Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-09-06-Speech-4-144"
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"en.20010906.7.4-144"2
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"Mr President, I must say to the last speaker that, as somebody British, I can confirm that my ancestors had absolutely nothing to do with the oppression or repression of the people of Zimbabwe. I would like to make it clear that I and my family are in no way guilty of colluding with anything that took place in colonial days.
It is very important for us to recognise that this resolution is being debated here today at a very important time. It is an opportunity for President Mugabe to make the decision once and for all to step back from the brink, as Mr Van Orden has clearly said. In addition to the negotiations, which are taking place as we speak in Abuja between foreign ministers of the Commonwealth, there are a number of European Union initiatives including the intended visit to the southern African countries by the Belgian Foreign Minister, representing the Presidency and Mr Solana, the high representative.
There are a number of other things going on as well. Very importantly, in about three weeks, the preparatory team will be going out to prepare for the European Union's involvement – hopefully – in the March presidential elections. That makes it extremely important. But if it turns out that all those initiatives fail and he still turns his back on the willingness of the international community to have dialogue with him, then it will be time to take stock of what is happening.
I would say to Mrs Maes in particular that one of the reasons the Council and the Commission have not wanted to take urgent action, as some in this Parliament would perhaps have wanted, is the danger that what Mugabe wants is an excuse to call a state of emergency in Zimbabwe so he can cancel the election, stop the democratic process and stifle the official opposition as well as any opposition from the press and media. We need to understand the potential impact of anything that the European Union, or indeed the Commonwealth, does in order to tackle what is happening in Zimbabwe.
The defining moment will be on 8 October when the next General Affairs Council is due to take place. If no progress has been made by this time, if the dialogue has failed, if we say this is a useless procedure, then at this point it is essential that we adopt so-called smart sanctions. We should restrict visas to all Mugabe's associates and his government and identify those individuals with foreign bank accounts and freeze their assets. Those are smart sanctions that will not hurt the poor people of Zimbabwe but would certainly hurt those Zimbabweans who very much like coming to London to shop in Harrods or visit their children who are in British public schools. Those are the kind of important things that the European Union can do. Similarly we will have to look at the possibility of the suspension of development aid because that is how the Cotonou Agreement would suggest that we should proceed. At that time, we would have to express Parliament's view, as we say now, that insufficient progress has been made on land seizures, on political violence, on all of these things that others have raised.
Finally, I support the words of Morgan Tsvangirai, the leader of the Opposition Party, who this morning on the BBC was very tough on Mugabe and I will quote what he said and finish with this: 'President Mugabe has clearly violated all the tenets of the Commonwealth and all other international organisations and should now be isolated from the international community.' We should heed the words of the leader of the opposition in Zimbabwe."@en1
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