Bona Mugabe, whose father and fellow leaders are banned from visiting the United States, the European Union and Australia, began studying at the University of Hong Kong last year, a senior university source told Hong Kong's Sunday Morning Post.
A detested African satrap and his family take refuge in the East
Malaysia, Singapore and Hong Kong are becoming homes from home for Robert Mugabe and his family. In Hong Kong the government is ignoring its own laws to accommodate the despised African dictator.
While Zimbabweans, once citizens of one of Africa’s most prosperous, food exporting countries, suffer food shortages, cholera epidemics and the world’s highest inflation (approx 5,000 percent) the country’s first family has been splashing out on shopping and banking trips to Malaysia, Singapore and Hong Kong.
According to reports on Zimbabawe news sites, on this latest occasion US$92,000 in cash was drawn from the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, the broken country’s central bank, for spending on hotels and Grace’s favorite activity – shopping.
Five Star Shangri-La Hotel Hong Kong Lobby Lounge
Shangri-La Hotel Hong Kong Banquet Room
Asia Sentinel has now learned that this was a modest visit to Hong Kong compared with one last year by Mr and Mrs Mugabe and a huge retinue which occupied two floors of the same Shangri-la Hotel. The hotel bill, running to tens of thousands of US dollars, was paid in cash by a flunky. Under Hong Kong law, such large cash transactions are supposed to be reported to the police and investigated under anti-money-laundering money rules.
Shangri-La Hotel Presidential Suite
But either the hotel, controlled by the Kuok Group, failed to notify the authorities, or the government decided to ignore the question of why Mugabe and his family and retinue of bodyguards paid cash. (The reason may well be that no international bank would accept the credit cards of persons banned from entering the US and other major jurisdictions).
Prior to Hong Kong, Grace Mugabe had been in Malaysia and Singapore with her husband. They are very welcome in Malaysia where her husband was lionized by former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad. However, to protect Malaysia’s own reputation and avoid local controversy, the visit was kept low key. As for Singapore, according to Zimbabwean media reports, this is the favored location for Zimbabwean ministers and military chiefs to park their ill-gotten wealth.
China, the ruler of Hong Kong, maintains close relations with the Mugabe regime, whose security forces it continues to arm, despite the embargo. The cobalt blue tiles on Mugabe's $23million, 25-bedroom mansion were a gift from China.
President Hu Jintao welcomed Mugabe to Beijing as "an old friend" in 2004, but the Zimbabwe leader stayed away from the opening of the Olympics six months ago on advice from the Chinese leadership, which wished to avoid controversy.
Zimbabwean students say Hong Kong must deport Mugabe's daughter
The daughter of President Robert Mugabe, who is studying at Hong Kong's top university, should be deported, a Zimbabwean students' union said on Sunday.
The Zimbabwe National Students Union petitioned Chinese diplomats in Africa after learning that 20-year-old Bona Mugabe is an undergraduate student at the University of Hong Kong.Students in the impoverished African nation, which is in the grip of a spiralling economic crisis and political turmoil, say Mugabe's daughter should be made to study back home.
Bona Mugabe has been allowed to study in Hong Kong despite sanctions and travel bans against her father and members of his regime by many Western countries.
In a letter sent to the Chinese embassy in Harare and published in Hong Kong's Sunday Morning Post newspaper, students' union spokeswoman Blessing Vavu said Mugabe's daughter should be deported.
The president's daughter should return in order to "suffer with other patriotic students studying in the state universities," Vavu argued.
She wrote: "It is disheartening to note that the first family insolently sent daughter Bona Mugabe under an assumed name to the University of Hong Kong, China to further her studies while students in Zimbabwe suffer.
"The state of our education system is so deplorable that the president has seen it fit to trust the Chinese for the education of his daughter whilst ordinary students are failing to get decent education."
Pic above - Zimbabwe's largest and oldest university, the University of Zimbabwe.
(Send her back to be educated by the system that her father destroyed)
Attention to their travels in January was occasioned by an assault on a Hong Kong resident press photographer working for the London Sunday Times by 43-year-old Grace Mugabe and a bodyguard in Hong Kong. The photographer was taking pictures of her shopping near the Shangri-la (Kowloon) hotel where she was staying. This led to the news that the Mugabes’ daughter Bona, 20, had been studying at HK University since last September under an assumed name.
