Clark steps up pressure over Zimbabwe tour

Helen Clark has intensified the political pressure for the Black Caps' cricket tour of Zimbabwe to be called off, saying there is a "groundswell" of Kiwi opposition.

The Prime Minister said the crisis in the rogue state ruled by Robert Mugabe was deepening.

The Government wants the International Cricket Council to drop its punitive sanctions against nations pulling out of cricket tours on moral grounds, which would allow NZ Cricket to review the August tour.

England and Australia have been approached to join New Zealand in asking the ICC to boycott Zimbabwe.

Helen Clark confirmed that the Zimbabwe team is likely to be banned from coming here in December.

The hardening opposition to Black Caps' tour comes as NZ Cricket chief executive Martin Snedden and the Zimbabwe Cricket Union attend the ICC's annual meeting in London.

He would not say how the the political intervention and signalled ban against the Zimbabwe cricketers had affected the New Zealand officials.

"Yes, it is an interesting one," Mr Snedden said from London. "I'll come home and deal directly with the Government."

If the New Zealanders do not tour Zimbabwe they face a costly suspension from international cricket and at least a $2.8 million fine.

Helen Clark said the Government would neither order the cricketers not to tour, nor pay the fine if they called off the visit.

But she made it clear the Government was against the tour, and that public opinion appeared to oppose it.

"I do sense quite a groundswell of opinion in New Zealand, of real concern about New Zealand being in Zimbabwe at the present time with the crisis deepening.

"Two hundred thousand people having their homes bulldozed, children killed in the rubble, to say nothing of the ongoing torture, disappearances, suppression of judiciary, media, [and] economic catastrophe we associate with Zimbabwe today."

She said the Government had complete discretion over denying visas to Zimbabwe's cricket team.

Mr Goff has already spoken with British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw and Australia's Foreign Minister, Alexander Downer, about a joint approach to the ICC, seeking a boycott of Zimbabwe. Both had indicated support, but wanted to speak to their domestic cricket bodies.

Mr Goff said last night that New Zealand would make its own approach to the ICC if necessary.

He said at some point the ICC had to realise human rights atrocities in Zimbabwe were too great to ignore.

Mr Straw last year made a fruitless approach to the ICC asking that England be excused from touring Zimbabwe last December.

That series went ahead, and pro-Mugabe regime media used the tour to claim England cricketers were "queuing up" to give their approval.

England's Steve Harmison refused to tour on moral grounds.

Zimbabweans living in New Zealand have said they are afraid to speak out against the Mugabe regime as they fear he has agents here.

The Rev Richard Johnson, now of Invercargill but who lived in Harare for 25 years, said they were wise to be worried. He and another Zimbabwean, who asked not to be named, said they suspected that Mugabe agents were in New Zealand.

Mr Johnson said the cricketers had to realise the regime would politicise the tour.

"The issue to me is one of morality. It is just wrong."