The Press

16 June 2010

By Hamish Bidwell

The New Zealand cricket team’s twice-postponed tour of Zimbabwe looks likely to finally go ahead in May next year.

New Zealand Cricket (NZC) chief executive Justin Vaughan met Zimbabwe Sports Minister David Coltart yesterday and confirmed that the way was now clear for the limited-overs matches to be played.

Political unrest in Zimbabwe, as well as health concerns, meant that the New Zealand Government had supported NZC in their decision to postpone the scheduled tours. But with Coltart able to convince Minister for Sport and Recreation Murray McCully that his country no longer poses a safety risk, the Black Caps will go.

“So, pending the usual security and safety checks, we would envisage that we will be touring Zimbabwe in May of 2011,” Vaughan said.

As a full member of the International Cricket Council, Zimbabwe has bilateral touring agreements with fellow member countries meaning “we don’t really have a decision to make,” he said.

“Obviously there are clauses around needing to ensure that it’s a safe environment and we can refuse to tour on the basis of safety and security, as we have with countries like Pakistan.

“At the moment, though, there doesn’t appear to be that level of concern around touring Zimbabwe. So, at the current time, we’re very comfortable about progressing along on that basis.”

Vaughan added that encouraging reports had emerged from Zimbabwe’s recent home tri- series with India and Sri Lanka.

Former New Zealand captain and manager Jeff Crowe, who was the international match referee for that series, reassured Vaughan that the safety and security of the teams and facilities had been carefully managed. “So that’s given us an extra layer of confidence.”

New Zealand tour Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and India in the coming months, with players’ association chief executive Heath Mills and Black Caps high performance manager Geoff Allott soon to join an independent security contractor on a visit to facilities in those countries. Vaughan said that was something NZC would “replicate” closer to the scheduled trip to Zimbabwe.

While he was confident the players’ association supported the tour to Zimbabwe, Vaughan did say individuals were free to declare themselves unavailable.

Mass player defections led Zimbabwe Cricket to relinquish their test status in 2006 and their national team has survived on a diet of limited-overs cricket since. But after meetings with the ICC, they will resume playing test cricket with a series against Bangladesh, also next May.

Sydney Morning Herald

16 June 2010

By Daniel Brettig

AAP

Australia are set to host a Zimbabwean touring team next year for the first time since 2003, following a meeting between Cricket Australia and the strife-torn country’s sports minister, David Coltart.

In keeping with Zimbabwe’s plans for gradual re-engagement with the cricket community, any series will be played between “A” teams from the two countries. This still represents a major step for the African nation after years of sanctions and international condemnation.

The Zimbabwe tour, likely to take place in mid-2011 at a time once slated for Test matches between the two countries, would also be the first step in a reciprocal agreement that would also see an Australia A side play matches in Zimbabwe.

“There is a spot in 2011, but the trouble is that slot was for two Tests in Australia and even though Zimbabwe wants to re-commence playing Test cricket next year, there’s a recognition that to throw this young team into the Test arena against Australia at this stage would be counter-productive,” Coltart told AAP.

“We’ve discussed other means of utilising that slot but with more appropriate opposition.

“It’s very much tentative at this stage.

“(An A series) is what the discussions are centring on, the exchange of A teams rather than at Test level.

“We’ve discussed an exchange of tours, in other words (tours) both ways.”

Coltart is due to meet with Foreign Minister Stephen Smith in Canberra on Thursday, and expects a similarly fruitful dialogue.

Smith told Federal Parliament in March that he favoured further engagement with areas of Zimbabwe life that were showing progress, while the Department of Foreign Affairs has made it clear there will be no diplomatic opposition to the resumption of formal cricket contact.

“I’ve had a number of very constructive meetings with the Australian ambassador to Zimbabwe, John Courtney, and he’s certainly been very sympathetic to my arguments and I know his view reflects Canberra’s view, so I don’t anticipate difficult meetings tomorrow,” said Coltart.

Herald

15 June 2010

By a Special Correspondent

The education sector is widely acknowledged as the main success story of independent Zimbabwe, after peace and security.

The policies pursued post-independence in this sector represent a significant achievement that has generated the second highest literacy rate on the continent and a quality of graduates who are very much in demand in many parts of the region and the world.

