New Zealand will ask Britain and Australia to support its call for the International Cricket Council (ICC) to ban Zimbabwe from competition because of the Mugabe regime’s human rights abuses, it was reported on Sunday.
The New Zealand Cabinet, when it meets on Monday, will consider banning the Zimbabwe cricket team from entering the country later this year. The government has ruled out stopping the New Zealand team from making a tour in August of Zimbabwe, saying it cannot prevent New Zealanders travelling overseas.
Foreign Minister Phil Goff said that he will ask British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw and his Australian counterpart Alexander Downer to support him in a bid to have Zimbabwe banned from all international cricket, the Sunday Star-Times reported.
Goff has deplored human rights abuses in Zimbabwe and President Robert Mugabe’s demolition of squatter camps, which has left tens of thousands homeless and reportedly killed two children who were crushed when their homes were demolished.
”Most of us don’t want to see sport being used as a political weapon,” Goff told the paper. ”But in some cases you just can’t ignore sporting teams going to countries where this sort of thing is happening and pretend nothing is wrong.”
Goff said that he had asked New Zealand Cricket boss Martin Snedden, who is in London for an ICC meeting this week, to urge the world body to ban Zimbabwe.
”It is time the ICC showed some leadership on this issue,” he said. – Sapa-DPA