Olonga visit spurs recall of Muldoon's Mugabe insult

Henry Olonga

It's hard not to smile when Henry Olonga picks out Sir Robert Muldoon for special mention when he spots his image adorning Parliament's walls.

"God, he must have been a dictator," Mr Olonga offers, a sentiment shared by his host, Green Party co-leader Rod Donald.

But Mr Olonga hadn't meant it literally. He had simply been enjoying the portraits, and Muldoon's longevity, impressed at just how quickly a country can get rid of its prime ministers when it really wants to.

New Zealand has had seven since 1980. In the same time, Zimbabwe has been ruled by just one leader - pariah to the West Robert Mugabe.

After a moment's hesitation, it seemed necessary to explain to Zimbabwe's first black test cricketer, and folk hero to the human rights movement, that Sir Robert and Mr Mugabe weren't strangers.

Sir Robert, in battling Mr Mugabe over sporting sanctions against South Africa in 1981, famously caused international distress by remarking that Zimbabwe's independence leader had been "living in the jungle for a few years shooting people". And that wasn't the half of it.

Gobsmacked, Mr Olonga suggests Sir Robert would not make a politician these days.

Mr Mugabe's modern-day extremism sees him continue to verbally battle New Zealand Prime Ministers, now over whether Zimbabwe should be isolated, while his regime is accused of routinely killing, torturing and jailing its own people.

It is that which has brought Mr Olonga to Auckland to speak at today's rally protesting at the Black Caps tour to Zimbabwe, and which forced him to flee his own country.

Born in Zambia and raised as a toddler in his father's home of Kenya, he moved to Zimbabwe the same year Sir Robert threw his racist taunt at Mr Mugabe.

He remembers in those days everything was "hunky dory".

From 1990, as he grew through his teenage years, he witnessed his country's economic decline and Mr Mugabe's descent into tyranny.

Life expectancy in Zimbabwe is 34 for women and 33 for men, there is 70 per cent unemployment, chronic fuel and food shortages and rampant inflation which has wiped out wealth and prevented from people fleeing.

One in four people - at least - in a country of 11 million is HIV-positive.

One startling figure suggests the death rate now outstrips the birth rate by a staggering 4000 people a week, as the Mugabe regime bulldozes homes - this week it moved from the shantytowns to the middle classes - and leaves victims without food or shelter in the winter cold.

Aid agencies and doctors say people are dying of starvation in front of them.

"From my perspective, my heart really bleeds," Mr Olonga says of Zimbabwe. "If anything motivates me to speak out more, it's hearing the stories about vulnerable people, the Aids orphans. "They actually bulldozed an orphanage in those demolitions. These are kids who have lost their parents.

"They've found wellwishers who have taken them in, given them hope, given them a chance. And the Government has, in just a moment of madness, gone and possibly wiped out any future these children have."

Mr Olonga says in the West an HIV patient can survive 15 years. In Zimbabwe it may be a matter of months.

Corruption and joblessness means there is no money for healthcare or drugs, and no money for food. Weakened by poverty, victims succumb to infection quickly.

Mr Olonga is not sure what will change when the ageing Mugabe - he's in his 80s - dies or is toppled. It's not clear if his political cronies will try to continue the oppression or if the opposition will be emboldened to rebel.

Without change, though, Mr Olonga says Zimbabwe will become just another "Africa disaster story".

Even with help, he depressingly suggests economic recovery will take "maybe a couple of decades".

Mr Olonga hasn't been back since receiving death threats for his protest against Mr Mugabe during the 2003 Cricket World Cup, and now lives in England as a singer and artist.

"In a funny way, I feel incredibly lucky, because the conditions under which people are living ... sometimes it's just horrendous."

Henry Olonga

* Cricketer, singer, artist.
* Born in Zambia to a Zimbabwean mother and Kenyan father.
* A right-arm fast bowler, he made his test debut in 1995 aged just 19.
* Dennis Lillee rebuilt Olonga's action after throwing claims.
* Known to be quick but erratic, his test career was patchy.
* Admits to not being a great batsman - test average is 5.41.
* Dubbed the "singing seamer", he has entertained in tea breaks at his England club, Lashings.
* Spends his time now working for charities, and highlighting the atrocities of the Mugabe regime.