(HERALD) Zim, EU talks threatened

Zim, EU talks threatened
Herald Reporter

THE resumption of formal dialogue between Zimbabwe and the European Union nearly failed to take off following attempts to bar Zanu-PF mem- bers of the delegation from travelling for the talks which start in Belgium today.

Acting Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara had to intervene at the 11th hour to force the British and French embassies to issue visas to three Cabinet ministers.

Foreign Affairs Minister Simba-rashe Mumbengegwi, who left for Europe on Saturday and had joined another delegation led by Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai that is touring Western countries to lobby for the removal of sanctions and extension of aid to Zimbabwe, only got a visa yesterday afternoon.

Similarly, Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa only got a transit visa from the French Embassy yesterday just a few hours before his flight.

Other members of the delegation — the Ministers of Regional Integration, Industry, Economic Planning, and Finance and their permanent secretaries — had already been granted visas. At the same time, the British Embassy in Harare was also trying to prevent Mines and Mining Develop-ment Minister Obert Mpofu from entering the United Kingdom for a sector conference in that country this weekend. Minister Mpofu is supposed to attend the mining conference along with PM Tsvangirai.

He too was only granted the right of entry after Harare made it clear that it would call off any dialogue if "Europe kept trying to determine who should be in Zimbabwean delegations".

Sources said Acting PM Mutambara yesterday told the British and French Embassies here that they should not expect dialogue if they only wanted to deal with Government officials from the MDC formations.

"The Acting Prime Minister was the most vocal on the issue of pulling out

From Page 1 of the dialogue before it even began. He contrasted the selective treatment of Zimbabwean Ministers in Europe and America with the completely different treatment of the ministerial team he led to the World Economic Forum in South Africa last week.

"He said the selective granting of visas was not only an attack on the inclusive Government but on the sovereignty of this country. He said, ‘If we can’t constitute our own delegations as a Government then who do we become?’."

The sources said Government had even considered recalling PM Tsvangirai’s delegation from its Western tour.

"President Mugabe intervened and advised that pulling out of the re-launch of dialogue would be too drastic a measure. He then asked the Acting Prime Minister to engage both the French and British Embassies.

"He duly met the Ambassadors face-to-face and they said they could only deal with the matter if they received a letter from the Prime Minister. It was then that he informed them that he was in fact the Acting Prime Minister and he gave them the letters that they were asking for.

"The Ambassadors saw that they were in a corner and they were forced to oblige. As we speak, the full Cabinet Committee on Re-Engagement is now on its way to Brussels for the talks," the sources said.

The French Embassy subsequently apologised and claimed that a "break down in communication" was to blame for the delay in the issuance of the visas.

It is understood that British Ambassador Andrew Pocock had said his government did not consider Minister Mpofu as "one of those Ministers whose passage into Britain we are prepared to facilitate".

A Foreign Affairs official last night said, "It’s ironical that the EU, which is playing the Global Political Agreement refrain very loudly can’t stomach the presence of one of the key negotiators of that same agreement.

"It means that they don’t recognise the GPA and that is why they only want to grant visas to MDC party officials.

"As much as one wants to be optimistic on the re-launch of dialogue, the tell-tale signs are not promising at all. It is also doubtful if the Swedes, who are taking over the EU presidency from France for the next six months will be able to cut through this glacier of resistance."

The resumption of dialogue has been fraught with tension from the onset.

Earlier on, the EU tried to block Minister Mumbengegwi from heading the delegation, saying they wanted PM Tsvangirai to lead the Zimbabwe Government team.

This was shot down, though PM Tsvangirai will be in Brussels as part of his Western tour.

Then the EU tried to say the talks should be between Zimbabwean Ministers and European Ambassadors accredited to Harare.

Government again rejected this demand, saying members of Cabinet could not be placed at par with diplomats.

The talks are to be held in the context of Article 8 of the Cotonou Partnership Agreement, which provides the parameters for engagement between the EU and the African, Caribbean and Pacific bloc.

The ACP bloc is expected to stand by Zimbabwe in the discussions as it has done since the EU prematurely invoked Article 96 of the Cotonou Agreement in 2002 to slap sanctions on Harare ahead of that year’s presidential elections.

A 2007 study on the implementation of Article 96 of the Cotonou Agreement by the EU itself admitted that Europe had slapped the sanctions in a bid to manipulate the outcome of the 2002 Presidential elections and to punish Harare for embarking on the revolutionary land reform programme.