The UN Security Council was expected to vote late yesterday on targeted UN sanctions on Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and 13 of his cronies over a presidential election widely viewed as illegitimate, diplomats said on Wednesday.
US Ambassador to the UN Zalmay Khalilzad, who on Tuesday said he was confident his sanctions draft resolution had the necessary votes in the 15 member council to ensure passage, said on Wednesday the vote could occur “at any time.”
Vietnamese Ambassador to the UN Le Luong Minh, who is the council chair this month, told reporters that the sponsors requested a vote on Wednesday but that other delegations had requested more time.
The US draft provides for an assets freeze and a travel ban on Mugabe and 13 cronies as well as an arms embargo on the Harare regime in protest at the June 27 one-man presidential runoff won by Mugabe but seen by the UN as “flawed” and lacking legitimacy.
Khalilzad said on Tuesday he believed he had the nine votes needed for passage provided there was no veto from any of the five permanent members — Britain, China, France, Russia and the US. He said he did not anticipate a veto.
South Africa, the lead mediator in Zimbabwe’s election crisis on behalf of the 14-nation Southern African Development Community, opposes sanctions, arguing that they would “complicate the situation.”
Russia, China, Vietnam, Libya and Indonesia have also raised objections.
The US draft would also demand that the Harare government “begin without delay a substantive dialogue between the parties with the aim of arriving at a peaceful solution that reflects the will of the Zimbabwean people as expressed by the March 29 [first-round presidential] elections.”
The opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), won the first round but fell short of a majority. He pulled out of the run-off, citing a campaign of violence and intimidation.
Meanwhile, the MDC said yesterday that the death toll in post-election violence has risen from 103 to 110.
The latest victim was a 70-year-old woman, who was beaten and thrown onto a cooking fire almost a month ago in the northern nickel-mining town of Bindura, the MDC said in an e-mailed statement. The woman, who wasn’t identified, “died from terrible burns to her body,” the party said, adding that she was a known opposition activist.
Police spokesman Wayne Bvudzijena, however, said he had received no reports of a woman being burned to death in Bindura.
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