Mon May 10, 2004 07:33 AM ET
By Andrew Quinn
CAPE TOWN, South Africa (Reuters) - Former President Nelson Mandela Monday hailed South Africa's 10 years of peaceful multi-racial democracy as inspiration for a world he said was saddened and horrified by the U.S.-led war in Iraq.
The 85-year-old anti-apartheid icon, in a farewell address to parliament on the 10th anniversary of his inauguration as the country's first black president, urged South Africans to come together to meet their new challenges: poverty, unemployment and HIV/AIDS.
"We live in a world where there is enough reason for cynicism and despair," said Mandela, a fierce critic of the U.S.-led war on Iraq, told parliament.
"We watch as two of the leading democracies, two leading nations of the free world, get involved in a war that the United Nations did not sanction," Mandela said, adding that the world had been horrified by reports of torture of Iraqi prisoners by U.S. and British forces.
"We see how the powerful countries, all of them so-called democracies, manipulate multilateral bodies to the great disadvantage and suffering of the poorer developing nations." ...
<http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=5089700>
Carl
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