THE EDITOR, Sir:
IS IT not hypocrisy when the Prime Ministers of Australia, Great Britain and New Zealand want to boycott cricket World Cup games to be played in Zimbabwe, supposedly because Mr. Mugabe is not behaving himself?
But is Mr. Mugabe not a good student of his former colonial masters? He is simply doing what the colonial masters did many, many years ago; they went into Zimbabwe and without a please or a thank you took away the people's land and gave it to Caucasians. Now that was not cricket. Mr. Mugabe, having studied them very carefully, has now updated the system and has taken back the land and has evidently distributed it to his cronies.
When the British finally gave up their interest in Zimbabwe, did they ever think of righting the wrong they had done? No siree they just left and the inheritors of the stolen land, although they were not guilty of the act itself, knew how they inherited the land. Certainly good sense should have prevailed and a round table conference should have been held to try and solve this problem.
To my mind if the present owners of the land had only done the moral thing and negotiated with the government a solution could have been found. More than likely they could have given a part of the land back to the people and they should also have helped them in establishing farms and teaching them new methods of agriculture. This would have been the moral thing to do, but in this modern world where is morality?
And so we come back to the boycott mooted by Australia, Great Britain and New Zealand. Do you remember the regime in South Africa where so much wrong was done; and I am sure that Mr. Mugabe has not come near to what was done in that country and all the countries who are now screaming boycott were sending teams to play in South Africa. I certainly would say to them, people who live in glass houses should not throw stones.
I am, etc.,
BARBARA COVER
