Harare - The European Union's refusal to grant visas to
ministers from Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe's party to
accompany Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai to Brussels this week has
deepened rifts in Harare's coalition government, it emerged Tuesday.
Tsvangirai is on a tour of the United States and several European
countries to try to repair relations damaged during the past decade
of Mugabe's autocratic rule and secure aid towards rebuilding
Zimbabwe's battered economy.
After meeting last week with US President Barack Obama, the former
opposition leader, who took his Movement for Democratic Change (MDC)
into coalition with Mugabe's Zanu-PF in February, is continuing his
trip in Europe this week.
On Wednesday, he and six members of his cabinet, two from each of
the three parties in the coalition government, are scheduled to meet
senior EU officials in Brussels for what is being called a
re-engagement meeting.
Three ministers, from each of Zanu-PF, the MDC and a breakaway MDC
faction led by Arthur Mutambara, are accompanying him throughout the
trip, with three more supposed to join the Brussels meeting.
From Zanu-PF, Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa was due to
attend, but the EU is refusing him entry because Chinamasa is one of
the scores of Zanu-PF members and allies, including Mugabe, barred
from travelling to the EU and US under targeted sanctions going back
years.
Sources in Zimbabwe's cabinet said Mugabe on Tuesday instructed
that the trip should be aborted if Chinamasa was refused entry.
Industry Minister Welshman Ncube, a leading member of deputy prime
minister Mutambara's MDC faction, told the German Press Agency dpa he
would not be attending unless the EU relented on his Zanu-PF cohort.
'We are supposed to go tomorrow but it depends on whether the
other members can get the visas.'
Refusing entry to Chinamasa would mean 'no launch of reengagement
(with the EU),' Ncube warned.
But Finance Minister Tendai Biti from Tsvangirai's party, the
third minister awaited in Brussels, had disregarded Mugabe's
instruction and already left Tuesday to attend the meeting.
Because there is no Belgian embassy in Harare, the ministers had
to apply to the French embassy for visas to visit Brussels. France
and Belgium are part of the visa-free Schengen area, meaning a French
visa covers travel to Brussels.
In a separate incident, Britain has refused to issue a visa for
Mines Minister Obert Mpofu, also of Zanu-PF, who planned on attending
a mining conference in the country this week.
The cabinet sources say Mugabe dispatched Mutambara to try to
intervene with the British and French ambassadors in Harare on the
issue.
Obama's decision to exclude the one Zanu-PF minister in
Tsvangirai's delegation, Tourism Minister Walter Mzembi, from the
Oval Office meeting last week already drew angry allegations from
Mugabe-loyal state media of 'overt bias.'
USA
Your Talkback on this Story