By Axel Bugge Reuters - LISBON (Reuters)
Human rights groups urged European and African leaders gathering for their first summit in seven years on Friday to act on Sudan's Darfur crisis and confront Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe over rights abuses.
Activists hoped the 73 leaders from the world's largest trading bloc and its poorest continent would put rights at the top of their agenda at the summit, which will aim to create fresh partnerships on issues like immigration and development.
Previous attempts to hold the summit have failed over Mugabe's attendance but this time the EU, mindful of growing Chinese influence in Africa, decided to hold the summit and invite Mugabe, who arrived late on Thursday.
Mugabe is seen by African leaders as an independence hero and many said they would not attend if he was not invited. Prime Minister Gordon Brown decided to boycott the summit because Mugabe would be there.
Foreign Secretary David Miliband told BBC radio on Friday it would have been "absurd" to sit down next to Mugabe "through a discussion of good governance, of human rights, and pretend there wasn't absolute meltdown going on in Zimbabwe."
Ana Gomes, a Portuguese member of the European parliament, said Europe defends human rights but often fails to act due to the need to secure allies.
"Europe often closes its eyes with the pretext that they are western allies against terrorism, saying there is progress when there is no progress," Gomes said.
A group of 40 African and European parliamentarians was joined by 50 human rights groups in urging the leaders to tackle the plight of thousands of civilians in Sudan's Darfur region.
"MPs, campaigners and human rights activists are all asking the same question: how can our leaders ignore one of the world's worst crises?" asked Glenys Kinnock, a member of the European Parliament.
"Especially when (Sudanese) President (Omar Hassan al-) Bashir, the man primarily responsible for so much of the suffering, is in their midst," she said in a statement.
The U.N. Security Council approved in July a U.N.-African Union peace mission of 26,000 soldiers and police for Darfur. But U.N. peacekeeping chief Jean-Marie Guehenno has cast doubt on the mission due to restrictions imposed by Sudan.
TRADE TENSIONS
Business leaders from the two continents meet on Friday before the summit on Saturday and Sunday, where tension over trade is likely to be a hot topic.
The EU says it needs to clinch new Economic Partnership Agreements with former European colonies in Africa, and other regions of the world, before a World Trade Organization waiver of current preferential treatment expires on December 31.
Some African nations have complained they will face too much competition and are being strong-armed into signing new deals.
"We all agree that we should be allied to Europe ... but the method is outdated," Senegal's President Abdoulaye Wade said on television station France 24 on Thursday. "You can't put us in a strait-jacket, that won't work."
On Friday Ivory Coast initiated an interim trade deal with the EU, making the world's largest cocoa producer the first West African country to sign such a bilateral deal, which will have provisional trade terms until a broader EPA is signed.
But bigger African economies such as South Africa and Nigeria have refused to sign EPAs.
(Reporting by Axel Bugge, Ingrid Melander, Henrique Almeida, Sergio Goncalves and Elisabete Tavares, Editing by Mary Gabriel)
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