Mugabe Attacks Rich Countries for Unequal World

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Tuesday, September 03, 2002

Mugabe Attacks Rich Countries for Unequal World

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Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe on Monday slashed developed countries with bitter words, accusing the rich North of being responsible for worsening poverty and deteriorating environment of the world.

Addressing the plenary session of the Earth Summit in Johannesburg, Mugabe said that since the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, the poor became poorer and far more exposed and vulnerable than ever before.

"Our children suffer from malnutrition, hunger and diseases, compounded now by the deadly HIV/AIDS pandemic," he said.

"The world is not like it was at Rio; it is much worse and much more dangerous. Today, Rio stands out in history as a milestone betrayed," the president noted.

He said that the multilateral program of action the world set in Rio has not only been unfulfilled but it has been ignored, sidelined and replaced by a half-backed unilateral agenda of globalization in the service of big corporate interests of the North.

"The focus is profit, not the poor, the process is globalization, not sustainable development, while the objective is exploitation, not liberation," he said.

"The betrayal of the collective agenda we set at Rio is a compelling manifestation of bad global governance, lack of real political will by the North and a total absence of just rule of law in international affairs," the president said.

The unilateralism of the unipolar world has reduced the rest of mankind to collective underdogs, chattels of a rich, the willful few in the North who beat, batter and bully the poor under the dirty cover of democracy, rule of law and good governance, he noted.

"It has become starkly clear to us that the failure of sustainable development is a direct and necessary outcome of a neo-liberal model of development propelled by runaway market forces that have been defended in the name of globalization," Mugabe argued.

He vigorously defended his land reform policy, saying that the people of Zimbabwe understand that sustainable development is not possible without agrarian reforms.

He said that in Zimbabwe, land comes first before all else, and all else grows from and off it.

"This process is being done in accordance with the rule of law as enshrined in our national constitution and laws," he said. "It is in pursuit of true justice as we know and understand it, and so we have no apologies to make to anyone," Mugabe noted.

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