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Sunday May 13, 8:55 AM Government bans Australia's cricket tour to Zimbabwe Photo: AFP Click to enlarge SYDNEY (AFP) - The federal government has ordered the Australian cricket team not to tour Zimbabwe later this year, Prime Minister John Howard said Sunday. Pressure has been building on Cricket Australia not to go ahead with September's three-match tour to the strife-torn southern African nation and Howard said his government had now taken the decision out of CA's hands. Howard said if the tour was to proceed it would be a "enormous propaganda boost" for the regime of Robert Mugabe. "The government through the foreign minister has written to Cricket Australia instructing that the tour not go ahead," Howard told ABC television Sunday. "We don't do this lightly, but we are convinced that for the tour to go ahead there would be an enormous propaganda boost for the Mugabe regime. "The Mugabe regime at present is behaving like the Gestapo towards its political opponents, the living standards of the country are probably the lowest of any in the world and you have an unbelievable rate of inflation. "I have no doubt that if this tour goes ahead it would be an enormous boost to this grubby dictator and whilst it pains me both as a cricket lover and as somebody who genuinely believes these things should be left to sporting organisations... it leaves me with no alternative." Howard said his government can prevent the tour going ahead by stopping the use of the cricketers' passports to leave the country. "In the end we can prevent people taking part in such a tour," Howard said. "We would rather that not be the case but we are making it very plain to Cricket Australia and I think they will understand the import." Howard said a government ban, which would avoid incurring a potential US two million dollar fine from the sport's governing body, was the best course of action. "It's pretty obvious to me that the players and the body (CA) wanted to act in conformity with public opinion but in the end, not surprisingly, they wanted a situation where the decision was taken by the government and not the players," he said. "I don't think it's fair to leave a foreign policy decision of this magnitude on the shoulders of young sportsmen. "It's much better, in the end, for the government to take the rap. "I hope the rest of the cricketing world understands that and it would be a very good idea if the rest of the cricket world adopted the same attitude towards Mugabe's regime. "I'm not going to stand around and allow some kind of aid and comfort be given to him by the greatest cricketing team in the world visiting his country." Foreign Minister Alexander Downer met last Thursday with CA officials, vexed by the dilemma of the foreign policy issue and facing a hefty fine imposed by the International Cricket Council if they abandoned themselves. The Zimbabwe tour has become a hot topic in Australia, with a majority of the public and church groups urging a boycott. The nation's 42 Catholic bishops said last week such a move would be a significant symbolic gesture against an oppressive regime. Zimbabwe's ambassador to Australia Stephen Chiketa said politics has no place in sport and cancelling the tour would hurt cricket's development there.