Mugabe UN sponsored tirade.

[Dare]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4349042.stm

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe has drawn applause and anger for a speech denouncing the UK's Tony Blair and US President George Bush at a UN event.

Mr Mugabe described the leaders as "unholy men" at the meeting in Rome.

The European Commission responded by saying the tirade justified a travel ban that the European Union imposed on the Zimbabwean leader.

The US accuses Mr Mugabe of starving his people and has said his presence at the food summit is "disheartening".

Mr Mugabe defended his land reforms that have seen thousands of farmers evicted and said rich nations' farm subsidies were "crippling" the poor.

Some delegates to the Rome meeting applauded Mr Mugabe's condemnation of the Western leaders on several occasions during his speech and then at the end.

Regret

The Rome conference is being held to mark the 60th anniversary of the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).

Though officially banned from travelling to EU countries, Mr Mugabe is allowed to visit them when on UN business.


Is this the world we desire? A world of giants and international terrorists who use now their state muscle in order to intimidate us
Robert Mugabe

European Commission spokesman Amadeu Altafaj expressed regret over Mr Mugabe's "unconstructive" statements.

"What he has been saying in the last days and hours can only confirm the decisions that the European Union took concerning Zimbabwe," Mr Altafaj said.

The US ambassador to the FAO, Tony Hall, said Mr Mugabe, as well as Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez who also criticised Western policy, "chose to politicise an event that was meant to be about feeding the hungry people of the world".

Zimbabwe is struggling to feed an estimated 3.8 million people in the rural areas, and has to import at least 37,000 tons of maize a week.

'Colonial injustices'

Mr Mugabe used his speech to lambast President Bush and UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, whose governments have been among his severest critics.

Food Aid
Millions now need food aid in Zimbabwe

"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?" asked Mr Mugabe, apparently referring to Iraq.

"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.

Mr Mugabe said his land reforms, which enabled the government to seize hundreds of farms owned mostly by white Zimbabweans, had been part of a process to correct colonial injustices.

He blamed agricultural subsidies offered to farm produce from developed countries for crippling "the development of agriculture in developing countries".

The picture of Chavez embracing him takes the cake.

 

[Infanteer]

Perfect proof why we should leave the UN (or at least kick the crackpots out).

 

[paracowboy]

free Rhodesia. Putz.

 

[RangerRay]

A few years ago at a Commonwealth Summit, Britain, Australia and New Zealand wanted to get tough with Mugabe.  The African and Caribean countries wanted to give Mugabe a pass and let him carry on.

Guess who Chretien (ie. Canada) sided with?

:threat: :

 

[Monsoon]

Perfect proof why we should leave the UN (or at least kick the crackpots out).

Wait - let me get this straight.  International forum: someone says something retarded; some people agree with it, some people disagree with it.  Is leaving the UN going to change that?

 

[a_majoor]

Wait - let me get this straight.   International forum: someone says something retarded; some people agree with it, some people disagree with it.   Is leaving the UN going to change that?

The UN isn't going to change, what Infanteer is saying (and I happen to agree) is we should get out before we are too badly tainted by the political, legal and moral failure of the UN. We can start our own club and invite free market democracies to join, these are the nations we have common interests with, and the ones which have the material resources to take effective action with. Watching the UN debate the meaning of the word "Genocide" because China has oil concessions in the Sudan should be more than enough reason to question why we are there (not to mention "Oil for Food", unenforced resolutions against an agressive Ba'athist Iraq [because of oil interests by France and China, surprise surprise]), UN inaction during genocide in Rwanda, Former Yugoslavia, Somalia, Liberia, the Congo, etc., inability to organize relief efforts in the Tsunami zone (luckily the US led "Tiger Team" was available to do the heavy lifting for the first month), constant and blatant anti Semitism (which we have shamefully failed to oppose).

Typing that out makes me want to take a shower. After that catalogue of failure, do you still think the UN is a place for Canada?

 

[Monsoon]

Typing that out makes me want to take a shower. After that catalogue of failure, do you still think the UN is a place for Canada?

Are you saying that taking our toys and playing only with the US, Great Britain, the EU and Australia is going to make things better in Yugoslavia, Liberia, the Congo and Somalia?  Is stopping our ears to the anti-Semitism going to make it go away?  Maybe the UN isn't anything more significant than a "talk shop" (except for the hundreds of health and aid agencies it supports), but it serves enough in that capacity to justify our participation.  Without it, we'd have no place to speak out against idiots like Mugabe.

