Enemies of the United Nations could not hope for a greater gift than the election of Zimbabwe to chair the UN commission on sustainable development. A more suitable role for one of President Robert Mugabe's henchmen might be to head a commission for sustainable dictatorship: Zimbabwe's lurches on despite the wilful destruction it has visited on its people.

In putting forward Francis Nhema, Zimbabwe's environment minister, for the chair, African governments have inflicted on themselves - as well as the UN - an astonishing blow. The commission, created in 1993, is the UN's main forum for addressing the relationship between development and the environment. Africa's turn to fill its chair - which rotates among regions - offered an opportunity to occupy the moral high ground.