09.02.03

Zimbabwefund.org

L B W
Life Before Wickets

As the England team's confidence in its own board was crumbling last night over the security issue, Zimbabwefund.org lit up the one remaining Wembley tower with a projection of a starving Zimbabwean child, accompanied by the slogan 'LBW: Life Before Wickets.' The campaign was keen to reinforce the deeper reasons for the team's initial concern about playing in Zimbabwe.

"The cricketers did their best," stated Aegis Trust Director Dr Stephen Smith, "but a disappointing lack of leadership from sporting bodies alienated the England team and their fans and left millions of people, facing starvation, without moral support."

"Aegis was never campaigning on political but on moral grounds," stated campaign initiator Dr James Smith. "Had sporting bodies been able to differentiate between 'politics' and morality, we would not be in this mess right now. The Aegis Trust has no political interest in Zimbabwe; Aegis is driven by the principle that no-one deserves to die because of who they are or what they believe. It seems simple, but self-interest in every area of society makes saving human life so complicated. How much better if this world cup could be remembered for the moral courage of our sporting representatives, rather than reflecting the indifference of the rest of the world."

"Politics and sport inescapably go together when moral issues are at stake," commented Stephen Smith. "Whatever our affiliations, we are still people. When other people are suffering, that's where our first affiliation should lie."

"People should be less critical of the England team and more critical of themselves," concluded James Smith. "We have learned more in the past ten days than in the past ten years about why genocide is allowed to happen."

Notes to Media:
IMAGES OF THE WEMBLEY PROJECTION by zimbabwefund.org are with your picture desks now. (If for any reason they are not, contact David Brown - see below.)
The Smith brothers opened the internationally respected UK Holocaust Centre in 1995 and launched Aegis, a genocide prevention organisation, in 2000. They advise a number of governments, including the UK Government, on Holocaust education and genocide prevention.

For more information contact Aegis Trust press officer, David Brown
Tel: 01623 836627, Mobile: 07812 640873, Email: david.brown@aegistrust.org