Posted on 01/10/2006 8:06:15 AM PST by Cindy_Cin
CNSNews.com) - Calypso singer and liberal political activist Harry Belafonte was speaking for himself, not UNICEF, when he called President Bush a terrorist during a visit to leftist Venezuela, the U.N. children's advocacy group says.
Belafonte was quoted as telling Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Saturday, "No matter what the greatest tyrant in the world, the greatest terrorist in the world, George W. Bush says, we're here to tell you: Not hundreds, not thousands, but millions of the American people...support your revolution."
Belafonte made the comment on Chavez' radio and TV broadcast.
The U.S. Fund for UNICEF told reporters that Belafonte -- a UNICEF goodwill ambassador since 1987 -- made the comments "as a private citizen and was not speaking as a UNICEF ambassador, nor acting in an official capacity on behalf of the organization."
Belafonte led a group of Americans, including actor Danny Glover and Princeton University Professor Cornel West, to Venezuela over the weekend.
The Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson, a conservative black leader, is among the Americans questioning Belafonte's sanity.
"Harry Belafonte's hatred of President Bush is causing him to embrace America's enemies," the Rev. Peterson said in a press release. "I also believe that his actions are treasonous as described by Article Three, Section Three o the U.S. Constitution, which says that 'adhering to our enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort' constitutes treason."
Peterson called Chavez a "brutal, paranoid dictator with nuclear ambitions who wants nothing more than to destroy the U.S."
Peterson said it's time to take U.S. laws seriously - by classifying Belafonte and his delegation as "domestic enemies of the United States."
In a Tuesday morning interview with Fox & Friends, Professor Cornel West said that he, Belafonte and the other Americans went to Venezuela so they "could see for themselves "the ways in which poor people are gaining a voice in a democratic process."
Hugo Chavez, elected in 1998, is an authoritarian, populist leader who rejects democratic principles and has allied himself with Cuba.
But West said the American delegation recognizes that President Chavez is "trying to lead a country and a region out of the immense poverty," and he said the delegation is "concerned about the kind of hostility that the Bush administration has manifested" toward the Chavez administration.
West said his friend Harry Belafonte on Saturday was "not so much" trying to bash the Bush administration - but to let people in Venezuela and Bolivia and other countries know "that there are Americans that care about them as fellow human beings, and are concerned about their poverty and democratic ways of overcoming that poverty."
As Cybercast News Service has previously reported, Belafonte's senior years have been marked by controversy.
In August, during a civil rights march in Atlanta, Belafonte referred to prominent African-American officials in the Bush administration as "black tyrants," and he also compared the Bush administration to Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany.
In 2002, Belafonte described then-Secretary of State Colin Powell as a "house slave."
Oh, he'll come back. He is a liberal and lives in a very swanky part of Calif., Del Mar or some such place. While here relaxing on his veranda and watching the seagulls float over the pacific he swills caviar and chanpagane and mulls the "terriorism of George Bush" with his liberal friends. What a piece of crap!
Old left-wing nut. He doesn't represent anyone but himself, for which we should thank God.
One of my very liberal friends has joined some AARP board. Should fit right in.
Even Juan Williams said last night that Belafonte is tapioca.
Treason abroad is quite acceptable.
At least since Hanoi Jane did it without getting her neck stretched upon her return to US soil.
There's a hole in his bucket, dear Liza, dear Liza.
-PJ
Help me over a senior moment here - what's the AARP tie-in?
Sedition and treason laws were designed to protect us from people like Eva Toguri, Mildred Gillars, and Harry Belefonte. Time to dust off those laws.
I let Unicef know where my charity dollars will NOT be going.
http://www.unicef.org/about/contact.html
Not treason, just whining.
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