Mugabe's warning to UN over proposed sanctions: You will push Zimbabwe into civil war

The country's UN missionclaimed easures proposed by the U.S. and Britain against President Robert Mugabe's government could turn Zimbabwe into 'another Somalia'.

The sanctions would lead to the removal of Zimbabwe's 'effective government and, most probably, start a civil war in the country'.

It added: 'In their obsession with "regime change", Britain and the U.S.A. are determined to ignore real, entrenched, fundamental and enduring issues that lie at the heart of Zimbabwe's internal politics.'

Election fraud: The official portrait of President Robert Mugabe hangs on the wall as Zimbabwaen dollar bank notes

Western powers are pushing for a vote this week on an arms embargo and financial freeze on Mugabe and top officials in his government in response to Mugabe's violence-marred re-election.

The U.S. and France say they have the nine votes that are required for the 15-nation council to pass the resolution.

South Africa, a council member, has led the opposition to the sanctions, arguing it is not a threat to international peace and security, and therefore not a proper matter for the council to take up. The U.S., Britain and France say it is.

Russia has threatened to veto it, and China also has opposed sanctions; both have veto power on the council, like the U.S., Britain and France. But Russia and China also could let the sanctions resolution pass by abstaining from the vote.

Mugabe pushed ahead with the June 27 runoff despite the opposition candidate Morgan Tsvangirai pulling out of the race because of state-sponsored beating and killing of his followers.

Zimbabwe's U.N. mission said the nation is "not at war with itself and poses no threat to its neighbors or any other country" and would put the Security Council in the position of becoming "a force multiplier in support of Britain's colonial crusade against Zimbabwe."

International fury: Protestors demonstrate against Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe outside the country's embassy in London in June

Mugabe's government acknowledged through its U.N. mission "some isolated and localized cases of violence have indeed occurred in Zimbabwe" since the March 29 vote that Tsvangirai won, but not by enough of a margin to avoid the June runoff.

But the mission's letter accused Tsvangirai's opposition party of "premeditation, planning, stage management and exaggeration of this violence, with ever increasing signs of very active British and American encouragement and collusion, as part of a grand strategy aimed at inviting foreign intervention in Zimbabwe."

The council has repeatedly chastised Mugabe's government, saying the violence made it impossible to hold a free and fair election. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who has been deeply involved in trying to resolve the crisis, also strongly criticized Mugabe's regime.

Ban told reporters Thursday the issue of sanctions was a matter for the council to decide, but the election "has implications beyond Zimbabwe: it has credibility of democracy in the region and democracy in Africa as a whole."