Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-01-15-Speech-4-115"
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"en.20040115.6.4-115"2
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"Mr President, African countries have made solemn commitments to democracy and the protection of human rights on numerous occasions: under the NEPAD agreement and the ACP-EU Cotonou Agreement, to name but two. However, the chaos and the oppression of the Mugabe regime in Zimbabwe has led to no satisfactory response from Zimbabwe's neighbours, who seem deaf to the cries of anguish from the oppressed people of that country. Not only have southern African countries been unwilling to exert pressure on Mr Mugabe, they have also allowed him to dictate the terms of Africa's relationship with Europe, and that is worse.
The European Union's relationship with both the African Union and the Southern African Development Community has been damaged by African states' insistence that banned Zimbabweans should be included in meetings in Europe. The ACP-EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly has also been severely disrupted. This not only undermines the founding principles of NEPAD and the ACP-EU relationship, but also means that major problems burdening Africa – external debt, AIDS, food security, conflict prevention, good governance and human rights – cannot be properly addressed.
Conditions in Zimbabwe are now spiralling out of control. There are terrible shortages, and oppression is increasingly widespread and brutal. A once prosperous country has been ruined and destroyed. African states' refusal to take the initiative on Zimbabwe means that it is even more critical that EU sanctions against the ZANU-PF regime be strengthened. This House has already called for them to be extended on six separate occasions. To date, the Council has failed to heed these calls. The EU travel ban against the Mugabe regime has regularly been breached in its first year and subsequently weakened to facilitate the entry of banned Zimbabweans into Europe.
The resolution before us today calls for renewal of EU measures when they expire on 20 February and the introduction of tough new sanctions. It calls for the right of residence in Europe of those subject to the travel ban to be rescinded, for members of their families to be barred from employment and educational institutions in the European Union, for high-profile economic links with Zimbabwe that have given the regime international prestige to be curtailed, for those providing financial backing to the ZANU-PF regime to be identified, and for measures to be imposed against them. Yet again this House calls on the Council to respond to its clearly expressed wish: real, effective actions against the ZANU-PF regime in Zimbabwe now."@en1
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