Posted on 01/21/2004 4:33:59 AM PST by Clive
England's cricket tour of Zimbabwe, scheduled for the winter, is expected to be called off on moral grounds.
The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) will cite the behaviour of the regime in Harare and the suffering of its people. Members of the 15-man management board will meet next week and are expected to rule that the tour be cancelled on moral rather than security grounds. They will make their decision based on a paper sent to them yesterday by their most recently appointed member, the former vice-chairman of Sport England, Des Wilson.
Since England made the controversial decision not to play in Zimbabwe during last year’s World Cup for security reasons, the country’s political, humanitarian and economic situation has deteriorated sharply. President Mugabe has become increasingly isolated and last month withdrew Zimbabwe from the Commonwealth when it became clear that the country’s suspension, on grounds of human rights and electoral abuses, would not be lifted.
Mr Wilson concludes his 17-page document: “The safety and security of a touring party can in today’s circumstances no longer be the only factor in deciding whether or not to proceed with a controversial tour.” He argues that in sport, as in business, some sort of moral leadership is now expected from high-profile administrations.
Mr Wilson, the former Liberal Democrat campaign director at the 1992 General Election, says that cricket has to ask itself: “Can we tour this country knowing what we do about its stance on human rights and the suffering of its people? If the behaviour of the regime is contrary to all that sports stands for in terms of the way human beings should behave towards one another, and is judged to be extreme in its unacceptability...,the governing body should with humility and great thought to the consequences of its actions accept that it cannot justify ignoring the cause for such widespread international and home country concern.”
Sport, he argues is not an activity apart: “It both affects and is affected by politics.”
Cancelling the tour would be on a par with the apartheid boycott of South Africa, which ended a decade ago. Equating his regime with the former racist government in South Africa is certain to provoke a furious response from Mr Mugabe, who is the patron of the Zimbabwe Cricket Union. Other African nations will probably rally to his side.
Opponents welcomed the move last night. Henry Olonga, the Zimbabwe cricketer who last year wore a black armband to protest against the Mugabe regime, said: “I’m not English, so who am I to suggest what England should do? But I certainly believe that whoever can bring pressure to bear on Robert Mugabe’s abhorrent Government ought to do so. “If a cricket tour’s cancellation can highlight this corruption to the rest of the world, then that’s a good thing.”
The Zimbabwe opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), whose leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, was in court yesterday on charges of treason, also gave its support to the cancellation. “This is a welcome decision. Given the situation in Zimbabwe it would be morally wrong for the tour to go ahead,” Paul Themba Nyathi, the MDC spokesman, said. “The tour would have given the misleading impression of normality in Zimbabwe, when it is clear that the situation is far from normal.”
The British Government, which wanted last year’s World Cup match scrapped, will back Mr Wilson’s conclusions. Whitehall sources insisted that the final decision rests with the ECB. But the Foreign Office is preparing a letter for the ECB setting out its recommendations, which will argue the case against the tour even more forcefully than in 2003.
Since then ten opposition supporters have been killed and hundreds arrested, inflation has topped 600 per cent and the country faces the third year of famine, caused largely by the illegal seizure of white-owned farms.
Zimbabwe is already subject to sanctions by the European Union and America, which have imposed travel bans on senior members of the ruling Zanu PF party and frozen their assets abroad. A cricket boycott by England could lead the way to additional measures to isolate Mr Mugabe, who turns 80 next month.
“There are very serious concerns about the deteriorating situation in Zimbabwe," said Brian Cowen, the Irish Foreign Minister, whose country holds the current presidency of the EU, which will debate what action to take next month.
The ECB might yet offer a compromise, under which the matches planned for November before England’s tour of South Africa, including five one-day internationals and two Test matches, could be played at a neutral venue. That would not suit the Zimbabwe Cricket Union, however. Vince Hogg, its chief executive, said yesterday that staging matches at home was essential to keeping the game alive in Zimbabwe. “The enthusiasm generated by the West Indies tour here (in November) was unbelievable” he said. “Take it away from home and you would lose all that.”
Bangladesh, next month, Sri Lanka, in April, and Australia, in May and June, are all due to tour Zimbabwe before England’s visit. scheduled to begin at the end of October.
Mr Wilson’s paper attempts to set down a framework for all future decisions on whether to cancel or postpone contoversial tours on non-cricketing grounds. It calls on the ECB to accept that in the 21st century the ICC’s guiding principle, that safety and security are the grounds for not fulfilling an agreed tour, cannot be the only factors.
It never happened, the ECB seems to have been too cowardly to do it.
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