Posted on 12/09/2005 10:29:00 PM PST by NormsRevenge
ESIGODINI, Zimbabwe (Reuters) - Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe on Friday accused a top U.N. envoy of being a "hypocrite and a liar" and said he would refuse to accept future emissaries from the world body if they were British agents.
Mugabe told a conference of his ruling ZANU-PF party that U.N. humanitarian affairs and relief coordinator Jan Egeland had gone out of his way to insult and misrepresent Zimbabwe after he ended a four-day tour of the country this week.
"You can see how they raise this, so that the rest of the international community can say 'human rights in Zimbabwe are being violated, people are suffering' in the hope that the United Nations can support the British in their evil campaign to try and have control here," Mugabe said.
"He tells lies ... he's a hypocrite and a liar."
Mugabe's blistering attack on the U.N. official marked the official launch of the annual conference of his ruling ZANU-PF party, which has tightened its grip on power despite a deepening economic and political crisis critics blame on 25 years of Mugabe's misrule.
Egeland said from New York he had told the truth about his tour of Zimbabwe, and understood Mugabe's speech was for the benefit of his audience. "He was speaking to party activists and therefore the language was strong," he told reporters.
"I have tried truthfully to reflect the situation in Zimbabwe as I saw it and as I heard all who worked there describe it," Egeland said, adding he looked forward to working with Mugabe's government to prevent "further massive suffering."
The two-day congress by Mugabe's ZANU-PF party was expected to examine the struggling agriculture sector as Zimbabwe fights to overcome food shortages amid drought and falling production.
But Mugabe got the event off to a typically bellicose start, launching a new tirade against foreign enemies his government frequently blames for its problems.
Egeland was the most senior U.N. envoy to visit Zimbabwe since the government embarked on its controversial program of demolishing urban slums earlier this year -- a campaign the U.N. has estimated destroyed the homes or livelihoods of more than 3 million people.
Egeland, a Norwegian, told journalists in Johannesburg after his visit that he found the demolition campaign "irrational" and said it had exacerbated Zimbabwe's humanitarian crisis.
"When he left the country he said some nasty things about us, and so we will be adopting an attitude toward envoys of the secretary general of the U.N.," Mugabe said.
"I'm going to tell the secretary general not to send us men, or women, who are not his own but agents of the British, because we don't trust men from his office any more."
" Kofi Annan doesn't seem to appreciate what the strategy of the British is," he added.
FARMING CRISIS
Few analysts expect major decisions out of this weekend's party conference held in southwestern Matabeleland -- one of the districts hardest hit by Zimbabwe's food shortages.
But while the conference caps a year that saw ZANU-PF take a two-thirds majority in parliamentary polls as well as elections for a new Senate -- both contests dismissed as rigged by the opposition -- even party insiders concede the collapsing economy is a growing concern.
"Comrades, if the truth be told the economic problems confronting us threaten to unravel all the progress made on the political front," ZANU-PF Chairman John Nkomo told the meeting earlier on Friday.
Critics say Mugabe's government has failed to source enough farm inputs such as seed and fertilizer, further hitting farm productivity already struggling following the seizure of formerly white-owned commercial farms for landless blacks.
Analysts also say Mugabe is fighting to stamp out remaining factional tensions over his selection last year of Joyce Mujuru as vice president -- which put her first in line for the top job after Mugabe's expected retirement in 2008.
U.N. humanitarian envoy Jan Egeland (R), escorted by a senior Zimbabwe Army officer and government officials, visits camps housing thousands of victims of Zimbabwe's controversial shantytown demolitions in Hatcliffe, outside of Harare, December 5, 2005. (Stringer/Reuters)
isn't this the same UN-monkey that insutlted the US a few years back?
Yeah, wan't he the jackass who said the U.S. was being "stingy" in regards to tsunami relief aid?
A problem with despots like Mugabe is they so threaten even their closest advisors they are only told what they want to hear, not the truth. And of course, true to form, they blame outside forces for their self-imposed problems. Like the USSR, sooner or later they are ruling over a vast wasteland worth nothing and unable to supply them with the necessary income to survive.
Mugabe is the new Mengistu who created the Ethiopian famine were all remember from TV 'save the kids' appeals. Mengistu spent $100 million to celebrate his 10th anniversary in power during that famine. He escaped a coup by going to Zimbabwe and today has residency in South Africa
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The world let Mugabe terrorize the whites, murder them and drive them away. It was racist but no one would point that out. Now with the results of his actions reaching their climax the western world will be called racist if they don't provide support... As Mugabe is attempting to do in this case.
It is time the world faced the reality of Africa and especially Zimbabwe. Colonialism has been gone for two generations. Things are back to where they were before colonialism. African are free of Western rule and have independent governments that can find their own way without our help. They need to do so.
If Mugabe is bad, his African neighbors need to intervene, not the UN or the U.S. If he is acceptable to his neighbors, then what happens in Zimbabwe is their responsibility. Fifty years ago the cry was "Africa for the Africans"... What they do with it is their challenge and their responsibility.
"Heart of Darkness" - Ping!
Sorry. should have finished reading your post.
Maybe I give these people too much credit by saying they are out of touch with the real situation because of slanted information from underlings. Maybe some of them are just crazy.
Last I read it was SA, but there ain't that big a difference or won't be soon. They're headed the same way as Ethiopia
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