Russia and China vetoed a United Nations Security Council resolution on Friday which would have imposed an arms embargo against Zimbabwe and financial and travel sanctions on President Robert Mugabe and other key leaders of the country's ruling party.
The resolution was proposed by the United States and backed by eight other countries, including Burkina Faso and European members of the council. South Africa, Libya and Vietnam joined Russia and China in voting against it. Indonesia abstained.
Speaking to UN correspondents after the vote on Friday, Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. permanent representative to the UN, launched an attack on South Africa's President Thabo Mbeki, charging him with "actions that appear to be protecting Mr Mugabe and to be working hand-in-glove with him at times."
Khalilzad added: "While... Mugabe uses violent means to fragment and weaken the opposition, President Mbeki uses diplomacy in bringing factional leaders within the... opposition, to fragment the opposition by playing with the politics of the opposition." However, he said the U.S. was "encouraged by the trends that we see inside South Africa. I think he (Mbeki) is out of touch with the trends inside his own country."
Within the Security Council, Khalilzad accused Russia of reneging on the G8 statement on Zimbabwe which President Dmitry Medvedev signed up to earlier in the week. In the statement, the world's major industrialized nations declared: "We will take further steps, inter alia introducing financial and other measures against those individuals [in Zimbabwe] responsible for violence."
Khalilzad said that Russia's "U-turn... is particularly surprising and disturbing... The Russian performance here today raises questions about its reliability as a G8 partner."
The resolution was supported by the United States, Britain, France, Belgium, Burkina Faso, Costa Rica, Croatia, Italy and Panama.
Its supporters characterized it as a means of giving Zimbabwe's rulers "incentives" to negotiate a power-sharing deal with Morgan Tsvangirai, whose party won the highest number of votes in Zimbabwe's March 29 presidential and parliamentary elections. They said sanctions could be lifted in response to progress in talks.
Opponents said the situation in Zimbabwe did not meet the standards for sanctions stipulated in Chapter VII of the UN Charter - that it was a threat to international peace and security. China's representative, Wang Guangya, told journalists the resolution would have been "counter-productive" to African-led talks to resolve the crisis. "We count on the efforts of the Africans," he said.
Speaking against the resolution during the council meeting, Angola said it could exacerbate conflict on the ground and complicate dialogue. Tanzania asked the council to give a chance to the talks set in motion by last week's African Union resolution before adopting a "punitive option."
Zimbabwe's UN representative, Boniface Chidyausiku, told reporters after the vote that "the UN has stuck to the Charter. If the resolution had proceeded, it was going to impede the process of negotiations." He ascribed the resolution to "the arrogance of the Americans, that they can rule the world. They can't."
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It is quiet possible that China and Russia do not want to give the UK and USA a free license to start lying and justify a military invation of Zimbabwe. This is fresh from the foolishly carried out invation of Iraq. The Iraq lies and invasion have made China and Russia to be more careful about letting the USA and UK justify their own self interests.
Sanctions would have made Mugabe more ruthless and really ruined efforts for a more peaceful dialogue between the warying political parties of Zimbabwe.
I personally resent the bully of veto-power excised by the 5 permanent security council members. It is important that Africa fight hard about this excersis in bullism!
Do you have a clue what is going on in Zimbabwe? Do you know how much the people are suffering as a result of Mugabe's rule? This has nothing to do with Iraq in the least! The U.S. will not go into Zimbabwe. Frankly, as a country, we don't care about Africa. At least we are on the side of good in this case. I have a friend from Zimbabwe that is in jail in America because his parents oil business was taken by Mugabe and his thugs. As a result he could not pay his college tuition and was arrested on visa violations. His once well off family is starving now because everything they worked for was taken at the point of a gun. No sanctions a good thing...only if you are in bed with Mugabe.
Grow up kid!
"Do you have a clue what is going on in Zimbabwe? Do you know how much the people are suffering as a result of Mugabe's rule?" Many more are suffering because of western-imposed sanctions.
"This has nothing to do with Iraq in the least! The U.S. will not go into Zimbabwe. Frankly, as a country, we don't care about Africa." And this is news?
"At least we are on the side of good in this case." What "we" are we talking about western man?
"I have a friend from Zimbabwe that is in jail in America because his parents oil business was taken by Mugabe and his thugs. As a result he could not pay his college tuition and was arrested on visa violations. His once well off family is starving now because everything they worked for was taken at the point of a gun." Zimbabwe has oil? So that explains the West's "humanitarian interest" in the welfare of Zimbabweans.
"No sanctions a good thing...only if you are in bed with Mugabe." Or you are not interested in punishing the majority of the country's citizens for not voting for a foreign-sponsored candidate. Or you're not caught up in all the lies and propaganda designed to bring down the government of a sovereign country. Or if you have the courage to do the right thing in spite of all the pressure brought upon you by those with an agenda to control everyone and everything that they can by using their wealth and power gained from centuries of exploitation of the same people (Africans) that they still seek to control or punish if they resist.
Western countries want to oust Mugabe from power for two reasons. First, Mugabe sent his military to DR Congo in the 1990's to halt the invasion and occupation of DR Congo by the armies of Rwanda, Burundi, and Uganda. The invasion was financially and militarily sponsored by the USA and UK, and its aim was to effect a regime change in DR Congo so that western countries would loot the natural resources of DR Congo at will. Up until the time of the invasion, Zimbabwe had been buying its jet fighters from England, with an agreement that the sellers of those jet fighters would be supplying jets' spare parts to Zimbabwe should Zimbabwe need any spare parts. Surprisingly, after Zimbabwe's military intervention in DR Congo, UK declared it illegal for any British firm to sell military equipment, including jet fighters' spare parts, to Zimbabwe. In response, Mugabe turned to China, from whence he began to buy military equipment.
Second, the redistribution of the land, which had illegally been acquired and owned by white farmers for years, to Black Zimbabweans is, in the western view, a crime that Mugabe should not have committed and for which he cannot be forgiven. Hence the USA and UK's endeavour to mobilize the world, including the UN, the European Union, the African Union, and individual nations against Mugabe. However, African leaders, as well as other leaders in the world, know the true motives behind this worldwide mobilization by the USA and UK. Accordingly, the African Union's resolution on Zimbabwe has been far from being an endorsement of the joint stand of the USA, UK, and their Western allies on Mugabe's Zimbabwe. Besides, Rusia and China vetoed the USA-drafted resolution (that sought to impose sanctions on Mugabe's regime) at the UN's Security Council.
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