Wednesday 18 February 2015

EU easing sanctions on Zimbabwe




The European Union imposed sanctions against Zimbabwe in 2002. In 2013, it lifted a ban on diamonds from the Marange fields. In February 2015, it offered an aid package worth € 234 million to spend on health, agriculture and governance issues. The funds will be used by UNICEF and the Food and Agriculture Organization, and not by the Zimbabwean government. The arms embargo, and the travel ban on Mugabe and his wife are still in force.

For the Zimbabwean economic analyst, Vince Musewe, the European Union should not lift its sanctions. In 2014, he said:

Your humanitarian aid is much appreciated and I know that you continue to have concern for the poor and sick and the hopeless and the helpless. For that I am grateful. However, we need you to support democratic forces in our country than to give us handouts. We need your moral support of uprooting this dictatorship more so now than ever. We need you to strengthen our people so that they may fight for what is right. That is the right thing to do.


But EU analysts say that EU sanctions have damaged citizens and not political leaders in Zimbabwe. According to them, the ‘European Union has decided it couldn’t allow the situation to deteriorate any further.’ 

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