Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe withdrawal from Congo disputed

Misanet.com / IPS, 23 November - A European Union delegation Friday failed to secure President Robert Mugabe's commitment to withdraw Zimbabwean troops from Congo Kinshasa (DRC) where they are propping the government of President Joseph Kabila against rebel forces. Zimbabwe has deployed up to 11,000 troops in the Congo since August 1998.

- The talks with President Mugabe were very frank and very direct, sometimes also somewhat very difficult, said Louis Michel, Belgium's foreign affairs minister. Chris Patten, the EU's commissioner for external relations, said the delegation had failed to have "a meeting of minds with President Mugabe."

- We did not have a meeting of minds with President Mugabe. On the other hand, we did meet representatives of civil society and the representatives of the opposition with whom I thought represented the same sort of values that democracies and people who believe in rule of law and pluralism stand up for throughout the world, Patten said.

- We have absolutely no argument with the people of Zimbabwe. We want to help them develop a successful and prosperous community, he said. "We regard it with sadness and surprise that a country like Zimbabwe ... will require substantial food aid in the next few months."

Despite that setback, the EU delegation said it is ready to help Zimbabwe develop "a successful and prosperous community."

- We also referred to the UN report on natural resources (in the DRC) but I have to admit that president Mugabe rejected it, Michel said. "So it was very difficult to speak about this problem. President Mugabe accused some countries and some actors to be behind the report that, he said, was not objective."

- It was very difficult to have a real exchange of views about this report, he added.

Zimbabwean Information Minister Jonathan Moyo said on Wednesday that the UN report lacked balance, and ignored the fact that Zimbabwe intervened in the war at the invitation of a "legitimate" DRC government, which faced an external and internal military threat. 

Moyo accused the authors of the report of succumbing to pressure from powers such as Britain - which is at loggerheads with Zimbabwe over its land reform programme - to condemn Harare's intervention. 

- There is no prize for guessing what is in the report, Moyo was quoted as saying. "I can tell you before reading it that it's guaranteed to be heavily opinionated, false and malicious." 

The EU has said in the past that it is considering imposing sanctions against Zimbabwe because of "mounting human rights abuses" as well as of the government's refusal to allow local and international election monitors in the country.

- We have some strong expectations that these elections will be assessed on basis of minimal standards set by SADC (Southern African Development Community) for instance, said Michel. "It is normal to have reference and to underline some minimal standards."

He said they "put the proposal," related to the deployment of the monitors, "on the table and there was a very brutal reaction" from the government of Zimbabwe.

The EU said that it might not respect results of the country's presidential elections due next year if minimal electoral standards are not met.

- Unless the election complies with minimum standards, it would be very difficult, not to say impossible to be recognised by the EU, said Patten. The EU delegation said that it was also concerned about continued reports of increasing political violence in the country.

The EU delegation is visiting all the countries - Zimbabwe, Namibia, Angola, Rwanda and Uganda - involved in the war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in an attempt to revive the 1999 stalled Lusaka peace process.

A United Nations panel this week accused Zimbabwe, along with the other five countries fighting in the DRC, of plundering Congo's minerals resources.

By Lewis Machipisa, IPS

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