This sector is now a target for destruction, with the apparent aim of obliterating this achievement, and turning the clock back on this important sector, with the resultant implications for current and future generations.

The minister, David Coltart, was put in place by the MDC and his leader, the Deputy Prime Minister, Professor Arthur Mutambara, has publicly acknowledged the value and importance of the post-independence educational system in his own personal development.

It seems unlikely, therefore, that it is party policy to destroy that same educational system.

However, that is on its way to happening if something does not change in the dysfunctional Ministry of Education, Sport, Arts and Culture.

The post-independence achievements in education were rooted in two related developments.

This was the result of the political will to put all children into school in 1980 and embark on intensive teacher training, and it was also the result of curriculum development and strengthening of the publishing industry that provides the books.

That sector is now being rapidly destroyed by a minister who works alone and does not consult with senior officials in his ministry.

A sector and industry that has been developed and strengthened over 30 years will be destroyed by the end of this year if he continues to operate as he is doing now.

As it is unlikely to be party policy of the MDC, then the minister either lacks knowledge of the industry as he often acknowledges, being a lawyer, or else he is being influenced by other masters.

Perhaps, as a former Rhodesian policeman, he does not well understand this as he was a beneficiary of a pre-independence educational system based on race.

The minister has embarked on a multimillion-dollar tender process for school textbooks that is set to destroy the local publishing and printing industry built in the post-independent period over the past 30 years, which has thrived in a highly competitive, free market for textbooks published to meet the national curriculum and selected by schools themselves.

This provision and choice of quality textbooks has been at the heart of the success of the educational sector, and the local publishers face imminent shutdown due to the awarding of a tender by the minister solely to a 100 percent foreign (British/US)-owned publishing company.

He has been misleading Cabinet on the developments in his ministry.

He speaks of “one child, one book” but does not say that he will destroy the educational system and a vibrant local publishing industry and the entire distribution chain in the process.

He speaks of large sums of money coming in for this purpose but does not say that this will flow out of the country again without boosting local industry.

The minister, acting personally and without senior officials of the ministry, has colluded with Unicef to float a “print and supply” tender which was eventually awarded in secret and the contract signed in secret with Longman Zimbabwe, owned by Pearson/Maskew-Miller.

There has been no public announcement of the result to date, yet this was ostensibly a public tender.

Most of the books will be printed outside the country, with obvious damage to the local printing industry, which has been recovering and relies on the large volumes of print for educational textbooks.

Any benefits of this money that might have been expected for a much needed industrial boost will flow out of the country, in printing costs and publishing profits.

The only books in primary schools for core subjects for the next three years will be Longmans books, selected by the minister, and all books will contain a message from the minister, reaching every child in the country.

The educational titles developed by the local publishers in the post-independence will disappear from the market, leaving only the British multinational.

There will remain in future only one publisher in Zimbabwe, fully foreign-owned, with Longman having reclaimed its pre-independence role as sole the publisher of educational textbooks

This activity is funded by a consortium of donors from Europe, including the UK and Germany, who refuse to put their funds through Government due to illegal sanctions.

The amounts are huge — US$13 million for primary school textbooks and a further US$25 million for secondary school books.

This is called an “Educational Transition Fund” but under the circumstances, the question must be asked, transition from what to what?

Booksellers are also impacted, due to the takeover of book distribution (bizarrely) by Unicef, which is not a book distributor and has no related expertise. Any consultants hired to do this will turn to other things when the Unicef funds run out, having destroyed the existing distribution system.

Thus the entire chain of selection, publishing, printing and book distribution, built up into a vibrant industry in independent Zimbabwe, will be destroyed.

This has very serious implications for the economy as well as the social sector, with the effect of destroying 30 years of educational development since independence and starting over, from a baseline of 1980.

Education was the second of the national grievances over which the war of liberation was fought, after land, and these achievements in education helped to build and strengthen a development sector that has been the envy of the continent.

Dominion Post

15 June 2010

By Nick Venter

A resumption of cricketing ties with Zimbabwe is on the cards after a personal plea from Zimbabwe’s sports minister for New Zealand to help strengthen democracy in his country.

