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Last Updated: Jul 15, 2008 - 11:33:20 AM |
Moscow and Beijing used their vetoes Friday in the United Nations
Security Council to derail an arms embargo and financial and travel
restrictions on President Robert Mugabe and his inner circle.
Mugabe -- who has ruled Zimbabwe since its independence in 1980 -- won
an uncontested second round of elections on June 27. Between the two
rounds, he initiated a campaign of intimidation in which dozens of
opposition supporters were killed.
Washington and London attacked Moscow over its veto, claiming that it
undermined Moscow's credibility as a Group of Eight partner. In an
unusually harsh statement, the U.S. ambassador to the UN, Zalmay
Khalilzad, accused Medvedev of breaking a promise made at a G8 summit
earlier in the week and of "standing with Mugabe against the people of
Zimbabwe."
"The U-turn in the Russian position is particularly surprising and
disturbing ... [and] raises questions about its reliability as a G8
partner," Khalilzad said.
British Foreign Secretary David Miliband echoed Khalilzad's remarks.
At the summit last Tuesday, Medvedev had supported a G8 decision to
impose "financial and other measures" against Zimbabwean officials
responsible for the violence. He only signed onto the declaration after
much hesitancy, and he told reporters that the measures might not be
sanctions.
Russia fired back by noting that the G8 declaration did not mention any
UN sanctions, so Medvedev could not be accused of backtracking.
Indeed, Medvedev could not have possibly supported the idea of the UN
Security Council imposing sanctions over elections in Zimbabwe or any
other country. Declaring UN sanctions over elections would set a
precedent that Moscow has no desire to see established, given its own
record in conducting elections, not to mention the record of its allies.
Zimbabwe might not be a key ally of Russia's, but Russia would face a
far tougher problem if Western democracies decided at some point to
impose sanctions over elections in a country where Russia's interests
are much more formidable, such as Turkmenistan or Uzbekistan, both
ruled by authoritarian leaders.
Therefore, Russia will not support a precedent as long as it continues
to pursue its own model of a "sovereign democracy," where there is no
real competition in national elections. Whether such a state should
belong to a club such as the G8, whose members are not only wealthy but
also share democratic values, is an open question.
Hopefully, Russia will eventually abandon this model and pursue real
democratic change.
Source:Ocnus.net 2008
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