May 11, 2007	Friday	Rabi-us-Sani 23, 1428

SYDNEY, May 10: An Australian cricket tour to Zimbabwe would be a propaganda victory for President Robert Mugabe's regime, Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said Thursday.

The Australian government does not want the recently-crowned World Cup champions to go ahead with the September tour and has offered to pay a two million US dollar fine to cancel the trip.

Downer, who was to meet with Cricket Australia officials later in the day, said he would try to convince them that Australia's cricketers would be providing comfort to a “pretty barbaric dictatorship.”

He said he could not guarantee that the money from any fine imposed by the International Cricket Council would not end up with Mugabe.

“It's two million US (which) would go to the Zimbabwe Cricket Union, and they would of course be able to do what they wanted with the money,” Downer said.

“What we can do is try to persuade Cricket Australia that sending the world's greatest cricket team - not just any cricket team but the world's greatest cricket team - to Zimbabwe will be seen as a propaganda victory by the Mugabe regime,” he said.

Former Zimbabwean cricketer Henry Olonga also said an Australian tour would be a propaganda coup for Mugabe.

“The picture they've tried to paint to the rest of the world is that if the reigning world champions are willing to tour Zimbabwe, then there can't be too much amiss,” Olonga told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC).—AFP