The European Union extended a travel ban to 11 more Zimbabwean officials on Monday and joined calls for President Robert Mugabe to step down after 28 years in power.
Spreading cholera, food shortages and economic collapse have brought new demands for Mugabe’s resignation from his old foes in the West. He blames Western sanctions for Zimbabwe’s hardship. Critics blame his increasingly authoritarian rule.
French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said EU foreign ministers had added 11 more names to a list of 160 Zimbabweans – including Mugabe – banned from visiting the bloc, a move meant to increase the pressure on Zimbabwe’s government.
"I think the moment has arrived to put all the pressure for Mugabe to step down," EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said before the ministers’ meeting in Brussels.
Echoing similar calls from the United States and former colonial power Britain, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, whose country holds the rotating EU presidency, said "President Mugabe must go. Zimbabwe has suffered enough."
But Zimbabwean Information Minister Sikhanyiso Ndlovu told Reuters Mugabe was constitutionally elected.
"No foreign leader, regardless of how powerful they are, has the right to call on him to step down on their whim," he said.
South African ruling ANC party leader Jacob Zuma urged swift action to end Zimbabwe’s humanitarian crisis, exacerbated by political deadlock between Mugabe and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai over implementing a power-sharing deal.
The impact of Zimbabwe’s crisis is felt keenly in South Africa, where cholera victims seeking treatment have joined millions of immigrants who have fled in search of jobs.
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