Russia sank the UN Security Council resolution on Zimbabwe.
This vote definitively brands Russia’s foreign policy as idiotic. Everything has become even worse than in the days of the charming Andrei Kozyrev. Back then, it was “anything at all, as long as it’s like America.” Now it’s much nastier: we do petty dirty tricks, and if someone barks at us, we crawl under the table—but with a very stern expression on our face. The issues that are truly important to Russia (Transnistria) and matters of principle (Kosovo) have been completely botched (though for Channel One news there’s still the “very stern expression” and the twitching mustache of “foreign-policy deputy” Kosachyov). But Zimbabwe—now that’s where we really let loose. That showed those ’Muricans. A true demonstration of the country’s greatness. Its important role in world affairs. We protected a great guy, Robert Mugabe, from the global gendarme. What they forgot, though, is that this bastard is now the planet’s chief fascist. The instigator of genocide against the country’s white population. Since 2000, Robert Mugabe’s government has pursued a policy of seizing land belonging to white farmers and redistributing it to veterans of the civil war of the 1970s. In a number of cases, farm owners were killed. The police operate under an unwritten order not to investigate such crimes. “In our minds,” Mugabe stressed, “white farmers are today enemies of the state of Zimbabwe. And we are full of anger.” The guy turned one of the richest countries in Africa into a destitute wreck with 70,000% inflation, where there’s simply nothing to eat.
One could, of course, assume that Putin and Medvedev are very taken with the style of Zimbabwe’s most recent elections: During the second round of Zimbabwe’s presidential election last Friday, a number of attacks were carried out against white farmers. This was reported by representatives of the country’s farmers’ union. According to them, unidentified armed men attacked farmers, abducted them, and then threw them out of moving vehicles. http://www.gazeta.ru/news/lenta/2008/07/01/n_1237970.shtml The next powerful initiative by our authorities, aimed at building a multipolar world, will be a call for all Russians to freeze their ears off just to spite Mom—the United States. After all, Mom America’s calls to protect one’s health are illegitimate and dangerous. They also lead to the destabilization of the entire UN system. P.S. It’s funny to remember now, but the first action I organized after coming to work at YABLOKO (a Russian liberal political party) was a picket outside the Zimbabwean embassy in defense of that country’s white farmers.