By Ingrid Melander

BRUSSELS, April 18 (Reuters) - The European Union stepped up pressure on Zimbabwe on its independence day on Wednesday, adding five names to a list of top officials banned from the bloc and expressing strong concerns about rights abuses.

President Robert Mugabe's government faced international criticism last month when it launched a violent crackdown on the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).

A statement agreed by ambassadors of the EU member states meeting in Brussels on Wednesday expressed "strong concern at the rapidly deteriorating human rights, political and economic situation in Zimbabwe".

"The Council condemns in particular the acts of violent repression against the opposition and calls on all parties to refrain from violence," said the statement, seen by Reuters and due to be rubber-stamped by EU foreign ministers on Monday.

The EU added five deputy ministers to its list of more than a 100 top Zimbabwean officials, including Mugabe, who are forbidden to enter the EU and whose assets in the 27-nation bloc are frozen.

They were added "in response to the acts of violence and abuses of human rights" and following a government reshuffle, the EU statement said.

The EU sanctions were initially triggered by a controversial distribution of white-owned commercial farms to mainly landless blacks and Mugabe's disputed re-election in 2002.

Zimbabwe marked 27 years of independence on Wednesday, but for many the milestone was overshadowed by the country's economic meltdown and a political crisis over Mugabe's plans to remain in power.

The EU envoys stressed in their statement that the sanctions were "exclusively aimed at those leading figures responsible for Zimbabwe's crisis of governance and abuses of human rights" and that humanitarian aid to Zimbabwe's population would continue.

Zimbabwe has been a thorn in EU-African relations for years.

Plans for an EU-Africa summit have been on hold since 2003 because Britain and several other EU countries have refused to attend if Mugabe was invited, while African states refused to attend if he was not invited.

Portugal hopes to stage such a summit in the second half of this year but it is not clear how it will get around the Zimbabwe issue.

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