Zimbabwe a thriving democracy

Zimbabwe a thriving democracy - Mugabe

Mugabe

• EU to extend sanctions on Mugabe

• MDC dismisses Mbeki talks claim

• Mugabe pulls Zim out of C'nwealth

By Staff Reporter
30/01/04
ZIMBABWEAN President Robert Mugabe Friday said the European Union should not target his government, arguing that his embattled country was more democratic than the majority of African nations, state media said.

"We are a more democratic country than most African countries and there is really no case the European Union should hold against us," the ZIANA news agency quoted Mugabe as saying.

Mugabe was speaking when he met outgoing French ambassador to Harare, Didier Ferrand, just weeks ahead of the proposed renewal of sanctions by the European Union.

The EU in 2002 imposed travel restrictions on 72 of Zimbabwe's top government and ruling party officials, including Mugabe, accusing them of human rights abuses and electoral fraud after controversial elections that year which saw Mugabe return to power.

Opposition parties and rights groups have said those polls were marred by violence, intimidation and fraud.

The 15-member EU is due to decide on February 18 on whether to maintain the sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe.

Western diplomats here say the sanctions are likely to be renewed and even widened to include more of President Mugabe's aides.

Zimbabwe's opposition leader in parliament and vice president of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), Gibson Sibanda, on Wednesday urged the EU to extend the sanctions.

Sibanda said during a visit to Paris that France and the EU needed to slap sanctions on Mugabe "in order to put an end to this desperate situation" in Zimbabwe.

"We are a more democratic country than most African countries"

Robert Mugabe

France last year came under fire from Britain, the EU and human rights activists, for inviting Mugabe to a two-day Franco-African summit after President Jacques Chirac obtained a waiver to the EU travel ban on the Zimbabwean leader.

The French leader defended the invitation as a way to confront Mugabe face-to-face over human rights abuses and lawlessness in his famine-ridden southern African country.
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