Mugabe must get real and wake up

“But guess what, many of the deficits and financial shortcomings of Mugabe’s government are actually covered by the UN agencies –surprise, surprise! A former heard of Unicef in Zimbabwe once said to me ‘… most of these government ministers, all they have is political power, but I have more resources. My budget is bigger than that of the Ministry of Finance’……

 “When you threaten to split from a global organization, you better have the resources to back it up. The current top 17 funders of the UN provide over 80% of the UN regular budget. These are: United State of America (22%), Japan (9,6%), China (7,9%), Germany (6,3%), France (4,8%), Britain (4,4%), Brazil (3,8%), Italy (3,7%), Russia (3%), Canada (2,9%), Spain (2,4%), Australia (2,3%), South Korea (2,0), Netherlands (1,4%), Mexico (1,4%), Saudi Arabia (1,1%), Switzerland (1,1%). Just 17 countries! The rest of the world provides just about 19% of the global body’s budget – that includes Zimbabwe and the rest of Africa…..

“Realpolitik and national interests drive power games on the global political chessboard. As noted above, the current UN structure was crafted by victors of the last world war. The countries that Mugabe seems to be counting on in supporting his splinter group are China and Russia which are in fact permanent members of the UN, and as such haven’t got an interest in Mugabe’s pursuit. If you are making demands of Mugabe’s kind, you have got to have a bargaining chip. In other words, you must have leverage. When you say: give us two permanent seats or else – the other part will say or else what? The leverage must be of serious consequences. And the threat you make, must not only be real, but exercisable with drastic consequences. But Mugabe hasn’t got that, neither does Africa as a block. There is no leverage at all. Even Japan, the third largest economy in the world hasn’t got such leverage.

“So Mugabe’s threat is just one of those empty threats. There is no strategy to it. Russia and China have no strategic incentive to splinter with Mugabe and whoever is on his side. Interestingly – a contact in the top echelons of the Chinese government advised me that nobody really takes Mugabe seriously at the UN with his rambling speeches.”

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