UGANDA: Declan Walsh reports from Kampala on the intriguing relationship developing between the Irish rock star and the US Treasury Secretary
"Check this out," said Bono to US Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill as they walked into a school in a Ugandan village yesterday.
"Some of these kids are learning under trees. Even worse, most of them can't even afford to buy lunch. They are going hungry to learn," he said indignantly.
A teacher standing by nodded in agreement. "Yes, yes, thank you," she said, but Bono snapped back.
"Don't thank us," he said in a comment directed more at his powerful, silver-haired travelling partner. "We're the ones letting you down."
An intriguing relationship is developing between Ireland's pop supremo turned aid ambassador and America's captain of industry on their unprecedented African tour. Some correspondents are saying there are tensions developing.
Mr O'Neill, a famous sceptic of Third World aid, says he has come to learn, not to preach. He wants to uncover the "facts" about Africa's problems before signing more cheques for their solution. He is also a strong advocate of using US-style capitalism to rescue failed economies.
Bono says he has the answers - extra aid and complete debt cancellation - and is using their tour to show the treasury secretary, first hand, how Western money can achieve immense good.
Wearing chunky shoes, a turned-back cap and his trademark wraparound shades, he has been a tireless presence on the trip, using the cases of people they meet to illustrate his arguments. A rolling debate is taking place between the unlikely duo as they move from schools to slums and from small businesses to presidential palaces.
Yesterday they visited a well, a health centre and a school that have been transformed by money freed up by part-cancellation of Uganda's national debt by the West. More than 500 people were drinking clean water from the well, 700 children were attending the school.
"This is an example of why we need more government-to-government funding," said Bono afterwards. "And if the secretary can't see that, I'm going to get him a new pair of glasses." However minutes later, at a press conference under a tree, Mr O'Neill staked out a different position. "I think there's a simple-mindedness that goes with debt relief," he warned.
Nevertheless, there is mutual respect and humour between the Irishman - introduced by Ugandan dignitaries as "Mr Bono" - and the powerful Republican. When a schoolboy asked Mr O'Neill whether the cars made in the US were like the Japanese model he was travelling in, Bono intervened with exaggerated gestures.
The celebrity quotient increased when Chris Tucker, the Hollywood star of films such as Rush Hour, joined the tour. He is being filmed by an MTV crew, but looked a little out of place in a dark suit in the morning heat as the group wandered through villages lined with banana trees.
Later he said he would be playing the first black president of the US in his next film, Mr President. "Africa is one of the issues that I'm going to address," he said.
Bono recently helped persuade President Bush to announce a $5 billion annual increase in foreign aid - but even so, the US gives less in aid per capita than nearly every other wealthy nation.
Bono, who attributes his motivation partly to memories of the Irish Famine, provided a constant stream of comment to the press pack following him yesterday. "The life expectancy of this country is 42 years. I am 42. It's a sobering thought, for me in particular," he said on the way from the well to the waiting motorcade.