A U.S. diplomat says Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe "absolutely ruined" a UN Food Agency event with a speech denouncing President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
In an interview with VOA reporter Ndimyake Mwakalyelye, Tony Hall, the U.S. ambassador to U.N. food agencies, said Mr. Mugabe should not been invited to the Rome event in the first place, because he turned a formerly prosperous nation into one dependent on foreign food aid.
In his speech marking the 60th anniversary of the Food and Agriculture Organization, Mr. Mugabe president called Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair "the two unholy men of our millennium." He likened them to World War Two fascist leaders Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini, saying they had "formed an unholy alliance to attack an innocent country" -- referring to Iraq.
Mr. Mugabe also defended his government's program seizing white-owned farms, saying it addressed "gross imbalances" established by British colonialism.