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Thread ID: 20743 | Posts: 6 | Started: 2005-10-25
2005-10-25 11:31 | User Profile
[SIZE=3]Mugabe compares Bush, Blair to Hitler at UN event[/SIZE] 17 Oct 2005 17:50:00 GMT
Source: Reuters
[I] By Philip Pullella[/I]
<!-- START: mainimage --> [CENTER] [IMG]http://www.alertnet.org/thefacts/imagerepository/mugabe193.jpg[/IMG]
Mugabe denounces Bush and Blair at the FAO's 60th anniversary celebrations. [B]REUTERS/Tony Gentile[/B]
[/CENTER]
ROME, Oct 17 (Reuters) - Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe on Monday railed against U.S. President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair, calling them "international terrorists" bent on world domination like Adolf Hitler.
Mugabe departed from his text at a ceremony marking the 60th anniversary of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) to accuse Bush and Blair of illegally invading Iraq and looking to unseat governments elsewhere.
"Must we allow these men, the two unholy men of our millennium, who in the same way as Hitler and Mussolini formed (an) unholy alliance, formed an alliance to attack an innocent country?" he asked rhetorically.
"The voice of Mr Bush and the voice of Mr Blair can't decide who shall rule in Zimbabwe, who shall rule in Africa, who shall rule in Asia, who shall rule in Venezuela, who shall rule in Iran, who shall rule in Iraq," he said.
Mugabe accuses Britain and the United States of working to unseat him because of his forcible redistribution of white-owned commercial farms among blacks, which has helped plunge his country into its worst economic crisis since independence from Britain in 1980.
"Is this the world we desire? The world of giants and international terrorists who use their state muscle in order to intimidate us? We become the midgets," he said.
Some delegates applauded his fiery anti-Western speech several times.
But U.S. Ambassador Tony Hall, who protested against Mugabe's presence at the celebrations, later told Reuters it was "very unfortunate" that the Zimbabwean leader had politicised an event that was supposed to draw attention to world hunger.
"I think he chews up his own people and spits them out," said Hall, who visited Zimbabwe in August. "He has taken a perfectly good country and ruined it."
Blair's spokesman told reporters: "Nothing that Mr Mugabe says surprises us or will deflect us from our view of what is going on in Zimbabwe, which is far from a laughing matter".
Aid groups have estimated 5 million of Zimbabwe's 12 million people may need food aid this year. Critics say Mugabe's policies have considerably worsened their plight, though he denies this.
In his speech, Mugabe defended the land redistribution, saying it was needed to redress the "gross imbalances" of British colonialism.
[B]AGENT OF IMPERIALISM[/B]
The European Union slapped a travel ban on Mugabe after accusations of vote rigging in parliamentary polls in 2000 and in Mugabe's re-election two years later. But he is allowed to travel to EU countries to attend U.N.-sponsored events.
Relations between the United States and Zimbabwe have also soured in recent years, Washington accusing Mugabe's government of human rights abuses and election rigging.
In January U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice named Zimbabwe alongside Cuba, Belarus, Myanmar, Iran and North Korea as "outposts of tyranny".
U.S. officials said last month Washington was preparing to impose travel sanctions on Mugabe, members of his government and their extended families.
Mugabe attacked U.S. envoy Hall as an "agent of imperialism" and then thanked FAO Secretary-General Jacques Diouf for inviting him despite the U.S. protest.
While all the other leaders who addressed the assembly from a lectern did so standing alone, Mugabe was flanked by two bodyguards who stood inches away as he accused Bush and Blair of creating "an inferno" in Iraq.
[URL="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L1747954.htm"]http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L1747954.htm[/URL]
2005-10-25 11:33 | User Profile
[SIZE=1][SIZE=2]New York, NY, October 17, 2005 ...The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has strongly condemned Zimbabwean President, Robert Mugabe, for comparing President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair to Hitler and Mussolini.
[/SIZE][/SIZE] [SIZE=1][SIZE=2]Speaking in Rome at the sixtieth anniversary meeting of the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization, Mr. Mugabe declared: "Must we allow these men, the two unholy men of our millennium, who in the same way as Hitler and Mussolini formed an unholy alliance, formed an alliance to attack an innocent country?"
[/SIZE][/SIZE] [SIZE=1][SIZE=2]Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director, deplored Mugabe's comments. "The world should be reminded that it is Robert Mugabe who is the brutal dictator," Mr. Foxman said. "This man starves and suppresses his own people. His shameful exploitation of Nazism and the Holocaust during his speech in Rome is the act of a demagogue who utterly disdains the values of tolerance and democracy."
[/SIZE][/SIZE] [SIZE=1][SIZE=2]Mr. Foxman added: "President Bush and Prime Minister Blair are democratically-elected leaders. To compare them with Hitler demeans and insults the terrible human suffering inflicted by the Nazis." [/SIZE][/SIZE] [SIZE=1][SIZE=2] [url]http://www.adl.org/PresRele/HolNa_52/4812_52.htm[/url] [/SIZE][/SIZE]
2005-10-25 13:24 | User Profile
Mugabe is right that Bush and Blair are evil, but he's not exactly one to talk.
Mr. Foxman added: "President Bush and Prime Minister Blair are democratically-elected leaders. To compare them with Hitler demeans and insults the terrible human suffering inflicted by the Nazis." Wasn't Hitler also democratically-elected? Not that it makes any difference, of course, since a leader who is voted into power can be every bit as tyrannical as one who seizes power without a vote.
2005-10-25 21:08 | User Profile
Nothing like brutal dictators accusing others of being evil.
Pot. Kettle. Black.
2005-10-26 12:57 | User Profile
[quote=Angler]Wasn't Hitler also democratically-elected?
Yes. Figured someone else would pick up on that. I'm no fan of Hitler's; he had many failings, but not being democratically elected was hardly among these. Foxman's comment is simply ridiculous.
Not that it makes any difference, of course, since a leader who is voted into power can be every bit as tyrannical as one who seizes power without a vote.
Or moreso.
2005-10-26 13:34 | User Profile
What is even more obnoxous, is that some people compare Mugabe to a human being.