Zimbabwe and Fiji get the McCully sports treatment

Zimbabwe is one of those human rights disasters which enters our consciousness only when overt violence flashes across our television screens.

There hasn't been much violence reported recently so it was no surprise to see Foreign Minister Murray McCully drop opposition to a New Zealand cricket team touring Zimbabwe in October and accepting a return trip by a Zimbabwean team.

McCully said on the weekend:

"New Zealand Cricket has advised us of their intention to travel to Zimbabwe which, I think, is in October. They have asked us whether we have any concerns about that and, of course, made the point to us that the expectation will be that Zimbabwe is able to make a return visit"

He went on to say:

"the return visit runs smack into the travel sanctions that operate in relation to sporting tours from Zimbabwe. So I have taken some advice from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and what I've said to New Zealand Cricket is that we have no concerns about them touring Zimbabwe. We have therefore adopted the position that we are prepared to issue visas for the Zimbabwe team to come to New Zealand and to provide an exemption from the sanctions for that purpose. That is all conditional, of course, on the situation in Zimbabwe not deteriorating in a significant way."

The sanctions were imposed on Zimbabwe following a violent campaign by Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe against his political opponents.

As his popularity plummeted through corruption, mismanagement and the failure to address issues of landlessness and endemic poverty Mugabe firstly blamed white Zimbabwean farmers (who 30 years after independence still control most of the fertile land) then mounted vicious attacks on his political opponents in the MDC (Movement for Democratic Change)

Mugabe had become the Idi Amin of Zimbabwe.

When white farmers were attacked a decade ago the Labour government opened our doors to them as refugees. However when poor blacks were the victims a few years later it was another story. In 2005 Mugabe launched "Operation Murambatsvina" (Clean up the filth) which attacked squatter settlements of the poor. Homes were bulldozed and families forcibly moved to rural camps with at best rudimentary facilities. The brutality was condemned around the world and most countries took some action. But not New Zealand.

Our Black Cap cricketers left for Zimbabwe with the government's blessing in the middle of this human rights disaster. Foreign Minister Phil Goff refused to even request the cricketers not to go and New Zealand Cricket Council head Martin Snedden ignored community appeals for the tour to be abandoned.

Six years later not much has changed - either in Zimbabwe or in New Zealand. The human rights situation is an ongoing nightmare while our government is an uninterested spectator.

Harrison Nkomo of Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights says his organization alone has documented almost 900 abuses of human rights including illegal detentions, harassment and beatings, since January. He said many more may go unreported. But because the people suffer in silence McCully is happy to turn a blind eye. He says the situation is "not fantastic but there are aspects of stability there and our judgement is that we shouldn't do anything to derail the planned sporting exchange."

The stability McCully talks about is maintained by a brutal police state and it seems he will be happy while Mugabe's victims don't scream so loud that it embarrasses him.

It's the same human rights view as Prime Minister John Key when he supported the Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak remaining in power in the face of mass demonstrations demanding freedom and democracy.

As things stand the so-called sanctions the New Zealand government has in place against Zimbabwe and Fiji are little more than a joke. The Fiji rugby team are to be welcomed here for the world cup and the Zimbabwean cricketers likewise.

The government has also created an exemption for Fijian Lieutenant Colonel Tevita Mara to enter New Zealand. Mara was a key figure in the most recent coup and its associated human rights abuses but has now abandoned Fiji after falling out with coup leader Frank Bainimarama. As the Coalition for Democracy in Fiji points out this government decision is disappointing and insensitive to those and their families who have suffered and continue to suffer human rights abuses in Fiji.

Sporting sanctions are very important because they are so very effective. New Zealand governments however are soft on human rights abuses and the puny sanctions we nominally have in place are readily brushed aside. Exemptions from sanctions have become the rule in the process we are letting down some of the most vulnerable people in the world.

It could be that the people suffering are just too brown. If they were Europeans being brutalised then McCully's reaction would be very different. Imagine the righteous indignation and swiftness of action if his "kith and kin" were similarly targeted.

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