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April 16, 2008 Britain and the United
States were yesterday frantically trying to get Zimbabwe on the
agenda of today's United Nations Security Council meeting, but
Zimbabwean and South African ambassadors to the UN said the
efforts were futile because Zimbabwe's elections were not an
issue for the world body.
Western media reports yesterday said the
US and Britain would raise Zimbabwe's electoral issue at today's
Security Council meeting, but the Zimbabwean and South African
diplomats said the elections were best handled by Sadc. The move
is calculated for the UN Security Council to pass a resolution
and provide a basis for the US and Britain to use military
intervention to topple President Mugabe.
Zimbabwe's Ambassador to the UN,
Ambassador Boniface Chidyausiku, said Harare would not be on the
Security Council agenda but it was aware Britain might try to
smuggle it on the agenda. In an interview with ZBC-News last
night, Ambassador Chidyausiku said although the country would
not be on the agenda, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown might
want to use the just-ended Sadc summit to include it for
discussion.
"Zimbabwe is not on the Security Council
agenda that is starting tomorrow because it has not been
invited, so it would not be on the agenda," said Ambassador
Chidyausiku. He said Zimbabwe was aware that Mr Brown would try
to use the just-ended Sadc summit to include Zimbabwe on the
agenda.
"They are trying to fly a kite, which we
will not fly. What they are trying to do is Brown is coming and
instead of focusing on the agenda, he is likely going to digress
and ask about the presidential election results. He will forget
that there is a due process in Zimbabwe and that the Zimbabwe
Electoral Commission is a constitutional body which is
independent. They will use the premises of the Sadc summit to
say Sadc has asked you to do A, B, C, what have you done? Brown
has no reason to argue about Zimbabwe," said Ambassador
Chidyausiku.
"Zimbabwe became independent in 1980 and
is no longer a colony of Britain and will never become one." He
said issues on the agenda include funding of peacekeeping
missions being carried out in African countries like Somalia,
Ethiopia and Sudan, among others. He said the missions were
being under-funded and it was the obligation of the UN to fund
the operations. "Since we are doing peacekeeping missions on
behalf of the UN, it should fund them," he said. South Africa's
ambassador to the UN, Mr Dumisani
Kumalo, also rejected that Zimbabwe be
discussed at the meeting, arguing that it was not on the agenda.
He said the Zimbabwean electoral matter was best handled by Sadc
instead of the UN. South Africa chairs the 15-member council
this month and the meeting is meant to discuss security
co-operation between the UN and the African Union. Mr Benjamin
Chang of the US mission to the UN told AFP that his country
would highlight the Zimbabwean issue, mainly the delay in
releasing presidential election results.
"We intend to highlight our concern for
Zimbabwe. We will be raising Zimbabwe, among other issues," he
was quoted as saying. Diplomats also revealed that Mr Brown,
whose government backs the MDC-T, was likely to bring up the
Zimbabwean issue in his remarks to the council as well as in
bilateral meetings with South African President Thabo Mbeki.
On Sunday, reports said Mr Brown was
working on a behind-the-scenes plan to oust President Mugabe
through the UN Security Council which he hopes to use to
intervene in Zimbabwe militarily or through the deployment of
peacekeeping troops. Mr Brown said the world was running out of
patience with Zimbabwe due to the delayed announcement of
presidential election results, but President Mugabe scoffed at
the British prime minister's comments, describing him as "a tiny
dot" in the world.
"If Brown is the world, sure the world is
losing patience, but I know Brown to be a little tiny dot on
this world," President Mugabe told reporters over the weekend in
Harare soon after meeting Mr Mbeki.
Yesterday US President George W. Bush and
UN Secretary-General Mr Ban Ki-moon discussed Zimbabwe's
elections on the phone while British Foreign Secretary Mr David
Miliband said the international community should play a role on
Zimbabwe's political scene ahead of the Security Council
meeting. The British have come out in the open that they were
working closely with MDC-T to bring about regime change in
Zimbabwe. Stung by Mr Mbeki's quiet diplomacy on Zimbabwe, the
Western media and MDC-T leader Morgan Tsvangirai launched a
scathing attack on the South African president, saying the
policy was unpopular.
The Washington Post yesterday attacked Mr
Mbeki for aligning with the Zimbabwean Government and distancing
himself from Western influence. Last week South Africa rejected
Western calls to pressure President Mugabe to quit. South Africa
said Zimbabwe was a sovereign country and not a province of
South Africa. Over the weekend, Mr Mbeki told journalists in
Harare that there was no crisis in Zimbabwe since the electoral
process was being done in terms of the provisions of the
Constitution.
In an interview with the private e-tv
channel of South Africa, Tsvangirai claimed Mr Mbeki's
pronouncements were a "misrepresentation" of the situation in
Zimbabwe. |