UN blocks British, US attempts to halt run-off
Posted: Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Herald Reporters
June 25, 2008
The Herald

THE United Nations yesterday blocked attempts by Britain, the United States and France to declare MDC-T leader Morgan Tsvangirai as the President of Zimbabwe on the basis of the results of the March 29 harmonised elections.

This came as South Africa's ruling ANC party rejected foreign intervention in Zimbabwe, especially from erstwhile colonisers.

Britain, the current president of the Security Council, tried to use Belgium to halt Friday's presidential run-off election and illegally install Tsvangirai as president, but South Africa's Ambassador to the UN, Mr Dumisani Khumalo, blocked these attempts.

Associated Press reported that the US and France also tried to include in the Security Council statement language asserting that Tsvangirai should be considered the legitimate president of Zimbabwe.

Zimbabwe's permanent representative to the UN Ambassador Boniface Chidyausiku said submissions by South Africa and Zimbabwe convinced the 15-member Security Council that it would be legally improper to halt the run-off and install Tsvangirai.

The original draft compiled by the British had claimed that the elections would not be free and fair, but the Security Council eventually issued a watered down non-binding statement condemning political violence.

"We would like to pay tribute to Ambassador Khumalo for the sterling work he did. It is a big victory for us.

"Britain, through Belgium, which is not a member of the Security Council, tried to get the UN to impose Tsvangirai as president in contravention of the country's Constitution and electoral laws.

"But South Africa made it clear that this would not be acceptable and we also made submissions indicating that it would be improper to subvert the law like that," Ambassador Chidyausiku said.

He said last week, Belgium -- apparently acting on orders from Britain -- had asked for a Security Council brief on what was going on in Zimbabwe.

The strategy was to use this as an excuse to criticise the electoral process, negate the need for a run-off and then recognise Tsvangirai as president on the basis of the March 29 poll results.

"The draft that we saw on Friday was mild. It was something that we could have lived with. But over the weekend Tsvangirai said he didn't want to participate in the run-off anymore and this gave Britain, through Belgium, ammunition to attack Zimbabwe," Ambassador Chidyausiku said.

On Monday morning, he said the draft was suddenly harder and bent on preventing a run-off as if they were aware Tsvangirai would lose the election.

"They were happy to go with the results of the March 29 poll when the law is clear that there should be a run-off.

"We, too, respect the results of the harmonised elections and that is why we agree that there should be a run-off. For anyone to prevent a run-off is to prevent the free expression of the will of the people as provided for by the law," he said.

Ambassador Chidyausiku said Britain and its allies tried to argue that a cancellation of the run-off would be necessitated by the prevalence of State-contrived violence.

However, Zimbabwe's mission to the UN presented the Security Council with statistics indicating that the opposition was mostly behind the political violence in the country.

"The figures we have show that 400 MDC-T supporters have been arrested for political violence compared to 160 Zanu-PF supporters.

"We also demonstrated that there have been numerous cases of MDC-T supporters going around dressed in Zanu-PF regalia and beating up people.

"This is an outdated strategy used by the Selous Scouts during the liberation struggle and with the predominance of Selous Scouts in the MDC-T it is obvious what is going on.

"We managed to get them to recognise these realities and they failed in their bid to install Tsvangirai."

He said the people of Zimbabwe would determine the future of Zimbabwe.

Ambassador Chidyausiku also said that it was imperative for Sadc to remain united under the Lusaka Summit resolution to respect South African President Thabo Mbeki's mediation role.

"Sadc gave President Mbeki the mandate to mediate in Zimbabwe and that should be respected. That is a mandate that came out of a summit and no pronunciations by any individual outside of a summit should nullify this reality.

"Lusaka stands," he said.

The ANC, South Africa's ruling party, rejected any outside diplomatic intervention in the Zimbabwean matter yesterday arguing that "any attempts by outside players to impose regime change will merely deepen" the problems in Zimbabwe.

Although it said it was concerned with the situation in Zimbabwe, the ANC evoked Zimbabwe's colonial history and insisted that outsiders had no role to play in ending its current problems.

"It has always been and continues to be the view of our movement that the challenges facing Zimbabwe can only be solved by the Zimbabweans themselves," the statement said. "Nothing that has happened in the recent months has persuaded us to revise that view."

In what seemed a clear rebuke to the efforts of Western nations to take an aggressive stance against the Zimbabwean Government, the ANC included a lengthy criticism of the "arbitrary, capricious power" exerted by Africa's former colonial masters and cited the subsequent struggle by African nations to grant new-found freedoms and rights.

"No colonial power in Africa, least of all Britain in its colony of 'Rhodesia' ever demonstrated any respect for these principles," the ANC said, referring to Zimbabwe before its independence. 

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