Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe on Sunday accused the United States of deliberately neglecting homeless black victims of Hurricane Katrina while condemning him for demolishing urban slums. Mugabe also told the UN General Assembly that former colonial ruler Britain, which inspired European diplomatic sanctions against Zimbabwe, was equally as hypocritical by participating in an “illegal” and «devastating» invasion of Iraq. “These imperialist countries have unashamedly abused the power of the media by hypocritically portraying themselves as philanthropists and international saviors of victims of various calamities,” Mugabe said.

“They have remained silent about the shocking circumstances of obvious state neglect surrounding the tragic Gulf Coast, where a whole community of mainly nonwhites was deliberately abandoned to the ravages of Hurricane Katrina as sacrificial lambs,” he told the assembly. A UN investigation by the director of the Nairobi-based Habitat agency in July called Zimbabwe’s bulldozing of urban slums a disastrous venture, which had thrown 700,000 people out of their homes or jobs and affected 2 million others. Many were Mugabe’s political opponents.

“Where is the Zimbabwe-famous Habitat?» Mugabe asked in reference to Katrina victims. «Why should it maintain ominous silence? For here is real work of the homeless for it?” He praised certain countries on the UN Security Council, led by China, for trying to prevent, albeit unsuccessfully, Britain’s move to put Zimbabwe’s crises on the council agenda. “But then is it not obvious that Britain under the regime of (Prime Minister) Tony Blair, has ceased to respect the Charter of the United Nations?” Mugabe said.

He defended his Operation Restore Order campaign, saying it was followed by a “well-planned vast reconstruction program.” But analysts say Zimbabwe, amid a deepening food and fuel crisis, has too few funds to rebuild. Mugabe also reminded the assembly of the protracted guerrilla wars fought before independence in 1980. “Was it not enough punishment and suffering in history that we were uprooted and made helpless slaves not only in new colonial outposts but also domestically,” Mugabe said. “We of Africa protest that, in this day and age, we should continue to be treated as lesser human beings than other races,” Mugabe added.

<B>Evelyn LEOPOLD