Zimbabwean leader urges ‘revitalized’ UN General Assembly

To counter the influence of strong countries, the United Nations General Assembly must be reinvigorated and become more active in all areas, including peace and security, Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe said today.

“We are for a United Nations that recognizes the equality of sovereign nations and peoples whether big or small,” Mr. Mugabe told the annual high-level debate at UN Headquarters in New York. “We are averse to a body in which the economically and militarily powerful behave like bullies, trampling on the rights of weak and smaller States, as sadly happened in Iraq.”

The challenges posed by such nations can be offset by the revitalization of the GA, “itself the most representative organ of the UN,” he stated.

The President expressed frustration over what he said were the undemocratic tendencies of the Security Council due to the sway held by powerful nations.

“In its present configuration, the Council has shown that it is not in a position to protect the weaker States who find themselves at loggerheads with a marauding super-power,” he noted, calling attention to the fact that Africa is the only continent not represented in the 15-member body.

Calling on the UN system to desist from breaching the autonomy of Member States, the President stressed that national-level development efforts must be directed by countries themselves and “not subject to the whims of powerful donor states.”

Mr. Mugabe also pointed the finger at Western nations for violating his country’s sovereignty through its domination of Zimbabwe’s resources, “in the process making us mere chattels in our own lands, mere minders of its transnational interests.”

Criticizing United States President George W. Bush and former Prime Minister Tony Blair for their “misadventures in Iraq,” the Zimbabwean leader said that this action was taken without the consent of the UN.

“The two rode roughshod over the UN and international opinion,” he declared, calling for withdrawal from Iraq.

To address its own problems, Zimbabwe can rely on African regional and continental organizations, without interference from “outsiders and mischievous outsiders.”