Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe on Wednesday blasted what he called a ”coalition of evil” as he accused powerful countries of using humanitarian intervention to meddle in the affairs of small and weak nations.
Mugabe, whose country has been dubbed an ”outpost of tyranny” by Washington, cited instances in which ”the sovereignty and territorial integrity of small and weak countries have been violated by the mighty and powerful in defiance of provisions of the United Nations charter, even on the basis of contrived lies”.
Those powerful countries are telling ”lies told in order to create a basis for aggression”, he told the summit of world leaders that opened at the UN headquarters in New York on Wednesday.
”We have seen that aggression occurred even in the context of the so-called coalition … A coalition that defies international law becomes an aggressive coalition. It becomes, indeed, a coalition of evil,” he added.
”The vision that we must present for a future UN should not be one filled with vague concepts that provides for an opportunity for those states that seek to interfere in the international affairs of other states,” Mugabe said.
”Concepts such as humanitarian intervention and the responsibility to protect need careful scrutiny in order to test the motives of their proponents,” he added.
He was referring to a plan adopted by the UN General Assembly on Tuesday to enshrine the world’s collective responsibility to protect peoples threatened with genocide and to create a new Human Rights Council with real teeth.
”The current skewed power structures in the world body cannot be condoned on any conceivable ground of democracy. Organs of the UN, including the Security Council, must be restructured to reflect the full will of nations, great or small.”
He warned against allowing wealthy and powerful countries to ”dictate the agenda for everybody else”.
A UN report last July estimated that 700 000 people had been left homeless in the Harare government’s drive to demolish shacks and homes, market stalls and other buildings mostly in townships and other poor areas.
The demolition campaign has compounded the country’s economic problems including food and fuel shortages, hyperinflation and unemployment at about 70%.
Relief arrives at last
Meanwhile, after a six-week delay, Zimbabwean families displaced by Operation Murambatsvina will now receive relief, with 37 tonnes of food and nearly 5 000 blankets having arrived in the country.
”The last of the supplies arrived on Monday … after being delayed by six weeks due to agricultural and customs restrictions,” the South African Council of Churches (SACC) said in a statement on Wednesday.
Zimbabwe’s Christian Care will now work through Zimbabwe’s churches to distribute the relief to families that have been scattered by the forced removals.
The statement said Christian Care expressed thanks for the SACC’s ”efforts and resilience” in pursuing the documentation required by the Zimbabwean government.
As a result of these obstacles, Christian Care has suggested future relief supplies be procured within Zimbabwe, with only goods unobtainable in the country being imported. — Sapa, Sapa-AFP