[Diálogo.Sobre] Zimbabwe Margaret Beckett na BBC, via Foreign Office

Lisboa continua em silêncio sobre o que se passa no Zimbabwe (talvez por medo que a cimeira UE-África caia), que é a posição mais confortável e também a que mais se adequa ao entendimento provinciano de Europa. Mas a diplomacia de Londres condena governo de Mugabe. Transcrição do Foreign Office das declarações de Margaret Beckett, hoje, à BBC. À falta de Lisboa, Londres.

I just want to talk about the situation in Zimbabwe. You've condemned the treatment meted out to Morgan Tsvangirai. Is there anything that we can do?

Well we are pressing very hard for action to be taken in the UN Human Rights Council. This is a new body fairly recently set up. This is one of its first major tests and there's... there's general agreement that that is the right place to call for action against the government of Robert Mugabe and so that is what we're doing. Also we are trying to gather information about the people who are personally responsible for the....the beatings and what is described in Zimbabwe as the torture that was inflicted on the opposition leader and some of his supporters in order to make sure that those people personally are on the list of people who are, you know, being targeted by the international community and also of course we'll be talking to other EU colleagues about how we can strengthen the EU's targeted ban.

Do you hold Robert Mugabe responsible?

One can only hold him responsible. He is in charge of the government. He has made it very clear that this is a deliberate act of policy on the part of the government of Zimbabwe and that he is indifferent to the real I think horror that is felt right across the international community. .

He said "go hang" didn't he to you and to other western leaders?

I believe that is certainly what he has said, yes.

And therefore don't you think that there's a possibility that you are seen as the old colonial power and therefore somehow it will sort of solidify support in his country by taking a tough line against you know British condemnation?

Well it's not only we who have condemned what is happening. One of the cards that he has played repeatedly and unfortunately very successfully is to pretend that this is somehow just a dispute between him and the United Kingdom. It's not. It's true that the United Kingdom is one of the biggest donors to the people of Zimbabwe and that we are helping to keep a lot of people alive, keep body and soul together who otherwise would die because of the neglect and incompetence of the regime in Zimbabwe. What is not true is either that Britain is the only country in the world that is desperately concerned at the plight of the Zimbabwean people and the way in which this recent behaviour is showing diminution of their freedom, that it's not true. Everyone is concerned and, you know, I do urge... it's one of the reasons why we in the British government try to approach the issue in a way which doesn't give him the excuse to pretend it's all just about the relationship between him and us because that way it's the people of Zimbabwe who'll continue suffer.