African Union urges West to lift Zimbabwe sanctions

HARARE
The African Union has urged the West to lift sanctions against Zimbabwe after President Robert Mugabe and his Zanu PF party won last month’s elections.
AU’s Peace and Security Council (PSC) called for the “immediate and unconditional removal” of the embargo by the European Union (EU), United States, Australia, Canada and New Zealand.
The sanctions were first imposed in 2002 after President Mugabe beat his longtime rival, Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leader Mr Morgan Tsvangirai in a controversial election.
Both the EU and the US had indicated their willingness to lift the sanctions if Zimbabwe’s July 31 elections were free and fair.
But the West has since dismissed the polls where President Mugabe won by a landslide as a farce.

FREE AND FAIR POLLS
Indications are that the sanctions would be maintained. However, the AU and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) endorsed the polls as free and fair and now pushing for the lifting of the sanctions.
The PSC, which met on Tuesday in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, said there was no longer a need to maintain the embargo.
“In the case of Zimbabwe, council further called for the immediate and unconditional lifting of all sanctions imposed on the country and stressed that the lifting of the sanctions will contribute to socio-economic recovery for the benefit of the long suffering population of the country,” the PSC said in a statement.
Zimbabwe’s Justice minister Patrick Chinamasa claimed the United States and Britain unsuccessfully tried to influence the PSC to condemn the elections whose outcome was contested by Mr Tsvangirai and his MDC party.
“The information which was coming out of Addis Ababa is that members of the PSC had come under tremendous pressure not to endorse Zimbabwe’s elections and the fact that they have, they need to be highly commended for standing up to the truth of what they saw during the elections,” the minister told state media on Wednesday.

EXTERNAL INTERFERENCE
“The British and the US have been exerting pressure on anyone they assumed could have a decision on Zimbabwe’s elections.
“The decision by the PSC showed that African institutions are resisting external interference in their quest to deliver African solutions to African problems.”
On Sunday President Mugabe threatened reciprocal actions against the sanctions saying his government would soon be forced to seize British companies operating in Zimbabwe.
Foreign companies operating in Zimbabwe are already being forced to cede their majority stakes to locals as part of an empowerment policy.