Welcome 'home' to world's cricketers

The International Cricket Council's Cricket World Cup will start on Saturday, February 8th, with a joyous ceremonial launch of the tournament at the Newlands Cricket Ground in Cape Town, even as the dark clouds of hatred and war hang ominously over all humanity because of the question of Iraq.

On February 8th, within the environs of Table Mountain, the new District Six and Robben Island, black and white, Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Jew, Muslim and Indigenous, East, West, North and South, men and women, young and old, people of different political beliefs, will convene at Newlands Cricket Ground to celebrate peace, friendship, human diversity and the shared destiny of all human beings on our common globe.

We thank the ICC and the global cricket community for giving our country the possibility to host the 2003 Cricket World Cup. This serves as a statement of friendship and solidarity with our country and people, and an indication of the confidence the international community has in our capacity to host such a major tournament. We deeply appreciate these sentiments.

We welcome to our country and our Continent all our visitors from outside South Africa and Africa. In this regard, we join our national cricket team, the Proteas, our United Cricket Board, the rest of our cricket community, all our sportspeople and our country and people as a whole.

We also take this opportunity to convey our best wishes to all the cricketers and the cricket officials and authorities for a successful sports competition, free of political squabbles. Many of the teams in the competition have played in our country before.

They will therefore be aware of the love of sport among all our people. They will be conscious of the role that sport has played and is playing in helping our country to overcome the racial divisions of the past and to achieve the goal of national reconciliation. We are certain that the Cricket World Cup will add enormous impetus to our efforts in this regard.

South Africans and people from elsewhere in the world are aware of the gross deficiency in sports infrastructure that continues to confront the historically black residential areas in our country. This has served severely to limit the participation of the black youth in sport.

This is in a situation in which sport could play an important role in overcoming the social ills among the youth, which ills derive from the impact of poverty and underdevelopment on these young people, their families and communities.

We extend our thanks to the ICC and the South African United Cricket Board for the lengths to which they have gone to ensure that some games, including practice games, are played in the black areas of our country.

Apart from resulting in the improvement of the sports facilities in these areas, these games will also inspire our youth to participate in sport, even as they strengthen the friendship between us and the peoples of the world. These are lasting benefits that will remain as an invaluable national legacy of the 2003 ICC Cricket World Cup.

Correctly, a few years ago, the ICC and our United Cricket Board decided that they should work together to encourage the development of cricket in other African countries. We are certain they did this because they are aware of, and sought to encourage the positive impact of sport, including cricket, such as we have indicated for our own country. Interested as we are in the fundamental renewal of our Continent, we cannot but support this decision.

We were therefore pleased that the ICC decided that some of the 2003 World Cricket Cup games would be played in Zimbabwe and Kenya. Naturally, we were keen and remain very interested that these games are held satisfactorily. For this reason, our country has extended as much support as was required, to both Zimbabwe and Kenya to ensure that, like us, they meet the requirements of the ICC and the players.

Last week our government reported that it had received a report from the South African Police Service about the security arrangements for the World Cup, relating to our country, Zimbabwe and Kenya. The SAPS could give this report because it had worked closely with the ICC and the UCB on these security arrangements, both in our country, naturally, as well as Zimbabwe and Kenya.

Our government expressed its satisfaction with the report submitted by the SAPS. It stated that, together with our Police Service, it is convinced that the security conditions exist in the three African countries for the successful holding of the scheduled games. Happily, the ICC was also of the same view.

Regrettably, a considerable amount of controversy has been generated around the holding of matches in Zimbabwe and Kenya. This unfortunate controversy has emanated from positions taken especially by the governments of the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand.

These governments have raised questions about security questions, obviously contradicting the findings of the ICC and the professional police officers and international security specialists whose task it was to guarantee the security of the games. To the best of our knowledge, these governments have provided no information to the ICC indicating that the security of the players is threatened.

With regard to Zimbabwe, political questions have also been raised. These are an integral part of an international political campaign being waged by the same governments against the Government of Zimbabwe. Accordingly, it has been argued that any games played in Zimbabwe would give legitimacy to President Mugabe and his government.

