Zimbabwe blames troubles on Western embargo

UNITED NATIONS — Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe slammed the United States and Europe on Friday for what he called “filthy clandestine antics” for keeping economic sanctions clamped on his authoritarian nation, even though he now presides over a coalition government.

“The Western countries, in particular the United States, and the European Union still impose illegal sanctions against Zimbabwe, to our surprise … and refused to remove those sanctions,” he said in his speech to the U.N. General Assembly.

Mugabe has sent Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, the former opposition leader, to Europe and America to lobby for lifting of the sanctions and a restoration of foreign aid and investment. He’s had little success.

But the European Union and other Western nations say the coalition, formed in February, has not done enough to restore the rule of law and begin democratic reform, blaming Mugabe and high-level loyalists for resisting change.

Mugabe seemed baffled by the persistent embargo, by the wealthy Western nations.

“We wonder what their motives are? And we ask what they would see us do?”

“Where stand their humanitarian principles, we ask, when their illegal sanctions are ruining the lives of our children?”

Zimbabwe’s economic meltdown began after Mugabe ordered the seizures of thousands of white-owned commercial farms in 2000, disrupting the agriculture-based economy in the former regional breadbasket.

His critics point to continuing human rights violations, land seizures and laws requiring a majority local stake in foreign firms.