Mandela challenges rich to feed the poor

Mandela challenges rich to feed the poor

Jeremy Lovell, Reuters/London

South African democracy icon Nelson Mandela challenged rich nations on Thursday to help end the misery of the world's poorest millions.

Speaking on the eve of a meeting of G-7 finance ministers, the political prisoner cum world diplomat told a crowd of about 2,000 in Trafalgar Square that now was the time for decisive action.

"Massive poverty and obscene inequality are such terrible scourges of our times ... that they have to rank alongside slavery and apartheid as social evils," he said.

"In this new century, millions of people in the world's poorest countries remain imprisoned, enslaved and in chains. They are trapped in the prison of poverty. It is time to set them free."

British Prime Minister Tony Blair has vowed to make Africa one of the priorities of his presidency of the Group of Seven (G-7) industrialized nations this year.

Nobel peace laureate Mandela, who spent nearly 27 years in South Africa's apartheid-era jails, was freed in 1990 and elected the country's first black president four years later.

Over the next five years he became a beacon of hope and reconciliation for the country's 40 million blacks and coloreds and four million whites as the government tore down the apartheid apparatus.

Stepping down in 1999, the increasingly frail Mandela has used his iconic status to act as both the moral conscience of his country and conciliator in the continent's trouble spots.

Although he formally declared his own retirement from politics and diplomacy last June just before his 86th birthday, he couldn't resist the call to help Africa's poor.

"I recently formally announced my retirement from public life and should not really be here," he said on Thursday. "However, as long as poverty, injustice and gross inequality persist in our world, none of us can truly rest."

He was speaking as part of the charity-driven "Make Poverty History" campaign.

He will take his message on Friday directly to the finance ministers when British Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown opens the meeting.

"In 2005, there is a unique opportunity for making an impact," Mandela said. "Tomorrow, here in London, the G-7 finance ministers can make a significant beginning."

Mandela called for trade reforms, an end to the debt crisis that is costing poor countries $39 billion a year and a boost in aid.

Brown shares the same aims. He wants the slate to be wiped clean for debt-ridden nations -- the bulk of which are in Africa -- trade rules to be made more even-handed and new sources of long-term aid for the poorest countries to be put in place.