Who cares about Zimbabwe on Holocaust Memorial Day?
It's your call, say Holocaust Centre founders

Aegis Trust directors Stephen and James Smith, who founded the UK Holocaust Centre, tomorrow launch the 'Zimbabwe Fund', a campaign to raise £1million from the British public - to pay the ICC fine the English Cricket Board would face for pulling out of the Harare match on 13 February - and to show the Zimbabweans being starved by Mugabe's regime that British people care about their fate. The campaign is backed by celebrities including Sir Bob Geldof.

'We believe the public doesn't want the English cricket team to play in Harare, because it cares about the Zimbabwean people," says Dr James Smith. "If on Holocaust Memorial Day we can't translate our concern into action for the six million facing genocide in Zimbabwe, platitudes about learning from the Holocaust are a waste of breath."

The Aegis Trust has launched a premium rate telephone line for the Zimbabwe Fund - 0906 1200005. Callers to the number will automatically donate £1 towards the ICC fine. Any surplus donations will be used to aid the suffering Zimbabweans.

"It's not fair to leave the England team to shoulder a moral obligation all of us should share," says Dr Stephen Smith. "The team needs to know that the British public is behind it if it decides not to go. Everyone can afford a pound to make their voice heard.

"Holocaust Memorial Day states one of its aims as restating 'the continuing need for vigilance in light of the troubling repetition of human tragedies in the world today.' If anywhere needs vigilance now, it is Zimbabwe."

"Mugabe clings to power, portraying himself as a champion of the Blacks against Whites," says James Smith. "He travels the world preaching that the British are racists. Much of Zimbabwe and the rest of the world believe him. He has used the white farmers and land reforms as a smoke screen. Let's show Mugabe up for the oppressor of black people that he is, and demonstrate that far from being racist, the British people care every bit as much about African lives as we do about those in the UK, Europe, the US, the Middle East and every other part of the globe."

Celebrity Support

Sir Bob Geldof is backing the campaign, and is set to be joined by a number of other celebrities.

"On a day in which perhaps thousands will die of state-sponsored famine, the English Nation as represented by its Cricket team will be guests of its perpetrator, Mugabe. Against these facts, a game of cricket is wholly absurd," Geldof stated. "We must withdraw. On Holocaust Memorial Day our sensitivities should be burning. I wholly endorse this appeal for you to pick up the 'phone and buy this game off."

Each call will last no more than 1.5 minutes and will cost no more than £2.00.
Details of the campaign can be found at aegis.tv/zimbabwe

For more information contact Aegis Trust press officer, David Brown on:
01623 836627; mobile: 07812 640873; email: david.brown@aegistrust.org