Mugabe at food forum as country starves

Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe, who has pushed his country into starvation through wholesale seizures of productive white farms, arrived in Rome yesterday for a UN food summit, circumventing an international travel embargo imposed after he was accused of stealing the March presidential election.

Mr Mugabe's continued use of UN meetings as a means of evading the travel sanctions and entering Western countries has angered civic groups in Zimbabwe, who dismiss the ban as "spineless". His attendance at the Food and Agricultural Organisation summit this week is particularly ironic, since it is expected to concentrate on the threat of famine in southern Africa.

Although the entire region has been affected by drought, Zimbabwe is regarded as a textbook example of official policies turning a problem into a full-blown crisis. Worse, Mr Mugabe has been accused of denying food aid to areas which backed the opposition MDC in this year's elections.

A British Foreign Office spokesman said international treaty obligations had obliged Italy to grant visas to Mr Mugabe and his entourage for the meeting. "It is the same provision which allows Fidel Castro to visit New York for the UN General Assembly, although he is banned from the US," he said.

But after Mr Mugabe was allowed to attend the UN conference on children in New York last month, his foreign minister, Stan Mudenge, boasted that the visit proved that the sanctions imposed by the US and EU were useless.

Welshman Ncube, the MDC secretary-general, was dismayed that the "author of mass famine" was being given a platform in Rome. "It's shocking that a leader who is denying people food on the basis of their political affiliation and is determined to starve those who don't want to support him could be allowed to attend such an important summit," he said.

Brian Kagoro, of Crisis in Zimbabwe said: "It's worrying that somebody who induced a food crisis through his totally ill-reasoned policies is allowed to attend an international summit to pontificate on the question of food."