Update 8 October Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Robert Mugabe, president of Zimbabwe, is making an unannounced trip to Geneva to take part in Telecom, the Swiss Foreign Affairs Department (DFAE) has confirmed to GenevaLunch. Mugabe arrived in Geneva 7 October. [Ed. note: Telecom TV reports on his appearance at the show and his remarks which "baffled the media."]
Right to visit UN overrides Swiss sanctions
Mugabe is under visa and financial sanctions from the United States, the European Union and Switzerland, but as the host country of a UN-sponsored event, Switzerland cannot ban his visit to a UN event, a spokesperson in Bern says. The situation is identical to that in New York in September, when Mugabe attended the General Assembly of the UN.
Mugabe is explicity banned from entering Switzerland, except for UN events. Two accounts with a value of CHF547,000 have been blocked in Switzerland in connection with the sanctions, which were put into effect because of human rights abuses in Zimbabwe and to prevent money laundering.
Switzerland’s legal obligations as the host country also mean Mugabe cannot be shadowed constantly during his visit to ensure that he and his entourage do not have contact with financial advisors or bankers, although the penalties are steep for a bank dealing with any of the 240 people on the Zimbabwe sanctions list.
Telecom is seeing more exhibitors from developing countries
Telecom is the largest event in the telecommunications world, sponsored by ITU, a United Nations organization. A larger number of developing countries is attending this year than in the past. Since October 2007 some $8 billion has been invested in telecommunications in developing countries, who are in Geneva to argue their case they they offer increasingly interesting markets.
Mugabe’s government and sanctions were in the news last week because of heavy media coverage of Nestlé’s activities in Zimbabwe: the company had been buying milk from a farm that had been seized as part of the land reform programme and given to Grace Mugabe, the president’s wife, who is also under sanctions. The company stopped buying the milk Sunday 4 October.
Links to other sites: Swiss sanctions against Zimbabwe, Fre, swissinfo, ITU Telecom
This work by genevalunch.com is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported.
News story, GenevaLunch, 7 October 2009.
Filed under: Politics
Tags: Geneva, ITU, Mugabe, sanctions, Switzerland, Telecom, Zimbabwe
October 7th, 2009 at 8:44 pm
The Arcadia Foundation’s Public Relations Director, Sam Amsterdam, believes unequivocally that Nestle must take immediate action to rectify their dealings in what have been internationally covered as ‘blood farms’, Mugabe-owned properties formally owned by white owners, seized as part of ‘Operation Clean Sweep’ which begun in 2000. Anything other than complete transparency as to why Nestle would continue to thrive on a personally-owned farm of Robert Mugabe or his wife would be ‘udder’ nonsense.
October 8th, 2009 at 5:23 pm
[...] up a story from Telecom TV today and added a link to it on an article I wrote yesterday noon about Robert Mugabe coming to Geneva (a small GL scoop ). The story by Martyn Warwick is well worth reading, gives you the flavour of [...]
November 15th, 2009 at 1:09 am
Mugabe uses skin lightener, so that when the last white man leaves ZIm. Mugabe can then claim to be God?
November 15th, 2009 at 2:03 pm
It sounds like you’re implying God is white. I don’t think the world at large would necessarily agree with you on that point, but maybe that’s not what you meant.