Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-01-15-Speech-4-112"
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"en.20040115.6.4-112"2
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"Mr President, on behalf of the PSE Group, I should like to point out that we will be supporting the joint resolution on Zimbabwe. The Zanu-PF regime is an appalling example of the repression of an impoverished and starving people. Morgan Tsvangirai – the leader of the opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change – has been put on trial under spurious charges of treason.
The economic situation in that country has sharply worsened, with the GDP falling 40% over the last 4 years, and with inflation already at 600% and forecast to reach 1000% before the end of 2004. There is 70% unemployment and over 6 million people are in need of food aid. There have already been some reports of children dying from malnutrition, particularly in the Bulawayo area. There has been a disastrous land reform programme – which no reference to the evils of colonialism can possibly justify – that has dismantled commercial agriculture without replacing it with any other way of producing food efficiently and effectively.
The
Zimbabwe's only independent daily newspaper – is still closed, despite the courts ordering its reopening, and now the news editor and chief reporter of the
have been arrested under the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act.
What we want is a renewal of the sanctions against Zimbabwe, which are up for renewal by the EU on 20 February 2004. Equally, we want a further widening and strengthening of sanctions against the regime, with the introduction of additional measures to make international action against the regime more effective, in particular the stringent enforcement of the visa ban. There will be a meeting of the EU-African Union Foreign Ministerial Troika on 1 April, and we hope that the EU will put it high on the agenda. We welcome the intervention by Archbishop Desmond Tutu following the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in Nigeria, but would call on other African leaders to equally intervene and put pressure on Mugabe to take action.
We need the donor community to make available food aid that can be distributed through non-governmental channels; and we want the EU Member States on the UN Security Council to galvanise the international community into taking coordinated and effective action against this intolerable regime."@en1
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"Zimbabwe Independent"1
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