EU-Africa Summit: Who wins, who loses

Everything appears set for Zimbabwe dictator Robert Mugabe to make his red carpet entrance to EU's Africa summit meeting in Lisbon on December 8. UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown's boycott has not affected the other EU-member states decision to attend. For seven years of postponed meetings between EU and Africa because of Mugabe is finally over, wrote Svenska Dagbladet Africa specialist Ola Säll (SvD, 07.11.24).

It was hardly the EU's intention, but already in the beginning the summit meeting was a triumph for Mugabe. Gordon Brown stays home and is therefore accused of being petty and intolerant. On the other hand, Mugabe has succeeded to drum up support from other African presidents whose almost 50 unanimous voice declared: No Mugabe, none of us. Therefore EU succumbed. The prohibition against Mugabe and his government to make the trip to EU was lifted.

The biggest stain in the Africa Union's face is not because there is a dictator in Africa. That has always existed. No, AU has destroyed its good name through solidarity with known dictators. Who can trust AU's loud declarations of an African renaissance grounded on democracy and human rights?

Sweden, the Netherlands and Germany states that the Lisbon summit would be " an opportunity to discuss human rights". EU member states' foreign ministers are unanimous at being "clear and tough" against Mugabe. But if Mugabe has not listened to EU in the last decade, why should he suddenly do so in Lisbon where he is backed by several other African presidents?

It just seems that EU would have no chance. Mugabe excels in the limelight, the latest of which was at the UN where he compared Bush and Blair to Hitler and Mussolini. The other unforgettable event was the UN environmental conference in Johannesburg in 2002, where a state-organised violence ended in Zimbabwe. The African presidents gave its support and applauded Mugabe more than any other speaker.

It would be a spectacle in Lisbon. Mugabe has already the leading role where he would call Europeans both racist's and imperialists, while other African leaders applaud that he dares. He may embarrass himself before the Europeans' eye but in the African presidents' eye he has once again proven his greatness.

(Translated from Ola Säll's analysis of the summit meeting, SvD, 24 Nov. 2007)