Jul 25, 2005, 1:26 GMT
Wellington - The New Zealand cricket team left Monday on a controversial tour of Zimbabwe that is opposed by the government and most of the public, according to opinion polls.
New Zealand Cricket, the sport's governing body, rejected a government appeal not to go because of human rights abuses by President Robert Mugabe's regime, which a United Nations report says has recently made 700,000 people homeless with a brutal urban clearance programme.
Officials said that they were legally bound to continue with the tour arranged by the International Cricket Council or face crippling financial penalties.
The government said it would offer a motion condemning the Zimbabwe regime and the tour when Parliament resumes Tuesday after a recess but would not copy Mugabe by infringing New Zealanders' rights to travel where they please.
It will, however, ban the Zimbabwe team from making a return tour of New Zealand at the end of the year, and Foreign Minister Phil Goff said New Zealand would be the first country to take such action.
As the team flew out of Christchurch for acclimatization training in Namibia, New Zealand Cricket chief executive Martin Snedden said that players had been advised not to make any personal protests while in Zimbabwe for fear of retribution.
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