Zimbabwe urges boycott of EU Summit over First Lady travel ban

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe will not attend a European Union-Africa summit next week if his wife is denied a visa to travel with him, his spokesman said on Friday.

Mugabe, 90, and his wife Grace are subject to travel bans by the EU because of allegations about human rights abuses and election-rigging but the union allowed Zimbabwe’s sole ruler to attend the meeting after pressure from the African Union.

The two-day summit starts on April 2 in Brussels.

“We are sovereign and equals and the EU cannot decide on our delegations. The president, and Zimbabwe will not be there if they continue to hold out on the visa,” Mugabe’s spokesman George Charamba said.

EU ambassador to Zimbabwe Aldo Dell’Ariccia told a local radio station on Friday the bloc had not given a visa to Grace because there was no program for wives of presidents and there was no need for her to attend.

Zimbabwe’s position on the summit was earlier stated by an official of the country’s foreign ministry who urged the African Union to boycott the summit because the EU failed to invite all the Africa bloc’s leaders, and lift a ban on Zimbabwe’s first lady.

But diplomats in Brussels were unfazed by the call for a boycott.

“We see no risk” of a boycott of the April 2-3 summit gathering 90 nations from both continents, including 65 heads of state and government, said a senior official speaking on condition of anonymity.

In Harare, foreign ministry spokesman Joey Bimha said Friday that the European Union had failed to invite Sudan and the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, which does not have international recognition, while Egypt, which has been suspended from the AU, had been given the nod.

Another concern is “the issue of our first lady who was denied a visa,” Bimha told AFP, referring to the wife of President Robert Mugabe.

Mugabe and his wife remain targeted by an EU travel ban but the ban can be suspended temporarily to allow the head of state to attend international forums.

“We have been discussing this for some time,” the EU official said.

“We have reached agreement and Zimbabwe has been invited but no spouses have been invited. So there is a derogation from the travel ban for the president but not for spouses.”

The official also said that the EU had invited the government of Sudan but that the African Union was free to extend an invitation to President Omar al-Bashir.

He is wanted by the ICC for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide allegedly committed in Darfur.

In Harare, Bimha noted that the African bloc’s committee had decided that AU member states “should not attend the summit if the EU insists on interfering with the composition of Africa’s delegation”.

“They have taken their decision to the chair for a final decision on whether or not the AU should attend the summit,” he said.

“We will go by that decision. We hope the AU will stick to its decision in January that they will attend on condition that all leaders of the AU are invited.”

The EU sanctions against Zimbabwe dating back to 2002 were eased in February but Mugabe and his wife remain on the European list.