UK in sanctions deal over Mugabe visit

Britain will try today to stave off the complete collapse of European sanctions against Zimbabwe, even at the price of allowing the President, Robert Mugabe, to attend an international summit in Paris.

With London and Paris at loggerheads over the French invitation to Mr Mugabe, Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, will try to ensure that some measures against Harare continue, even if President Mugabe is able to exploit loopholes to attend international meetings.

The EU's visa ban and asset freeze against Zimbabwe's governing elite will expire next month, a day before Mr Mugabe is due to attend a Franco-African summit in Paris.

EU foreign ministers will meet today to decide whether to renew the sanctions, which also include an embargo on the export of any weaponry that could be used for internal repression. The dispute has highlighted the difficulty for the 15-nation bloc of forging common foreign policies.

Under the current "smart" sanctions regime, the UK could bar Mr Mugabe from travelling to Paris and has already signalled that it is opposed to France's invitation. But if it uses a veto, France is likely to oppose the renewal of the sanctions, which must be agreed unanimously, an outcome that would allow President Mugabe to travel freely in time for the Franco-African summit.

"Our aim is to find a way that we can preserve sanctions," said one British source, adding: "Unless we keep sanctions, Mugabe will be coming to Europe as often as he likes. But, either way, there is no way we could prevent him coming to Paris." The visa ban on Mr Mugabe and his ministers has proved difficult to enforce because southern African nations have backed the government in Zimbabwe, sometimes threatening to boycott meetings if Harare is excluded.

That has left organisers of international conferences facing a dilemma. France, which was always lukewarm about the idea of sanctions against Zimbabwe, also argues that many other African leaders it is inviting to Paris also have poor human rights records. Britain, in effect cornered, is trying to make the best of a difficult situation and to guarantee that the sanctions remain even if there are loopholes.

It is also trying to avert the prospect of an invitation to Mr Mugabe to attend an EU-Africa summit in Lisbon on 5 April, a meeting that is due to be attended by EU heads of government including Tony Blair.

Under a compromise that has been proposed by South Africa, and which is backed by the UK, Zimbabwe would be represented by its foreign minister – even though he is on the visa ban list – and Mr Mugabe would stay away from Lisbon.

Although support for such a move is widespread among a group of southern African countries, it remains far from clear whether the Zimbabweans would accept such a situation.

The EU-wide travel ban on the Zimbabwean elite was imposed last year after the authorities in Harare prevented European observers from monitoring the 2002 presidential elections, in which Mr Mugabe was returned to power in a disputed poll.