Cardinal George Pell, the Archbishop of The Sydney Catholic Diocese, wrote in his weekly column in The Sunday Telegraph, that it was good news that the Australian cricketers were not going or else they would be used to prop up Mugabe's doom regime.
In his column, Cardinal Pell wrote that, "President Mugabe was a master promoter of division and distortion…(where) for a long time, he managed to divide the Christian churches and their leadership." He further wrote that those days were almost over and saluted the Catholic Archbishop Pius Ncube of Bulawayo, whom he described as 'a brave man' who dare speak out regardless of the consequences.
Earlier this week, the Prime Minister announced that the Federal Government will use its legal authority to ban the Australian cricket tour to Zimbabwe. President Mugabe has described the action of the government as 'racist' and desperate to which the Prime Minister hits back.
Mr. Howard said the charge of being desperate was 'ludicrous' and Australian being racist was 'absurd,' reported the AAP.
The Prime Minister is not alone in his earlier attempts to prevent the Australian cricket team from touring Zimbabwe. The Australian Christian Lobby (ACL) through Jim Wallace, the managing director of ACL, said if the cricket tour proceeds it can be seen as Australia ignoring the practices of the Mugabe regime.
"If the Australian cricket team proceeds with its tour of Zimbabwe, it will appear that
Australia is happy to ignore the appalling practices of the Mugabe regime," said ACL Mr. Wallace. "I am a huge cricket fan but I don't want to see the game played under such terrible circumstances."
In the ACL press statement it outlined the record of the Mugabe's regime that has seen Zimbabwe experiencing high inflation and recording a drop in human life expectancy.
"Robert Mugabe has presided over an increasingly corrupt regime, with a record of rigging elections, orchestrating campaigns of torture and intimidation of his political opponents, and turning life into an ongoing nightmare of deprivation for ordinary citizens," stated in the ACL media release. "Once the bread-basket of Africa, Zimbabwe's hyperinflation rate hit 1,281% in February. Life expectancy, comfortably in the 60s just ten years ago, is now just 34 years for women and 37 years for men."