Allow me to extend to you,
Sir, our sincere congratulations on your assumption of
the presidency of the sixtieth session of the General
Assembly and to express our confidence in your ability
05-51226 5
to guide our work throughout the session. In the same
breath, let me also express our appreciation to your
predecessor, Mr. Jean Ping, for managing successfully
the very difficult business of the fifty-ninth session.
Although we began our last session with a
weighty agenda, we were able to reach general
agreement on a number of important issues in the area
of development. We are yet to agree on other pressing
issues, such as the reform of the Security Council and
the composition of a new Human Rights Council.
For many years we have spoken in favour of an
approach to international peace and security that is
firmly rooted in the principle of multilateralism and the
provisions of the Charter of the United Nations. We
maintain that any diversion from this approach is
unacceptable, undesirable and devoid of legal
justification. We are pleased to note that the majority
of views expressed during the last session reinforced
that principle.
Our expectation is that the Security Council in its
current form, or in whatever character and composition
it will eventually take, will, like all other bodies of the
United Nations, limit itself to what is contained in its
mandate. We do not subscribe to the suggestion that all
problems — social, cultural, economic and health,
among others — are necessarily threats to international
peace and security and should therefore be referred to
the Security Council.
Recently we witnessed the United Kingdom
abusing its privilege and acting dishonestly as a
member of the Council by seeking to score cheap
political points in its bilateral dispute with us. We were
dragged on to the Council’s agenda over an issue that
has no relevance to the maintenance of international
peace and security. Let me pay tribute to those
members of the Security Council who saw through this
cheap politicking and manipulation of procedures —
which the same country, by the way, has vowed to
resume as soon as the Council is appropriately chaired.
It is my hope that other Member countries will join us
in rejecting this neocolonialist attempt and blatant
interference in the internal affairs of Zimbabwe. But
then, is it not obvious, that Britain under the regime of
Tony Blair has ceased to respect the Charter of the
United Nations? Witness its being a principal member
of the illegal anti-Iraq coalition that went on a
devastating campaign in that country in complete
defiance of the United Nations Charter. Any State or
group of States that commits such an act of aggression
on another, justifying it on blatant falsehoods, surely
becomes guilty of State terrorism.
Zimbabwe is a country at peace with itself and
with its neighbours and offers absolutely no threat to
international peace and security. Is it not therefore
surprising that Britain and its Anglo-Saxon allies have
embarked on a vicious campaign of first peddling
blatant lies intended to tarnish it and then appealing to
Europe and America for sanctions against it?
Those imperialist countries have unashamedly
abused the power of the media by hypocritically
portraying themselves as philanthropists and
international saviours of victims of various calamities.
Yet they have remained silent about the shocking
circumstances of obvious State neglect surrounding the
tragic Gulf coast disaster, where a whole community of
mainly non-whites was deliberately abandoned to the
ravages of Hurricane Katrina as sacrificial lambs, and
sacrificed to which god one cannot tell. Most of the
victims were blacks. And we are bound to ask what
transgressions we, the blacks of this world, have
committed? Was it not enough punishment and
suffering in history that we were uprooted and made
helpless slaves, not only in new colonial outposts but
also domestically at home, through a vicious system of
colonialism that made us landless, propertyless and
mere slaves and serfs in our own lands?
Must we again in this day of humanitarian ethics,
this day of the sacred principles of the equality of
mankind and the rights of men and women, this day
that has seen us assemble here to save, enhance and
prolong life, become victims of callous racial neglect?
We of Africa protest that in this day and age we should
continue to be treated as lesser human beings than
other races.
We reiterate our deep sympathies and
condolences over the massive loss of life that occurred
in the Hurricane Katrina disaster. If, as we are told,
many who survived the wrath of Hurricane Katrina are
still dispersed, the question we ask ourselves is where
they are and for how long will they remain where they
are. We ask further whether they will ever get back,
truly rehabilitated, to their original homes — properly
rehabilitated also, homes which at present are mere
wreckages. Where, I ask, are the Zimbabwe-famous
United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-
HABITAT) and the Commission on Human Rights?
6 05-51226
Why should they maintain an ominous silence? For
here is real homeless work for HABITAT and the
Commission on Human Rights. This indeed is where
they rightly belong and not anywhere in Zimbabwe. We
do not need them there.
With reference to the vexatious issue of the
reform of the Security Council, we have made our
views known through the African Union. We seek fair
and equal treatment as partners in this community of
nations and pledge our commitment to work with
others in pursuit of that objective.
The promotion of human rights is one of the
major aims of the United Nations as enshrined in its
Charter. As such, the subject rightly occupies space on
the agenda of each session of the General Assembly,
including this one. We believe that the United Nations
should make every effort to promote and protect the
full enjoyment of human rights, including the right to
development. Regrettably, we have seen over the years
a deliberate tendency to create a distorted hierarchy of
rights, with the sole mischievous purpose of
overplaying civil and political rights while
downplaying economic, social and cultural rights. That
explains why the whole human rights agenda, instead
of being a cooperative exercise, has degenerated into a
Western-managed kangaroo court, always looking out
for “criminals”, as they call them, among developing
countries. Hence, we continue to argue that the human
rights discourse needs to be rid of selectivity and
double standards and to be approached without hidden
political agendas.
The African Union has indicated its support for
the establishment of a Human Rights Council that will
be subordinated to the General Assembly. Zimbabwe
subscribes fully to that position. We believe, however,
that a correctly sized and properly structured Council,
with equitable geographical representation, will be a
major step in addressing the deficiencies of the current
Commission on Human Rights.
At the beginning of the last session (see
A/59/PV.5) I informed the Assembly that despite the
recurrent droughts that we had experienced, Zimbabwe
had the capacity to cope with its situation of hunger
and was thus not appealing for humanitarian
intervention. In spite of that message, our detractors
and ill-wishers have been projecting a false picture of
mass starvation. There has been none of that. Recently,
particularly in the aftermath of our urban clean-up
operation, popularly known at home as Operation
Murambatsvina, or Operation Restore Order, the
familiar noises re-echoed from the same malicious
prophets of doom claiming that there was a
humanitarian crisis in Zimbabwe. Those unfounded
alarms are aimed at deliberately tarnishing the image
of Zimbabwe and projecting it as a failed State. We
find it strange and obviously anomalous that the
Government of Zimbabwe should be maligned and
condemned for restoring order and the rule of law in its
municipal areas. Our detractors fail to acknowledge
that Operation Restore Order soon gave way to a well-
planned, vast reconstruction programme through which
properly planned accommodation, factory shells and
vending stalls are being constructed in many areas of
the country for our people. We have rejected the
scandalous demand, as expressed in Special Envoy
Anna Tibaijuka’s report, that we lower our urban
housing standards to allow for mud huts, bush latrines
and pit toilets as suitable for our urban people and for
Africans generally. Nothing can be more insulting and
degrading of a people than that. Surely we do not need
development in reverse.
Let me conclude by making my message to our
detractors very simple and clear. The people of
Zimbabwe came through a protracted guerrilla struggle
to establish themselves as a free — I emphasize
“free” — and sovereign nation. We indeed went
through long and bitter times to get our freedom and
independence, and to be where we are today. We
cherish that hard-won freedom and independence, and
no amount of coercion, political, economic or
otherwise, will make us a colony again. But we also
cherish peace and development and good regional and
international relations. Together with all other nations
of good will, we will continue to work tirelessly for a
just, peaceful and prosperous world.