The European Union will add 28 individuals and 36 companies to a list of banned allies of Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe on Monday because of their links to suspected human rights abuses, an EU official said.

The move, due to be finalised at a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels, will add new government members and relatives of Mugabe allies to an existing list of around 170 individuals banned from travelling in the 27-country bloc.

“It will for the first time include EU companies,” the official said, without giving further details of how the ban would affect their activities in the EU.

Zimbabwe is in the grip of a humanitarian and economic crisis. Despite growing international calls for him to step down, power-sharing talks between Mugabe and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai are deadlocked in a row over cabinet posts.

The EU ministers will also look to step up pressure on Mugabe by urging a probe into whether diamond sales are being used to support his government, a draft obtained by Reuters earlier this week showed.

The draft urges the Kimberley Process - an international certification scheme set up to ensure diamonds do not fund conflict - “to take action with a view to ensure Zimbabwe’s compliance with its Kimberley obligations”.

The World Diamond Council industry body has put Zimbabwe’s production of rough diamonds at 0.4 percent of world output, mostly exported with the Kimberley Process certificate. However in December it raised concern about possible illegal exports “for the personal gain of a few”.

Critics say Mugabe’s policies, such as the seizure of white-owned farms, have ruined Zimbabwe’s economy, but the ruler - in power since independence from Britain in 1980 - blames Western sanctions for the crisis.

(Source)