ITALY:ZIMBABWEAN PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe and Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad have prompted bitter controversy by both opting to attend a three-day, United Nations World Food Security summit in Rome this week.
For Mr Mugabe, who arrived in Rome on Sunday night along with a large delegation, this is his first overseas trip since disputed elections in March, won by the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).
Despite that victory, parliament has not yet been convened, with the Mugabe regime instead calling for a run-off presidential election contest between Mr Mugabe and MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai, due to be held on June 27th.
The MDC claims that more than 50 people have died in violent incidents since the March elections, while tens of thousands of opposition supporters have been driven from their homes.
Mr Mugabe (84), who has been in power since 1980, is normally subject to European Union sanctions and travel restrictions but Italian authorities are unable to enforce these since he has been invited to Rome by the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).
Three years ago, similar diplomatic niceties allowed him attend the FAO's 60th anniversary celebrations. On that occasion, Mr Mugabe caused a major stir by comparing then British prime minister Tony Blair and US president George Bush to Adolf Hitler.
Mr Mugabe's participation prompted a stinging rebuke from Australian foreign affairs minister Stephen Smith, also due in Rome for the FAO summit: "This is the person who has presided over the starvation of his people, this is the person who has used food aid in a politically motivated way. So Robert Mugabe turning up to a conference dealing with food security or food issues is, in my view, frankly obscene."
An equally controversial figure at the FAO summit will be the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who yesterday, on the eve of departure for Rome, yet again called for the "elimination" of Israel. Even though Mr Ahmadinejad would like to have met both Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi and Pope Benedict while in Rome, such meetings are now unlikely.
Faced with the potential embarrassment of meeting with a man who has repeatedly denied the Holocaust, the Vatican last weekend came up with its own drastic solution to the diplomatic dilemma - it was decided that the pope would meet with no state or government heads this week.
As a consquence, other world leaders in Rome for the summit, such as Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner of Argentina, Evo Morales of Bolivia and Luis Ignácio Lula da Silva of Brazil, will be disappointed.
Italian government sources also suggest there will be no official meeting between Mr Berlusconi and Mr Ahmadinejad.
Given Italy's close links to Washington and its shared opposition to Iranian nuclear plans, Mr Berlusconi may keep his distance, restricting any encounter with Mr Ahmadinejad at the FAO to a mere handshake.
The controversy provoked by Mr Ahmadinejad and Mr Mugabe may, ironically, serve to focus attention on a summit that is intended to explore the complex question of securing world food security. The FAO points out that an estimated 850 million people, mainly from developing countries, today suffer from hunger.
It is expected that the summit will try to analyse the current rapid rise in world food prices, identifying factors such as the high price of oil, climate change and the burgeoning biofuel industry. Commentators suggest, however, that other issues, such as the impact of global trade policies and the role of speculation in the food market, should also be examined.
Many experts argue that the major push by the rich nations for trade liberalisation has made much of the developing world vulnerable to famine.
Furthermore, although such organisations as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund have repeatedly urged developing nations to cut subsidies to small farmers, rich countries have continued to subsidise their agricultural sectors.
Thus cheap, subsidised imports from the first world have overwhelmed many developing countries, turning those that in the 1970s were net food exporters into large-scale food importers today.
The Minister for Agriculture, Brendan Smith, will attend the summit, which ends on Thursday.