WASHINGTON (AFP) — US President George W. Bush said Tuesday he was "displeased" with Russia and China for blocking UN sanctions against Robert Mugabe's regime in Zimbabwe and warned Washington could still act on its own.
Moscow and Beijing on Friday vetoed a US-sponsored draft at the UN Security Council that called for an assets freeze and a travel ban on President Mugabe and 13 of his associates as well as an arms embargo.
"I was displeased," Bush told a news conference. "We spent a lot of time on this subject at the G8."
At its summit in Japan last week, the Group of Eight (G8) leading industrial countries discussed the need for UN Security Council resolutions against the regime of Mugabe, who has been in power since 1981.
"I was disappointed that the Russians vetoed" the resolution, he added. Russia -- but not China -- is on the G8, which also includes the United States, Japan, Canada, Britain, France, Germany and Italy.
Zalmay Khalilzad, the US ambassador to the United Nations, has called the veto a "disturbing" U-turn for Moscow, saying Russian President Dmitry Medvedev had backed a G8 summit statement promising new actions against Zimbabwe.
Jendayi Frazer, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's Africa envoy, told senators on Tuesday that China may have won African support with economic aid but was also perceived as enabling authoritarian government in Zimbabwe.
"So a new day is coming in Zimbabwe, and China would want be on the right side of the forces of democratic change," Frazer said.
Bush said the United States was now mulling further US sanctions against Mugabe and his associates.
"I think we need to... analyze whether or not we can have more bilateral sanctions on the regime leaders," Bush told reporters on Tuesday.
He stressed any action taken would target the leaders of Zimbabwe rather than its poeple who are suffering from hyper-inflation and chronic food shortages in the former breadbasket of southern Africa.
"These sanctions are not against the Zimbabwe people... The Treasury Department and State Department are now working on potential US action," Bush said.
During her testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Frazer described as "fairly robust" existing US financial and travel restrictions on individuals and companies that support Mugabe.
"We're looking to expand the category of Zimbabweans who are covered," Frazer added. "We are also looking at sanctions on government entities as well, not just individuals."
Frazer also said Washington was also encouraging African and European countries to take more action.
She said the 14-nation Southern African Development Community (SADC) was split over how to deal with Zimbabwe, with some member countries trying to "shield" Mugabe and others seeking tougher action.
"We're trying to push for those in the silent majority to speak out," Frazer told the senators, adding that Washington will watch closely an extraordinary SADC meeting on Thursday.
Speaking to an African investment forum in Washington earlier, Rice said African nations must do more to help the Zimbabwe people break free of Mugabe's "tyranny" to ensure stability in southern Africa.
"In the Mugabe regime we see the page of history that Africa must turn, a leader for independence, which inherited a nation full of promise, but which has devolved into a tyranny that values nothing but power," Rice said.
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