David Coltart met his New Zealand counterpart, Murray McCully, in Wellington yesterday. He said afterwards he was optimistic that cricketing links would be restored, but the final decision rested with New Zealand Cricket. He is due to meet New Zealand Cricket chief executive Justin Vaughan in Christchurch today.

“The minister said that he understood and agreed with my reasons for wanting the team to tour but he stressed the Government does not interfere with the decisions taken by New Zealand Cricket so ultimately it will be their decision to make. He personally would be supportive of it,” Mr Coltart said.

A spokesman for Mr McCully said the minister had had “a couple of good meetings with David Coltart but it’s a decision for New Zealand Cricket to make”.

The Black Caps had been scheduled to tour Zimbabwe this month, but the tour, already delayed once, was postponed again earlier this year because of “security concerns”.

Mr Coltart, an opposition member of Zimbabwe’s “transitional inclusive government”, said there were no security problems for visiting sportspeople. Zimbabwe had a lower crime rate than most other African nations, including South Africa, and had recently hosted the Sri Lankan and Indian cricket teams as well as the Brazilian football side for a warmup match before the World Cup.

Cricketing tours by New Zealand and Australian teams would strengthen moves towards democracy in Zimbabwe, he said.

“Just as New Zealanders are sceptical about this process, so are many Zimbabweans. The normalisation of sport and teams coming from New Zealand and Australia will build the national confidence that we are becoming part of the international community again.”

TVNZ

15 June 2010

The Black Caps are looking to resume cricketing ties with Zimbabwe next year following key talks today.

New Zealand Cricket chief executive Justin Vaughan confirmed he has met with Zimbabwe sports minister David Coltart in Christchurch.

Vaughan says they discussed a tour in May 2011 as well as the possibility of other cricketing exchanges, such as the potential for a New Zealand A team to tour Zimbabwe at some stage in the near future.

Mr Coltart also met New Zealand’s Minister for Sport and Recreation, Murray McCully, earlier this week, which Vaughn said he was pleased with.

“It is clear from that meeting that our government’s position is that they would not oppose the Blackcaps touring Zimbabwe next year,” Vaughan says.

“It is important to stress that any tour by New Zealand cricket teams to Zimbabwe would need to be prefaced by full safety and security checks, which are standard practice for New Zealand Cricket.”

Coltart, a member of Zimbabwe’s transitional inclusive government, said there were no security problems for visiting sportspeople.

Zimbabwe recently hosted the Sri Lankan and Indian cricket teams as well as the Brazilian football team for a warm-up match before the World Cup.

The Guardian

15 June 2010

Scheduled tour was postponed over security fears

Officials held positive talks in Christchurch

New Zealand plan to resume cricket tours of Zimbabwe next year after talks between officials over security.

New Zealand Cricket postponed a scheduled tour to Zimbabwe this month for the second time over security fears, but a meeting between chief executive Justin Vaughan and Zimbabwe’s Sports Minister David Coltart in Christchurch appears to have made progress.

Coltart said there would be no security problems for touring teams, and that a tour to Zimbabwe by New Zealand would be “a positive development”.

“I think there is a greater openness to tour now, which I’m delighted about,” he told Radio New Zealand.

Reuters

15 June 2010

By Greg Stutchbury

New Zealand could resume cricket tours to Zimbabwe next year after a high-level meeting between government officials, New Zealand Cricket (NZC) said on Tuesday.

New Zealand postponed their July 2009 tour to the southern-African country on security grounds and after Prime Minister John Key had said his government did not support Robert Mugabe’s regime.

Last year, NZC said they would monitor the situation with an eye to travelling to Zimbabwe for a one-day series this month.

On Tuesday, however, the board said they would look to visit Zimbabwe in May 2011 after a meeting between NZC chief executive Justin Vaughan and Zimbabwe Sports Minister David Coltart, who had earlier met his counterpart Murray McCully.

“I am aware that the Minister for Sport and Recreation, Murray McCully, had a positive meeting with Mr Coltart in Wellington earlier this week,” Vaughan said.

“It is clear from that meeting that our government’s position is that they would not oppose the Black Caps touring Zimbabwe next year.

