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Will Harare save Europe’s face?

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A MISSED opportunity!
That’s how best to describe British Ambassador Catriona Laing and European Union (EU) Head of Mission Philippe Van Damme’s courtesy calls to Information, Media and Broadcasting Services Minister Professor Jonathan Moyo last week.
Britain and the EU’s troublesome decade long sanctions against Zimbabwe could also be labelled a ‘missed opportunity’ as the embargo failed to meet the expectations of a bloc bent on exploiting Zimbabwe’s vast mineral resources.
But on the back of lifting the sanctions and normalising relations, a new opportunity awaited Britain and the EU.
Both blew it for two reasons.
First was the EU’s stubborn refusal to remove so-called travel bans on President Robert Mugabe and his wife Amai Dr Grace Mugabe.
Second was Britain’s endorsement of the same and its insistence on meddling in the country’s internal affairs through their demands for the ‘speedy’ alignment of laws to Zimbabwe’s new constitution.
As a result, both Britain and the EU are now in a quandary over ‘normalising relations’ with Zimbabwe with the sanctions bane hanging over the First Family’s heads, a position Harare says is untenable.
This is a problem the West created for themselves when they tried to isolate Harare.
“Our view is that they are saying they want to normalise relations with the State of Zimbabwe, but not the Head of State, which is pure sophistry,” a source who attended one of the closed door meetings with the British Ambassador told The Patriot this week.
“In the past they have viewed us as a State without a Government and have implemented aid through non-governmental organisations (NGOs), now they want to engage us, servants of the head of state, but leave out the head, viewing us as a government without a head, now you see this is ridiculous.”
Here lies the problem for Britain and EU.
By setting conditions for the complete removal of the sanctions, they are calling for Zimbabwe to do the bidding on their behalf through cowing to their flimsy demands.
The proposals by the West to re-engage Zimbabwe can only come to fruition if Britain and the EU remove the First Family from the sanctions and Harare has nothing to do with how that will happen.
From the meetings what is emerging is that Britain and Europe are being stymied by the negative perceptions they created on President Robert Mugabe in their countries.
Interestingly, Ambassador Laing unwittingly conceded to Professor Moyo during their meeting that President Mugabe had become a key factor on who will win the forthcoming elections in Britain next year.
President Mugabe has been labelled ‘dictator’, ‘despot’, and ‘tyrant’, among a plethora of denigrating epitaphs.
This is why Britain will not remove the sanctions anytime soon as it is opposed to upsetting perception on the eve of elections.
Ambassador Catriona Laing, told reporters soon after meeting Prof Moyo that Britain wanted clarity on the indigenisation and economic empowerment law and the new Constitution.
“We looked at the importance of the government explaining to investors about the rule of law, issues around the Indigenisation Law and the full alignment of laws in the Constitution, which happens to be a good Constitution,” said Ambassador Laing.
She claimed that her country felt hard done by what she said was Zimbabwe’s attacks.
“In the meeting we discussed the recent trade mission from the UK which went very well… the Chevenning scholarship which is a confidence building measure… We also reflected on the steps both sides need to take to make the relationship better. However, we feel certain statements made by different players affect the relationship…” she said.
Since the ill-fated imposition of the illegal economic sanctions on Zimbabwe on February 18, 2002, in violation of Article 96 of the Cotonou Agreement, the EU has been on an offensive to dismantle President Mugabe under the flimsy excuse that there were widespread human rights violations in Harare.
But a 2006 EU study on the implementation of the Cotonou Partnership Agreement admitted sanctions were a political tool to manipulate the outcome of the 2002 Presidential election and punish Zimbabwe for embarking on the revolutionary Land Reform Programme two years earlier.
The study, commissioned to evaluate the coherence, co-ordination and complementary of Article 96 of the Cotonou Agreement, admitted the body precluded dialogue with Zimbabwe in a rush to impose sanctions.
Article 96 of the Agreement, which brings together the EU and the Africa- Caribbean- Pacific bloc, outlines procedures to be followed should a country be deemed in violation of certain governance, rule of law and human rights requirements as defined in Article 8.
However, the EU flouted its own procedures so that they could sanction Zimbabwe and the study also accepted that the so- called targeted sanctions had adversely affected the Zimbabwe economy.
“The message coming from, Britain and the EU is the desperate clamour for us to save their faces,” said a source who attended the meeting.
Will Harare save Europe’s face?

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