U.N. endorses Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe as tourism leader

[nabraxas]

Wednesday, May 30, 2012,

He’s been named one of the world’s “worst dictators” for having a questionable human rights record, but that’s not keeping the United Nations from endorsing Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and his regime as a “leader for tourism,” according to reports.

The surprise honor, while slammed by human rights groups, is also a head scratcher since the 88-year-old despot is banned from even travelling to Europe because of Western sanctions.

The U.N. World Tourism Organization endorsed Mugabe along with Zambian President Michael Sata at the African countries’ shared border, where the pair signed an agreement Tuesday to co-host the WTO General Assembly in August 2013.

“I was told about the wonderful experience and the warm hospitality of (Zimbabwe),” UNWTO Secretary General Taleb Rifai said at the event, according to The Herald, Zimbabwe’s state-owned newspaper.

“By coming here, it is recognition, an endorsement on the country that it is a safe destination,” Rifai said.

The UNWTO later stressed that Mugabe was not made an official U.N. ambassador or given a tourism-related title.

WTO spokeswoman Sandra Carvao said Mugabe and Sata were presented with “an open letter which calls for them to support tourism as a means to foster sustainable development in their countries to the benefit of their people,” according to Britain’s The Guardian newspaper.

Nevertheless, world leaders and human rights groups said any sort of endorsement undermines the U.N.’s credibility and props up a man with a long list of alleged human rights violations.

Since being elected into power in 1980, first as prime minister, Mugabe has been accused of election-rigging, allowing government cronyism to thrive and promoting racism against Zimbabwe’s minority white population. The country, once with a stable economy, has become reliant on foreign aid.

“The man has blood on his hands,” a spokesman for the Movement for Democratic Change told The Guardian. “Do they want tourists to see those bloody hands?”

Mugabe over the years has landed on “worst dictators” lists compiled by Forbes and Parade magazines.

However, Mugabe spokesman Rugare Gumbo said Tuesday that the “situation on the ground in Zimbabwe is not as bad as portrayed,” according to The Telegraph newspaper.

Last week, the U.N. human rights chief said Western sanctions against Mugabe and his loyalists should be suspended, at least until elections later this year, saying the measures have hurt the country’s poorest and most vulnerable people.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/u-n-endorses-zimbabwe-president-robert-mugabe-tourism-leader-article-1.1086536#ixzz1wMyG4p5N

 

 

If the UN had any credability at all, this insane move just lost it all.

[ayjay101]

I’m gonna miss this wonderful circus one day lol

[Zen Peddler]

The man is scum.

[woof woof woof]

this scum never dies! the guy is like in his late eighties,.. plunged a whole country in total chaos.