Britain expressed outrage on Sunday night after Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe took advantage of a UN ceremony in Rome to compare Prime Minister Tony Blair to Italy's wartime dictator, Benito Mussolini. Departing from his prepared text at the 60th anniversary celebrations of the UN's biggest agency, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Mugabe described Blair and US President George W. Bush as "international terrorists."
He also denounced their invasion of Iraq, saying they were "the two unholy men of our millennium who, in the same way as Hitler and Mussolini formed [an] unholy alliance, formed an alliance to attack an innocent country."
Matthew Wyatt, Britain's representative at the FAO, said Mugabe's presence at a conference on food and hunger was a "sick irony." He said, "it is extremely unfortunate that Mugabe was at this occasion. As he has created hunger and poverty in his own country."
Aid groups have estimated that five million of Zimbabwe's 12 million people may need food aid this year. Mugabe's policies, including the forcible redistribution of white-owned farms, have been widely criticized for plunging the country into its deepest economic crisis since independence.
Mugabe said that his program of land reform had been needed to redress the "gross imbalances" left by Western colonialism.
Wyatt said that he and other delegates had gone to the anniversary celebrations "to remind ourselves that there are, by the FAO's estimate, 852 million hungry people, and that we face a huge challenge meeting the millennium development goals. Having somebody like Mugabe present was entirely inappropriate. It would have been better for all of us -- the FAO included -- if he had not come."
His outrage was echoed by that of his US counterpart, Tony Hall, who described the Zimbabwean president as someone who "chews up his own people and spits them out."
That was clearly not the view of some of the other delegates attending the party, who repeatedly applauded Mugabe's anti-Western diatribe.
Flanked by bodyguards, the Zimbabwean leader declared: "The voice of Bush and the voice of 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."
His reference to Venezuela was well received by President Hugo Chavez, who told Italy's Ansa news agency: "I pay tribute to Mugabe."
"The president of Zimbabwe is made out to be a villain -- because he takes land from those who don't need it to give it to those who need it to live," Chavez said.
British and US officials acknowledged that customarily the FAO invites the heads of state of all its member nations to such events.
But Sunday's rumpus is bound to fuel growing disquiet in London and Washington over the course being taken by the agency under the leadership of its long-time Senegalese director-general, Jacques Diouf, who has been in place since 1994. Next month he will stand unopposed for a third term of office.
Mugabe thanked Diouf for having invited him despite objections made by the US.
American officials said last month that they were preparing to place travel restrictions on Mugabe, his government and family.
The ban is expected to be similar to one imposed by the EU following claims that the Zimbabwean government was involved in vote-rigging in the 2000 and 2002 elections. Under an agreement with the FAO, Italy does not impose any restrictions on delegates visiting the agency.
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