/ 1 January 2002

Bob hits back at European sanctions

Zimbabwe banned British Prime Minister Tony Blair and scores of his top officials from traveling here and imposed visa requirements on British citizens in retaliation for European sanctions, state radio reported on Friday.

Britain announced on Thursday most Zimbabweans will need a visa to enter that country, in a change of policy aimed at reducing the number of Zimbabweans violating British immigration rules.

The move came months after the European Union placed a travel ban on all Zimbabwean Cabinet ministers and top ruling party officials after March presidential elections that many independent observers condemned as badly flawed. The United States has also imposed travel restrictions on Zimbabwean officials.

The sanctions have infuriated Zimbabwean officials. President Robert Mugabe has been prevented from leaving European airports while traveling to United Nations meetings in New York and elsewhere for which he only has UN travel status.

State radio said on Friday that Zimbabwe was retaliating for the sanctions by banning 119 of its critics abroad from traveling here.

The list included Blair, about 90 British government ministers and officials, some members of the European Parliament and leaders of external pro-democracy pressure groups.

Former Australian Prime Minister Gareth Evans and his American deputy John Prendergast in the International Crisis Group were listed in the announcement, which was seen as largely symbolic.

Prendergast was turned away at the Harare airport earlier this year after his group issued a series of reports critical of Mugabe’s dictatorial rule and the government’s economic mismanagement, including the seizures of white-owned farms.

Nine broadcasters were also banned from the country. The broadcasters, most of them Zimbabwean nationals, work for radio stations beaming to Africa what the government calls anti-Zimbabwe propaganda from Europe on short-wave transmissions.

The state Herald newspaper, a government mouthpiece, said starting on Friday British citizens travelling to Zimbabwe would need visas obtained in advance or at the point of entry for an unspecified fee.

When Britain announced its visa restrictions on Zimbabweans, officials said that in the first half of 2002, about 400 Zimbabweans disappeared in Britain after being granted temporary admission, and ”increasingly large” numbers of unfounded asylum claims were being received from Zimbabweans.

Between April and June, Zimbabweans made up the fourth largest group of asylum applicants in Britain, at 1 345.

As many as 300 000 Zimbabweans are estimated to be living in Britain, the former colonial ruler, after fleeing political violence and deepening economic woes in their homeland. At least 6,70million Zimbabweans, more than half the population, face hunger in the coming months because of a sharp drop in agricultural production blamed on a drought and the government’s seizure of thousands of white-owned commercial farms.

Zimbabwe has been wracked by more than two years of political and economic turmoil widely blamed on the ruling party. – Sapa-AP