Bid to bar Mugabe envoy from EU-ACP Hague meeting

Bid to bar Mugabe envoy from EU-ACP Hague meeting

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By Staff Reporter

EUROPEAN MPs and human rights groups this week launched a bid to prevent President Robert Mugabe 's representative Kumbirai Kangai from attending the forthcoming European Union-African Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Joint Parliamentary Assembly meeting in The Hague.

Kangai is one of at least 96 of President Robert Mugabe's lieutenants banned from travelling to Europe, and his attendance at the meeting set for later this month could spark a walk-out by European MPs, sources told New Zimbabwe.com last night.

"Chances are the meeting will be cancelled because the European Union side will not attend if Kangai is there," an EU source said. "Zanu PF and Mugabe are simply trying to intimidate ACP countries which is yet another strategy not to be put under scrutiny because as you know many in the ACP are concerned about the crisis in Zimbabwe."

The meeting will take place from 20-25th November at the Hague in the Netherlands.

Zimbabwe Watch, a Zimbabwe human rights group based in Holland fired an angry letter to the Dutch minister for Foreign Affairs as news came through that Kangai had applied for a visa, although he is yet to be granted one.

"This application is nothing more than a provocation by the Zimbabwean government to ridicule the sanction regulations," Zimbabwe Watch coordinator Wiep Bassie wrote to the Dutch Foreign Minister.

He added: "At previous international ACP-EU Joint Parliamentary assemblies, exceptions have been made. They have had disastrous consequences for the progress of the meetings. We would strongly call upon you to take the EU policy seriously, and not allow Mr. Kangai to enter the Netherlands."

Opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) activists in Europe have also backed calls for a ban on Kangai.
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