In 2008, the Mbeki administration used its position (and at one stage that of Chair) on the United Nations Security Council to prevent any action on Zimbabwe. In April 2008, South Africa combined forces with China to prevent the Zimbabwe issue from appearing on the Council’s agenda and again in June blocked the debate about the country's political situation when it was raised for discussion, demanding that only the humanitarian situation in Zimbabwe be discussed. The stance was defended by South Africa's foreign affairs chief director for UN Issues, Xolisa Mabhongo on the basis that Zimbabwe did not pose a threat to international peace and security. This stance can at best be considered naïve in view of the subsequent xenophobic violence which erupted in South Africa, much of which was directed against Zimbabwean refugees; the recent spread of cholera to South Africa from Zimbabwe on account of a collapsed water and sewage reticulation, and the Zimbabwe government’s claims in November 2008 that MDC activists are receiving military training in Botswana for cross border insurgency. South Africa again adopted this stance in lobbying Russia and China to exercise a veto against a resolution put to the Council in July 2008 which would have imposed an arms embargo on Zimbabwe and sanctions on Mugabe and 11 of his supporters. South Africa sought to support its argument by claiming that sanctions were inappropriate at a time that it was facilitating negotiations between ZANU PF and the MDC. Mbeki’s policy of protecting Mugabe in international forums was also apparent during meetings of the African Union meetings. In 2002 the African Union’s (AU) Commission on Human and People’s Rights undertook a fact finding mission to Zimbabwe to investigate rights abuses there. The Commission found evidence of “political violence... torture... and arbitrary arrest... of opposition members of parliament and human rights lawyers”. The report was adopted by the AU in January 2005. In May of that year, Mugabe’s government embarked on what it called Operation Murambatsvina. This operation, under the guise of “urban renewal”, resulted in the demolition of thousands of homes and the displacement of an estimated 700 000 people, predominantly the urban poor considered politically volatile. Despite the fact that the actions of the Zimbabwean government violated “second generation” rights, such as the right to housing, and not “liberal” rights such as freedom of expression (which Mbeki, like Mugabe, seemed to regard as merely a subterfuge for “regime change”), Mbeki’s government remained mute. Stinging criticism, however, came from the UN Special Envoy on Human Settlement Issues whose report roundly condemned the actions of the Zimbabwe Government in relation to the operation. Despite having undertaken its fact finding mission in 2002, it was only during the 38th Session of the AU in 2006, that the African Commission on Human and People’s Rights proposed a resolution on the crisis in Zimbabwe, that “[c]ondemns the human rights violations currently being perpetrated [there]”, basing the resolution both on its own report on the 2002 mission and the UN Report on Operation Murambatsvina. South Africa immediately stepped up to defend Zimbabwe and prevent discussion of the proposed resolution. Despite the fact that the Zimbabwean government had been in possession of the Commission’s report for over two years, South Africa’s Foreign Affairs Minister Dlamini Zuma, promptly supported Zimbabwe’s [false] claim that it “had not had time to respond” to the Commission’s report and supported other spurious procedural