Paul Lewis: Zimbabwe trip doesn't stand up

Can anyone think of a good reason for the Black Caps to go to Zimbabwe on tour this year? The only possible answer is to help the growth of Zimbabwe cricket but that seems hopelessly altruistic when lined up alongside the propaganda value to Robert Mugabe's wretched regime.

In our issue this week, former New Zealand cricket internationals give their views on the to-go-or-not-to-go issue and most of them mention the sportsman's dilemma of career vs morality. Some venture into sport-used as-a-political-football territory but the plain fact is that sport and politics have been inextricably linked since Julius Caesar offered errant senators a guest spot at the Colosseum, starring alongside the lions. Don't miss the start ...

The International Cricket Council have instituted contracts and penalties that mean New Zealand Cricket could get a bill for $2.7m if they pull out of the tour for reasons other than political grounds and/or the safety and security of players.

NZC CEO Martin Snedden has already said the tour will not be cancelled on political grounds by NZC. He reasons that it's up to the Government to decide on the politics. Fair enough. Helen Clark says she wouldn't be seen dead in Zimbabwe - but will not call the tour off as it is a decision for the sport. Sports Minister Trevor Mallard says the government will not underwrite the $2.7m fine if NZC call the tour off. Hmmm. Is anyone detecting a pattern here?

This buck is being passed faster than one of Brett Lee's bouncers. It's all up to everyone else. And the biggest passer of the buck may be the ICC, whose mandate is the growth of world cricket rather than a small matter of human rights.

If anyone needs to see why we shouldn't go to Zimbabwe to play cricket, they do not need to research back over the past years of Mugabe's rule where he has rigged elections, driven the economy into the ground, produced poverty, masked it with rhetoric and pushed internal opposition underground by mental and physical threat.

All they need to do is read the account of the two Sunday Telegraph journalists who were recently jailed in Zimbabwe after they were caught having a nosy at the elections on a tourist visa. Now this is a familiar trick by Fleet Street. You go into an oppressive regime on a tourist visa but you are really there to report.

You may recall the Fleet Street woman who dressed as a Muslim and rode into Afghanistan on a donkey and was caught and jailed, leaving her little daughter alone in London. She then wrote a book about her terrible experiences (all of which were self-inflicted).

God help us, and thank God for the British foreign service who seem particularly adept at helping nationals who get into these self-aggrandising scrapes.

However, the two Sunday Telegraph journalists painted an extraordinary picture of Zimbabwe. At the election, they found Zanu PF (Mugabe's party) out in force, beating drums and telling voters that the way they cast their votes would be discovered. In jail, arrested for 'interfering with the election', they were processed by an alarming man known to them as one of the veterans of Zimbabwe's war of independence (30,000 lives lost). There were frightening tales of mistreatment and interrogations.

The account is marked by a common theme - a lack of regard for human rights and liberty that we take for granted.

So what is a cricket tour of Zimbabwe to this? Mugabe is also the patron of Zimbabwe cricket. However much the cricketers on such a tour may protest and declare their non-support of the regime, their presence serves to boost it.

So what do we do? Someone needs to take responsibility. The ICC must wake up to the real world and take their $2.7m and stick it where you can't fit a cricket ball. The Government - our Government - needs to tell the NZC to call it off.

But in this political game of buck-passing, none of those things are likely to happen. It may end up back with Martin Snedden. He was a canny and brave cricketer. He is also smart and no stranger to finding a solution to a vexing problem.

I just hope someone has the cojones to call this thing off. It doesn't even make sense from a sporting point of view as Zimbabwe are pretty naff at cricket right now.

Even the argument that we shouldn't leave them in Mugabe's clutches doesn't work. Isolation can have a powerful effect on countries. Just ask South Africa.

- HERALD ON SUNDAY