EU renews sanctions against Mugabe gvt

THE EU has renewed its sanctions targeted against the government of President Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe. Under the sanctions, which have been extended until 19th February 2009, key figures in the regime are prevented from travelling to Europe and are subject to an asset-freeze.

Geoffrey Van Orden MEP, who has spearheaded the attack on the Zimbabwe government in the European Parliament, said: "I am reassured by the renewal of these sanctions. Mugabe will be 84 on Thursday and this is exactly the birthday present he deserves.

Backing a British call to maintain "calibrated" pressure on the Zimbabwe government the EU introduced its so-called targeted sanctions against President Mugabe and his top officials, after EU election observers were kept out of the March 2002 presidential elections.

In the 2000 parliamentary elections, the EU had fielded the largest and most outspoken of the international observer groups, and denounced "high levels of violence, intimidation and coercion" allegedly carried out mainly by the ruling party's supporters.

The sanctions include an arms embargo, travel ban and asset freeze on Mugabe and members of his governing Zanu PF party hoping to change policy in Zimbabwe.

The government claims that this is part of a broad ‘regime change’ agenda initiated by the then British prime minister Tony Blair, and further pursued by current prime minister, Gordon Brown.

The EU has been criticised for not upholding its own sanctions policy as they have allowed Zimbabwean officials to enter EU on various occasions.

"The EU has a poor track record in upholding its own sanctions policy. After all, it invited Mugabe himself - top of the banned list - to its EU-Africa Summit last December,” said Orden, MEP.

"We are coming up to another crucial moment for Zimbabwe, with Presidential and Parliamentary elections due on March 29th. International observers have effectively been excluded from monitoring the electoral process and the opposition faces daily intimidation from a desperate regime,” he said

Orden, MEP also called on the EU to exert more pressure on the South African president Thabo Mbeki to lobby the Zimbabwe government to ensure that international election observers are invited to monitor the forthcoming elections scheduled for March 29.

"The EU should be calling on President Mbeki of South Africa, who is supposed to be performing a mediation role in Zimbabwe, to insist that international observers and the international media are given unrestricted access to ensure free and fair elections."

Britain argues that there are no economic sanctions on Zimbabwe, but targeted sanctions only. According to the British government there are now 125 members banned from visiting EU (soon increasing to 130 as a result of cabinet reshuffle). There are 125 assets freezes, 42 bank accounts caught and £172,000 withheld in the UK.

The opposition Movement for Democratic Change has called on more targeted sanctions on the Zimbabwe government. Speaking on the UK's Radio 4 Today programme on 26 March 2007, the MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai said: ‘What I’ve always said is that yes, Britain can play a part... In other words working within the EU and the UN frameworks to try to put pressure on Mugabe, to find a solution to the crisis that the country is facing’.

President Mugabe blames the current problems on the sanctions regime which he says hurts the poor in Zimbabwe. The central bank governor Gideon Gono said the country suffered not only from targeted sanctions but from a broad range of "declared and undeclared" embargoes that hit Zimbabwe's weakest the hardest.

The drying up of development project finance and hard currency loans from international institutions has had "far reaching effects on the majority of the people since 2000," he said in a report.