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The Honolulu Advertiser

Posted on: Monday, June 14, 2004

EDITORIAL
G-8: papering over some big differences

President Bush pronounced himself reasonably satisfied by the results of the Group of Eight leaders' meeting at Sea Island, Ga., but Bush's expectations were a lot more limited than, for instance, the onlooking world's poorest nations.

President Bush walks hand in hand with Nigeria's President Olusegun Obasanjo at the G-8 summit, held last week at Sea Island, Ga.

Associated Press

Bush hoped to mend fences with the "old Europe" leaders with whom he had so openly split a year ago over the invasion of Iraq. And while he prompted conciliatory language from some of them, he can't have been pleased to hear French President Jacques Chirac say that he still felt the invasion was "shameful in every sense of the word," and that NATO had no business participating in the occupation.

Bush did obtain a cautious statement from the gathering about promoting democracy in the Arab world, which is notable for its departure from Washington's traditional reliance on the "stability" provided by authoritarian regimes in the region.

Meanwhile, the agenda was dominated by "war on terror" issues, ensuring that barely half of last year's agreements have been implemented. Another year that empty would call into question the very reason for G-8 forums.

What's tragic is that Bush's single-mindedness on the agenda has shortchanged what might have been G-8's crowning achievement, an effort to relieve the foreign debt of 42 of the world's least developed countries.

Bush has demanded that creditors forgive as much as 90 percent of Iraq's debt in exchange for significant funding for the other countries' debt relief. Unfortunately, a mere fraction of the sum being asked for Iraq would go a long way toward relieving the great burden of the hardest-hit nations in Africa.