Zimbabwe’s embattled President Robert Mugabe arrived in Switzerland on Tuesday for a United Nations information summit after the Swiss government waived international travel restrictions on him.
Mugabe’s trip to Geneva for the UN’s Summit on the Information Society, due to open on Wednesday, was his first since he pulled his Southern African nation out of the Commonwealth two days ago, deepening Zimbabwe’s isolation.
Switzerland’s waiver of travel restrictions on Mugabe lifted the pall hanging over the Zimbabwean leader, whose country is now virtually a pariah state: out of the Commonwealth, threatened with expulsion from the International Monetary Fund, and with its leader and his associates barred from visiting Europe and the United States.
A spokesperson for the Swiss foreign ministry explained why Bern had agreed to waive the travel ban, saying Switzerland had ”agreed not to apply visa restrictions for personalities invited to the summit,” including the Zimbabwean president.
”It’s the UN that issued the invitations, not Switzerland,” said spokesperson Alessandro Delpetre, pointing out that the decision to allow Mugabe to travel to Geneva for the conference was ”not automatic” and the Swiss government had made a special case in waiving the restrictions.
Mugabe arrived at Geneva’s Cointrin airport on Tuesday afternoon on a special flight that had left Harare the previous night, an airport official said. He had flown to Switzerland via Cairo, changing his itinerary three times, the official said.
The southern African leader will address delegates at the UN summit after the opening ceremony on Wednesday, according to a list of speakers.
The Commonwealth suspended Zimbabwe from its ruling councils in March 2002, after Mugabe won presidential elections in the southern African country which were marred by violence and alleged vote-rigging.
The suspension was extended in March this year, and again at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Nigeria at the weekend.
The EU and Washington slapped targeted sanctions on Zimbabwe at the same time as the first Commonwealth suspension, also because of the elections.
Mugabe pulled Zimbabwe out of the Commonwealth in protest at the decision to extend the sanctions.
Mugabe, once hailed as the liberator of his country from British rule in 1980, is now accused of human rights abuses, political repression and a controversial land policy that has helped drive his country to the brink of ruin.
Zimbabwe faces desperate food shortages caused in part by Mugabe’s controversial land reform programme, under which white-owned farms have been seized and redistributed to landless blacks. — Sapa-AFP