Nobel laureate Grass assails US at writers' conference

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Berlin (dpa) - Guenter Grass, the German novelist who won the Nobel Literature Prize in 1999, attacked US President George Bush as a "hypocrite" Tuesday, telling a writers' congress in Berlin that Washington had nurtured terrorism.

In a speech to the annual International PEN meeting, the 78-year- old leftist author said Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair were "like priests who have blessed the guns and carried death along with the Bible into distant lands."

He charged that Washington had arbitrarily declared some dictatorships to be "rogue states", saying this was part of a "fundamentalist structure of power."

"Politics does not get more stupid and more dangerous than this," said Grass, who charged that the United States was war-mongering, flouting the rules of the civilized world and encouraging terrorism.

He said it was "even threatening to repeat a war crime" by using nuclear weapons. To applause from an audience of 450 writers from 80 nations, he charged that the rest of the world was "pretending it could do nothing about this."

He said both the United States and Britain were "hypocrites" whose policies encouraged terrorism when they said they were were opposed to it. They had "nurtured" al-Qaeda terrorist leader Osama bin Laden and now wanted to defeat him by force.

Before an audience that included 1991 Nobel Literature winner Nadine Gordimer, Grass also declared support for last year's anti- American acceptance speech by 2005 Nobel winner Harold Pinter, 75.

Grass quoted extensively and with approval from the British author's controversial speech, including a statement that "the crimes of the United States were systematic, constant, infamous, merciless."

Grass is best known internationally for his 1959 magic realist novel The Tin Drum about the rise of Naziism.

Germany's President Horst Koehler earlier highlighted the plight of writers in Africa as he officially opened the congress of International PEN, the world association of writers.

Koehler said censorship, repression, torture and even death were the threats looming for writers in parts of the world. He said he was especially trouble by how many writers were under threat or in jail in Africa.

"Human freedom is demonstrated through freedom of speech and literature," he said. Germany, which had had the experience of repression of intellectual freedom under the Nazis, was especially sensitive to the need for freedom.

This week's meeting has the theme, "Writing in a World Without Peace," and is the 72nd International PEN congress. It will discuss persecution of writers, repressive press laws and how libel suits prevent authors from saying what they wish.