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EU seeks the end of Mugabe government
AFP - Tuesday, December 9
BRUSSELS (AFP) - - EU nations on Monday upped the diplomatic pressure on the Zimbabwe government, with calls for President Robert Mugabe to go and a broadening of sanctions.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy added his voice to the growing calls, driven by Britain, for the end of Mugabe's rule.
"President Mugabe must go," Sarkozy said in an address in Paris to The Elders, an independent group of statesmen seeking to end the crisis in the southern African country.
"There comes a time when a dictator does not want to hear, does not want to understand, and so my understanding is that heads of states and governments must end discussions," added Sarkozy, whose country holds the EU's rotating presidency.
The European Union is looking for maximum pressure to be exerted on Mugabe to quit, with EU sanctions beefed up as a first step.
EU foreign ministers, meeting in Brussels, added 11 names to the list of Zimbabwean figures banned from entering Europe.
The ministers, in a joint statement also stressed their "deep concern at the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Zimbabwe, particularly as a result of the cholera epidemic and the continuing violence against supporters of the (opposition) Movement for Democratic Change (MDC)."
The new names, described by British Foreign Secretary David Miliband as "middle-ranking members of the regime" were added to the 168 already on the persona non grata list, including Mugabe and his wife Grace.
Miliband, whose country is the ex-colonial power in Zimbabwe, decried "the murderous effects of the Mugabe regime," adding that it was time to consider the matter at UN Security Council level.
He said there had been "real unity around the table today that while the disease of cholera has got the headlines, the disease at the heart of Zimbabwe is the misrule by the Mugabe regime."
France's Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, who chaired the meeting, told reporters that the EU ministers had also called on the World Health Organization to act to tackle the outbreak of cholera which has claimed nearly 600 lives.
For EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana the message was very clear: "The moment has arrived to put all the pressure for Mugabe to step down and give the opportunity once again to the people of Zimbabwe to get their life together and begin to move the country forward."
Solana's comments came the day after Zimbabwean state media blamed the cholera outbreak on European sanctions imposed on Mugabe's regime.
The stronger EU line echoes that of US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who on Friday called on Mugabe to step down, saying power-sharing talks with the opposition were a "sham process."
Zimbabwe has been in political limbo since elections in March when the opposition wrested control of parliament from Mugabe's party and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai pushed the veteran leader into second place in a presidential poll.
Tsvangirai pulled out of a run-off election in June, ensuring victory for Mugabe, after scores of his opposition supporters were killed in attacks which the ruling ZANU-PF party were accused of orchestrating.
A power-sharing deal between Mugabe and Tsvangirai, signed in Harare on September 15, is yet to be implemented amid wrangling over the distribution of key ministries.
Not all the EU foreign ministers appeared keen to get too involved.
Luxembourg's Jean Asselborn stressed that the EU was "too far away from Zimbabwe and Mugabe to exert pressure," saying the Southern African Development Community, a 15-nation regional bloc, was in a better position to do so.
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European leaders have piled pressure on Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe to quit, saying he has ignored his people's suffering from a cholera epidemic and devastating food shortages.
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