(CNSNews.com) – An unusually acrimonious row has erupted over Russia’s decision to use its U.N. Security Council veto to block sanctions against the Zimbabwe government. The U.S. and Britain accused Russian President Dmitry Medvedev of reversing his position.
At the G8 summit in Japan last week, Russia signed onto a strong-worded leaders’
statement that disputed the legitimacy of President Robert Mugabe’s late June re-election victory and urged regional and international bodies to work towards a negotiated settlement to the crisis.
The text concluded with the words, “We will take further steps, inter alia introducing financial and other measures against those individuals responsible for violence.”
Three days later, Russia and China vetoed a draft U.S.-sponsored resolution calling for financial and travel restrictions on Mugabe and 13 other top officials as well as an arms embargo.
Although three non-permanent members of the council – South Africa, Libya and Vietnam – also voted against the move, the resolution obtained sufficient support (nine votes) to have passed -- if the two permanent members had not used their veto.
Zimbabwe described the outcome as a victory over racism and meddling.
Opponents of the resolution argued that as an internal political dispute, the situation in Zimbabwe did not meet the criterion – a threat to regional or international peace and security – for Security Council action.
Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said Zimbabwe’s problems “cannot be resolved by artificially elevating them to the degree of a threat to international peace and security,” and called the resolution an “attempt to interfere into the internal affairs of a state.”
U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad disputed the argument, noting that senior U.N. and African Union officials had warned that the situation was threatening stability in the wider southern African region.
The U.S. and Britain set aside diplomatic niceties in their response to the veto decision.
“It will appear incomprehensible to the people of Zimbabwe that Russia, which committed itself at the G8 only a few days ago to take further steps including introducing financial and other sanctions, should stand in the way of timely and decisive security council action,” British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said in a statement.
“Nor will they understand the Chinese vote,” he added.
Khalilzad was equally blunt, describing the Russian move as a “U-turn” that was “particularly surprising and disturbing,” and one that “raises questions about its reliability as a G8 partner.”
Both Russia and China, he charged, had “stood with Mugabe against the people of Zimbabwe.”
Although the threat of veto is often wielded in the Security Council, with considerable success, its actual use is relatively rare. Friday’s use of the blocking measure was only Beijing’s seventh since communist China joined the council in 1971 and the fifth time for Russia since the fall of the Soviet Union two decades later.
The last time the two used their veto was in January 2007, when they blocked a resolution that would have called on Burma's military junta to stop persecuting political opponents. That occasion was the first time the two had joined in a veto since 1972.
One of the concerns raised by Churkin, the Russian envoy, prior to Friday’s vote was the possibility of setting a precedent regarding an election outcome. The council, he said, should not “enter into the whole realm of mediating elections, or passing judgment on elections.”
Medvedev’s own election, last March, was ridiculed by opposition parties as a farce, with former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev charging that the poll was legislative elections held in the twilight years of the Soviet Union had been more open and democratic.
U.S. Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, has for years called for Russia to be dropped from the G8 because of policies seen as detrimental to democracy. His Democratic rival, Sen. Barack Obama, said in a CNN interview aired Sunday that he opposes excluding Russia from the group.
‘Uninformed’
In Russia, media coverage immediately following the Hokkaido summit painted Medvedev’s G8 debut as a success.
But at the weekend, the focus shifted to the row over the veto, with the Kommersant daily calling the criticism of Medvedev’s supposed reversal an “unprecedented scandal.”
Russian foreign ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko called the U.S. and British statements “unacceptable.” He said the critics, at best, were “entirely uninformed” about the discussions among the G8 leaders and, at worst, were “deliberately distorting the facts.”
Asked during a July 9 press conference in Japan whether the G8 leaders’ statement on Zimbabwe released the previous day meant Russia would back a Security Council resolution on sanctions, Medvedev did not answer directly.
He said the statement “voices our concern … [and] gives recommendations on how the world community should react to these processes.”
“But so far there are no concrete decisions as to how the United Nations should proceed in this case and whether special further decisions are necessary,” he added.
China’s use of the veto comes less than a month before Beijing hosts the Olympic Games. The months leading up to the games have been marked by widespread criticism of its human rights record at home and support for repressive regimes abroad.
China’s ties with Zimbabwe were spotlighted last April when trade unionists in South Africa prevented a Chinese weapons shipment destined for its landlocked neighbor from being offloaded.
In Beijing, Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao at the weekend said pursuing dialogue and negotiation was “the only correct path” to resolving the Zimbabwe crisis, and that China vetoed the sanctions resolution because it would have jeopardized talks between the government and opposition.
The road ahead
Zimbabwe’s opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leader Morgan Tsvangirai won a first round in the presidential election but without achieving the 50 percent of the vote required to avoid a run-off. Tsvangirai later pulled out of the June 27 run off, citing state-sponsored violence and intimidation against his supporters.
Mugabe ran unopposed, claimed victory and was sworn in for a sixth term.
For the first time since the election, representatives of the government and MDC held preliminary talks late last week but the opposition said afterwards they had failed to agree on a framework for resolving the dispute.
With the Security Council resolution now dead, Khalilzad said the U.S. would continue to work with other council members to monitor the situation in Zimbabwe and urge U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to appoint a special representative.
Downing Street said Prime Minister Gordon Brown would now press the European Union to impose new sanctions on the Zimbabwe government, including tightening travel bans on Mugabe. Brown raised the issue with European leaders on Sunday.
Last December, Brown skipped a summit of E.U. and African leaders in Portugal, because Mugabe participated.
The host nation, which at the time held the E.U.’s revolving presidency, allowed the Zimbabwean leader to attend after southern African countries said they would not take part unless he was invited.