Petronella Sibeene
29 September 2008
Windhoek — President Hifikepunye Pohamba has asked the United Nations Secretary General to use the influence of his office to secure international bailout packages for Zimbabwe.
Pohamba said the international community should extend both financial and humanitarian packages to Zimbabwe.
"We have had the opportunity to meet with the secretary general and we urged the international community to provide financial and humanitarian assistance to Zimbabwe to ensure successful implementation of the power-sharing deal," said the President.
Pohamba said this yesterday morning when he arrived at Hosea Kutako International Airport from the United Nations General Assembly in New York.
The President added that Namibia emphasised the need for sanctions imposed on that country to be removed.
Apart from attending the UN General Assembly, the President said Namibia participated in two other special meetings one of them being the meeting with Ban Ki-moon, whom he invited to visit Namibia early next year.
During their special meeting, the President indicated to the UN Secretary General the need to start inter-governmental institutions, in particular the expansion and democratisation of the UN Security Council.
Calls for changes and reforms for the UN Security Council are becoming louder and yesterday the President said Africa still demands two permanent and five non-permanent positions on the UN Security Council.
Namibia also participated in the high-level meeting that evaluated Africa's status and implementation of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
"The aim was to take stock of Africa's developmental needs and constraints and how to improve on them," the President said.
A declaration on how to improve the African situation was signed and the UN Secretary General and the President of the General Assembly are expected to draw up a summary on the way forward.
Namibia also assured its support on all endeavours especially on peace and security and global economic development.
According to Pohamba, the country is committed to peacekeeping activities whenever required, particularly in the region of Darfur in Sudan.
"We informed him (the UN Secretary General) of Namibia's readiness to sign the Generic Memorandum of Understanding on peacekeeping in Darfur," he said.
The Namibian delegation to the UN General Assembly further participated in the Commonwealth deliberations that looked into the implementation of resolutions passed in Kampala last year.
Generally, the UN General Assembly meeting that took place from September 23 to 26 discussed what Pohamba termed as "highly burning challenges" facing mankind especially the African people.
Some of the challenges include financial constraints, global energy, and devastating impact of climate change, high food and fuel prices, HIV/AIDS and abject poverty.
The assembly discussed the need for collective efforts in responding to the identified challenges and how development and cooperating partners can be engaged in rescuing the situation.
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Exactly... why give money to the 14th most corrupt country in the world... it will just end up in the same dodgy peoples bank accounts, rather than helping the victomised people of Zimbabwe
We do not need help from imperialists. We can do this on our own? Am I right?
I don't think you are right Liberto. There is a saying that "No man is an island" In the present condition that Zimbabwe is in, I think standing aloof and giving way to "stuff them" towards the "imperialists", would be tightening the noose and strangling yourselves even more. So far those that you are regarding as your enemies are the ones who are in the forefront to aiding you but are waiting for fiscal responsibility which they hope the Zimbabwean unity government will now provide. In fact THEY are the only ones who have been aiding you and many other struggling African countries in a big way with millions of dollars for food, Malaria control and HIV/AIDS etc. As Mr Obama has said, we must not be push-overs, but we need to extend our hand even to our enemies to find ways of cooperation towards trade and peace.
There should be no bailout until we know who is truly in charge. And we won't know that until the cabinet ministries have been doled out. We aren't going to finance corruption.