Mudede, Mahoso added to EU sanctions list

Mudede, Mahoso added to EU sanctions list

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By Staff Reporter
13/02/04
The EU is to increase the number of top Zimbabwean officials facing targeted sanctions by the end of February.

Zimbabwean sources say that Brussels will expand its current list from 79 to 95 names when the sanctions are renewed for one year on February 20.

And high-ranking EU diplomats are still revising the list after a cabinet reshuffle by Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe.

But the visa travel bans are also reported for the first time to hit officials from the regime’s electoral and media commissions.

According to the Zimbabwean Independent, this could include Registrar-General Tobaiwa Mudede, Electoral Supervisory Commission chair Sobuza Gula-Ndebele, new Zimbabwean Liberation War Veterans Association chair Jabulani Sibanda and Media and Information Comission chair Tafataona Mahoso.

The current ban extends to the vilified Mugabe, his wife Grace, government ministers, politburo members of the ruling Zanu PF and security chiefs.

EU nations slapped diplomatic sanctions on Harare two years ago, imposing a visa travel ban in addition to an arms sales ban.

Zimbabwean assets in Europe were also frozen after Mugabe failed to improve his human rights record.

But calls from Zimbabwean opposition party the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) for the EU to also punish companies propping up the regime are to go unheeded.

National capitals will also take little account of the European Parliament’s demands for the current sanctions to prevent family members of banned officials from accessing employment and educational institutions in Europe.

The issue of the punitive measures against Harare is set to raise the temperature of talks at next week’s meeting of the African, Caribbean and Pacific and European Union parliamentary session in Ethiopia.

Kumbirai Kangai, the Zanu PF member who will represent Zimbabwe at the talks, has promised Harare will rally ACP countries to oppose the continuation of the restrictions.

Kangai recently told journalists that the ACP nations were unhappy that the EU had not consulted them before taking punitive action.

“There is a lot of propaganda to try and strengthen the position that the situation has deteriorated whereas we see that the situation in Zimbabwe has improved,” he added.

The last ACP-EU session last year in Belgium collapsed acrimoniously when the ACP group resisted attempts by the EU to bar two Zimbabwean ministers from attending.

But a letter from MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai, seen by EUpolitix.com, to be presented to the assembly next week, urges ACP leaders to put pressure on Mugabe to come back to the negotiating table.

“It is critical to realise that any signal that seeks to accommodate the Mugabe regime will only serve to exacerbate the crisis,” he writes.

Only a coordinated effort by the international community, “with the ACP playing an active role”, will prevent a “looming catastrophe”, Tsvangirai argues.

And the MDC calls on ACP nations to push for the UN Human Rights Commission to send a fact-finding mission to investigate and report on the grave humanitarian situation.

“In their darkest hour, the people of Zimbabwe remain confident that a strong statement of disapproval and a concrete course of action towards a peaceful and prosperous future for Zimbabwe will come out of Addis Ababa,” he concludes.
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