Brussels, 19/02/2002 (Agence Europe) - The Union decision to inflict immediate sanctions on the Zimbabwe authorities and recall its monitors sent to Harare for the presidential elections of 9 and 10 March (see yesterday's EUROPE, p.4) was announced to the press Monday evening, with firmness and regret. At the end of the General Affairs Council, Josep Piqué stressed that this decision had been taken unanimously and that it was "clear, unambiguous and consistent" with what the Council had previously announced: application of targeted sanctions on the government, without affecting the population, if the conditions for free, transparent and fair elections were not met.
Commissioner Chris Patten stipulated that the Council and Commission had thought at length on ways of maintaining the presence of the monitors of Member States, on a bilateral basis, finally to decide against. "We are convinced that the presence of international monitors would encourage the population to turn out and vote, that is why we are backing the deployment of SADC observers financially. But given the restrictions imposed by the Mugabe Government and the more than cavalier treatment of the head of the Union's monitoring mission, Pierre Schori, to have stayed would have been to have played Mugabe's game", he declared, considering that "the Union's credibility depended on it, not only in Zimbabwe but also for any participation in other monitoring missions".
Other than the "climate of violence in the streets and urban agglomerations, open and brutal interference by the authorities in the electoral process, and the battery of laws adopted to silence the press", Pierre Schori spoke of "unilateral and unacceptable conditions" imposed by the Mugabe regime on observers. "We were the brunt of hurtful actions and daily harassment. The conditions were just not there to maintain credible action. I note this with much regret", he declared. EUROPE recalls that only monitors from nine Member States accepted by Zimbabwe were accredited, or 26 of the 31 (5 observers from the Netherlands and Sweden, including Pierre Schori, were refused accreditation). All have already left Zimbabwe or were to do so on Tuesday.
The Union's feeling of having been forced to carry out its threat of 28 January is expressed in the Council's conclusions, which stress that the principles contained in Article 9 of the Cotonou Agreement, linking the Union to the 77 ACP countries (respect of human rights, democratic principles and the Rule of Law) "have not been respected despite all the efforts made by the European Union" to engage in political dialogue with the Mugabe regime (under Article 8), then consultations under Article 96. The economic sanctions inflicted on 20 people members of the Mugabe government, could be followed by other sanctions under the Cotonou Agreement should the situation continue to deteriorate.