September 14, 2002	Saturday	Rajab 6, 1423

OSLO, Sept 13: The administration of US President George W. Bush is the most frightening in the history of the United States, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Jody Williams said Friday, denouncing US unilateralism.

Williams, the coordinator of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) who shared the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize with her organization, said Bush’s administration was “the scariest administration of the US history”.

“He is worse than Reagan, worse than Nixon. He sees the world in black and white,” the US activist told reporters in Oslo following the publication of a report on landmines.

Williams said she was opposed to a US attack on Iraq, which she qualified as “a violation of international law”.

“May any country justify a military invasion by calling it a pre-emptive action?” she asked. “It’s illegal.”

“What’s interesting is to see what the other countries’ reaction will be. Shouldn’t they join together and do something about it?,” she asked.

She said the US, the only western country that has not ratified an international treaty banning landmines, was as a result no better than Iraq, Iran and North Korea, the countries Bush qualified as an “axis of evil” earlier this year.

Washington has stopped production, use of and trade in landmines, which each year kill between 15,000 and 20,000 people.

So “why not take the last step then?,” Williams asked.

Williams slammed Washington’s unilateralism, saying the “US has redefined multilateralism: (telling the world) ‘you all must accept my point of view’.” She said the September 11 attacks on the US have “made people afraid of speaking out.”

“Nobody stands up and asks: are we threatening world peace?”.

“If we are so committed behind the representative governments, why are we not doing more in Afghanistan? There is no real effort for consolidating the Afghan government of (President Hamid) Karzai. I believe it’s cosmetic,” she said. —AFP