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O 052130Z MAY 08
FM USMISSION USUN NEW YORK
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 4217
INFO RUEHZO/AFRICAN UNION COLLECTIVE IMMEDIATE
RUEHZL/EUROPEAN POLITICAL COLLECTIVE IMMEDIATE
RUEHGG/UN SECURITY COUNCIL COLLECTIVE IMMEDIATE

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 USUN NEW YORK 000404 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 05/02/2018 
TAGS: PREL PGOV ZM
SUBJECT: SECURITY COUNCIL INTEREST IN ZIMBABWE GROWING 
 
 
Classified By: Ambassador Alejandro Wolff for Reasons 1.4 B/D. 
 
¶1. (C) SUMMARY. UN Under Secretary-General Pascoe briefed 
Security Council members on April 29 on the situation in 
Zimbabwe, describing a pre-election period marked by threats 
of violence from government officials, a relatively open and 
fair elections process, and a post-election surge in 
government-encouraged violence against opposition MDC 
supporters.   Pascoe conveyed the Secretary-General's 
readiness to lend his good offices in support of SADC and AU 
efforts to monitor the vote validation process and a runoff 
election if scheduled.  Council members uniformly supported 
those SADC and AU efforts but differed significantly about 
whether the Council or Secretary-General should get directly 
involved.  Several members called for a special envoy or fact 
finding mission, and several others (including all three 
African members) strongly opposed both ideas.  Zimbabwe 
opposition leader Tendai Biti made a statement to the press 
on the margins of the Council session and later met with 
Ambassador Khalilzad and several Coucil members at USUN.  In 
his press statement, Biti criticized SADC's performance, an 
opinion he shared in more detail during the USUN session, 
suggesting the AU and UN should become more directly involved 
and maintaining that the opposition was not inclined to 
participate in any runoff election the validation process 
were to call for.  END SUMMARY. 
 
¶2. (SBU) In April 29 briefing requested by the U.S. and UK 
among others, United Nations Under Secretary-General Lynn 
Pascoe described recent events in Zimbabwe to the Security 
Coucil in closed consultations (members only, no record). 
Pascoe said Zimbabwe officials -- including the commander of 
the army and the police commissioner -- had made clear prior 
to the election that they would not accept an opposition 
victory.  Nevertheless, he said, the campaigns were 
reasonably open and international observers had pronounced 
the elections themselves to be credible.  Prompt announcement 
of results in the parliament and assembly contests were 
followed by an extensive delay in announcing the presidential 
results that Pascoe said "poisoned the atmosphere and 
paralyzed the country" as the opposition claimed that the 
published results from more than 8,300 polling stations were 
easily tabulated and demonstrated a clear majority for the 
opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). 
 
¶3. (SBU) Pascoe described a post-election "surge in 
government-encouraged violence" targeting MDC supporters in 
rural areas and including "an orchestrated campaign of 
repression and retribution ... being carried out under the 
name 'Operation Where Did You Put Your X' - a campaign 
against those who marked ballots for the opposition."  He 
reported MDC allegations that 200 people were arrested during 
a raid at its party headquarters, 15 MDC supporters killed, 
hundreds injured, and thousands forced to flee their homes. 
Pascoe also noted a statement by UN High Commissioner for 
Human Rights Louise Arbour expressing concern "about reports 
of threats, intimidation, abuse and violence directed against 
NGO's, election monitors, human rights defenders and other 
representatives of civil society." 
 
¶4. (SBU) Pascoe concluded by conveying UN Secretary-General 
Ban's offer to lend his good offices to reinforce Southern 
African Development Community (SADC) and African Union (AU) 
efforts to contain the crisis in Zimbabwe, adding that 
"anything we do we do with SADC and the AU."  Members 
invariably echoed this call for cooperation with the two 
African organizations.  Several members (U.S., France, UK, 
Belgium, Italy, Panama) expressly called for a UN 
fact-finding mission to Zimbabwe.  France and the UK 
suggested the Secretary-General might also consider naming a 
special envoy. UK and Costa Rica called for an arms embargo. 
 