 

[paracowboy]

(not to mention "Oil for Food", unenforced resolutions against an agressive Ba'athist Iraq [because of oil interests by France and China, surprise surprise]),

not too mention certain Canadian politicians and friends

Maybe the UN isn't anything more significant than a "talk shop" (except for the hundreds of health and aid agencies it supports),

never actually worked with any of those so-called "Aid Agencies" in theatre, have you? If they aren't incompetent, they're corrupt. Blatant criminals, responsible for slavery, enforced prostitution, arms dealing, and a host of reprehensible activites.

Screw the League of Nations. By remaining with them, we are responsible for their crimes.

 

[Monsoon]

Blatant criminals, responsible for slavery, enforced prostitution, arms dealing, and a host of reprehensible activites.

Less general accusation, more specifics. What's your experience?

 

[Old Ranger]

And the Gauntlet is dropped. :argument:

 

[paracowboy]

Less general accusation, more specifics. What's your experience?

Bosnia, 2001, an operation we nicknamed OP HO' DOWN. We (SFOR) conducted operations against enforced prostitution/slavery. It was ostensibly aimed at the various ethnic separatist movements who were funding their terrorism with drugs and slavery, but it was primarily aimed at stopping the various UN personnel from frequenting those brothels/drug dens, and taking their cut.

Kabul, 2003, numerous complaints of UN personnel selling aid, or handing it out to certain individuals for favours.

Numerous first-hand accounts from men who I trust telling of more of the same in FYR on other tours, Africa, and Cambodia.

 

[Infanteer]

I've heard the same stories, most from first hand recounting.  A good one was the sale of UN Landcruisers to warlords and getting them replaced on the claim that they were stolen.

The UN has some good agencies, but it is nothing the Western world can't do on its own, without having to put Mugabe on a pedestal.

 

[Old Ranger]

And the Gauntlet is dropped.

And now should be picked up, dusted off and handed back.....

("Don't Poke the Bear")

 

[Monsoon]

The UN has some good agencies, but it is nothing the Western world can't do on its own, without having to put Mugabe on a pedestal.

But we still wouldn't be able to stop the odd proverbial "bad apple" from colouring all the good work that is being done with a handful of incidents of corruption.

 

[Monsoon]

And the Gauntlet is dropped.

It wasn't a challenge - I just value rigour in debate.  I can assert all sorts of things, but I would hope people would expect me to back them up so they can argue facts instead of opinion.

 

[Old Ranger]

But we still wouldn't be able to stop the odd proverbial "bad apple" from colouring all the good work that is being done

What better way to fill a Trench!

 

[Old Ranger]

It wasn't a challenge -

Sounded like one,

But we both liked the answers

 

[paracowboy]

But we still wouldn't be able to stop the odd proverbial "bad apple" from colouring all the good work that is being done with a handful of incidents of corruption.

so what does the human colon look like from the inside?
Corruption and crime is endemic to the entire UN, from the lowest to the highest, as shown by the Oil For Fraud scandal, and the numerous examples given previously.

 

[Infanteer]

As well, ask any officer who's been a Staff Officer on a UN Mission (or worse, had to serve under a UN Staff) how things are.  UN military operations are great when you have to listen to advice from the skilled professionals of some piss-pot, third world Army who considers UN duty a kickback for supporting a faction.

 

[a_majoor]

Are you saying that taking our toys and playing only with the US, Great Britain, the EU and Australia is going to make things better in Yugoslavia, Liberia, the Congo and Somalia?  

Looking at Former Yugoslavia, the fighting ended when the US and NATO came in on their own. Kossovo, Iraq and the Tsunami were dealt with without the UN, so it would seem that, yes, we can do things on our own, and do them quickly and efficiently.

Is stopping our ears to the anti-Semitism going to make it go away?   Maybe the UN isn't anything more significant than a "talk shop" (except for the hundreds of health and aid agencies it supports), but it serves enough in that capacity to justify our participation.   Without it, we'd have no place to speak out against idiots like Mugabe.

Once again, you seem to think we can only act with, through or by permission of the UN. A simple solution to take against the anti-semites or regimes like Mugabe's would be to deny them physical or economic access to our lands and markets. When we say Mugabe can't show his face in the West, we should mean it; no "except on UN business" or other exemptions and nonsense. We choose who we deal with and what causes to support, and back up our choices with actions. Perhaps we will not make the sorts of choices that everyone approve of, and of course the National Interest will be prominently displayed (although as Oil for Food and Dafur indicate, that card is played regularly in the UN anyway), but at least these are our choices, driven by our values and backed by our resources.