The Hindu : Demonstrators target Zimbabwe

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, May 02, 2003

Sport

Sport - Cricket

Demonstrators target Zimbabwe

By Ted Corbett

LONDON May 1. If Zimbabwe's touring cricketers were apprehensive before they arrived in London today, their drive to Lord's for the first Press conference must have left them seriously worried. Welcome to London, with demonstrators on the streets, 4,000 policeman on guard and the threat of violence in the air.

That was the message that must have been clear to the Zimbabwe players as they travelled through the streets of central London filled with protesters just four hours after flying into Gatwick. Security was tight at Lord's today but inside Heath Streak the captain said he would have no qualms about leading his players off the field if their safety was endangered. "If we feel as a team that security is insufficient we will do it again, but we are confident it will not come to that. I ask the protesters to respect out right to carry out our trade.''

Outside one of the protest group nodded. "It's not them we're after,'' she said. Admittedly, most of the protests in the capital today were nothing to do with hatred of the Robert Mugabe government or, as the former Labour Party sports minister Kate Hoey put it, "the fact that every time a run is scored here someone is being tortured over there.''

May Day is the traditional time for labour movement rallies, most of them peaceful. Sadly many have flared up in the last two years during protests against everything from war, nuclear weapons and the fur trade. Almost 100 people were arrested two years ago and 54 in 2002 so, not surprisingly, all police leave was cancelled in London today and the law men were in a high state of alert in six other large cities from Edinburgh and Glasgow in Scotland to those cricket centres at Manchester, Liverpool, Leicester and Bradford.

Even the normally inward looking people of cricket's establishment were divided about the benefits of having Zimbabwe here to play two early season Tests and be the third team in the tri-series that also features South Africa.

Ms. Hoey, a highly-regarded minister in her short time in charge of the nation's leisure activities, called for ``big peaceful demonstrations against the regime in Zimbabwe now that the team is here.'' It was a contrast to her previous suggestion that the tour should be cancelled and that Kenya should take Zimbabwe's place.

``This is not a normal cricket tour from a normal country,'' she said, echoing the words of Hassan Howa, the South African activist during the segregation years, whose war cry was "there is no normal sport in an abnormal society''.

The Left politicians will listen to Ms. Hoey but it is a shock when a cricket administrator follows the same line. Bill Midgley, the executive chairman of Durham, hosts to the second Test, said he welcomed the demonstrators. Cynics believed that Mr. Midgley hoped some of the protesters might swell what is expected to be a small crowd for a short Test played out in bad weather. Ticket sales for the Lord's Test beginning on May 22 are also said to be slow.

Andy Flower, the former Zimbabwe captain who plays for Essex in the British summer, said he welcomed the arrival of the team which would draw attention to conditions in his country. "I hope that as a result there is a change in the way the country is run and we can return to normality,'' he said.

Flower, whose brother Grant is in the Zimbabwe squad, and the fast bowler Henry Olonga, wore black armbands in protest at the loss of democracy in Zimbabwe during a World Cup tie two months ago. Olonga, pursued by the Zimbabwe police for a while, is now also living in this country and is to commentate on the matches this summer.

Neither of them is likely to play for Zimbabwe in the foreseeable future. Tim Lamb, chief executive of the England and Wales Cricket Board, commented that "it upsets me when people say we are putting money before morality. The Zimbabwe cricketers are representing their country and the Zimbabwe Cricket Union is an apolitical organisation.''

Peter Tatchell, a leader activist, has claimed that the ZCU was far from independent because Mugabe was its president and had to give his approval for the tour which begins on Saturday at Edgbaston in what is supposed to be a warm-up game against British Universities. It may serve as a net for the protest types as well.

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