Morgan Tsvangirai - Robert Mugabe - sanctions - UN - vote - Zimbabwe

UN sanctions against Mugabe's regime halted

Friday 11 July 2008

China and Russia have vetoed a draft UN Security Council resolution aiming to impose targeted sanctions on Zimbabwe over President Robert Mugabe's disputed re-election.

China and Russia on Friday vetoed a US draft resolution in the UN Security Council that would have slapped targeted sanctions on Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe over his disputed re-election.
   
China and Russia joined South Africa, Libya and Vietnam in opposing the draft which would have imposed an assets freeze and a travel ban on Mugabe and 13 of his cronies, as well as an arms embargo. Indonesia abstained.
   
Voting in favor were the United States, Britain, France, Burkina Faso, Belgium, Costa Rica, Italy, Panama and Croatia.
   
Opponents argued that passage of the text would undermine ongoing South African-mediated negotiations between Zimbabwe's ruling party and its opposition and would have run counter to the wishes of African Union leaders at their summit in Egypt earlier this month.
   
They also said Zimbabwe's political crisis did not amount to a threat to regional or international peace and security and said adopting the sanctions would have amounted to interference in the domestic affairs of a sovereign state.
   
The vote came as Zimbabwe's ZANU-PF ruling party and opposition Movement for Democratic Change held a second day of talks in South Africa.
   
The talks, aimed at laying the groundwork for fully fledged negotiations to resolve Zimbabwe's political crisis, were the first since Mugabe won a new term as president in a June 27 poll widely denounced as a sham.