Fury over Zimbabwe's UN role

Britain and the US were outraged yesterday after Zimbabwe was chosen to head a key United Nations committee on the environment, despite the country's political repression and economic chaos.

Defying opposition led by the European Union, President Robert Mugabe's Environment and Tourism Minister, Francis Nhema, was narrowly elected chairman of the UN Commission on Sustainable Development. The 26-21 vote came after African delegates, whose turn it was to nominate the new head, chose Zimbabwe to represent them.

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"Zimbabwe's election will be seen as an outrage by millions of people who look to the United Nations for help to escape from poverty," said Ian Pearson, Britain's minister for climate change and the environment. "They will be asking how the body charged with promoting sustainable development will be able to maintain credibility while being chaired by a representative of a government whose failed policies have destroyed its own economy." Inflation in Zimbabwe is running at 2,000 per cent as corruption, farm seizures and political violence disrupt the economy.

Daniel Reifsnyder, the US deputy assistant secretary for environment, said: "We really think it calls into question the credibility of this organisation to have a representative from a country that has decimated its agriculture, that used to be the breadbasket of Africa and can't now feed itself."

EU countries said the commission's entire two-week session had degenerated into scripted speeches, with no targets being set for renewable energy and other environmental policies. It refused to approve a final "consensus document" because it did not include concrete measures, and the meeting ended without one.