Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe blasted South Africa and Nigeria at the African Union summit this weekend, saying Africa would never agree to them getting permanent seats on the UN Security Council.
This was because they had both voted for UN Security Council Resolution 1973 in 2011, which authorised military action against the regime of Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi. They had betrayed the continent which could never trust them, sources reported him as saying.
South Africa and Nigeria were both on the council at the time, occupying two of the ten, non-permanent, two-year seats. South Africa’s vote for Resolution 1973 was highly controversial even within South Africa.
But the South African government justified it on the grounds that a foreign military intervention was necessary to prevent Gaddafi’s forces slaughtering his opponents in their Benghazi stronghold, as he threatened to do.
