The Zimbabwe Guardian (London)
Floyd Nkomo
2 June 2008
PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe arrived in the Italian capital, Rome on Sunday for a High-Level Conference on World Food Security and the Challenges of Climate Change and Bio-energy being held in Rome from June 3 to 5.
He touched down at 2000 GMT at Rome-Fiumicino airport
This trip is President Mugabe's first official trip abroad since the March 29 harmonized elections.
The European Union has imposed a travel ban on President Mugabe and his cabinet, but he was allowed in Rome as the conference is taking place under a United Nations umbrella.
Around 60 heads of state and government, including Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who will be making his first trip to Western Europe as Iran's president, are expected to meet in the Italian capital to discuss global problems of poverty and malnutrition.
It is being hosted by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), and is also aimed at winning donor pledges for urgent aid and also to generate longer term strategies to safeguard food production.
The conference comes at a time when global food shortages have reached alarming proportions.
Food prices are rising all over the world and cases of global malnutrition are increasing.
Maize and rice have almost doubled in price over the past year. Roughly 1 billion people living on less than $1 a day, many of whom spend 80% or more of their income on food, face malnutrition and ill-health.
President Mugabe is likely to use this opportunity to fire back at President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown who have criticized the Zimbabwean government over the March 29 elections.
In 2005 President Mugabe attended the FAO's 60 anniversary celebrations and railed against United States President George W. Bush and then British Prime Minister Tony Blair, calling them "international terrorists" and comparing them to Adolf Hitler.
Other world leaders scheduled to attend are President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil, Nikolas Sarkozy of France together with Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
President Mugabe is accompanied by the First Lady, Grace Mugabe and Agriculture Minister Rugare Gumbo.
He will be in the Italian capital until Friday.
Read comments. Write your own.
Copyright © 2008 The Zimbabwe Guardian. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
Mugabwe is either an arrogant man or a mentally sick person. Neither quality is good. He may be both- a sick dirty old bastard who has brought untold hardship on his people.
Why are Italy letting him attend? There's supposed to be a travel ban preventing him and his family entering Europe. And why does Graceless need to go with him? Shopping trip for her no doubt.
Basically it has to do with some idiotic right enshrined in the UN charter which allows the ban to be suspended as long as he is attending UN business. Exactly what contribution he will have in the matter is anybody's guess but it cant be much to write home about. And yes, quite correct, what business has that shameless tart got to do other than traipsing around the shopping malls with the goons in tow not so much to protect her but to carry all the shopping bought with the money looted from the state coffers back home!!!
This is ridiculous and an outreage that this man attend a conference concerning food while many startve in Zimbabwe and I promise you he is not there out of genuine concern for his people. His wife well she is on a shopping spree of course..
The UN should be ashamed of itself for allowing him to come and well this shows me they support this man so why should we talk with them about helping resolve the situation. This man has killed many but the UN overlooks that to allow him to come to a conference which he is not there to help the people of Zimbabwe...
I will be expecting anything from now on and UN stand up for the people and do not support the people who are causing all the problems....
Not a good testimony for the UN, so who ever okayed this should lose their job!!!
Do what I have done. Express your distate in the strongest possible terms to the UN. Here is their email address below..let them know exactly what a bunch of shameless spineless lily livered yellow belly serpents to have allowed this murderer to grace their event and how it detracts from the important message they are trying to get into the media for now it is mugabe that is the message. And make sure when you email them to let them know you want a proper response and not some politically correct fobbing off!!!
wfpinfo@wfp.org
Please find out the real and full story before venting your anger using information that you've picked up while trawling through one-sided newspapers. Make an argument with substance.So what if he's Rome? How does that affect you? Can you sit there and really say that MUGABE is starving his people? Why would he would he want to do that? So that they'll vote for him- when has that worked?How many forces are at play here? ( Please read May issue-New African)
Soilchild, perhaps YOU go to bed with your stomach full every day. Why don't you ask your brothers and sisters why they have had to flee to South Africa. A holiday?
See all comments (18).
This has to be the most laughable event of the century. A common thug who has personally dismantled his country's means of food production and starved over half his people, most of whom are dying from hunger, finds the time to attend a summit on world food security...??? An affront to common sense and an insult to the suffering masses in zimbabwe that they allowed this waste of space to take to the skies and travel to the Europe he and his ministers hate so much when electioneering...but not when the odd shopping trip for electronic goods can be squeezed in for him and his harlot of a mistress!!
Can't someone please do Africa a big favour and deploy a guided missile of the kind the yanks used on that other thug in Somalia a few weeks ago...and interrupt the return journey!!