A major rift between the West and Africa was exposed at the United Nations this weekend as Zimbabwe was controversially elected as head of the United Nations’s main environment body.
Diplomats from the European Union and the United States had strongly objected to a country that has destroyed a once-thriving farming industry, has a failing economy, an appalling human rights record and a poor record of looking after its wildlife and national parks, holding the post.
But in a secret ballot at the UN in New York, Zimbabwe was elected to lead the Commission on Sustainable Economic Development (CSD) by a 26-21 vote with three abstentions. It seems developing countries voted for Zimbabwe in a direct show of defiance against developed ones. European Union nations led the objections to Zimbabwe’s candidacy in a heated debate late on Friday.
The CSD’s entire two-week session had earlier come under attack for its scripted speeches and inability to find common targets for green policies. The conference was brought to an end with no consensus after the 25-member EU refused to approve a paper that included no concrete measures.
The meetings then descended into further upset after the vote in favour of Zimbabwe’s Environment and Tourism Minister, Francis Nhema.
The post rotates among regions and Nhema was Africa’s choice to lead the commission for the next year. Nhema, as a member of President Robert Mugabe’s government, is the subject of an EU travel ban, meaning he cannot travel to Europe to meet ministers on commission business. Nhema responded by saying Western nations had the ”right to their opinions”. ”At the end of the day the majority rules as democracy does,” he said.
Many observers believe the result was an overwhelming snub to the US and the EU by developing nations, especially those in South America, who respected both the African block’s decision and their refusal to be pushed around by former colonial masters.
”When they tell the African group to change, it’s an insult to our intelligence,” said Zimbawe’s ambassador to the UN, Boniface Chidyausiku. ”It’s our right [to hold the chair]. We’re members of the United Nations and we’re members of CSD, and the Africa group did make a decision and endorsed Zimbabwe.”
Germany’s Environment Minister, Sigmar Gabriel, pointed out that the travel ban against Mugabe’s government meant Nhema would be restricted in his contact with those countries.
”It would not be possible for us to invite the chair, if it is from the government of Zimbabwe, or to have contacts with the chair,” said Gabriel, whose country holds EU’s current presidency.
Zimbabwe is suffering its worst economic crisis since independence in 1980 with inflation currently at 2 200% and expected to rise. Mugabe’s policies, including the seizure of white-held farms to resettle landless blacks and to give as gifts to his political allies — including Nhema, himself, who was given a 2,500 acre farm said to lie mostly idle — are blamed.
There is increasing controversy over the nature of international relations with Zimbabwe — last week it was revealed by the country’s state-controlled newspaper, the Herald, that the football governing body Fifa had given South Africa permission to allow visiting teams to base themselves in Zimbabwe during the 2010 World Cup, while the Australian government has said nation’s cricket team would not tour in Zimbabwe.
”Zimbabwe’s election will be seen as an outrage by millions of people who look to the United Nations for help to escape from poverty,” the British minister for Climate Change and the Environment, Ian Pearson, said in a statement. ”They will be asking how the body charged with promoting sustainable development will be able to maintain credibility while being chaired by a representative of a government whose failed policies have destroyed its own economy.”
Minister for Africa Lord Triesman also stressed his opposition to the appointment, saying: ”For a Zimbabwean minister to chair the commission while his own people suffer the appalling consequences of his government’s policies, is wholly inconsistent with the commission’s aims.
”It damages the credibility of the commission itself and its ability to deal with issues affecting the livelihoods of millions from the poorest countries.”
‘Too many cooks spoil the broth’
Meanwhile, Mugabe’s ruling party in Zimbabwe on Sunday reacted angrily to a resolution passed by African lawmakers last week to send a delegation to probe rights abuses in the country.
Joram Gumbo, a Zanu-PF delegate to the Pan-African Parliament in South Africa, said he and other ruling party delegates had tried but failed to block a resolution passed on Friday to send a fact-finding mission to Zimbabwe.
But he dismissed the body as just a noise-making organisation and said Harare still had the power to prevent it from coming to the country.
”We tried our best [to block the motion] but there were many odds against us,” Gumbo said in comments carried by the Sunday Mail, a government mouthpiece.
”Long before we arrived here [in South Africa], the [opposition] MDC had already sent its team to lobby against the government,” said Gumbo, who is also the ruling party’s chief whip in the 150-seat lower house of assembly.
The Pan-African Parliament, a largely ceremonial institution, voted on Friday by 149 to 20 to send a fact-finding team to Zimbabwe to probe recent rights abuses by the police and state agents.
But Gumbo said the members of Parliament would not necessarily be welcomed by Harare.
”Zimbabwe could still block the mission if it so wishes as the [Pan-African] Parliament will have to write a letter to the government informing it of the intention to visit,” the paper reported him as saying.
Zimbabwe has been under intense international scrutiny since March 11, when police arrested and severely assaulted dozens of opposition activists and leaders while in custody.
The MDC said at least 600 of its members were abducted and tortured between February and April.
The ruling party’s Gumbo said he and others who opposed Friday’s motion to send the delegation did so on the basis that the regional SADC bloc recently appointed President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa to mediate in Zimbabwe’s political crisis.
A visit by the parliamentary delegation might disrupt his work, he said. ”Our position is that too many cooks spoil the broth,” Gumbo was quoted as saying. – Sapa-DPA, Guardian