|
Mugabe 'not the only culprit'
25/10/2007 08:21 - (SA)
Strasbourg - The European Union Development Commissioner Louis Michel said on Wednesday that Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe could not be excluded from the upcoming EU-Africa summit just because he was a dictator, or others had to be barred too.
Michel said in the European parliament in Strasbourg: "If we were to judge each of the dictators or personalities whom we consider unsuitable, we wouldn't just have problems with Mugabe...there would be others."
The possibility that Mugabe could attend the EU summit in Lisbon in December had been a focus of Brussels' attention for weeks, not least because he was formally banned from entering the EU due to human rights violations.
Summit cancelled in 2003
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown had already warned his EU partners that if Mugabe attend the summit then neither he nor any of his cabinet ministers would be there.
The same issue resulted in the EU-Africa summit being cancelled in 2003.
"I have heard the incantatory calls to denounce Mugabe, I can also say that that changes nothing," said Michel.
The EU commissioner stressed that South Africa was "making considerable efforts" to solve the problem in everyone's interests.
Michel said the summit should be used as an opportunity to put the question of human rights in Zimbabwe on the table.
Earlier this month, the EU's Portuguese presidency said that the summit invitations would not be sent out until after an EU-Africa ministerial meeting in Accra on October 30.
- SAPA
|
News
Zimbabwe Special Report
