No Plans To Lift Mugabe Sanctions: Eu Envoy

The European Union has no plans to lift its decade-old sanctions on President Robert Mugabe and his wife Grace until the former adopts all measures necessary for the complete democratisation of Zimbabwe.



"Zimbabwe has a good constitution but the national laws still need to be aligned with this constitution," E.U. Ambassador to Zimbabwe Aldo Del Ariccia told Anadolu Agency in an interview conducted at his Harare office.



He said the European Council had concluded that further steps must be taken in the country's democratisation process, while certain electoral shortcomings – including those verified by African Union observers during last year's general elections – had to be addressed.



"The ultimate person with the power to achieve this result is Mugabe, and this is why he has been maintained on the [sanction] list with his wife," added Del Ariccia.



Relations between the E.U. and Zimbabwe have been strained since 2002, when the pan-Europe body first imposed restrictive measures – described as illegal by Mugabe – after the Zimbabwean government embarked on a controversial land reform program that saw an estimated 4000 white farmers lose their land.



Mugabe had asserted that the program was necessary to redress colonial-era injustices, which saw black Zimbabweans progressively lose their land to whites from 1890 to 1980.



The European sanctions included travel bans and freezing assets owned by Mugabe and leaders of his ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF).



Bur relations had appeared to be improving following the formation of a coalition government in 2009 – the result of a power-sharing deal between Mugabe and his biggest rival, Morgan Tsvangirai of the Movement for Democratic Change.



The E.U. lifted punitive measures on ZANU-PF officials as a gesture of goodwill and as an incentive for further reform after the coalition government held a peaceful referendum and adopted a new constitution in March of last year.



But the European body retained its sanctions on 90-year-old Mugabe, who has ruled Zimbabwe since independence from Britain in 1980, and his wife.



-Unfazed-



Progress towards the normalisation of ties with the E.U. stalled after Mugabe's resounding, albeit controversial, election victory in 2013, to which the E.U. had objected after Mugabe had failed to carry out a raft of electoral, security and media reforms.



Even the African Union and the Southern Africa Development Community had refrained from vouching for the poll's credibility, citing irregularities and allegations of widespread vote-rigging.



Earlier this month, an unfazed Mugabe spurned an invitation to attend the fourth E.U.-Africa summit, held in Brussels on April 2 and 3 – with the participation of 61 heads of state.



The summit was to discuss the future of E.U.-Africa relations and how to further strengthen ties between the two continents.



The Zimbabwean leader's main gripe with the E.U. was that it had refused to grant his wife a visa so as to accompany him to the summit.



Ambassador Del Ariccia suggested that Mugabe's absence from the summit had been a loss for Zimbabwe.



"It was not only Mugabe who was absent, but there was no delegation representing Zimbabwe at the summit except businesspeople from the private sector," he recalled.



"When you have this kind of summit, you get declarations which are subscribed to by those present and therefore Zimbabwe has not subscribed," said the European envoy.



He added that the summit had provided a platform for close engagement that Mugabe missed out on because there had been 21 European heads of state present while Africa had 40.



While other African leaders were attending the summit in Brussels, Mugabe travelled to Dubai, where he arranged for the auction of Zimbabwean diamonds.



Until last year, the E.U. had imposed sanctions on Zimbabwean diamonds due to concerns about human rights abuses in the Manicaland region of Marange, from which the diamonds are mined.



There had been reports of brutal violence, including the murder of civilians, when the Zimbabwean military took control of the region's diamond fields in 2008.



Mugabe defended his decision to hold a diamond auction in Dubai, telling Zimbabwe's state media at the time that "here [in Dubai] we have the same Third World people with sympathies for us. You do not have the evil heart of Europe."



State media reported that Zimbabwe was looking to Dubai in hopes of fetching higher prices for its diamonds than those found in Antwerp, a capital of the global diamond trade.



Ambassador Del Ariccia, however, suggested that Mugabe had been trying to evade the stringent transparency requirements associated with trading in Europe.



"In the sales of diamonds in Antwerp, there is full information about the quality and quantity of stones, the price fetched. Therefore, the amount of funds that will go to Zimbabwean coffers will be known," he said.



"Dubai is a fiscal paradise; there is certain opacity in the transactions," the European envoy added. "It is possible the auction can be transparent, but it is also possible that it may not be."



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