Zuma urges EU to lift targeted sanctions on Mugabe cronies

By Lance Guma
28 September 2010

South African President Jacob Zuma will this week urge the European Union to lift targeted sanctions on members of the Mugabe regime. Zuma is attending an EU-South Africa summit in Brussels, Belgium and according to Foreign Affairs spokesperson Saul Kgomotso Molobi, "South Africa will set out the AU position, which calls for the lifting of sanctions on Zimbabwe."

South Africa played a key role in cobbling together the half-baked power sharing deal in Zimbabwe, after Mugabe and his ZANU PF party lost elections in March 2008. The Joint Operations Command which groups together all arms of state security had by then led a murderous campaign of retribution to punish mostly rural voters who voted for Morgan Tsvangirai and his MDC-T party.

Mugabe has however refused to honour the same agreement that offered him a lifeline and has instead hid behind the targeted sanctions as an excuse for the lack of progress in the country, demanding they be lifted first. This week a delegation from the coalition government met US politicians in a futile attempt to get that country to remove similar measures. The US said although it recognized the economic advances made, there was no progress on the political front in terms of respect for human and property rights.

The US said the, ‘current political and human rights environment in Zimbabwe remained troublesome,’ pointing to the recent harassment of WOZA and the disruption of constitutional reform meetings in Harare. The United States said that Zimbabwe must make further progress before the targeted sanctions would be removed, stating that, ‘political progress comes with strong institutions, not strong individuals, and developing strong and transparent institutions will sustain economic growth.’

Zuma is also likely to leave the EU-South Africa summit empty-handed over his sanctions removal request. Germany’s Ambassador to Zimbabwe, Albrecht Conze, recently made it clear saying; "There are strictly no restrictions on trade with Zimbabwe, investment in Zimbabwe or on foreign banks lending money to Zimbabwe." The EU is likely to restate the same message and also point to the many millions of dollars it has committed in humanitarian aid to Zimbabwe.