HARARE – The European Union (EU) will lift sanctions against President Robert Mugabe and his top allies only after the Zimbabwean leader and his former opposition foes fully implement a power-sharing agreement signed in 2008, a group of British parliamentarians said in Harare on Monday.

“The British government has already made clear that the key to having the EU’s restrictive measures lifted is for those blocking progress in Zimbabwe to implement the commitments they signed up to in the global political agreement (GPA) and to stop using sanctions as an excuse,” Malcolm Bruce, the chairman of the House of Commons International Development Committee, said in a statement.

Bruce is in Zimbabwe together with seven other British MPs on a four-day visit to review United Kingdom-funded aid projects in the southern African country.

The statement by Bruce comes days after Mugabe’s ZANU PF party announced it would make no more concessions in talks with the former opposition MDC party of Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai until the sanctions are removed.

This was after British Foreign Secretary David Miliband had said in Parliament that London would lift the punitive measures on advice from the MDC.

ZANU PF spokesman Ephraim Masawi dismissed Bruce’s statement, saying Mugabe’s party will not be lectured by the British and insisted the MDC must ask its Western friends to remove the sanctions.

“We have no reason to be lectured politics by the British. MDC is not playing its role to have them lift. (David) Milliband said it all. MDC has to ask the West to have them lifted. They have killed our country,” Masawi said.

Relations between Britain and Zimbabwe soured after London and its Western allies imposed visa and financial sanctions on Mugabe and his top lieutenants as punishment for violating human rights, stealing elections and failure to uphold the rule of law.

Mugabe denies the charges and instead accuses Britain of reneging on promises to fund land reform in Zimbabwe and charges that London and its Western allies have funded his opponents in a bid to oust him from power as punishment for seizing white land for redistribution to blacks.

Bruce sought to downplay the political significance of his group’s visit to Harare – the first official trip to Zimbabwe by senior UK politicians – saying the parliamentarians were in the country only to review how British aid was being spent.

He said: “Our role is to provide independent parliamentary oversight of how the British government spends its aid. We are not here to advise on political developments.”

But the visit by Bruce’s team is being viewed in Harare political circles as indication that London could be toying with the idea of renewing contact with Mugabe, who still controls Zimbabwe despite agreeing to cede some of his powers under the power-sharing agreement with Tsvangirai.

Mugabe and Tsvangirai last February formed a coalition government following an inconclusive election. The government has done well to stabilise Zimbabwe’s economy and end inflation that was estimated at more than a trillion percent at the height of the country’s economic meltdown last year.

As a result living conditions for ordinary Zimbabweans have greatly improved compared to 2008 when the country battled shortages of cash, fuel and every basic survival commodity.

But unending bickering between ZANU PF and MDC over a host of outstanding issues from their power-sharing agreement is holding back the unity government and threatening to render the administration ineffective. – ZimOnline