Chirac takes flak for Mugabe welcome

POLITICIANS and human rights campaigners yesterday launched a fresh attack on French President Jacques Chirac as he greeted his Zimbabwean counterpart Robert Mugabe at a summit in Paris.

Mr Mugabe, who is accused of widespread human rights abuses against his own people, was welcomed to the three-day meeting of African leaders with a handshake from President Chirac.

The summit promises to strengthen French links with African nations, and delegates are expected today to endorse Paris's stance on the Iraq crisis, calling for weapons inspectors to be given more time.

But the Conservative Party yesterday condemned President Chirac for shaking Mr Mugabe's "bloodied" hand.

British officials expressed doubts at claims that France could address Mr Mugabe's human rights record through face-to-face talks.

And protesters said they were told by police that all demonstrations on the streets of Paris had been banned.

Campaigner Peter Tatchell was arrested and questioned after planning to confront Mr Mugabe's motorcade as it neared the Foreign Affairs ministry at lunch time. Some 52 African heads of State are attending the summit. But the talks threaten to be overshadowed by the attendance of Mr Mugabe, who stands accused of presiding over a reign of terror and deliberately starving millions of his own people.

One British official said: "Of course sometimes it is right to talk to people who are doing bad things if you think that will deliver the prospect of better things."

But he went on: "We don't think that talking to Robert Mugabe right now is going to deliver better things.

"We think the risk is that it will confirm him in his view that there is no problem and he can continue with policies that are damaging Zimbabwe and Africa."

Meanwhile, British shadow foreign minister Alan Duncan said: "This will be marked out as the grubbiest handshake of the year. Jacques Chirac should think how much blood is on the hand he just shook.

"The thought of Mugabe gorging himself on French food while his people starve is morally repugnant."

Protesters also condemned French police, who arrested Mr Tatchell and fellow campaigner Alan Wilkinson the exiled director of the London-based Zimbabwe Association campaign group. The pair were seized at a Metro station near the Foreign Affairs ministry and questioned at a police station for more than an hour.

Mr Tatchell said: "I was told by the senior arresting officer that the interior minister had ordered the arrest of all protesters. He told us 'we have complete power, no demonstrations are permitted.'

"This is some of the most draconian, oppressive policy that I have ever encountered.

"The idea that France is a democracy is hard to square with the way we have been treated."

For a time, a group of journalists was also detained against their will by police outside the Foreign Affairs ministry while Mr Mugabe was inside.

Mr Tatchell added: "The French Revolution was based on the values of liberty and human rights.

"Two centuries later those values and rights have been trampled into the ground."

Despite the threat of being arrested for a second time he was planning further demonstrations, he said.

On Wednesday, Mr Tatchell lodged papers with the Paris general prosecutor calling for Mr Mugabe to be arrested under the United Nations Convention Against Torture, which France has signed.