Rough ride for Mugabe's banker in UK

Rough ride for Mugabe's banker in UK

GONO: Said he didn't have political muscle to address the demonstrators' demands

• Mugabe banker's UK trip sparks protests

• Gono beats sanctions, allowed into UK

• Gono to visit UK to raise funds

• Banks to buy forex at black market rates

• Gono tightens control

• Zim huts down fleeing tycoons

• Amnesty for Zim banks

• End of era for forex dealers

• Gono new RBZ governor

• Tea boy to national purse

By Staff Reporter

BRITISH opposition Conservative leader Michael Howard has added to a chorus of protests over Zimbabwe Reserve Bank governor Gideon Gono's visit to the UK.

His call for tougher action against President Robert Mugabe's regime and his supporters came as demonstrators besieged a hotel in Birmingham where Gono was addressing a gathering of exiled Zimbabweans.

At the House of Commons on Monday, Howard urged Prime Minister Tony Blair to instigate an urgent review of the European Union targeted sanctions list aimed at preventing travel to the bloc by President Mugabe's circle of friends and key officials.

Blair conceded that sanctions needed to be tightened, adding that pressure was being applied on South Africa to push for change in Zimbabwe.

In Birmingham on Sunday, Gono faced faced a furious group of protesters when he appeared at a the Crowne Plaza hotel begging for cash.

He is in the UK to ask ex-patriot Zimbabweans for help with the severe financial crisis that critics say has been sparked by Mugabe's seizure of farmers' land.

Gono was greeted by jeering and placards from the protesters at the meeting of around 300 Zimbabweans. During his speech, protesters waved slogans including "Gono is chief financier of a despotic regime".

He refused to be drawn on questions of human rights and the breakdown of law in Zimbabwe.

He said: "I would be lying if I said I have powers that are outside my jurisdiction as a non-political central bank governor. But I will act as a messenger to take some of your views back home."

Gono has recently been accused of conducting illegal foreign exchange deals, some of which are thought to have funded shopping sprees for Mugabe's wife, Grace.

Most of Mugabe's government are banned from entering the UK under European Union sanctions and in 2003, and the Foreign Affairs Select Committee named Dr Gono as someone who should be added to the exclusion list "as a matter of urgency".

Spokesman for the opposition Movement for Democratic Change party, Matthew Nyashanu, said Dr Gono should have been banned.

"During his speech, he ignored fundamental issues of human rights, the rule of law and the creation of an illegal militia," said Mr Nyashanu, who is now based in Birmingham.

"He is bankrolling a terrorist government, a pariah state that is using mass destruction against its own people."
Additional reporting Evening Mail
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