“It is important to stress that any tour by New Zealand cricket teams to Zimbabwe would need to be prefaced by full safety and security checks, which are standard practice for New Zealand Cricket.”

Dominion Post

15 June 2010

By Nick Venter

DAVID COLTART, Zimbabwe’s minister of education, sports and culture, has no reason to love Robert Mugabe. As a lawyer he’s represented women widowed by Mr Mugabe’s troops, defended the president’s political foes against trumped-up charges and catalogued the government-ordered atrocities that claimed tens of thousands of lives in the Matabeleland region in the 1980s.

He has also been threatened with imprisonment, falsely accused of trying to shoot at youth militia barricading his home, survived an assassination attempt and had to console the family of a supporter who “disappeared” a week before Mr Coltart was first elected to Parliament as a member of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change in 2000.

“He was one of my polling agents. It got very nasty. He was abducted from his home at 4 o’clock in the afternoon in the presence of his wife and children by known people.” The supporter, Patrick Nabanyama, has not been seen since.

Mr Mugabe and his party are responsible for “terrible things”, Mr Coltart says. But, strange as it may seem, he is now pleading Mr Mugabe’s case. He is in New Zealand to ask Cricket New Zealand and the Government to send a team to Zimbabwe.

Zimbabwe’s leading human rights lawyer has become an ally of its worst human rights abuser. It’s an uneasy alliance forced by the 2008 election that delivered Morgan Tsvangirai’s MDC a majority of the votes but not the means to persuade Mr Mugabe’s Zanu PF Party to surrender power.

Mr Coltart, the only white member of Zimbabwe’s cabinet and a member of a breakaway MDC faction, says opposition members of the “transitional inclusive government” were forced to choose between justice and the future.

“It’s been very difficult for us in the human rights community to accept this, but in 2008 many of us came to the position that, unless we reached this agreement, Zimbabwe would be taken down to the level of Somalia or Liberia.

“The agreement provided a non- violent evolutionary means of achieving a transition to democracy.

“Inevitably that meant that some of our goals of holding people to account for terrible crimes would not be achieved, certainly not in the short term. The calculation I made was that, by reaching this agreement, we would save lives, potentially hundreds of thousand of lives. And that was a price worth paying.”

THE first 15 months of the new government show the calculation was right, he says. “There are still huge problems. There is still rampant corruption in some areas. There are still ongoing human rights abuses. Zanu PF is still in control of the military.”

But there are also positive signs. The human rights situation in Zimbabwe has improved dramatically in the past 15 months, there have been far fewer reports of torture, few reports of disappearances, and a big reduction in the number of political prosecutions. “Whilst it’s by no means perfect, from a human rights perspective, the country is now unrecognisable from 2008.”

There have also been other improvements.

Government-controlled television and radio stations have opened up “slightly” to alternative views; an independent daily newspaper began publishing last week, the first in five or six years; inflation has been brought under control; the cholera epidemic has ended; health clinics have reopened and hospitals have been stabilised.

“Once again the state of healthcare isn’t too great, but it is unrecognisably better than it was 15, 16 months ago,” he says.

In his own portfolio of education, 80,000 striking teachers have returned to work and almost 7000 schools have reopened.

“They are not functioning very well because they are terribly underfunded, but kids are at least going to school. We are just about to deliver the largest order of primary school textbooks – 13 million – that the country has ever known. At present in most classrooms the only textbook is the one that the teacher has.”

There is no guarantee the transitional arrangements will result in a new constitution or free and fair elections, but progress is being made, he says. A New Zealand cricket tour would help the process.

“Sport can be a very positive and effective method of uniting a country, of stabilising a country, of rebuilding national pride as opposed to partisan pride, and we are already seeing that in Zimbabwean cricket.”

A tour would also strengthen the hand of the moderates in Mr Mugabe’s Zanu PF Party, who “didn’t really like the torture and the disappearances” by demonstrating that there are benefits to opening up Zimbabawean society to the world.

“The message to the New Zealand Government and the New Zealand people is that, if you don’t support the moderates within Zanu PF and the MDC, you play into the hands of the hardliners [in Zanu PF] who were prepared to destroy Zimbabwe in 2008 and are still prepared to take it back to that.

