis

Indeed, the discussion about Zimbabwe was especially galling, given that world aid organizations have warned of an impending humanitarian crisis.

Because of the collapse of the central African nation’s economy, triggered by mismanagement and corruption, more than 5 million Zimbabweans are facing starvation.

The once bountiful nation has been brought to its knees by the corrupt governance of long-time President Robert Mugabe. He confiscated productive white-owned farms and gave them to his inexperienced African henchmen. As a result, Zimbabwe is no longer able to feed itself and doesn’t have the money to buy foodstuff.

Mugabe, who recently won re-election after a campaign of violence against the opposition, has also refused to permit aid organizations from entering the country with supplies that would feed many in the poorer parts of the country.

The leaders of the G8 nations did share ideas on what could be done to deal with the emergency situation in Zimbabwe and other underdeveloped countries, but the sincerity of their words was undermined by their full bellies.

While it is unrealistic to expect President Bush, Prime Minister Harper and other leaders to eat dirt — many starving children in Africa actually do that just to get something in their stomachs — it is not unfair to remind them of the contradiction of spending millions of dollars on such summits while many in the world see only death as their salvation.

The G8 summit in Japan will have been a success if, at the next one, the leaders of the United States, Canada, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Russia and Japan dine in moderation. Too much rich food is bad for their health, anyway.