EU extends visa ban on Mugabe

 Harare (AP):

European Union (EU) officials disclosed yesterday that they will extend visa bans and an asset freeze against Zimbabwe's president and his close allies for another year.

Emilio Rossetti, the chief EU representative in Zimbabwe, said there was insufficient progress on political reform to justify a policy change toward the country.

He said restrictions will remain for another year on 163 individuals and 31 companies in Zimbabwe. He said the EU will also lift targeted sanctions on 35 people, removing their names from the EU list for the first time after a review of political developments.

European nations and the United States imposed the measures to protest President Robert Mugabe and his ZANU-PF party's role in a decade of state-orchestrated political violence and human rights abuses.

Mugabe insists the restrictions have destroyed the economy though his critics blame Zimbabwe's economic woes on mismanagement that began with the often-violent seizures of thousands of white-owned farms in 2000 by Mugabe's party.