Despite the fact that our country is the principal host of the Cricket World Cup, our government has resisted the temptation to join the political fray provoked by the Governments of the UK, Australia and New Zealand. This is because our government thought it was most unfortunate that this great tournament should have been politicised.

No sports sanctions have been imposed on Zimbabwe by anybody. Only last year, the Commonwealth Games were held in Manchester, in the United Kingdom. Zimbabwe athletes participated in these games.

The UK, Australia and New Zealand, whose athletes competed in these games, did not call for the exclusion of Zimbabwe. And yet, now that we have a tournament held in Africa, an attempt is made to impose a sports boycott against Zimbabwe. Apart from anything else, this raises serious questions about issues of double standards.

At the beginning of January this year, nearly 30 Zimbabwe sports organisations issued a statement supporting the Zimbabwe Cricket Union (ZCU). Among other things, this statement said these "associations do hereby express our full support for the ZCU's hosting of the six matches of the ICC Cricket World Cup 2003. We hold it most unfortunate that there are efforts being made now, within and outside Zimbabwe, to politicise the event. May the games begin!"

These associations ranged from the Olympic Committee, Archery, Cycling, Football, Gymnastics, Hockey, Horse, Rugby, and Sailing, to Shooting, Squash, Tennis, Volleyball, Aquatic, and Wrestling. There is no doubt that to all intents and purposes, they encompassed the totality of organised modern sport in Zimbabwe. And yet some, from outside Zimbabwe, decided that the voice of the sportspeople of Zimbabwe, both black and white, was as irrelevant to their purposes as the studied and informed determination of the ICC about Zimbabwe.

Interestingly and of importance, other governments whose citizens are scheduled to play in Zimbabwe and Kenya have not questioned the determinations of the ICC and the experts who have done detailed groundwork in these countries. These include India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, all of which, incidentally, have had to deal with military conflict in their countries.

Obviously, these governments would be as concerned about the safety of their citizens as any other government. It would therefore seem obvious that the governments of the UK, Australia and New Zealand have not informed the governments of other countries whose cricketers will play in Zimbabwe and Kenya of any credible security danger that will face their nationals. They have certainly not informed our government of these dangers.

Recently, we too experienced treatment similar to that now experienced by Zimbabwe and Kenya with regard to security matters. Without warning our government in any way, the Governments of the UK and Australia issued public "travel alerts" warning their citizens that South Africa was threatened by imminent terrorist attacks.

When our government asked for specific information from these governments, with whom we maintain friendly relations, none was forthcoming simply because these governments had no information pointing to possible terrorist attacks in our country. What was also strange and puzzling in this regard is that, seemingly, these governments were not particularly concerned about the safety of our own people, being content merely to warn their citizens.

We found it difficult to explain these goings-on because they indicated hostility or a negative attitude towards our country, for which we could not find any basis. Given what has now happened with regard to Zimbabwe and Kenya, it may very well be that the false "travel alerts" about South Africa were intended to convey a global message of general African insecurity, to prepare for the campaign against Zimbabwe and Kenya, and therefore the African-hosted Cricket World Cup.

Despite all this, we would like to join the Zimbabwe National Sports Associations and say - may the games begin! - and begin in all the three African countries chosen by the ICC. Africa is proud and happy that it has the opportunity to receive the cricketing youth of the world.

She does do in a spirit of friendship with the peoples of the world and a determination to welcome all the competitors as Africans have always received guests and travellers - with great warmth and respect for their safety and dignity.

The majority of our people throughout Africa are poor. To host so big an event as the Cricket World Cup entails significant sacrifices in material terms. Nevertheless we make these sacrifices because, throughout history, the African people have always placed a higher value on human solidarity and sharing than on a selfish enjoyment of material wealth. Even the poorest African homestead always has food, water and a resting place for the visitor.

As South Africans we know what we must do. We will welcome all our visitors as we have always done. Even as we support our warriors, the Proteas, we must, as we always do, treat our visitors as friends who are welcome and will always be welcome to our country.

