LONDON (AFP) Sept 20th. - Prime Minister Gordon Brown proposed new sanctions against Zimbabwe on Thursday and threatened to boycott an African summit in December if its President Robert Mugabe attended. The government in Harare said Brown was "wasting his time" by warning he would stay away from the talks in Lisbon, insisting the 83-year-old president had been invited and was going, and the president of neighbouring Zambia said he would boycott the summit if Mugabe were excluded. Portuguese Foreign Minister Luis Amado later said he would prefer Brown to attend the meeting than Mugabe, but that no invitations had yet been sent out. He promised to work towards resolving the situation in the coming weeks.Brown, whose comments were applauded by Zimbabwean activists and rights groups, said Mugabe's presence in the Portuguese capital would flout a European Union travel ban on him and his entourage. "President Mugabe is the only African leader to face an EU travel ban. There is a reason for this -- the abuse of his own people," he wrote in an article in The Independent newspaper. "There is no freedom in Zimbabwe; no freedom of association; no freedom of the press. And there is widespread torture and mass intimidation of the political opposition." As a result, Mugabe's presence would "undermine" the summit and divert attention from the issues in hand, Brown said, adding: "In those circumstances, my attendance would not be appropriate."
Brown later told British broadcaster ITV News that the existing travel ban should be widened.
His first policy statement on Zimbabwe goes further than his predecessor Tony Blair, who held off personally criticising Mugabe in favour of focusing on the plight of ordinary Zimbabweans and an "African solution" to the problem. The Independent said Brown was uncomfortable about attending a meeting with someone who is seen to have wrecked his country and brought it to the brink of collapse with hyper-inflation, mass unemployment and chronic food shortages. At an EU summit next month, he will urge others in the 27-member bloc to join him in the boycott, although he risked isolation if he could not get support, the newspaper added. Brown maintained Blair's line of supporting the humanitarian effort and made clear that Britain "will not shirk our responsibilities" to the Zimbabwean people. He said Britain was currently the second-largest donor to Zimbabwe, providing up to 40 million pounds (57 million euros, 80 million dollars) a year in aid and support for HIV/AIDS programmes. London was also to provide an additional eight million pounds of aid to its former colony through the World Food Programme; Brown also called for the UN Security Council to send a humanitarian mission to Zimbabwe. In addition, he called for EU sanctions against more than 100 individuals in Mugabe's regime to be more widely applied.
Mugabe, who is seeking a seventh term in office, has ruled the former Rhodesia since independence from Britain in 1980. He has blamed the country's economic woes on limited sanctions imposed by the EU and United States over claims that he rigged his 2002 re-election.
Mugabe still enjoys public support from neighbouring African countries, with Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa saying that he would refuse to attend the Lisbon summit if Mugabe were not allowed to go, a Zambia National Broadcasting Corporation news bulletin said Thursday. Nwanawasa, the current president of the Southern African Development Council, was the first African leader to threaten to boycott the summit, arguing that the travel ban on Mugabe did not solve the problems facing Zambia's southern neighbour. Brown's comments came three days after the second-highest ranking cleric in the Church of England, Archbishop of York John Sentamu, called on him to take action against Mugabe. Sentamu said Thursday the threat did not go far enough, telling ITV News that all Zimbabwean embassies in the EU should be downgraded and the African Union should put pressure on Mugabe to quit immediately.
By Phil Hazlewood
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