Brown threatening Mugabe boycott

Gordon Brown has threatened to boycott a summit of European and African leaders if Robert Mugabe is in attendance.

Mr Brown says Mr Mugabe's presence at the conference in Portugal will "divert attention" from important issues such as poverty, climate change and health.

He told the Independent newspaper that Mr Mugabe has an EU travel ban for a reason - "the abuse of his own people".

The European Union-African Union summit will take place in Lisbon in December.

I really appreciate the many subtle differences between the premiership of Brown and the premiership of Blair. Blair insisted that Mugabe was a problem that only Africa could solve, and we have watched for years as the situation worsens and Mbeki appears unable to change the suicidal course Mugabe has set Zimbabwe on.

The figures are devastating:

The average life expectancy for women in Zimbabwe is 34 years; for men, it is 37. Inflation rages at 8,000 per cent; the shelves are empty of bread and maize; in the hospitals and clinics, children die for lack of vitamins, food and medicine, while the ravages of Aids are exacerbated by government indifference.

In the cramped townships now home to those supporters of the opposition whose homes Mugabe destroyed in a frenzy of destruction called 'Clean Out the Filth', there is no electricity or fresh running water and sewage spews out of the dilapidated buildings. The first cholera deaths were reported last week.

I linked last week to a call from the Archbishop of York saying that Britain needs to get over it's colonial guilt and actually take actions against this vile dictator.

It is now time for the sanctions and campaigns that brought an end to apartheid in South Africa to be applied to the Mugabe regime. What Britain deemed to be in the best interest of the Rhodesian government of Ian Smith must now be enacted against the Zimbabwean government of Robert Mugabe. The smart sanctions implemented by governments towards terror groups now need to be brought to bear upon Mugabe's regime.

So, whilst I appreciate the subtle distinction between Brown's actions and those of Blair, and indeed note that Brown does not hang back from describing Mugabe in withering terms:

Brown added that Britain had a responsibility to the people of Zimbabwe, who find themselves in an "appalling and tragic" situation.

"There is no freedom in Zimbabwe: no freedom of association; no freedom of the press.

"And there is widespread torture and mass intimidation of the political opposition," added Mr Brown.

There is still a part of me that thinks that this is not enough. It is time, as the Archbishop of York says, for tough sanctions and a serious attempt to bring this immoral and undemocratic regime down.

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