HARARE – Zimbabwe’s MDC party on Tuesday said its leader and the country’s Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai was not planning to travel to Europe next week to call for lifting of sanctions against President Robert Mugabe and his inner circle.

Several Press reports over the past week have suggested that Tsvangirai will lead a government delegation expected to leave Harare on April 21 for Brussels on a mission to push the European Union (EU) to lift visa and financial bans imposed on Mugabe and his top allies eight years ago.

Mugabe says sanctions were imposed at the instigation of the MDC and insists that Tsvangirai calls for their removal. The President and his ZANU PF party insist that until sanctions are scrapped they will not fully implement a global political agreement (GPA) with the MDC that led to the former foes forming a power-sharing government last year.

But MDC spokesman Nelson Chamisa told ZimOnline that Tsvangirai will not travel to Europe because he was too pre-occupied with “issues of governance, the rule of law and issues of the implementation of the GPA”.

Chamisa repeated the MDC’s position that that the burden to persuade Western countries to lift the punitive measures was not for the party or Tsvangirai alone but that of the coalition government, adding that full implementation of the GPA would see the EU and the United States that has also imposed sanctions scrap the measures.

He said: “It’s a collective responsibility in the transitional government to seek ways of re-engaging with the international community through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Even the GPA appropriates responsibility on all the political parties and not the MDC.

“Once we implement the GPA we believe that all the other things will fall into place. So, it’s not a question of us shouting about the removal of restrictive measures. That will not help at all.”

Mugabe has successfully used the sanctions wrangle to delay implementation of key democratic reforms that could weaken his hold power and see his party defeated at the next elections that should be held under a new constitution.

Southern Development Community (SADC) mediator in Zimbabwe, South African President Jacob Zuma, has unsuccessfully called on the US and EU to lift sanctions to help Zimbabwe’s troubled political transition process to move forward.

Zuma is soon expected to hand a report to the SADC’s special organ on politics defence and security on the Zimbabwean political stalemate.

By Zimonline