European Union extends Zimbabwe sanctions

European Union extends Zimbabwe sanctions

• Zim journalist caught-up in Aussie sanctions

• UZ students urge sanctions against Nyagura

• Bush turns screws on Mugabe with sanctions

• Tawanda Hondora: Zim sanctions, are they political or economic

• Khanyisela Moyo: US sanctions futile, misguided and deceitful

• Dr Alex T Magaisa: On sanctions, Mugabe and the economy

• Nobuhle Nyathi: It's Zanu PF not sanctions, stupid!

• Tawanda Hondora: Sanctions undermine economy

• US travel ban will hit ministers' families

• Switzerland bans Zimbabwe officials

• US announces assets freeze on Mugabe's men

• New Zealand bars Mugabe banker

• Belgium in visa snub for Zimbabwe minister

• Gono targeted in EU sanctions review

• Gono escapes as EU travel ban list extended

• Australia tightens Mugabe travel sanctions

• Mugabe invited Prince Charles to Harare!

• Prince Charles in Mugabe handshake row

• Foes reunited at Pope funeral

• Pope would have wanted Mugabe at funeral

• The 'unclean' among the 'clean' at the Vatican

• Mugabe in Vatican for Pope's funeral

• EU renews targeted sanctions against Mugabe

• Full text of EU sanctions renewal agreement

By Staff Reporter

THE European Union has extended sanctions against Zimbabwe for another year.

The sanctions include an arms embargo, travel bans on certain officials and a freezing of their assets.

President Robert Mugabe and more than a hundred ministers and officials are included in the travel bans and freezing of assets.

EU officials accuse them of human rights violations, and violations of freedom of speech and assembly in Zimbabwe.

The sanctions, extended until Feb. 20, 2007 were originally in reaction to the forced transfer of white-owned commercial farms to mainly landless black peasants, and Mugabe's disputed re-election in 2002.

When the government began the land transfer, it said it was to benefit landless black Zimbabweans. But sharp falls in agricultural production soon followed, and Zimbabwe has since endured rampant inflation and food and fuel shortages.

Aid agencies and critics partly blame food shortages on the land reform program. The government blames a long-running drought, and Mugabe has accused the EU of sabotaging the economy.

Zimbabwe, formerly called Rhodesia while under British rule, gained independence in 1980 after a 17-year bush war fought mainly between black liberation movements and the 250,000 white Rhodesians.

The war was all about land and its fair redistribution. Mugabe, a rebel leader, became the country's first president in a post-independence landslide election victory for his ZANU-PF party.

Initially, he extended the hand of reconciliation to the country's remaining whites. But then veterans of the independence war – and many hangers-on paid by the ruling party – began their increasingly violent campaign of farm invasions.

By April 2000, some Mugabe backers said more than 1,000 farms had been occupied by 60,000 "war veterans." But the opposition says half of the "veterans" weren't even born in 1980, when independence was achieved - Reuters
JOIN THE DEBATE ON THIS ARTICLE ON THE NEWZIMBABWE.COM FORUMS
newsdesk@newzimbabwe.com