Zimbabwe’s state media accused former colonial power Britain and the US yesterday of seeking a UN resolution authorizing military action to oust Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe.
The Herald daily, a mouthpiece for Mugabe’s ruling ZANU-PF party, said ambassadors for Britain and the US had been “frantically trying to get Zimbabwe on the agenda” of Wednesday’s high-level UN meeting.
“The move is calculated for the UN Security Council to pass a resolution and provide a basis for the US and Britain to use military intervention to topple President Mugabe,” it said.
The Zimbabwe crisis was set to overshadow Wednesday’s talks in the Security Council on closer security cooperation between the UN and the African Union.
Officially, the delayed results of Zimbabwe’s March 29 presidential election are not on the agenda of the meeting, but Western diplomats and UN chief Ban Ki-moon have served notice that they will definitely focus on the issue.
The state media was particularly scathing of former ruler Britain and its prime minister Gordon Brown.
“Zimbabwe became independent in 1980 and is no longer a colony of Britain and will never become one,” Zimbabwe’s ambassador to the UN Boniface Chidyausiku said in a state television interview.
“They are trying to fly a kite, which we will not fly. What they are trying to do is Brown is coming and instead of focusing on the agenda, he is likely going to digress and ask about the presidential election results,” he said.
“He will forget that there is a due process in Zimbabwe and that the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission is a constitutional body which is independent,” Chidyausiku said.
The commission is still to announce the result of the presidential election 18 days after the poll. Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai claims he won outright but the ruling party insists a run-off against Mugabe will be required.
“I am appalled by the signs that the regime is once again resorting to intimidation and violence,” Brown said in a statement on Friday, warning that the patience of the international community “is wearing thin.”
Mugabe has hardly spoken in public since the election, but responded to Brown after meeting South African President Thabo Mbeki on Saturday in Harare.
“If Brown is the world, sure the world is losing patience, but I know Brown to be a little tiny dot on this world,” Mugabe told reporters.
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