On Friday a UN Security Council draft resolution to impose sanctions on Zimbabwe was vetoed by both China and Russia. Zimbabwe’s information minister described the resolution as a Western plot and has welcomed its rejection.

UK Ambassador to the UN said the Security Council has failed the people of Zimbabwe.

However, reacting to the veto, Herman Hanekom,  independent analyst of contemporary Africa said it was Russia and China that failed.

“I don’t think the Security Council as such failed. What failed was Russia which cannot really speak of a good human rights record, then there’s China which also failed…”

On South Africa he said: “I would say that if there’s a God, and that God gave Robert Mugabe, “Comrade Mugabe” a guardian angel, then he’s called Thabo Mbeki.”

Hanekom said that the argument by Russia and China that the situation in Zimbabwe did not threaten international security, was “water tight, but unfortunately the water is highly polluted.” “ First of all, the United nations has universal declaration of human rights – it has not been honored in Zimbabwe, so as far as China and Russia is concerned, who cares about human rights?”

He said the world did not have to wait for Zimbabwe to invade a neighboring country to say there’s threat to world peace. “Is the starting point not violation, domestically, of human rights, or to put it bluntly, as observed in Zimbabwe in the past three months, the total rape of human rights?” he asked.

On the notion that the sanctions would have put pressure on the government of Zimbabwe to engage in negotiation efforts to form a government of national unity, Hanekom said: “First of all there are dreams and there are nightmares – a government of national unity in Zimbabwe under the present circumstances is a nightmare, it will not materialize.”