Johannesburg
- Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe blasted
South
Africa and Nigeria at the African Union summit this weekend,
saying Africa would never agree to them
getting permanent seats
on the UN
Security Council.
This was
because they had both voted for UN Security Council Resolution
1973 in 2011, which authorised military action
against the regime of Libyan
dictator Muammar Gaddafi.
They had
betrayed the continent which could never trust them, sources
reported
him as saying.
Mugabe
intervened in a meeting of the so-called “Committee of 10” at the
summit on Saturday which was discussing
possible amendments to the
“Ezulwini
Consensus” which stated Africa’s position on reform of the UN
Security
Council. The 2005 Ezulwini Consensus was that Africa should
demand at
least two permanent and five non-permanent seats on the
council
as part of the protracted, wider reform to make it more representative
of the world.
The
consensus also demanded that the two permanent seats should come
with the same veto powers as were enjoyed by
the five current permanent
members,
the US, UK, China, Russia and France.
This
demand for vetoes had effectively stymied Africa’s chances of reforming
the council. And so the South African
government was calling for Africa to
adopt a more flexible approach by dropping the
veto demand.
This was
what the so-called G4 group of nations - Germany, Japan, India and
Brazil - who were also seeking permanent seats
on the council had done,
as a
tactical manoeuvre to try to diminish resistance to their bid.
Last year
South African President Jacob Zuma said: “Africa needs to compromise
- not reiterate fixed positions as it has done
for the past nine years.”
And he
organised a retreat of African Foreign Ministers in February 2014 to
review the Ezulwini Consensus.
South
Africa also intended to raise it in the Committee of 10 meeting here
on
Saturday. The Committee of 10 was appointed by the AU many years ago
to pursue
the UN Security Council reform.
But one
regional official who was in the meeting said he believed that
Mugabe’s
attack on South Africa and Nigeria had seriously damaged
South Africa’s case for reviewing the Ezulwini
Consensus.
The
official said Mugabe had not mentioned the two countries by name.
But it
was clear to all in the room who he was referring to as he referred to
African
governments who had been on the UN Security Council when Resolution
1973 on
Libya was adopted in 2011.
South
Africa and Nigeria were both on the council at the time, occupying two
of the ten, non-permanent, two-year seats.
South Africa’s vote for Resolution
1973 was
highly controversial even within South Africa.
But the
South African government justified it on the grounds that a foreign
military
intervention was necessary to prevent Gaddafi’s forces slaughtering
his
opponents in their Benghazi stronghold, as he threatened to do.
Pretoria
later condemned the Nato-led military coalition for going beyond the
mandate
which was to protect civilians, by helping rebels overthrow Gaddafi.
But South
Africa suspects that countries like Zimbabwe are avoiding review
of the Ezulwini Consensus and insisting on a
hardline, maximalist position
on UN
Security Council reform because they don’t want bigger African
countries
like South Africa and Nigeria to get
permanent seats on the council.
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