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Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe has drawn applause for a speech denouncing Britain's Tony Blair and US President George Bush at a UN event in Rome.
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe has drawn applause for a speech denouncing Britain's Tony Blair and US President George Bush at a UN event in Rome.
Mr Mugabe described the leaders as 'unholy men" at talks on food policy.
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. The Rome conference is being held to mark the 60th anniversary of the UN's Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO). Though officially banned from travelling to EU countries, Mr Mugabe is allowed to visit them when on UN business.
The US ambassador to the FAO, Tony Hall, said he was amazed the organisation had invited a leader 'who has done so much to hurt his own people".
'Food has been used as a weapon," Mr Hall said.
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.
Mr Mugabe used his speech to lambast President Bush and UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, whose governments have been among his severest critics.
'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".
Delegates applauded Mr Mugabe at the end of his speech.