Zimbabwe gloats over UN stalemate
HARARE (AFP) — The Zimbabwe government savoured a rare diplomatic victory on Wednesday after the United Nations Security Council failed to agree on how to respond to the country's post election crisis.
Western countries such as former colonial power Britain, urged on by the Zimbabwean opposition Movement for Democratic Change, had been trying to steer the council to adopting a common strategy on the situation in Zimbabwe where the results of a March 29 presidential election have still to be announced.
However a meeting of the council at UN headquarters broke up on Tuesday without agreement after a clear split among the 15 member nations.
Zimbabwe's deputy information minister Bright Matonga said the outcome signalled the rejection of a "racist ploy".
"It was a British machination to try and bully African nations ... to say Africans are not capable of making decisions and that African issues can only be seen through the eyes of little England," he told AFP.
Matonga said the divisions on how to deal with the Zimbabwe crisis should be a lesson to UN chief Ban Ki-Moon "not to take sides".
Ban said Tuesday that Zimbabwean authorities should immediately release the presidential poll results saying: "We know who is the winner."
South Africa, Russia and China were among the countries which blocked moves towards any UN intervention despite pleas by the MDC for a special envoy to be sent to the troubled southern African nation.
The outcome is a rare diplomatic victory for the Mugabe regime which has been under increasing pressure over the hold-up to the election results.
The state-run Herald newspaper, whose headline proclaimed 'UN Snubs MDC', accused Britain of trying to lobby Zambia, Botswana and Tanzania to pressure regional countries to lean on Mugabe.
MDC secretary general Tendai Biti flew to New York in an unsuccessful attempt to brief the council on the post-poll crisis.
In Harare, MDC spokesman Nelson Chamisa said "the mere fact that the matter was brought forward to the UN Security Council is testimony to the fact that there is a crisis which cannot and should not escape the international community's eye and attention".
However political analyst Lovemore Madhuku said the MDC's tactics had backfired and they should have waited for the announcement of the results and see how far regional brokers could go before rushing to the UN.
"The mere fact that the matter has been raised at the UN, is quite a very significant development, it should be worrying for Zimbabwe," said Madhuku, head of a pro-democracy pressure group.
"But what the MDC should have done was to wait for the presidential election results to be announced, push the processes at home first before rushing to the UN.
"And it is not good that our cause is always supported by Britain and the US, but blocked by South African, Libya and others.
US deputy ambassador to the UN Alejandro Wolff deplored the failure by council to find common ground.
"There are a number of governments who were quite outspoken about the importance of the council remaining engaged ... but there were others who have different views and think the situation deserves more time and that ultimately it is up for the Zimbabwean people to resolve it themselves."
MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai claims he defeated the 84-year-old Robert Mugabe in the March 29 presidential poll, based on his party's calculations.
But Mugabe loyalists say no candidate won outright and there should be a run-off. No official result has so far been released, but a verificiation process is due to begin on Thursday.
The post-election impasse has led to a rise in violence, with the MDC claiming 15 of its followers have been killed by Mugabe loyalists while government accuses the opposition of stirring unrest.
Human Rights Watch, a New York-based watchdog, said the African Union and UN needed to take immediate action to prevent further violence in Zimbabwe, accusing the army of running a campaign of terror.
"The army and its allies -- war-veterans and supporters of the ruling party ZANU-PF -- are intensifying their brutal grip on wide swathes of rural Zimbabwe to ensure that a possible second round of presidential elections goes their way," said Georgette Gagnon, HRW's Africa director.