We must ensure that by the time they leave our country and continent at the end of the tournament, they should, of their own accord, say - we will come back to the continent that is the Cradle of Humanity, and therefore the common home of all human beings!

Welcome home to the cricketers of the world! May the games begin!

Conflict in Africa

Pressing need for peace and security council

If there is one thing that the meeting of African heads of state and government in Addis Ababa this week underlined, it is the urgent need for the establishment of the Peace and Security Council of the African Union (AU).

Meeting in an extra-ordinary session of the assembly of Heads of State and Government to adopt a number of changes to the AU's Constitutive Act, African leaders also addressed themselves - as the central organ of the mechanism for conflict prevention, management and resolution - to a number of conflict areas on the continent.

The communiqué released after the meeting highlighted efforts to resolve conflict and political instability in Burundi, Cote d'Ivoire, the Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo, Madagascar, the Comoros and Liberia. As if to underscore the point, the meeting ended just as a new outbreak of fighting by rebels in Liberia displaced an estimated 5,000 people and brought rebels within 60km of the capital, Monrovia.

While all African states have agreed to the formation of the Peace and Security Council, a standing decision-making body which can respond effectively and quickly to conflict situations, none of the member states has yet ratified the protocol for its formation adopted in Durban last year. A majority of the AU's members must ratify the protocol before the council can be established.

Speaking at the opening of the assembly, President Thabo Mbeki - who is the current chairperson of the AU - called on all countries to ratify the protocol by the time the next AU summit is held, in Maputo, Mozambique in July.

"We continue to be confronted by the challenge of peace and stability on our continent. I therefore urge all of us to move expeditiously so to ratify this Protocol so that we are able to respond to the demand of the masses of our people for peace," he said.

The Peace and Security Council will be a powerful body within the AU, with powers to act quickly and decisively in response to situations of conflict or potential conflict. It will develop a continent-wide 'early warning system' able to detect possible crisis situations before they become full-blown conflicts, as well as an African Standby Force, which can be rapidly mobilised to perform a peace-keeping function.

The council has evolved from the recognition by Africa's leaders that war and conflict on the continent continues to cause misery to millions of Africans. These conflicts undermine democratic governance and stifle the economic and social development which Africa so badly needs.

The council is based on the principle that seeks a peaceful settlement of disputes and conflicts, and which places responsibility for action on multilateral institutions like the AU. This principle was underscored this week as African leaders signalled their unanimous support for a peaceful resolution to the crisis in Iraq, saying that any action taken needed to be sanctioned by the United Nations.

Among the other principles which will guide the council is respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of member states, and non-interference by member states in the affairs of others. The AU may however intervene in a member state in the case of "grave circumstances", such as war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity. This principle of 'intervention in grave circumstances' is significant, since it adopts a position that the entire continent must take responsibility for the lives and well-being of citizens of any country facing extreme violation of human rights - even if that means intervening in the affairs of that country to prevent or stop the violation.

Once established, the Peace and Security Council will be made up of fifteen member states elected by the assembly on the basis of fair regional representation and rotation. Two-thirds of members will be elected for two years. The rest for three years to ensure continuity. To be a member of the council a country must be able to contribute to the promotion and maintenance of peace, participate in conflict resolution, peace-making and peacebuilding work, meet its financial obligation to the AU, and must itself demonstrate "respect for constitutional governance" and the rule of law and human rights.

Of course, council members who are themselves part of a conflict or situation under consideration by the council cannot participate in the discussion or decision-making processes around that situation. All member states involved in a conflict, or whose interests are affected, may be invited to participate in discussions of the council.

Wide-ranging powers

Together with the AU Commission chairperson, the council will have the power to anticipate and prevent disputes and conflicts, and to undertake peace-making and peace-building functions to resolve conflicts that have occurred. It can authorise the mounting of peace support missions.

The council can recommend to the assembly intervention in a member state in the case of war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity. Significantly, it can also institute sanctions against a country where an unconstitutional change of government has taken place, such as through a coup.

