ZIMBABWE’S Foreign Minister Stan Mudenge said on Monday that President Robert Mugabe had no trouble travelling to the United States for a UN meeting, despite sanctions that normally should bar him from entering the country.
Mugabe had ”25 green lights ahead of him to travel anywhere he wishes in the United States,” Mudenge told the state-run Herald newspaper.
”Everything was properly planned. Nobody wanted any incident and things went on smoothly,” he said.
”The Americans were up to scratch with their commitment to the host country agreement.”
”We wanted to demonstrate that the sanctions will not stop us from carrying out our diplomatic functions,” Mudenge said.
”We used Paris (to change flights), an EU country, and were not hindered to use their international transit facilities. Everybody on the delegation was free to go into town,” he said.
Mugabe went to New York last week for the General Assembly’s special session on children.
The United States and the European Union have banned Mugabe and his inner circle from entering their territories, accusing him of widespread rights abuses and of using violence and vote fraud to win the March 9-11 presidential election.
Exceptions to travel bans are made for people travelling to the UN headquarters in New York.
Washington also imposed an arms export ban on Zimbabwe after the election, which the State Department called ”fatally flawed.” – Sapa-AFP