The Zimbabwe Situation

THE EU headed for a new showdown with Zimbabwe over election-monitoring yesterday, insisting that a Swede would lead its team despite Harare pointedly not including Sweden in a list of invited countries.

The European Commission spokeswoman, Emma Udwin, said former Swedish government minister Pierre Schori would travel to Zimbabwe tomorrow to head the 150-EU monitoring team.

Ms Udwin repeated EU threats of sanctions on the president, Robert Mugabe, and his inner circle if he blocks deployment of the monitors or if there are election abuses.

In the 9-10 March poll, Mr Mugabe faces his stiffest challenge in the 22 years since he led the country to independence. Zimbabwe’s opposition charges that Mugabe and his ruling ZANU-PF party intend to rig the elections.

Ms Udwin said Mr Mugabe’s government earlier this week invited monitors from nine of the 15 EU countries, but left out Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Britain, Germany and the Netherlands.

"We believe it is up to the EU to determine who takes part in its mission," Ms Udwin said. "We are continuing all the arrangements to deploy our observers as planned."

Zimbabwe state radio reported last month that Mr Mugabe has invited foreign observers but would not allow election monitors from former colonial power Britain. Mr Mugabe accuses London of seeking to undermine his rule after disputes rooted in often-violent seizures of white-controlled land since 2000.

Ms Udwin said the EU had taken the necessary steps to invoke sanctions on Zimbabwe as early as next week if Mr Mugabe obstructs the observer mission. "Preparations for sanctions - should they be needed - are very well in hand," she said.

The so-called "smart sanctions" unveiled by the EU last month would freeze the foreign assets of Mr Mugabe’s family and inner circle and bar them from travel.

The EU would also ban exports of arms and other equipment that could be used for internal repression.

Ms Udwin said the sanctions could be invoked if the EU finds a deterioration of human rights or signs of intensified attacks on the opposition. She said that sanctions also could be imposed after the elections if they were found not to be free and fair, or if international media were prevented from covering the vote.

"A decision on Mugabe’s actions can be taken at any point," Ms Udwin said.

In Harare, the opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, accused Mr Mugabe of turning the country into a "basket case".

"I’ve never seen a country that has developed by taking people from the industry to the land," 49-year-old Mr Tsvangirai said to roars of applause, as he stood against a wooden crucifix, a giant poster of himself and a map of Zimbabwe at a rally in Harare’s Borrowdale suburb, the heart of his Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).

Mr Tsvangirai, who is being portrayed in the state press as Tony Blair’s "baas boy" or colonial-style servant, said he had no quarrel with the need for land reform in a country where whites own some 70 per cent of the most fertile land.

"Where we differ is the method," he stressed, "the method by which he [Mr Mugabe] has turned this country into a basket case."

Hundreds of people began piling into the red-brick church building an hour before the meeting began in Borrwdale’s Northside Community Church yesterday evening.

Among the 600 or so attending were expensive-suited and mobile-phone carrying businessmen, both black and white. But there were school children too, powdered old white ladies in their Sunday outfits and local market sellers.

Together they raised their palms in the trademark MDC salute and chanted the party slogan, Chinja matiro, which in the local Shona language means "Change your ways".

Mr Tsvangirai, who was on his third rally of the day, accused the government of turning the country into "a land of peasants."

"We’re living in anxious times," Mr Tsvangirai said. But elections at the beginning of March are not about "a choice between Morgan Tsvangirai and Robert Mugabe", he stressed. He said the choice was "for the future of the country."