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UN defends Zimbabwe as world tourism summit host
Angus
Shaw, Associated Press
August 29, 2013
http://news.yahoo.com/un-defends-zimbabwe-world-tourism-summit-host-160257379.html
The largest
global tourism summit organized by the United Nations ended Thursday
with officials defending Zimbabwe's role as co-host after years
of abuses of human and democratic rights in the southern African
nation.
The 180-member
United Nations World Tourism Organization said it re-elected Taleb
Rifai of Jordan for a second four-year term as its secretary general
at the end of the summit
in the Zambian town of Livingstone, across the border from Zimbabwe's
Victoria Falls resort.
Rifai earlier
brushed aside criticism the six-day meeting gave legitimacy to President
Robert Mugabe's government in the aftermath of disputed
presidential elections.
"We are
not here to deliberate on grand issues, we can do that anywhere
else in the world," he said. "It was the correct and right
decision. The excitement, optimism and hope this meeting has created
made everything worthwhile."
About 1,200
delegates discussed tourism development programs for mostly poor,
developing nations, accompanied by carnival parades in the two towns
overlooking the Victoria Falls, a wide curtain of falling water
and rising spray whose local name roughly translates as "the
smoke that thunders."
Mugabe, speaking
at a banquet Wednesday, urged delegates to promote Zimbabwe as a
safe tourist destination to counter Western allegations of rights
violations in the country he has led since 1980, the state broadcaster
reported. Mugabe was also quoted by state radio as saying U.S. State
Department advisories on safety risks in Zimbabwe were erroneous.
"We are
not terrorists," the president said, calling on Western critics
to visit Victoria Falls to "have their minds repaired."
Australia, Canada,
the U.S. and former colonial power Britain are not members of the
UNWTO. Western governments are generally skeptical of the value
of the biennial meeting attended mostly by nations with a poor record
in tourism, conservation and political stability.
Zimbabwe hired
management consultants to run the summit, saying it did not have
local expertise to meet the UNWTO's specific needs for all the arrangements.
It dropped the slogan "Zimbabwe-Africa's Paradise" after
non-Christian communities took offense, officials said, replacing
it with "Zimbabwe - A World of Wonders."
Walter Mzembi,
Zimbabwe's tourism minister, told the summit that the country plans
to set up a world-class Disneyland-style theme park outside
Victoria Falls town for the projected cost of $300 million. The
famed arch-span iron railroad bridge adjacent to the falls was built
in 1905. It has been floodlit for the summit and, commercial sponsors
say, will remain lit at night for the next 15 years as a legacy
of the summit. Mzembi said the Victoria Falls theme park would include
shopping, banking, exhibition, entertainment and casino facilities.
It is not clear
where funding for the project will come from as Mugabe's Zanu-PF
party pushes ahead with a sweeping black empowerment program to
take control of the last 1,200 foreign or white-owned businesses,
as the party promised voters who returned it to power.
According to
official figures, Zimbabwe received 404,280 visitors in the first
three months of 2013, compared to 346,300 in the same period last
year. The rise was attributed mainly to improvements in the economy
driven by liberalization and Western-friendly investment policies
of the finance ministry controlled by former Prime Minister Morgan
Tsvangirai, who shared power with Mugabe in a shaky coalition forged
by regional leaders after the disputed
elections of 2008.
The coalition
ended July 31 after elections Tsvangirai said were massively rigged.
Mugabe did not allow Western observers to monitor the polls.
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