EU MP says targeted sanctions won’t be lifted until Mugabe ends tyranny

By Violet Gonda
30 March 2007

Southern African heads of state have been heavily criticised for blindly backing Robert Mugabe at a summit in Tanzania, despite international condemnation over the rights abuses in Zimbabwe. European Union legislator Geoffrey Van Orden said it was a step in the right direction that regional leaders even had a summit at which they discussed the Zimbabwe crisis, “but the outcome has been perhaps predictable and rather disappointing.”
After being briefed by Mugabe himself on the current political developments in Zimbabwe, the leaders of the Southern African Development Community appealed for the lifting of ‘sanctions’ against members of the regime. They also appealed to Britain to honour what they said were it’s compensation obligations with regard to land reform made at Lancaster House and appointed South African leader Thabo Mbeki as the point man to bring the stakeholders to the negotiating table. This despite Mbeki’s dismal track record with his ‘quiet diplomacy’ that has had no effect.
Van Orden said the summit was a great opportunity for Zimbabwe’s neighbours to tell Mugabe to stop brutalising his own people and come to terms with the opposition. When asked if he saw the European Union lifting the targeted sanctions, the British MEP responded by saying; “We never want sanctions against anyone or any group of individuals or indeed any country. The whole issue of sanctions is to encourage change and once that change has happened of course the sanctions can be lifted. That is very clear.”
He added: “What needs to happen is that Mugabe needs to step aside and have proper free and fair elections in Zimbabwe and the Zimbabwean people need to be freed from this tyrannical rule. These are the steps that need to be taken and sanctions can end, after all the sanctions are not aimed at the Zimbabwean people. They are aimed at Mugabe and his close group of henchmen, you know, all 130 of them.”
It had been hoped that the African leaders were finally going to censure 83 year old Mugabe, but observers say the SADC communiqué clearly shows that they are still siding with Mugabe.
Van Orden also said the appeal by the summit heads to Britain to honour its land compensation obligations was misleading, as the United Kingdom has always been willing to assist with the land reform programme under proper conditions. He said: “That money has always been on the table there is no question about that. What we are not going to do is hand over money to Mugabe for him to deepen his brutality.”
The Dar-es-Salaam SADC Summit had met to discuss the political, economic and security situation in the region, with special focus on the situations in Lesotho, Democratic Republic of Congo and Zimbabwe.