Portugal’s Foreign Minister Luis Amado said on Monday Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe would not be welcome at a European Union-African Union
summit being held in November in Lisbon.
”Personally I have no interest in Mugabe coming to Lisbon,” Amado said, adding that the veteran leader’s presence would be a ”factor of disturbance”.
The EU imposed a travel ban on Mugabe and more than 100 people closely linked to his regime after the Zimbabwean leader won elections in 2002 that international observers said were rigged and marred by intimidation.
The octogenarian president has also been slammed for leading the once-model economy into ruin and trampling on democracy and human rights. The Southern African nation currently has the world’s highest inflation rate.
”It is a question of principle for the EU, in the same way that for the African Union the presence of the presidents of all the member states is a question of principle,” Amado said.
Leading African politicians have denounced any suggestion that Mugabe be barred from what would be the first Europe-Africa summit in seven years.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel earlier this month accused Mugabe of ”unspeakable acts” but said the November summit would go ahead even if he attended.
”It cannot be the case that we do not work with a continent just because one country commits unspeakable acts. So everybody will be invited,” said Merkel.
Germany holds the rotating EU presidency until the end of June.
It will then be taken over by Portugal, which will host the summit in Lisbon.
Ghanaian Foreign Minister Nana Addo Akufo-Addo, whose country heads the African Union, and his South African counterpart Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma both came out against the idea of a ban on Mugabe attending the summit.
Talks
Meanwhile, representatives of the Zimbabwe government and main opposition party were holding talks in a bid to ease the political crisis that reached new heights earlier this year with the arrest and beating of pro-democracy leaders.
Officials on Monday confirmed that the talks, held under South African mediation, started over the weekend in Pretoria and were continuing, but refused to give any
details.
”All we can confirm at this stage is that there are talks,” said George Sibotshiwe, a South Africa-based spokesperson for Zimbabwe’s opposition Movement for Democratic Change.
Mugabe’s government was represented by Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa and Labour and Social Welfare Minister Nicholas Goche, said Zimbabwe state radio.
Tendai Biti and Welshman Ncube were representing the two factions of the divided Movement for Democratic Change, with Sydney Mufamadi, the South African Minister of Provincial and Local Government, as chairperson.
Sibotshiwe said the Movement for Democratic Change respected the request of the South African government for a media blackout. He refused to say how long the negotiations would last.
”They can last a day or could go on for ever,” he said, adding that the idea was to reach a certain undisclosed ”milestone”.
He said that South African President Thabo Mbeki was expected to make a statement about progress next week, ahead of the end of June deadline to report back to the Southern African Development Community, which appointed Mbeki as mediator earlier this year.
Mbeki has consistently espoused quiet diplomacy, saying that criticism from the West and sanctions have backfired and merely worsened Zimbabwe’s problems. He has said that Zimbabweans themselves must find the solution and that his main priority is to get them sitting around the same table together.
The country’s problems mount by the week. Inflation is 3 714% and rising; power failures and water shortages occur daily and shortages of food, hard currency, fuel, medicines and other essential goods are acute.
Health and social services have crumbled in a nation with one of the world’s highest rates of HIV/Aids. An estimated 3 000 people die each week from Aids-related illnesses. – Sapa, Sapa-AP