¶5. (SBU) Russia said a runoff election would only exacerbate 
the situation.  China, Vietnam, Libya, Burkina Faso, and 
South Africa warned against UN intervention unless expressly 
requested by Zimbabwe or SADC/AU.  South Africa PermRep 
Kumalo offered extensive and emotional commentary in which he 
sarcastically noted that SADC "has not asked for help" and 
ridiculed Commissioner Arbour for "reading newspaper articles 
and then expressing opinions."  Kumalo said South Africa has 
expressed concern to Zimbabwe that the election results be 
made public as soon as possible.  Noting that recounts to 
date had confirmed opposition victories, he urged members to 
await final results "like we are doing for Nepal to which 
no-one is talking about sending a fact-finding mission." 
 
¶6. (SBU) MDC Secretary General Tendai Biti, after meeting 
privately with U/SYG Pascoe prior to the Council's 
consultations, took advantage of the press stakeout outside 
the Council chamber to address the media.  In a later private 
meeting at USUN with Ambassador Khalilzad, Biti (accompanied 
 
USUN NEW Y 00000404  002 OF 002 
 
 
by MDC officials Wellington Chadehumbe and Eliphas 
Mukonowesh) said he believed it had been very important that 
the Security Council discussion and subsequent press events 
had taken place, especially as a means of revealing the 
position of South Africa.  Biti told the Ambassador that 
"today in the Council South Africa removed any little doubt 
we had."  He said South Africa and PermRep Kumalo were 
"playing a dangerous game ... that had the ANC up in arms and 
South African unions ready to go beyond talking."  He said 
that the MDC had already written to SADC to complain about 
"South Africa's biased facilitation" and that the MDC would 
consider participation in a "government of national healing" 
that included ZANU-PF as long as the "destabilizing" Mugabe 
was not included. 
 
¶7. (C) In a follow-on meeting at USUN with several Council 
member representatives (UK, France, Belgium, Burkina Faso, 
Italy, Croatia, Panama), Biti continued his criticism of 
South Africa, calling President Mbeki "a defender of the 
(Zimbabwe) regime" and ridiculing SADC's statement that 
dialogue is underway between ZANU-PF and the MDC.  On the 
contrary, he said 40-50 MDC supporters had been killed by 
government supporters since the election, 7,000 families had 
been displaced, every MDC office had become a refugee center, 
and the military is being deployed into civilian areas across 
Zimbabwe in order to influence any runoff election.  Under 
these circumstances, Biti doubted MDC would agree to 
participate in a runoff.  He said the vote verification 
should take a few people only a few hours with a calculator 
because it amounted to a simple process of tabulating the 
public results from 210 voting constituencies comprising more 
than 8,300 polling stations, something he said MDC had 
already done and which revealed on April 2 that MDC had 
initially won 50.3 percent of the presidential vote and had 
finally won 54.8 percent after all the isolated rural polling 
stations were included. 
 
¶8. (C) Although disdainful of South Africa-led SADC efforts, 
he expressed confidence that the AU could "do what it did in 
Kenya" if SADC could be circumvented.  When UK Deputy PermRep 
Pierce asked how the AU might be persuaded to ask for UN 
assistance as had happened in Kenya, Mukonowesh replied that 
individual African states (he named Botswana, Zambia, and 
Tanzania) should be approached individually about approaching 
the AU directly. 
 
¶9. (C) Italian PermRep Spatafora and Burkina Faso PermRep 
Kafando were surprised at Biti's comments about SADC, 
Spatafora saying, "The mantra in the Council has been 'SADC 
and AU together' and now we are told we are wasting our time 
with SADC."  Biti agreed with Mukonowesh, adding, "You are 
better off approaching Kenya, Tanzania, even Gabon; there are 
enough African countries to drive the process.  If these 
countries can get the AU to call a meeting, it would be hard 
to say we must wait for SADC." Koudougou said he had not 
intended to speak because he had no instructions from 
Ougadougou, but felt compelled to take the floor to agree 
with Italy's expression of surprise, adding that, "I have 
taken note of your comments about SADC and will inform my 
capital, which believes generally in taking problems to the 
regional organization and then to the AU."  Ambassador 
Khalilzad closed out this session by telling Biti he was 
impressed by his concept of a "government of national 
healing" and by assuring Biti that "the U.S. will do all it 
can to respect the vote for change of the people of Zimbabwe." 
Khalilzad