Live Aid funds stolen by rebels?

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We all remember Live Aid, the mid-1980s international effort to help Africa, and brainchild of Boomtown Rats alum Bob Geldof. How can we forget it? After all, proved that a concert (or concert series) could be a productive way of raising funds internationally – some $250 million. The concerts in London and Philadelphia were emulated recently during Live 8, and Al Gore’s Live Earth concerts, to varying degrees of success. But now a former Ethiopian rebel leader, Aregawi Berhe, has claimed that a lot of that money never made it to the mouths of starving Africans.

From the Australian Broadcasting Corporation:

Mr Berhe, who now lives in exile in the Netherlands, told a BBC investigation that 95 per cent of the money was divided up by rebel army leader Meles Zenawi, who is Ethiopia’s current prime minister.

“We were using aid money to buy arms through secondary means,” he said.

That 95 per cent number is a bit misleading. The Times suggests that about $100 million might have made its way through rebel hands. However, that still means that the fate of approximately $95 million – almost a third of all the money raised – has been called into question.

Bob Geldof and some aid workers have refuted the claim. From the Times:

One aid worker, Max Peberdy, said he had carried nearly $500,000 in Ethiopian currency across the border to give to the rebel’s own relief organisation, Rest, for the purchase of grain to take place under his supervision.

Twenty-five years later, he maintains that the money could not have been diverted, insisting there was a separation of power between the rebels’ military wing and its relief efforts.

But Gebremedhin Araya, a former senior rebel leader, told the BBC that he had tricked the money out of Mr Peberdy by posing as a merchant and handing over bags of sand instead of grain to the rebel relief officials. […]

The findings are backed by CIA reports which alleged that rebel groups were using their own relief organisations as a front to divert money to their military wings.

Curiouser and curiouser.

What will this mean for massive international aid fundraisers? People often wonder what happens to their money when they donate to these kinds of events – will this make everyone that much more reluctant? Do we take a former rebel leader at his word? As Peredy pointed out to the BBC,

“It’s 25 years since this happened, and in the 25 years it’s the first time anybody has claimed such a thing,”