(21.01.2003 - 11:15 a.m.)
A friend of our family's works in Zimbabwe as a priest. Every day he works flat out to do what he can to bring some peace and understanding to a country in turmoil. Robert Mugabe and his ruling party are running rampant, doing as they will, without a care for anyone's well-being. Your creed or colour does not matter; disagree and you will be punished. I don't know if it has made the news around the world, but the International Cricket Council have organised a series of matches to be played in Zimbabwe. There has been much controversy here in the UK as to whether our team should play in them, but the English Cricket Board has decided that they should, because the loss of revenue would be too damaging. Their only advice to our players? Do not shake Robert Mugabe's hand. This is a country where white women are locked in jail on a Friday afternoon just for fun. They need not have comitted any crime. Why Friday afternoon? Because there are no magistrates sittings until Monday, meaning that the women have to spend the entire weekend in jail, being denied food and medication, and living with apalling sanitary conditions. This is a country where fuel is so sparse that you have to sit in a queue for a day or more just to fill up your car, watching in dismay as members of the ruling political party push to the front of the line. And after sleeping overnight in your car, you might awake to be told that you can't have any fuel anyway. If you argue, you may well be arrested. This is a country where farms are being wrestled from their owners illegally, just because the owners are white. Farmers have even been killed in the process, trying to hold onto their land. If you live in the UK, you may want to reconsider shopping at Tesco's, as they have refused to stop trading with illegally held smallholdings. And despite all this, we are still going to participate in what amounts to a diplomatic coup for Mugabe, as some of the richest nations in the world send their sports teams to this prestigious event, all because they might lose out on some revenue. Can anyone else spot the insanity here?: Chasing money in the face of a dictatorial regime that is ruining peoples lives, quite apart from the inconsistencies in foreign policy towards such regimes. I don't hear George W. Bush or Tony Blair saying that we will wage a war on the terror that is alive and well in Zimbabwe, or aren't there enough oil fields to warrant our interest? And yes, I know that Robert Mugabe isn't bandying around weapons of mass destruction, but he is destroying masses of lives.
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