PRESIDENT Mugabe has appealed to China and Russia to provide leadership in international relations and protect smaller states in view of the blatant attacks they face from the United States and Europe.
At a meeting with Acting Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Great People’s Hall here yesterday, President Mugabe said small countries were beginning to wonder whether international law offered adequate protection from the Anglo-Saxon alliance’s expansionist agenda given what NATO did in Libya and threats posed to Syria and Iran.
“Is international law now dead? Are international relations as governed by the United Nations Charter now dead? Are Europe and America allowed to act so unlawfully with impunity that smaller states feel intimidated and unprotected by international law.
“Countries like China and Russia must provide both leadership and protection,” President Mugabe’s spokesman, Mr George Charamba, quoted him as telling Mr Xi.
The Head of State and Government and Commander-in-Chief of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces said there was now pessimism among smaller states that international law can not protect them.
He told Mr Xi the attacks were made in pursuit of exploiting resources found in these small nations and had become so glaring.
“Nature has disbursed its resources in its own ways to different countries with some countries richly endowed while some are not,” Mr Xi said.
“Even us who do not have oil feel no less menaced as these rapacious countries are looking for other resources,” President Mugabe said. He enumerated Zimbabwe’s minerals such as gold, diamonds and platinum and said even its rich fauna and flora made it a target.
“All this (Zimbabwe’s wealth) is envied and we need protection. We rely on good friends like you to protect us and you have done that in the past. We do not lose confidence in you and please don’t lose confidence in us.”
Mr Charamba said Mr Xi told President Mugabe that China would not abandon its allies.
“In spite of external disturbances China will never forget its friends,” Mr Xi reportedly said. He hailed President Mugabe for personally taking the lead in cultivating relations between the two countries after Zimbabwe’s independence in 1980.
Mr Xi also accepted an invitation from President Mugabe to visit Zimbabwe and noted that it will be fulfilled at a mutually agreed time. A few years ago China and Russia scuttled US and EU attempts to have the United Nations Security Council legitimise their illegal sanctions they have slapped Zimbabwe with.
Source – The Herald
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