A new split is developing within the European Union over sanctions on the Zimbabwean government, with both France and Portugal considering summit invitations to President Robert Mugabe that would weaken the diplomatic isolation of his regime that Britain is trying to maintain.
European officials said there is an agreement in principle to continue five-year-old EU travel sanctions against senior Zimbabwean officials, and a formal decision is due to be announced on February 20. However, loopholes in those sanctions could allow France and Portugal to invite Mugabe or his aides to summits in Europe, undermining British efforts to keep the Zimbabwean leader under pressure for human rights abuses.
A French official said on Thursday he could not confirm whether President Jacques Chirac had invited Mugabe to a France-Africa summit in Cannes on February 14. “The invitations are still being sent. The list will be published only later.”
Portugal is also hoping to invite Mugabe to Lisbon for an EU-Africa summit in November. Both Lisbon and Paris are concerned that if he is excluded, other governments from the region, particularly South Africa, might boycott the meetings. Neither France nor Portugal has so far applied for exemptions to the sanctions regime to issue invitations on the grounds that the meetings they are planning will address human rights issues. But British officials and human rights groups have argued that Zimbabwean participation in such high-profile events would make sanctions all but meaningless.
The Harare government has denounced the sanctions as illegal. Nathan Shamuyarira, a spokesperson for the ruling Zanu-PF party, said recently: “Britain is pursuing a colonial practice, repression of other nations, and I hope other countries will not be dragged in its sinister agendas.”
Any watering down of the sanctions regime would accentuate differences between the EU and the Commonwealth, which indefinitely suspended Zimbabwe’s membership in 2003, prompting Mugabe’s complete withdrawal.
Donald McKinnon, the Commonwealth secretary general, told the Guardian on Thursday: “If the EU was to change its stance totally, you’re virtually accepting the nature of the government in Zimbabwe, which I think would be sad.”
The group Action for Southern Africa is to protest outside the French embassy in London on Friday over France’s refusal so far to pledge not to invite Mugabe. – Guardian Unlimited Â