Aid will not come before reforms, EU tells Mugabe

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“We still have a lot of reports of human rights abuses, that’s unacceptable,” said Gunilla Carlsson, Sweden’s development aid minister. “We want to see changes on the ground.”

As the first EU delegation to Zimbabwe since 2002 prepared to leave Harare, the Prime Minister, Morgan Tsvangirai, also increased the pressure on the autocratic President, Robert Mugabe, criticising his failure to honour their power-sharing agreement.

At a rally for his Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), Mr Tsvangirai said that it would not stand by as Mr Mugabe “continues to violate the law, persecutes our members of parliament, spreads the language of hate, invades our productive farms . . . ignores our international treaties”.

Travel and investment restrictions target Mugabe and 300 of his associates. Mr Mugabe wants them removed and foreign reconstruction aid totalling $10 billion (£6 billion). Mr Tsvangirai toured Europe and the United States in June and said his country was ready for increased aid, but he has shown increasing frustration as Mr Mugabe has continued his suppression.

Ms Carlsson said: “We are entering a new phase . . . However, much remains to be done. We need to see the media situation to improve, the working with constitutional reform.” The EU continues to pay humanitarian aid and is due to pay more than ¤90 million (£78.8 million) this year.

But the EU’s aid commissioner, Karel De Gucht, said that the resumption of large scale financial aid “can only come with completion of the benchmarks of the agreement, with a roadmap on how to fulfill its completion”.

Source: Times Online