The threat of protests against the hosting of the North Korean World Cup team in Bulawayo has forced the Zimbabwean government to rethink where it could house the Asian side.
The indications are that the invitation will not be withdrawn but that the Koreans will not be based in Matabeleland as was planned.
The North Korean team was expected to camp in Bulawayo on May 25. It would then proceed, on a date to be announced, to a South African base.
But human rights activists and political parties in Zimbabwe, and in Bulawayo in particular, condemned the move and said it would reopen old wounds and remind Matabeleland’s residents of the bloody events of the late 1980s.
About 20Â 000 unarmed and innocent civilians are thought to have been killed by the North Korean-trained Fifth Brigade deployed against insurgents in the region by President Robert Mugabe’s government. In a campaign that used extensive torture and other human-rights abuses several thousand were maimed and left homeless.
Addressing an international business conference at Zimbabwe’s International Trade Fair, Tourism Minister Walter Mzembi said this week that the issue was being discussed by the Cabinet.
He said the government had considered hosting the North Koreans after their government wrote to the Zimbabwean authorities seeking a base at which to prepare for the football showcase.
“As a country hoping to tap into the overflows from South Africa’s hosting of the World Cup 2010, we wrote to a number of countries inviting them to camp in Zimbabwe. This was because we wanted to maximise [the potential of] the World Cup and boost out tourism market.
“Out of all those countries that we invited, it is North Korea that wrote to us and asked us to provide a base for them to camp.”
Cabinet decision
Mzembi said that, because of the row that was sparked by the announcement of a North Korean camp in Matabeleland, he had taken the matter back to the Cabinet for a decision.
“The government is currently undertaking a national healing programme. We will do all we can to ensure that that programme is not disrupted by engaging in some acts that are not in line with the spirit of the national healing programme,” Mzembi said.
“We are discussing, among other things, where they will be camped. It does not have to be a metropolitan city. We will have to consider issues of security [to] ensure that they are not disturbed during training Âsessions and that they have secrecy,” he said.
The government is also considering the availability of a proper turf field for the North Koreans to train on. Mzembi said the surface would have to meet World Cup standards.