A draft resolution to impose sanctions on Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and a number of his key allies has been vetoed at the UN Security Council
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Foreign Secretary David Miliband last night branded as "incomprehensible" the rejection of international sanctions against Zimbabwe at the United Nations Security Council.
Mr Miliband said he was "very disappointed" after a draft resolution t
o impose an arms embargo on Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and 13 of his key allies was rejected by Russia and China.
The proposed measures included a freeze on their financial assets and travel.
Despite growing international criticism of Zimbabwe since the re-election of Mr Mugabe in a run-off boycotted by the opposition, Russia's ambassador Vitaly Churkin said sanctions would have taken the UN beyond its mandate.
But Mr Miliband said people in the beleaguered African state would find the result of the vote in the United Nations Security Council "incomprehensible".
He said: "I am very disappointed that the UN Security Council should have failed to pass a strong and clear resolution on Zimbabwe.
"In particular, it will appear incomprehensible to the people of Zimbabwe that Russia, which committed itself at the G8 only a few days ago to take further steps including introducing financial and other sanctions, should today stand in the way of timely and decisive security council action.
"Nor will they understand the Chinese vote."
Sir John Sawers, the UK ambassador to the UN, also condemned the result and said after the vote that the UN had failed in its duty.
"The people of Zimbabwe need to be given hope that there is an end in sight to their suffering," he said.
"The Security Council today has failed to offer them that hope."
He added: "We view their decisions as deeply damaging to the long-term interests of Zimbabwe's people.
"It has, in our view, harmed the prospects for bringing to an early end the violence and the oppression in Zimbabwe."
Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman Edward Davey denounced the "cynical" behaviour of Moscow and Beijing.
"The real losers at the UN are the oppressed people of Zimbabwe," he said.
"It is Mugabe and his thugs who are celebrating these cynical vetoes.
"China and Russia have done themselves serious damage which only compounds their own poor records on human rights."
The vote is a particular blow for Gordon Brown, who thought he had gained sufficient backing for a security council resolution imposing sanctions at this week's G8 summit in Japan, attended by both Russia and China.
Western powers mustered nine votes, the minimum needed to gain approval in the 15-nation United Nations Security Council.
But the resolution failed because of the action by Russia and China, two of the five veto-wielding members.
The other three members with veto power, the US, Britain and France, argued sanctions were needed to respond to the violence and intimidation linked to Zimbabwe's recent, widely discredited presidential election.
However, African nations have voiced concerns that harsh punishment of Mugabe could derail a political solution and push Zimbabwe's economy deeper into crisis.
Wilf Mbanga - Russia and China have let us down – but I blame South AfricaWE HAVE been let down badly by Russia and China.
But I blame South Africa's president, Thabo Mbeki, for this. Somehow he is getting support to shield Mugabe from international censure.
He is the one who swung the vote at the Sharm-El-Sheikh summit last week, when the African Union did not ostracise President Mugabe but instead called on him and the Movement for Democratic Change to enter talks to establish a government of national unity.
In so doing, they implicitly confirmed his legitimacy as the head of state. This allows Russia to listen when Mbeki resolutely asserts that there is no crisis in Zimbabwe. And the world goes along with it even though Mbeki's own party, the African National Congress, is distancing itself from his position.
It makes a mockery of his eight years of "quiet diplomacy" in Zimbabwe on behalf of the African Union and the Southern African Development Community.
The Russian and Chinese governments should be siding with the people of Zimbabwe rather than a dictator.
This compliance will allow Mugabe to continue murdering people with impunity and the world will just wring its hands and say "we tried".
In the same way, it will allow Mugabe to portray the situation as a bilateral problem between Zimbabwe and Britain, but it is nothing to do with that.
People are suffering at the hands of the Mugabe regime.
Now the beatings and murders will continue on a daily basis.
People are being tortured while the world is trying to say this is unacceptable behaviour.
We print the Zimbabwe in South Africa before getting the papers to Zimbabwe each week, but the Mugabe regime physically attacks us.
Soldiers set our truck on fire three weeks ago, with 60,000 copies in it. They beat up the driver very badly.
They try to cripple us financially, by imposing a 20 per cent duty on us. For June alone, we had to pay £37,000 in tax.
There must be more diplomatic pressure. The European Union must take unilateral action – they do not have to wait until they get permission from the UN.
Mugabe has to be stopped, the world cannot just watch this happening.
What does it take before he is removed? Half a million people murdered?
The generals have promised Mugabe they will annihilate all the leaders of Morgan Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change by the end of this year.
Are we waiting for that to happen? Do we wait until they are all dead, or stop him now?
• Wilf Mbanga is editor of the Zimbabwean newspaper. He is based in the UK.
The full article contains 968 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
