Zimbabwe pulls out of UN Rights Council

Zimbabwe pulls out of UN Rights Council

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By Lebo Nkatazo

THE Zimbabwean government is set to pull out from the United Nations Human Rights Council to avert a potentially embarrassing defeat ahead of voting for the 47-member organ next Tuesday, sources said Tuesday.

Zimbabwe was a member of UN Human Rights Commission which included countries currently facing international censure for human rights abuses. Other members of the Commission included Libya, Sudan, and Cuba.

The southern African country has so far not offered itself as a candidate for the newly created Human Rights Council.

Two other members on the old panel -- Cuba and Cameroon -- have put forward their names for next Tuesday’s election.

Africa will have 13 representatives and so far, 13 countries from the continent have submitted their names, according to information provided by the UN Tuesday.

The UN Human Rights Council was created through a March 15 UN General Assembly resolution that will see member countries being selected directly and individually by secret ballot as opposed to being chosen by regional blocks and rubber-stamped by the U.N. Economic and Social Council.

Sources said Zimbabwe may have been put off by the change in voting procedures as well as the requirement that member states would be asked when voting to take into account candidates’ contribution to the "promotion and protection of human rights".

Candidates will need 96 votes -- two-thirds of the total membership of 191 states -- to be successful. The U.S. had pressed for a two-thirds threshold, or 128 countries, but without success.

According to a list from the United Nations, some of the African countries that have submitted their names are Cameroon, Ghana, Morocco, Tunisia and Zambia.

Zimbabwe has been classed as an "outpost of tyranny" by United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair has branded President Robert Mugabe a "disgrace" over the country's poor human rights record.
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