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Britain vows to push for action
12/07/2008 19:34 - (SA)
London - Britain pledged on Saturday to return to the UN Security Council over Zimbabwe if there is no quick end to violence after a bid to pass sanctions against Robert Mugabe was vetoed by Russia and China.
"We will continue to stand firmly for human rights and democracy and will return to the Security Council in the absence of early progress on mediation, humanitarian access and an end to violence," a spokesperson for Prime Minister Gordon Brown said in a statement.
"Those who stood in its (the resolution's) way must now take responsibility for the failure of the Security Council to act."
The spokesperson, speaking on customary condition of anonymity, added Brown would discuss other options with EU partners like French President Nicolas Sarkozy and European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso next week.
Possible further measures include expanding the EU travel ban list and taking steps against companies owned by people on the list, the spokesperson said.
Brown will also ask UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to send his special envoy urgently to Zimbabwe, he added.
Earlier, Foreign Secretary David Miliband denied that the failed bid to pass targeted UN sanctions against Mugabe was a miscalculation.
"I don't accept that it was ill-judged," he told BBC radio.
"It is right that in the end people have to show their cards and the vote yesterday showed that, in the end, the Russians and the Chinese - I wouldn't quite say put two fingers up - but effectively they blocked action.
"The Russians and the Chinese were briefing in all sorts of directions. You have to get people to front up because in the end there was hiding going on behind the nods and the winks."
On Friday, Miliband said he was "very disappointed" by the result.
Britain, the former colonial power in Zimbabwe, has been vocal in criticising Mugabe and his ruling Zanu-PF party over last month's presidential elections, amid claims of rigging and violence against opposition supporters.
- AFP
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