Mugabe defies EU sanctions to attend Pope's funeral
President Robert Mugabe defied a European Union travel ban and flew from Zimbabwe unannounced to join world leaders attending Pope John Paul II’s funeral in Rome, state radio announced today.
The trip was immediately denounced by one of Mugabe’s fiercest human rights critics, Roman Catholic Archbishop Pius Ncube of Bulawayo.
“That man will use any opportunity to fly to Europe to promote himself. The man is shameless,” said the archbishop.
State radio said the Jesuit-educated head of state was accompanied by his acting finance minister, Herbert Murerwa, and a delegation of undisclosed size. It was not confirmed whether his wife, Grace, was among them, but she normally accompanies her husband on all foreign trips.
By going to Rome Mugabe, 81, who has been in power since 1980 independence, defied European Union travel sanctions imposed in 2002 after its observers were barred from disputed presidential elections, at which Mugabe claimed a further six-year term.
His ruling Zanu-PF party last week announced it had gained a two-thirds majority in parliamentary elections similarly marred by allegations of intimidation and massive rigging.
On Monday, Mugabe took the floor uninvited at a requiem mass for the Pope in Harare’s Catholic cathedral, attacking western powers for meddling in Zimbabwe’s internal affairs.
“It is sad to note in today’s world there are people who want to dominate other people contrary to the late Pope’s teaching,” he said.
The US embassy in Harare on Wednesday joined critics of last week’s elections, expressing concern at the role of police and ruling-party officials in polling and counting, the association of polling stations with food distribution and the “drastic discrepancies” between initial announcements of votes cast and the eventual combined votes announced for the rival candidates.
In 2002 Mugabe and approximately 100 of his closest political associates were also barred by the US and many Commonwealth nations from operating bank accounts on their soil or travelling there for private purposes.
However, Archbishop Ncube noted that the Italian Government was obliged by its treaties with the Vatican to admit Mugabe for the Pope’s funeral.
He accused Mugabe of exploiting the Vatican’s current preoccupation with funeral arrangements, the presence of many heads of state and arrangements for election of a new pope.
Senior church figures would be unable to communicate to him their concern at the human rights situation in Zimbabwe, the archbishop predicted.
“The Secretary of State might be rather too busy right now to talk to him but when someone in the family has died you appreciate all the sympathy you can get from all people, even murders, crooks and thieves like Mugabe,” he said.
“In any case what will he (the Secretary of State) achieve? Mugabe is so stubborn and so conceited.”
His comments, defying draconian new laws that impose a five-year jail sentence for undermining the dignity or authority of the head of state, mark a new intensity in the war of words between the two men.
Last week Mugabe accused the prelate of being “a half wit” and praying for God to kill him.
