Western countries such as the former colonial power Britain, urged on by the Zimbabwean opposition Movement for Democratic Change, had been trying to steer the council to adopting a common strategy on the situation in Zimbabwe where the results of a March 29 presidential election have still to be announced.

However a meeting of the council at UN headquarters in New York broke up on Tuesday without agreement after a clear split among the 15 member nations.

"It was a British machination to try and bully African nations, a racist ploy ... to say Africans are not capable of making decisions and that African issues can only be seen through the eyes of little England," deputy information minister Bright Matonga said.

"It was a non-event, there was no need for that."

Matonga said the division among the international community on how to deal with the Zimbabwe crisis should be a lesson to UN chief Ban Ki-Moon, accusing him of bias toward the opposition.

Ban said on Tuesday that the Zimbabwean authorities should immediately release the presidential poll results saying: "We know who is the winner."

"It's a lesson for the secretary-general of the UN that he should not take sides as he had done in the previous meeting to try and mention Zimbabwe at a breakfast meeting with Gordon Brown," said Matonga.

South Africa, Russia and China were among the countries which blocked moves towards any UN intervention despite pleas by the MDC for a special UN envoy to be sent to the troubled southern African nation.

The outcome is a rare diplomatic victory for the Mugabe regime which has been under increasing pressure over the hold-up to the election results.

The state-run Herald newspaper, whose headline proclaimed 'UN Snubs MDC', accused Britain of trying to lobby Zambia, Botswana and Tanzania to form a group to pressurise regional countries to lean on Mugabe.

MDC secretary general Tendai Biti flew to New York in an unsuccessful attempt to brief the council on the post-poll crisis.

He called for a "strong and decisive" resolution from the 15-member Security Council against the Mugabe regime as well as for the dispatch of a UN envoy or fact-finding mission to his country.

Proponents of the attempt to put Zimbabwe on the agenda included the United kingdom, United States, Belgium and France.

US deputy ambassador to the UN Alejandro Wolff deplored the fact that the council could not find common ground on how to respond.

"The council is divided," he said.

"There are a number of governments who were quite outspoken about the importance of the council remaining engaged ... but there were others who have different views and think that the situation deserves more time and that ultimately it is up for the Zimbabwean people to resolve it themselves," he said.

MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai, 56, claims he defeated the 84-year-old Robert Mugabe in the March 29 presidential poll, based on his party's calculations.

But Mugabe supporters say no candidate won outright and there should be a run-off. No official result has so far been released.

The post-election impasse has led to a rise in violence, with the MDC claiming that 15 of its followers have been killed by Mugabe loyalists.

Human Rights Watch, a respected New York-based watchdog, said the African Union and UN needed to take immediate action to prevent further violence in Zimbabwe, accusing the country's army of running a campaign of terror.

"The army and its allies - war-veterans and supporters of the ruling party Zanu-PF - are intensifying their brutal grip on wide swathes of rural Zimbabwe to ensure that a possible second round of presidential elections goes their way," Georgette Gagnon, HRW's Africa director, said in a statement.