LONDON (AFP) — Britain will send a former junior minister to represent it at next month's EU-Africa summit if Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe attends, the prime minister's office said Wednesday.
Valerie Amos will represent Britain rather than any serving members of the cabinet if Mugabe attends, said a spokesman for Gordon Brown. Amos served as international development minister from 1998 until earlier this year.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown has vowed to boycott the December 8-9 summit if Mugabe attends, saying that he does not believe anything can be gained from direct engagement with the Zimbabwean leader.
Mugabe said this week that he would attend the Lisbon summit.
The prime minister's spokesman Michael Ellam told reporters at Brown's Downing Street office on Wednesday that "there would be no UK minister at the EU-Africa summit on the assumption that Mr Mugabe would attend."
He added: "Should Mr Mugabe attend, the prime minister would ask Baroness Valerie Amos to represent him."
Amos is a member of Britain's upper parliamentary chamber the House of Lords.
Mugabe, who has ruled Zimbabwe since its 1980 independence from Britain, is accused by the West of stifling democracy and leading his southern African nation to economic ruin.
Summit host Portugal has been trying to ensure that Zimbabwe's presence would not eclipse the chance for a true partnership between the EU and the world's poorest continent.
In the Zimbabwean capital Harare earlier Wednesday, Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade called on Brown to change his mind about the boycott.
He also proposed the creation of a committee of African heads of state to mend broken relations between Zimbabwe and former colonial power Britain.
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