Bush envoy cut short
"Neither police nor protocol could protect Colin Powell once
he was inside the conference hall," BBC correspondent Tom Heap
reported from the Earth Summit in Johannesburg on Sept. 4. The
U.S. secretary of state could not complete his five-minute
speech. Stormy protests drowned out the Bush administration's
envoy and jeered him off the stage.
The first loud round of heckles and boos interrupted Powell
when he denounced Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe for his
government's redistribution of land ownership from white former
colonialists to Black farmers. Powell blamed Mugabe for
exacerbating the famine affecting several drought-stricken
southern African countries, without mentioning that the White
House and Downing Street have imposed economic sanctions to
starve Zimbabwe into submission.
Powell also drew howls of outrage when he censured Zambia
for resisting the use of U.S. genetically engineered corn
crops.
But the convention really erupted when Powell tried to
defend the U.S. record on environmental issues and its
pretended aid to underdeveloped countries. Shouts of "Shame on
Bush!" filled the hall. Delegates unfurled banners reading
"Bush: People and planet--not big business" and "Betrayed by
governments."
Beefy security forces moved in and forcibly dragged more
than a dozen protesters out. But the uproar continued and
Powell walked off the stage.
--L.F.
Reprinted from the Sept. 12, 2002, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyrighted
under a Creative
Commons License.
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011
Email: ww@workers.org
Subscribe to WW by Email: wwnews-subscribe@workersworld.net
Donate to
support pro-labor, anti-war news.
Email
this article
Printable
page