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Misanet.com / IPS, 7 March - Following closed meetings this week with Zimbabwe's president, Robert Mugabe, the European Commission has launched a 'political dialogue' with the Harare government, over concerns for issues of human rights, democracy and media freedom. Mugabe is currently on a round trip in Europe, inclunding stops in Belgium and France. According to a report released this week by the US State Department, Mugabe is responsible for the egregious and systematic abuse of human rights, including "killing, torture and beatings". The decision of European leaders and officials to meet Mugabe drew heavy criticism from Zimbabwe's main opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change, and members of the European Parliament's Development Committee, who believe that he should be treated as an international pariah. Learnmore Jongwe, a spokesman for the opposition movement, was quoted in the UK newspaper the Daily Telegraph as saying: "We believe the international community should be firm. It should be careful not to give legitimacy to governments that have become despotic, like that led by Mugabe." Another British newspaper ran an editorial Monday calling for European authorities to arrest the Zimbabwean president. A gay activist - offended by Mugabe's references to gays as ''dogs'' - attempted a citizen's arrest of Mugabe whilst he was in Brussels, but was pushed to the ground by bodyguards. The activist, Peter Tatchell told the BBC that before he was fended off, "I said the president should be arrested for the crime of torture under the 1984 United Nations' Convention on Torture of which Belgium is a signatory." The primary reason for Mugabe's visit Monday to Brussels and to Paris Tuesday was to discuss the possibility of a deal for the withdrawal of all foreign forces from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where 11,000 Zimbabwean troops make up a significant part of the regional coalition keeping President Joseph Kabila in power. EU officials have been tight-lipped on the details of talks with Mugabe on the situation in Zimbabwe itself; an official statement released in Brussels said only that the main issues had been discussed "in a frank and open way". However, Belgium, the former colonial power of the DRC (formerly Zaire), has argued that dialogue with Mugabe is crucial, as implementation of the UN-sponsored Lusaka peace accord cannot be achieved without the participation of all countries engaged in the DRC. That argument held little sway with the European Parliament's Development Committee, which said in a statement that Poul Nielson, EU Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid, had received a "roasting" from committee members Monday over his lunchtime meeting with Mugabe. German MEP Michael Gahler, who led Parliament's team of election observers in Zimbabwe last year, objected to what he saw as Nielson's cautious wording about "confidence building" with Harare, arguing that Mugabe should first seek to build confidence with his own people. Gahler also rejected the "professional diplomacy" that the Commissioner said he was pursuing in his contacts with Mugabe. "Diplomacy does not work with Mr Mugabe ... He does not listen to his own people, let alone anyone else," he said. He insisted that the only thing the Zimbabwean president would understand would be an EU threat to stop its aid programme to Zimbabwe unless he changed his behaviour. Under Article 8 of the Cotonou Agreement, which governs trade and aid relations between the EU and 77 African, Pacific and Caribbean (ACP) countries, the EU can suspend aid to a 'partner country' three months after political dialogue has begun, if Brussels sees no progress on issues of concern. However, a spokesman for the European Commission, the executive arm of the EU, said that dialogue with Zimbabwe was "open ended" with no firm timetable set in place. British MEP Nirj Deva appeared to object to any dialogue, "political" or otherwise, with Mugabe. "Would we have discussed matters with Stalin and Hitler too?" he asked Nielson. "I wonder if you had an opportunity to tell Mr Mugabe how appalled we all are at his continued human rights abuses?" demanded Deva. He was alluding to the murder on her farm the previous Sunday of Gloria Olds, whose son Martin was also killed there a year ago by 'war veterans' acting on the Zimbabwean president's incisive calls to black Africans to repatriate land from white farmers. Spanish MEP Francisca Sauquillo Pérez del Arco and German MEP Hans Modrow supported Nielson's strategy of opening dialogue with Zimbabwe, with Modrow advocating "a balanced approach" that would apply the right degree of pressure on Harare. He said that history had shown that pressure must be brought to bear, but too much pressure could harm the common people of Zimbabwe. EU aid currently amounts to about 10 million euros (9.2 million US dollars) a year, with most of that support going to the health sector. A further 500,000 euros was released Monday by the European Community's Humanitarian Office (ECHO) to support victims of Cyclone Eline, which in February 2000 caused flooding that severely damaged housing and food production in Zimbabwe's Chimanimani district. Reijo Kemppinen, a Commission spokesman, told IPS the release of the ECHO funds had not been timed to coincide with Mugabe's visit. For his part, Nielson told MEPs that he was determined to use the mechanism for political dialogue offered by Article 8 to try and define a constructive relationship with Mugabe but that he would consider suspending aid if the dialogue proved to be "of no value".
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