Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-04-24-Speech-4-186"
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"en.20080424.23.4-186"2
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"Mr President, can I first of all express my disappointment that the Council is not represented for this important debate.
It is almost a month since elections were held in Zimbabwe. There can be little doubt that those elections were won by the Movement for Democratic Change. Mugabe and his henchmen should now be out of office, but we have heard virtually nothing about the election results except that Mugabe’s people are once more reacting with violence and are desperately trying to fix the election outcome.
For years now, we have pointed to Zimbabwe as the great shame on the face of Africa, a testimony to the effects of tyranny, corruption and exploitation by one man’s appalling regime. Mugabe has destroyed a once prosperous country. Yet, during this time, over all those years, other African leaders have stood by and either done nothing or else they have applauded the tyrant whenever they had the opportunity. What a disgrace! And what a scandal this has been. And what a tragedy – not just for the people of Zimbabwe, but for Africa.
For all those years, the first key to Zimbabwe’s fate has been held by South Africa, yet Thabo Mbeki has not only failed properly to discharge his responsibilities as a mediator but he has blatantly sided with Mugabe. The world watched dumbstruck when Mbeki announced a few days ago that there was no crisis in Zimbabwe, just normal electoral politics.
While the EU has at least imposed targeted sanctions on the Mugabe regime, it went out of its way to ensure that no one took them seriously, even inviting Mugabe, banned from travel to EU countries, to its EU-Africa Summit in Lisbon last December for reasons that were wholly false. What diplomatic or economic effort has really been made to persuade other African countries to do the decent thing over Zimbabwe? The answer is very little.
Well, there is still time to do the right thing. Jacob Zuma, the ANC leader, has now called for action on Zimbabwe. In our motion for a resolution today we are calling on men of goodwill in the governing Zanu-PF in Zimbabwe to see the light and recognise that a transformation is on the way.
Now is the time for us to make our voice heard. Let us bring about that democratic change that at last is required for the sake of the people of Zimbabwe."@en1
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