In resolving conflicts, and making sure they stay resolved, the council has the power to follow-up progress in affected countries in the promotion of democratic practices, good governance, the rule of law, and the protection of human rights and fundamental freedom. It must also provide humanitarian help to civilians in situations of armed conflict or major natural disasters.

The council will be expected to work together with the United Nations and other international organisations to develop a strong "partnership for peace and security".

The council will be advised by a 'Panel of the Wise' made up of five "highly respected" African personalities from different sectors of society who have made outstanding contributions to the cause of peace, security and development on the continent.

Early warning

The council will need to establish an early warning system to anticipate -and thereby act to prevent - possible conflicts. It will include an observation and monitoring centre, to be known as 'The Situation Room', which will collect and analyse information from across the continent. There will be observation and monitoring units at a regional level which will collect and process information to be fed through to the Situation Room.

In doing this work, it will need to collaborate with the United Nations, its agencies, other relevant international organisations, research centres, academic institutions and NGOs.

An African Standby Force will be created to be deployed in the case of peace support mission and any interventions required. It will be composed of standby multi-disciplinary contingents, with civilian and military components in their countries of origin. These contingents, which will be ready for rapid deployment, will undertake observation and monitoring missions, and will be involved in peace-building operations, including post-conflict disarmament and demobilisation. They can also be deployed to prevent disputes from escalating or spreading to other countries or areas.

The establishment of the Peace and Security Council will not diminish the role of the UN Security Council in promoting security and stability on the African continent, as part of its broader responsibility for international security. The council will instead work closely with the UN Security Council to ensure a coordinated approach to disputes and conflicts on the continent.

As the first six months of the African Union passes, and its first anniversary approaches, there is now more incentive than ever for African countries to establish this critical organ. There are high expectations that it can play a central role in bringing to the people's of Africa the peace they deserve and the stability they so badly need.

More Information:

• Protocol on the AU Peace and Security Council, July 2002
• African Union website

STI Awareness Week

How people can act to protect their own health

The prevention and effective management of Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs) is an important weapon in the fight against HIV/Aids and critical to the achievement of a healthy nation.

In the coming week, 8-14 February, South Africa will be marking STI Awareness Week under the theme 'Just the two of us'. The objectives of the week are to encourage people to seek health advice and treatment, and to increase awareness of the symptoms of STIs (also known as STDs), the importance of proper treatment, and the importance of sharing information with sexual partners.

Launching the awareness campaign, Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang said people should seek treatment promptly, which is free at local clinics and hospitals. "I would also like to encourage partners to tell each other of their STI status," she said.

The week will also focus on encouraging consistent and correct condom use. Government has distributed 220 million free male condoms since April last year, as well as one million female condoms at around 200 sites. The number of sites is planned to be increased by another 45 by December. According to Tshabalala-Msimang, increased condom usage has contributed to better management and successful treatment of STIs.

Research in recent years suggests that treating STIs early and effectively significantly reduces the risk if HIV infection. In Mwanza, Tanzania, the rate of HIV infection was reduced by 42 percent over two years through the early and effective treatment of STIs.

Sexually Transmitted Infections cause sores, weakening the skin of the penis or vagina and making it easier for HIV to enter the body. It is estimated that people with an STI are up to nine times more likely to get HIV if they don't seek treatment immediately.

Apart from increasing the chances of HIV infection, STIs, if untreated, can result in serious illness and infertility. They can also be passed on to an unborn or newborn baby by an infected mother. Unlike AIDS, most STIs are easily treated and can be cured - as long as the full course of treatment is followed through to the end.

The 'Just the two of us' week will also focus on the confidentiality between nurse and patient, and on the need for partners to advise each other if they have an STI. "South Africans should learn to trust the confidentiality between partners, and between a health provider and a patient, so that they are all confident to reveal and manage their STI status," Tshabalala-Msimang said.

Each province will have events during this week, with a national event taking place in Lydenburg, Mpumalanga on 9 February. On the following day, a roadside clinic for treatment of STIs for truck drivers will be opened in Port Elizabeth.

More Information:

• Health Department information on STIs, February 2002

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