Mugabe on Food, Bush, Blair & Evil.

"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, form an alliance to attack an innocent country?"
...
"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,"
...
"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,."
...
"Where are their democratic tenets? Where is their morality? Where is their compliance with the salient principles of good government?"

Richard Mugabe left Harare Zimbabwe on friday last to attend as chief of state the 60th anniversary of the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), a United Nations agency which is meeting in Rome at the moment.

The Rome meeting comes 10 days after a joint FAO/World Health Organisation (WHO) regional conference on food safety for Africa held in Harare.

This is Mugabe's second visit to Rome in 2005.

Mugabe is officially banned from visiting any EU state (for rigging elections), but attended the funeral arrangements of the last pope as a guest of the Vatican and devout kathurlick and is still allowed as chief of state to attend UN summits.

His speech offered him the first opportunity to make reference to Operation Murambatsvina in front of a very select audience. & he did so justifying the clearances of city slums in Zimbabwe earlier this year as serving the national interest.

His references being reported in state controlled Zimbabwean press as :-
"contrary to widely disseminated misrepresentations by Zimbabwe’s detractors, the President said, there was now a brighter future for the country’s farming community across colour, gender and ethnic divides."

the UK has recently seen proposals by Blair to deport Zimbabweans stopped through a court appeal process. Blair's most vocal international critic is indeed the Zimbabwean president, and there's little love lost.

The summit has also seen Chavez say this:-

"I hereby accuse the North American empire of being the biggest menace to our planet,"

Not much love lost there either.

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coverage

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/4349042.stm
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L1747954.htm
http://www.swissinfo.org/sen/swissinfo.html?siteSect=143&sid=6168273&cKey=1129549835000
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background Zimbabwe:-

material on "Operation Murambatsvina (No Tolerance to Filth)"
http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=70209&search_text=zimbabwe
results of last Zimbabwean elections
http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=69193&search_text=zimbabwe
the long lead up to those elections
http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=68538&search_text=zimbabwe

the UN FAO talk about food every year and even celebrate a "food day". This is the day when you are glad to have nosh, unlike the many thousands who die every day coz they've got no nosh.
This year's food day was last weekend.

http://www.fao.org/