“They recognise that Zimbabwe has sufficient wealth in the form of diamonds and platinum to keep a tiny economy going that supports a core of the military, but will not keep schools and hospitals and clinics open.”

David Coltart On:

Relations between Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai: “There is, in Cabinet, a functional relationship which on occasion is even cordial. It is very difficult to go back to the antagonism of the past once you have actually realised that your opponent is not the devil.”

The security issues given as grounds for postponing the Black Caps’ scheduled tour of Zimbabwe this month: “There was never any substance to that fear. Zimbabwe, even at the height of its political turmoil, was always a safer place to visit than South Africa.”

The popularity of cricket in Zimbabwe: “It was a huge disappointment to Zimbabwe when New Zealand said they would not come because it obviously undermined out ability to play good opposition and so rebuild our team.”

The benefits of political stability: “The rank and file of the military have got a taste of what it is like to be readmitted to the international community, what it is like to have a salary paid in hard currency, what it is like not to have exchange controls, and they like it.”

The factions within Robert Mugabe’s Zanu PF Party: “There are a group of moderates who have embraced the [transitional] agreement. They are seeking to implement it in its full letter and spirit, but they are a minority.

“The second group, headed by Mugabe himself, don’t particularly like the agreement but are pragmatic enough to recognise that it does offer them a political soft landing. They are not going to end up in the Hague or in exile. But, because they don’t like the agreement, they push the envelope as far as they can. They seek to bend it, but they don’t actually want to break it.

“Then there’s the third group of hardliners. They tend to be 20 years younger than Mugabe, they tend to be corrupt, they tend to be those responsible for crimes against humanity. They hate the agreement. They don’t like where it’s headed. They recognise that, whilst it provides Robert Mugabe with a way out, it doesn’t necessarily proved them with a way out.”

www.blackcaps.co.nz

15 June 2010

The Blackcaps are looking to resume cricketing ties with Zimbabwe next year following key talks today between the Zimbabwe sports minister David Coltart and New Zealand Cricket chief executive Justin Vaughan.

Vaughan confirmed today he had held positive and meaningful bilateral talks with Coltart in Christchurch today.

“The tour by the Blackcaps in May 2011 was the principal topic of my discussion with Mr Coltart, however we are also considering the possibility of other cricketing exchanges, such as the potential for a New Zealand A team to tour Zimbabwe at some stage in the near future.

“I am aware that the Minister for Sport and Recreation, Murray McCully, had a positive meeting with Mr Coltart in Wellington earlier this week. It is clear from that meeting that our government’s position is that they would not oppose the Blackcaps touring Zimbabwe next year,” Vaughan said.

“It is important to stress that any tour by New Zealand cricket teams to Zimbabwe would need to be prefaced by full safety and security checks, which are standard practice for New Zealand Cricket.’’

Coltart, a member of Zimbabwe’s transitional inclusive government, said there were no security problems for visiting sportspeople. Zimbabwe has a lower crime rate than most other African nations, including South Africa, and recently hosted the Sri Lankan and Indian cricket teams as well as the Brazilian football team for a warm-up match before the World Cup.

Sydney Morning Herald

15 June 2010

By Jamie Pandaram

John Howard’s nomination for the ICC vice-presidency has received a boost after Zimbabwe’s Minister for Sport, David Coltart, said suggestions his country would attempt to block the former Australian prime minister were ”groundless”. Coltart is on his way to Australia to smooth relations and discuss Howard’s candidacy. ”In recent discussions I have had with the Zimbabwe Cricket Board through its president and managing director it was made clear to me that no decision has been taken by the board regarding the nomination of Mr John Howard to the position of deputy president of the ICC,” he said in an emailed statement. ”Indeed there is a consensus between me and the board that the purpose of my visit to Australia and New Zealand is to completely normalise relations between Zimbabwe Cricket and Cricket Australia/New Zealand Cricket. Accordingly the press speculation that Zimbabwe will vote against Mr Howard’s nomination is groundless. The issue will be discussed when I meet Cricket Australia this week in Melbourne and my hope is that a mutually satisfactory position on all issues, including Mr Howard’s nomination, will be better understood.”