According to London's Sunday Times, the Mugabes secretly bought a US$5.7-million luxury home in Hong Kong's Tai Po district.
Grace Mugabe, 43, flew into a rage when she saw photographer Richard Jones waiting outside as she left the five-star Kowloon Shangri-la Hotel with a female friend and a bodyguard in the southern Chinese city on January 15, 2009.
Hong Kong is still investigating the assault on the photographer but charges seem unlikely now that the culprits are out of town and Mrs Mugabe anyway would claim diplomatic immunity. Mugabe’s political thuggery in Zimbabawe is well enough known. His own reputation in that respect was confirmed by footage of assault by a bodyguard on a journalist who was trying to interview him in Cairo last year.
But thugs and corrupt politicians remain welcome in Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore so long as they bring enough money to be spent or laundered.
In Hong Kong the government and the University of Hong Kong say there is no reason why Bona should not study there. Many sympathize. The sins of the parents should not be visited on their children. However, Australia last year expelled the student offspring of some of Mugabe’s ministers and Britain has been contemplating the same – which is probably why Bona left her studies in the UK to come to Hong Kong and the protection of China, a good friend of Mugabe’s. The fact that she was allowed to enroll under an assumed name in itself is quite extraordinary and suggests some high level, un-transparent dealings.
However deserving Bona may be of an education, the fact is that her father’s policies have ruined Zimbabwe’s educational system and forced the few students who can afford it to go abroad. In Bona’s case the cost to the nation is not just her board and tuition, plus any gifts that might have been made to help her anonymous entry, but the cost of providing for her mother’s demands while Bona is in Hong Kong.
Chinese MP calls for Bona Mugabe’s deportation
Emily Lau, a Chinese Member of Parliament , on Sunday called for the deportaion of Robert Mugabe’s daughter Bona Mugabe at the University of Hong Kong, and said her father’s regime is “obnoxious”.
A university official, who asked not to be named, said most students were unaware of the presence of Miss Mugabe, who has gone to Zimbabwe for the Chinese New Year holiday.
When she returns to Hong Kong, the university would “keep a watchful eye more from a student life perspective”, the official said. However, the source added: “We are aware of the impact and significance of this. After all, he is a dictator, no one will deny this - but education, frankly, is above politics.”
A human rights activist on Sunday urged Hong Kong to deport the daughter of Robert Mugabe if it is confirmed she is studying at a local university and the Zimbabwean president is funding her education.
Hong Kong Human Rights Monitor Director Law Yuk-Kai said the government should confirm a newspaper report that Bona Mugabe is studying at the University of Hong Kong, and if it is accurate, examine her finances.
"If the money she is spending was siphoned off the ordinary people, there is a problem," Law said. "Just like other members of the international community, Hong Kong should do its part in imposing sanctions."
The US and European Union have imposed sanctions on Mugabe's ruling clique, including asset freezes and travel bans.
The University of Hong Kong's media manager didn't immediately respond to a reporter's e-mail seeking comment. Bona Mugabe didn't immediately respond to a message sent to her on a social networking website.
Robert Mugabe, 84, has ruled Zimbabwe since its independence from Britain in 1980. He has been accused of overseeing the country's economic collapse, which has led to a cholera outbreak that has killed at least 2,773 and left millions of Zimbabweans dependent on international food aid.
The Hong Kong government said in a statement on Sunday it had no comment.
Mugabe's main "partner" the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Governor Gideon Gono, is a University of Zimbabwe graduate.
See - Lavish life of Mugabe’s looter-in-chief
Meanwhile, millions of Zimbabwean children could be denied their education when schools reopen today, as thousands of teachers may fail to return to work, British charity Save the Children has warned.
Less than 10 years ago, Zimbabwe had the best education system in sub-Saharan Africa, with nearly every child going to school.
Now a majority of children are out of school and the system is in tatters.
The start of Zimbabwe's new school year has been delayed by two weeks because last year's exams were not graded after teachers demanded payment in foreign currency to mark them.
See also:-
Zimbabwe: Mugabe's Daughter in Eye of Student Storm
Calls in Harare for the deportation of the president's daughter from Hong Kong where she is studying for a university degree have turned violent. Sixty university students have been jailed in clashes with Zimbabwe riot police during ....
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