England’s controversial cricket match against Zimbabwe will go ahead in Harare despite the country’s worsening political and humanitarian crisis, the International Cricket Council confirmed yesterday.
Chief executive Malcolm Speed, speaking after a meeting of the ICC’s 12-member board, said the six matches scheduled for Zimbabwe would proceed amid a massive security operation. Only a late, dramatic deterioration in security will now stop the games being played.
The government has called for the Zimbabwe matches to be shifted to South Africa in protest at human rights abuses by President Robert Mugabe’s government, but during a two-hour teleconference, David Morgan, chairman of the England and Wales Cricket Board, declined the opportunity to request that England’s match be moved, or to withdraw from the fixture.
The ECB has consistently said that the financial consequences of pulling out of the match are too great for it to consider without the offer of government compensation.
Speed, who returned from a 24-hour visit to Harare yesterday, said that while the security situation in Zimbabwe had deteriorated since November, when an ICC delegation first visited, the board was satisfied that the safety of players and officials would not be affected.
”The board reaffirmed their earlier decision, which was that there was no reason to relocate the matches,” he said. ”The ICC have sought to go through the issues with safety and security of players and officials as the sole criteria. We have neither the mandate or the authority to make decisions on political grounds.”
Political violence and food and fuel shortages have increased in Zimbabwe in the last three weeks. Opponents of the Mugabe government claim that dozens of opposition supporters have been arrested and tortured in a clampdown ahead of the tournament.
Speed said he was aware of the claims but said he had been assured that with 433 police officers on duty in and around the stadiums in Harare and Bulawayo, the players and officials would be adequately protected during their stay.
”I think the situation had deteriorated,” he said. ”That is one of the factors that I put before the board this morning. We then focused on how that affects cricket players and officials going in there under a high level of security to play cricket matches. That is the basis on which the board made its judgment.
”Cricket is played in some dangerous places, lets not beat around the bush. There are a number of dangerous cities in which one-day and Test-match cricket is played. Players don’t enjoy it but it’s a fact of life.
”Many of us would wish that cricket could be played without that extensive security presence, but we will see it in South Africa and other places too.”
Speed said that if the safety of the players could no longer be guaranteed the matches could be shifted with five days notice. A decision on whether to go ahead with two matches scheduled for Kenya will be made next week.
As Speed was announcing the decision to play, a shadowy Zimbabwean group called Organised Resistance vowed to stop the matches from taking place in Zimbabwe.
”Malcolm Speed will regret his failure to heed the clear warning signs that Zimbabwe be boycotted as a World Cup cricket venue,” it said.
The organisation sprang up about six weeks ago when the ICC announced its intention to proceed with the matches. From its inception it has been underground to avoid torture by the Zimbabwe police. When Pakistan played in Zimbabwe in November, three demonstrators handing out anti-government leaflets were arrested and beaten by police.
Organised Resistance criticised Speed for seeing only the Zimbabwe police and government-approved bodies on his latest visit. He did not meet with the mayor of Harare, Elias Mudzuri, whose qualified endorsement of the Zimbabwe games in December was trumpeted by the ICC. Last week he was arrested without charge and jailed for 48 hours.
Zimbabwe police have used torture and beaten at least eight opposition supporters including MPs, lawyers and human rights activists in the past week, according to medical evidence. Claiming that they are taking action to prevent disruption of the cricket, police have arrested 20 others.
An ECB representative said Morgan had stressed the need to monitor the security situation, and said it was not too late to move the matches. ”Today wasn’t the last opportunity to shift the matches. A decision made for today is not necessarily the one for tomorrow.” – Guardian Unlimited