Belafonte Rips Bushs Policy on Security

By VERENA DOBNIK

Belafonte rips Bushs policy on security

NEW YORK Entertainer Harry Belafonte, one of the Bush administrations harshest critics, compared the Homeland Security Department to the Nazi Gestapo on Saturday and attacked the president as a liar.

Weve come to this dark time in which the Gestapo of Homeland Security lurks here, where citizens are having their rights suspended, Belafonte said in a speech to the annual meeting of the Arts Presenters Members Conference.

You can be arrested and not charged. You can be arrested and have no right to counsel, said Belafonte.

He called President Bush the greatest terrorist in the world during a trip to Venezuela two weeks ago. Belafonte, 78, made that comment after a meeting with Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez.

The Harlem-born Belafonte, who was raised in Jamaica, said his activism was inspired by an impoverished mother who imbued in me that we should never capitulate to oppression.

He acknowledged that the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks demanded a reaction by the United States, but said the policies of the Bush administration were not the right response.

Bush, he said, rose to power somewhat dubiously and … then lies to the people of this nation, misleads them, misinstructs, and then sends off hundreds of thousands of our own boys and girls to a foreign land that has not aggressed against us.