Posted on 01/11/2002 1:37:50 PM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
BRUSSELS, Belgium -- The European Union appealed to Zimbabwe today to halt political violence, remove curbs on the media and allow free elections, but the country's foreign minister dismissed the threat of EU economic sanctions.
As five Zimbabwean ministers listened to Europe's concerns in Brussels, Australia and New Zealand called for Harare's suspension from the 54-nation Commonwealth after President Robert Mugabe pushed through laws aimed at boosting his power ahead of March elections.
South Africa also broke a two-day silence about developments in its northern neighbor, saying it was "unacceptable" for the Zimbabwean army to signal it would only accept a victory by Mugabe, 77, in the March 9-10 election.
Foreign Minister Stanley Mudenge, leading the Zimbabwean delegation to talks convened under Article 96 of the EU's trade and aid pact with African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) nations, scoffed at the prospect of EU sanctions.
Asked if he was worried, he told reporters as he went into the talks: "Sanctions, what sanctions? We're having a dialogue."
Spanish EU ambassador Javier Conde de Saro and the European Commission's director-general for development represented the EU. Nigeria, the current chairman of the ACP group, and about 10 other developing countries were represented at the meeting.
EU diplomats said the absence of ministers on the European side of the talks was not intended as a snub. "This is how the Union is represented at such talks," said one diplomat.
Zimbabwe's team included Information Minister Jonathan Moyo, architect of a media bill that critics say will end press freedom there.
Diplomats said Conde had relayed the EU's call for an end to political violence, the organization of free and fair elections, protection of press freedom and an independent judiciary and an end to the illegal occupation of white-owned farms.
"In reply, Mudenge stressed the importance of land reform," one diplomat said, adding that the Zimbabwean team then took time off to formulate a full response to the EU complaints, which might eventually trigger economic sanctions.
The talks were expected to resume about 1400 GMT.
"It is encouraging that we have got these talks started. But we don't know how long they will run or whether there will be follow-up talks at a later date," said another EU diplomat.
Mugabe has sparked Zimbabwe's biggest crisis since independence from Britain in 1980 with seizures of white-owned farms and attempts to tighten control of the media and opposition in the face of a collapsing economy.
Zimbabwe's parliament, where Mugabe's ZANU-PF has a comfortable majority, passed two laws Thursday. One bans independent monitors at the poll and denies voting rights to Zimbabweans abroad. The other criminalises criticism of Mugabe and gives sweeping new security powers to the government.
Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change who is expected to pose the biggest challenge to Mugabe's 22 years in power, appealed to the EU to be firm.
"The EU must clearly spell out to the Zimbabwean ministerial delegation that a government that emerges from a rigged election will receive no international recognition," he said.
European Commission spokesman Gunnar Wiegand declined to comment on possible sanctions, including "smart sanctions" such as a visa ban or asset freeze on Zimbabwean leaders.
But the United States has threatened travel and investment sanctions against Mugabe and his governing elite.
Zimbabwe also risks suspension from the Commonwealth, the group composed mostly of former British colonies.
Britain said Thursday the laws passed in Harare showed the government's "contempt for basic democratic principles," and both Australia and New Zealand sought its suspension.
"We don't want a country sitting around the table with us, or a president sitting around the table with us, who doesn't stand for the things we stand for," Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer told Australian Broadcasting Corp radio.
New Zealand Foreign Minister Phil Goff said Mugabe's regime was "in breach of the fundamental principles of democracy, the rule of law and equality regardless of race, color or creed set out in the Commonwealth's Harare Declaration."
The 1991 declaration sets out a commitment to good governance -- ironically signed in Zimbabwe's capital when the country was seen as an African success story.
The Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting will be held in Brisbane, Australia, from March 2-5, days before Mugabe seeks re-election for another six years.
Fading hopes for a free poll in Zimbabwe dwindled further this week when the country's army and security chiefs signalled that they would not accept an opposition victory.
The government in South Africa, Zimbabwe's powerful southern neighbor, finally reacted Friday, saying it had been checking whether reports about the army statement -- made at a Wednesday televised news conference in Harare -- were true.
"You cannot have a situation where, in a sense, the security forces are trying to pre-empt an election," South African presidential spokesman Bheki Khumalo told Reuters.
South Africa's Nobel peace laureate, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, said he was "deeply saddened" by events in Zimbabwe.
"I really feel ashamed in many ways because he (Mugabe) used to be such a splendid leader," he told BBC radio from Cape Town.
But the United States has threatened travel and investment sanctions against Mugabe and his governing elite.That'll show him.
Maybe we need to threaten him with a personal visit by Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton.
Even the most hardened African dictator ought to cring at the thought of those two characters in the waiting room.
No country has the guts to go in and clean out that nest of snakes.
Sounds about par for this monster.
Much, much more is needed. We'll be sending them food before long now that the farms have been taken over and the production has stopped.
Your remark made me think of this Mark Steyn piece about colonizing: [Excerpt] As for the West, by comparison with the sonofabitch system, colonialism is progressive and enlightened. Even under its modified, indirect Middle Eastern variation, the average Egyptian earned more under the British than he does today -- that's not adjusted for inflation, but in real actual rupees. Even in Afghanistan, the savagery of whose menfolk has been much exaggerated by the left's nervous nellies, such progress as was made in the country came when it fell under the watchful eye of British India. With the fading of British power in the region in the 1950s, King Zahir let his country fall under the competing baleful influences of Marxism and Islamic fundamentalism.
What will we do this time round? Will we stick Zahir Shah back on his throne to preside over a ramshackle coalition of mutually hostile Commies, theocrats and gangsters, and hope the poor old gentleman hangs in there till we've cleared Afghan airspace? Or will we understand Osama bin Laden's declaration of war on pluralism for what it is? The most unstable parts of the world today are on the perimeter between Islam and the infidel -- places such as the Sudan, where vast numbers of Christians have been slaughtered -- and given the vast illegal immigration of Muslims into western Europe and elsewhere that perimeter is expanding. Afghanistan needs not just food parcels, but British courts and Canadian police and Indian civil servants and U.S. town clerks and Australian newspapers. So does much of the rest of the region. Given the billions of dollars of damage done to the world economy by September 11th, massive engagement in the region will be cheaper than the alternative.
America has prided itself on being the first non-imperial superpower, but the viability of that strategy was demolished on September 11th. For its own security, it needs to do what it did to Japan and Germany after the war: civilize them. It needs to take up (in Kipling's words), "the white man's burden," a phrase that will have to be modified in the age of Colin Powell and Condi Rice but whose spirit is generous and admirable. [End Excerpt]
He has Gaddafy onboard now for muscle and advice. It's been left to fester and now (for a long time) the situation has been dire.
well... g'night!
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