AFP Published:Aug 18, 2007
HARARE - The Zimbabwean government has welcomed Portugal’s decision not to ban President Robert Mugabe from a EU-Africa summit in Lisbon in December despite European Union sanctions against him.
"We have got no problems with Portugal. It had no reason to deny President Robert Mugabe entry (into Portugal)," Zimbabwe’s deputy information minister, Bright Matonga, told AFP in a reaction to Lisbon’s decision.
"The message is very clear, they cannot isolate Africa as they used to do, divide and rule. That is why they cannot stop President Mugabe from going to Portugal," Matonga said.
"Africa is now united, what affects one member state has an impact on the whole continent," he said.
Earlier on Friday, Portugal’s deputy foreign minister Joao Gomes Cravinho, speaking from the Lusaka summit of southern African leaders, told the LUSA news agency that Lisbon "has no intention of discriminating" against Zimbabwe.
"It is not up to Portugal, current head of the EU, to invite some people rather than others," he said.
The 83-year-old Mugabe is officially barred from travelling to the 27 nations in the EU, and Britain in particular is keen on maintaining the ban.
The issue has hampered efforts to organise a second summit between the European Union and African states. The first was held in Cairo in 2000.
