EU extends sanctions on Zimbabwe

BRUSSELS, Feb 19 (Reuters) The European Union extended sanctions on Zimbabwe for another year today including an arms embargo, travel ban and asset freeze on President Robert Mugabe and other top officials.

The list of those affected by visa bans and the freezing of assets includes more than 100 ministers and officials. The EU accuses them of human rights violations, and violations of freedom of speech and assembly in Zimbabwe.

The sanctions were initially triggered by the controversial distribution of white-owned commercial farms to mainly landless blacks and Mugabe's disputed re-election in 2002.

Critics say the seizures have destroyed Zimbabwe's economy, turning the country from a regional agricultural leader to a nation barely able to feed itself amid a deepening crisis marked by food and fuel shortages and inflation nearly 1,600 per cent.

Mugabe says the sanctions are responsible for Zimbabwe's economic crisis and he says his land policy was necessary because former colonial power Britain did not make good on promises at the time of Zimbabwe's independence in 1980.

Plans for an EU-Africa summit have been on hold since 2003 because Britain and several other EU countries refused to attend if Mugabe was invited, while African states refused to attend if he was not invited, diplomats have said.

Portugal hopes to stage such a summit in the second half of this year but it is not clear how it will get around the Zimbabwe issue.

REUTERS AKJ RK1525