Of Mugabe, Gukurahundi, UN veto and North Korea missile defiance
By Patrick Guramatunhu
Last week President Mugabe threatened the UN Secretary General saying that Africa will walk out en mass if the African Union’s demand for two permanent seats on the UN Security Council complete with veto powers are not met.
“Mr Ban Ki Moon, just tell them (West) for the last time that there should be real equality in the Security Council. We cannot just come to the General Assembly to make empty and hollow speeches and go back home and nobody takes care of all the concerns we have expressed. No!” dictated President Mugabe.
Most of the world’s leading media gave President Mugabe’s speech fair coverage. His “empty and hollow speeches”, his words not mine, have always provided a comical moment for many listeners.
If at all Secretary General, Ban Ki Moon had intended to even mention President Mugabe’s demand in his report, events on the Korea peninsular a few days later must have forced him to delete any reference to the demand.
North Korean has just launched a spacecraft with 12 000 km reach carrying a pay load of 800kg against UN Security Council resolutions banning such activities. The same craft can be used to deliver a nuclear or hydrogen bomb to Japan and South Korea beyond to mainland USA.
A month ago North Korea tested its hydrogen bomb, again, in complete defiance of the UN resolution.
Secretary Ban Ki Moon rushed back to New York to attend an emergency UN Security Council meeting on Sunday to discuss the latest developments. Secretary Moon is a South Korean national and he is only too familiar with the never ending antics of North Korea, the neighbour from hell, ever since the split of Korea in 1945.
The presence of China, North Korea’s friend and backer, on the UN Security Council, one of the five permanent members with a veto, has made it impossible for the world body to stop North Korea doing as she damn well pleased.
North Korea does not have many other friends around the world but it would be correct to say it counts Zimbabwe as one of its friends.
Many of Mugabe’s freedom fighters received their military training in North Korea the most well know unit being the Fifth Brigade, behind the Gukurahundi Massacres. This brigade was responsible for most of the serious human rights violations and murders against mostly Joshua Nkomo’s PF Zapu supporters. The crushing of PF Zapu cleared the way for Mugabe to launch his de facto one-man dictatorship, a copy-cat of North Korea.
The thought of a Robert Mugabe type tyrant being granted a permanent seat complete with a veto must have occurred in Secretary Ban Ki Moon’s mind and it must have sent a cold chill down his spine!
As UN Secretary General he must have known many frustrating days as North Korea continued building on its nuclear bomb capabilities and threaten South Korea and many other nations with total annihilation.
The UN could not do anything to stop this rogue because China vetoed all decisive action proposed by the Security Council. How much worse the situation would be if rogue States like North Korea had even more friends in the Security Council with vetoes!
