THE Federal Government has extended its sanctions on supporters of the Zimbabwean President, Robert Mugabe, to include the heads of Zimbabwe Cricket, a move which will put international cricket authorities under more pressure to downgrade links with the country.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
The sanctions, which the Government gazetted earlier this week, add another 75 people and four companies to the list of Zimbabweans banned from visiting or having financial dealings with Australia.
Most of the newcomers on the blacklist are senior Zimbabwean government, military and security officials and close relatives of senior members of Mr Mugabe's Government and his ZANU-PF political party. But, for the first time, the Government has added the president of Zimbabwe Cricket, Peter Chingoka, and its chief executive, Ozias Bvute.
Mr Chingoka is a full voting member of the International Cricket Council's executive board. Mr Bvute is a member of the ICC's chief executives' committee. The addition of the two men to the Australian sanctions list may force the ICC to change its plans to hold an executive board meeting in Perth next year because Mr Chingoka is now barred from entering the country.
The ICC has been criticised by human-rights campaigners for failing to take a strong stance against Zimbabwe Cricket in protest at its links with the Mugabe regime that has suppressed political dissent and pursued policies that have impoverished the nation.
The international cricket body has insisted that cricket and politics should be kept separate and last year it distributed $17.5 million in funds to the Zimbabwean cricketing body.
But the cricket writer Peter Roebuck has argued that Zimbabwe Cricket is an arm of the ZANU-PF regime. He says Mr Chingoka is an ally of the ZANU-PF Mujuru faction of the former army chief Solomon Mujuru and his wife, the Vice-President, Joyce Mujuru.
The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Stephen Smith, announced earlier this month that the Government would strengthen sanctions against Mr Mugabe and his supporters because it held them responsible for the cholera epidemic that has broken out in Zimbabwe. But the new names added to the sanctions list were not revealed until this week when they were gazetted by the Reserve Bank.
As well as Mr Chingoka and Mr Bvute, the new names include Zimbabwean army, air force and police officers, provincial government and ZANU-PF leaders, the chairman of Zimbabwe's securities commission, senior officials from its central bank and two journalists of the Zimbabwe Herald .
The additions bring the total number on the list to 254 individuals and four companies. They are banned from visiting Australia and having any financial dealings with Australians.
