Trade sanctions, dirty money and the children of the damned

Mr Downer: I think everybody knows that those kinds of statements are not to be taken seriously. It’s so obviously not true. I think making those kinds of allegations, making those kinds of statements, coming from the Minister of a Government tells you a great deal about what sort of a government we are dealing with here. This is a dictatorial regime which has plunged its country into almost total poverty and has abused, very seriously, human rights of anybody who dares oppose or criticise the Government. So I think it is a tragedy what has happened in Zimbabwe and the sooner the regime of President Mugabe comes to an end, the better. Those kind of statements - you hear that kind of a rant from the Soviet block during the 1950s and 1960s - you don’t hear much of it anymore - it is good you don’t really.

Throughout the month of May 2007, Downer made no fewer than 12 statements about the Zimbabwe cricket tour. After dithering over the matter, on May 13, 2007 Prime Minister John Howard banned (7.30 Report) the scheduled one-day cricket series tour. “Well,” he said, “the Government through the Foreign Minister has written to the organisation, to Cricket Australia, instructing that the tour will not go ahead … The Mugabe regime at present is behaving like the Gestapo towards its political opponents, and I have no doubt that if this tour goes ahead, it will be an enormous boost to this grubby dictator …”.

The Reserve Bank gazettes the names of persons listed for “smart sanctions” - no travel to Australia, any assets in Australia frozen, any financial transactions with Australia banned. Mugabe’s name appears, as do names of other “key” Zimbabweans who are a part of his regime and who profit from it.

Although the students in Australia are adults, we can be assured that the money paying for their fees, fares and living expenses comes out of the pockets of their parents and, hence, is purloined from the people of Zimbabwe. Even where these adults pay their own way, their money is tainted by its and their connection with Mugabe’s regime. Reportedly, some students have direct links of their own - as independent supporters or direct participants in the government.

Hence, according to Australia’s Foreign Minister and Prime Minister, Australia and Australian institutions are taking money from a “dictatorial regime” abusing “very seriously” the human rights of anybody daring to “oppose or criticise the Government”. This money comes from a regime “behaving like the Gestapo” towards political opponents, which has “plunged [the] country into almost total poverty …” In this, they echo Mary Robinson - albeit their words more florid.

If a one-day cricket tour would be “an enormous boost” to the “grubby dictator” Robert Mugabe, how to class the week by week, month by month, year after year education of the tyrants’ children?

To send them home is not to blame them for the wrongs of their parents. Rather, it is to say that whatever the children have or have not done, we cannot profit from the poverty and ravaging of the entire population - apart from those at the top, whose “Gestapo-like tactics” have purloined the money to pay into Australian coffers.

To deny them an Australian education is not to say that they are responsible for the crimes of their fathers against the families of their fellow Zimbabweans. It is to deny a “boost” to the “grubby dictator” - that Australia is prepared to accept the money and turn its head to where it came from, and how and from whom it was got.

Sadly, the argument that they might learn something here, about human rights, positive race relations, compassion and the value of fair distribution of resources and assets doesn’t wash in today’s Australia.

The difference between the rich and the poor might not precisely mirror the difference in Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe. But as economic analyses show, with corporate “leaders” paying themselves in millions and those at the bottom scrabbling for a living, we are well on the way there.

As for human rights - we live in a country which does not endorse the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and reportedly is seeking to persuade others - such as Canada - to follow.

It is not only David Hicks who has experienced the lack of human rights and ignorance of civil rights which now pervades this country - which once held a strong position in the human and civil rights field, one which will take decades to recover.

It is hypocritical for Australia to declaim against Mugabe and his regime, while taking the money that buys an education for children of the regime’s dictators. Sending these students home would bring a blast from Mugabe, no doubt. But better a blast against us from a “black-shirted dictator”. It would be a change from the blasts that should be coming our way from countries that continue to adhere to human rights principles and recognition of civil liberties.