Go ahead with tour, pleads scarred Zimbabwean ex-pat

As pressure mounts on the New Zealand Black Caps to cancel their tour of Zimbabwe because of human rights abuses there,

Daily Post reporter SHIRLEY WHITWELL finds support for the tour from an unlikely quarter.



Zimbabwean Gerald Smith's scars bear witness to the brutality he's suffered at the hands of the remorseless Mugabe regime.

He's one of the lucky ones, he got out.

But not before suffering beatings and interrogations at the hands of Mugabe's henchmen and being evicted from his land.

Despite his own terrible experiences and the suffering that continues in Zimbabwe, Mr Smith believes the New Zealand Black Caps cricket tour to his former homeland should go ahead.

Now enjoying life as a hydroponic farmer on the outskirts of Whakatane, he says a boycott will serve no purpose.

"People have to look at the overall picture. It [a boycott] will achieve absolutely nothing except to stop cricketers playing cricket and ordinary people in Zimbabwe seeing the game.

"If they [cricketers] don't go, he [Mugabe] will be delighted at the attention he is receiving around the world."

Mr Smith is well acquainted with Mugabe. He's a former opposition leader to the regime which has changed the face of the once prosperous country.

He formed the Zimbabwe Unity Movement in 1989 as an ally of Ian Smith, the former leader of the then Rhodesia. At the time, Mr Smith farmed 400 acres with tobacco, cotton and cattle. He had plans to add ti tree but events took over and he was forced off his land three years ago.

"When Mugabe came to power, he was the blue-eyed boy of the international world. But he is determined to keep his power at any cost. He invaded Mozambique and Congo at a cost the country could ill afford. We had a permanent army of 80,000 in the early 90s. It was a huge cost to the nation."

Mr Smith says the danger escalated in 1997/8 when Mugabe wanted changes to the constitution to increase his powers.

"To try and get the 75 per cent required in a referendum, he promised to turn white farmers off their land. This created a situation where he was at the point of no return."

In August 2002, after months of harassment by the forces, most of whom were young men, Mr Smith was given hours to leave the land he had farmed all his life.

"My wife [Paula] and I were told at 4pm to be gone by 9am the next day. We left to go to my brother's farm, fearing for our safety."

The couple had already spent four days with furniture against their windows barricading themselves in to escape the attention of the youth gangs congregated at their gate.

For months leading up to the couple's eviction Mr Smith had been randomly arrested, locked up for three to four days at a time and interrogated.

"This would usually happen on a Friday - I learnt to go away on Friday evenings and return home on Sunday nights.

"There were no lawyers available at weekends, so that is when they would come and get me."

The night after he and his wife left their farm, Mr Smith says he tried to return to collect personal possessions as they'd left with just one suitcase and a briefcase between them.

"We were blocked from entering our own property. They had felled trees across the gates."

He stayed with his brother for about three months until they could see he was the next targeted farmer and then fled to New Zealand.

"Our son was over here and we did not want to go to South Africa which many Zimbabwean are doing. South Africa has the highest crime rate in the world.

"Their government is doing exactly the same thing - turning white farmers off their land.

"No one is saying to stop the Springbok matches are they?

"So why put the onus on the cricketers when it will achieve nothing?"

Mr Smith has no desire to return to Zimbabwe.

"I won't go back. I don't want to see my house and land today."

He's received reports that the sheds have been knocked down and the roof torn off the house.

"There is no electricity and the acres are now barren - not producing food for a country which has the begging bowl out to the United Nations."

Before Mugabe came to power Zimbabwe was a wealthy country, able to feed its population and help other poorer African nations, Mr Smith says.

"Now Mugabe is at a point of no return. He has lost his popularity, which he always feared. Now he is turning against his own people.

"There is little fuel, electric only runs for a few days a week. Unemployment runs at 80 per cent. Inflation is at 300 per cent.

"This is leaving him at the mercy of the Chinese who are communists, a regime he has always tried to follow."

Already, Mr Smith says, the Chinese own the railways, power boards and telephone systems.

"Now he is planning to bring the Chinese in to the country to restart the farms.

"His spin is to look east to lift the country. No one believes it. Zimbabwe will become China's dumping ground."

Mr Smith doesn't believe the New Zealand Government will officially ban the Kiwi cricketers from touring Zimbabwe.

"They will not be in any danger. There is no point in getting emotional about a cricket match. It hurts the people of the country more than Mugabe," he says. "I can remember when in 1972 the Rhodesians were thrown out of the Olympics because of apartheid. The athletes and the public were the ones who were hurt - we as a people resented that."

Mr Smith is urging the international community to look at the broader picture.

"I do not want to do Mugabe any favours, but nothing will come of [a boycott] so it is unfair to the cricketers to ask them not to go."