SOUTHERN REGION NEWS

Mugabe scoffs at EU sanctions threats

HARARE, December 17 -- Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe Sunday scoffed at
European Union threats to seize his assets in Europe, and said this was
part of a plot by the big powers to demonise him for refusing to back down
on his government's controversial land reforms.

Mugabe denied having any assets abroad, and dared the EU to confiscate them
and distribute the proceeds to charity if they found any.

"I do not have even a goat outside the country, for those who say I have
assets outside the country, I urge them to repossess them.

We have banks in our country, why should I leave them and go to places that
have horrible weather?" he said.

The European Parliament voted last week to urge the EU to freeze assets
held in Europe by Mugabe and his cabinet ministers as part of targeted
sanctions to punish Zimbabwe's leaders for suppressing the opposition,
violations of human rights and break-down of the rule of law.

"The new deterioration in the legal situation and in the state of human
rights in Zimbabwe is the direct consequence of deliberate and
reprehensible actions of President Mugabe's regime," EU MPs said in passing
the resolution calling for sanctions on Zimbabwe.

But the southern African country charges that the EU's concerns over
Zimbabwe's alleged human rights violations, democracy and the rule of law
were part of an international conspiracy, master-minded by former colonial
power Britain, to thwart its agrarian reforms.

Under the programme, the government was taking over excess land from white
farmers, who control the bulk of the country's arable land, to resettle
landless peasants as part of an economic empowerment programme.

The reforms have stirred stiff opposition in Europe, where calls have been
growing louder for collective sanctions to be imposed on Zimbabwe.  PANA/GNA

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