The United States on Tuesday eased arms export restrictions imposed earlier this year against Zimbabwe to allow US hunters to bring firearms into the country, as long the weapons are not left there.
The change was announced by the State Department in a notice published in the Federal Register.
“This will allow Americans citizens to temporarily bring hunting and sporting rifles and similar guns to Zimbabwe,” a department official said.
“They will be able to bring them in, but they have to bring them back — they can’t sell, trade or give them away,” the official said.
The official stressed that the hunting and sporting allowance was the only exception to the sanctions which were originally imposed in April following heavily criticised presidential elections won by incumbent Robert Mugabe.
The department said that those restrictions were justified after the Mugabe government’s subverted the democratic process, orchestrated a campaign of violence and intimidation against the opposition and showed “blatant disregard” for the rule of law and human rights abuses.
The State Department official said Tuesday’s announcement was sparked by concerns that Zimbabwe’s national parks — which collect fees from safari hunters that are spent for conservation promotion — might suffer if the full ban remained in place.
The official said US sportsmen were not as likely to travel and spend their money in Zimbabwe’s parks if they were not allowed to bring in their own guns.
Meanwhile, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw has blamed Mugabe for the food shortages threatening millions of people.
Straw told parliament that the situation in Zimbabwe was “deteriorating with many facing severe poverty, hardship and starvation”.
He added: “The principal cause is not the drought but the policies of the Mugabe regime.”
Earlier Mugabe had opened Zimbabwe’s parliament, delivering a televised address at what he described as a time of “continued British machinations (against his government) and the consequences of the drought”.
Mugabe said his country’s ongoing land reform programme was an “unparalleled success story”.
But Straw said Zimbabwe under Mugabe had an “extraordinary record” which had transformed it into the “worst performing economy in the whole of Africa”.
“Despicably, the regime is now actively diverting humanitarian food aid, with the deputy foreign minister telling the public at the weekend that this will only go to Zanu-PF supporters,” Straw said referring to Mugabe’s ruling Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front party.
Britain, the former colonial power, has been repeatedly accused by the government in Harare of meddling in Zimbabwe’s internal affairs, by allegedly supporting Mugabe’s opposition.
On Monday an EU council of foreign ministers added the names of 52 Mugabe associates, including that of the president’s wife Grace, to a blacklist of officials facing “targeted sanctions”, now including his whole government.
The council cited the Zimbabwe government’s alleged abuse of human rights, democracy and the rule of law for the sanctions, which bar individuals from obtaining visas to travel to EU member states and freeze any assets they may have in the eurozone. – AFP