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Zimbabwe to chair major UN body
 Zimbabwe has been elected to head the UN's commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) despite strong objections from Western diplomats. We're talking audible eye-rolling. They had said Zimbabwe was unsuitable because of its human rights record and economic problems. It is suffering food shortages and rampant inflation. Not to mention the fact that Zim hasn't been able to develop anything since Bob took over, much less sustain it. But Zimbabwe has dismissed such criticism, calling it an insult. "We're just so insulted!" "Ah, go sustain something!" The country was chosen by other African nations. Really? Who'da guessed that? The CSD post rotates every year between the world's regions. I'm waiting to see who gets voted in when it's Antarctica's turn. Zimbabwe was elected to lead the commission by a 26-21 secret ballot among CSD members at the UN headquarters in New York. There were also three abstentions. There was a brief round of applause as the result was announced. "Hurray! Zim's gonna sustain the UN's development into a laughingstock!" Developing nations appear to have voted for Zimbabwe, the BBC's Laura Trevelyan in New York says. They respected the decision of the African group to nominate the country for the post in the first place, and they have shown they cannot be pushed around, our correspondent says. "Yeah! Ain't nobuddy pushes us around!" "That's how we can tell you're impoverished, weak, ineffectual, and 'developing.' Only civilized countries get pushed around anymore." Zimbabwe's Environment Minister Francis Nheme will now become chairman of the CSD. Luckily the body doesn't actually produce anything except salaries for its staff. Mr Nheme is the subject of European Union travel ban because he is a member of President Robert Mugabe's government. That means he cannot travel to the EU to meet ministers on commission business. Guess he's gonna have to teleconference, huh? Zimbabwe's Ambassador to the UN, Boniface Chidyausiku, said before the vote that his country was entitled to hold the chairmanship. "It's our right. "Yeah! It's our Legitimate Right™!" We're members of the United Nations and we're members of CSD, and the Africa group did make a decision and endorsed Zimbabwe," he told the BBC's Network Africa programme. He said the real objection came down to Britain's criticism of Zimbabwe's controversial land reform programme. That and the fact that Zim's actually becoming undeveloped, and maybe sustainably so. Zimbabwe was once a prosperous food exporter, but production has plummeted since land reforms in 2000 that saw thousands of white-owned farms seized. "We see it as a translation of a bilateral quarrel between London and Harare on the land reform programme," Mr Chidyausiku said. The rest of the world sees it as the loons taking over the administration of the cackle factory. He said the European countries should respect the decision of the African block. "When they tell the African group to change, it's an insult to our intelligence - that we Africans can't think," he said. Posted by: Fred 2007-05-13 |
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