Andy Flower and Henry Olonga, men who spelt out their love of Zimbabwe in black and white

The Times

By Alison Mitchell

7 February 2013

Ten years later, the ‘comrades’ who drew attention to the plight of their nation remain convinced it was the right move

Andy Flower is struggling — but just about succeeding — to stop his voice from breaking up. He is carefully and deliberately reading aloud from a sheet of A4 paper, which he holds in both hands in front of him, as he sits in a quiet corner of a Buckinghamshire country house hotel. After he delivers the last line, there is silence. He glances up at me and his eyes are brimful of emotion.

England’s team director has just read out loud, for the first time in a decade, the statement that he and Henry Olonga, his fellow Zimbabwean, arranged to be distributed to the world’s media at 9.30am on February 10, 2003, declaring that the two of them would be wearing black armbands during Zimbabwe’s matches at the cricket World Cup to “mourn the death of democracy” in their country and to protest against human rights abuses being committed under the regime of President Robert Mugabe.

“They’re very powerful words,” he proffers eventually. “It’s an emotional moment to read those words again.”

It is ten years since Flower and Olonga undertook their high-risk protest. The World Cup was taking place against a backdrop of violence in Zimbabwe, much of it at the hands of Mugabe’s Zanu (PF) henchmen who had been charged with enforcing the Government’s controversial fast-track land reform scheme, resulting in white farmers being forced off their land and out of their homes, often without notice or compensation.

While Olonga has spoken and written extensively about the protest — the secret meetings leading up to it, the angst of the decision-making and the depth of the personal consequences — Flower has never talked about it in detail until now, to mark the anniversary of an event that changed his life, and that of Olonga, for ever.

Flower was the greatest Zimbabwe cricketer in history, a former captain and a highly influential figure, while Olonga was the first black cricketer to play for the country. Together, as one white man and one black man, they made a political stance against a tyrannical regime in a way no sportsmen had done before.

In the stressful aftermath of the protest, Olonga received death threats before fleeing to England, where he still lives, having forged a career as a singer and public speaker. Flower already had a job lined up at Essex County Cricket Club, meaning that he left Zimbabwe with his young family soon after the World Cup, before going on to coach England, winning famous Ashes victories home and away, and taking them to No 1 in the world.

Neither man has set foot in Zimbabwe since. My interview with Flower for Radio 5 Live came at the end of a long day of ECB meetings, but he spent more than an hour recapping an event that will always play a part in defining him. It was an intense experience listening to his story and watching emotions stir in him, after they had lain close to the surface, yet hidden for so long.

“The meeting I remember most clearly was in David Coltart’s [human rights lawyer] study, and we sat down and wrote the statement,” he says. “It was David who came up with the idea of having a symbol. The black armband was traditionally a symbol of mourning or paying respect to someone, but in this instance it was mourning the death of democracy in our country, and we wanted that message to go the media and to go out to those who might listen around the world; that democracy was dying in our country, and because of that, human rights abuses were occurring.

“There certainly was fear. It was a very nervy time for us. We’d be ending our cricket careers and ending our lives in Zimbabwe which was a very emo-tional thing to do. Security told us we’d be safe during the World Cup, what with media attention, but after the World Cup there would be ‘an accident’ — a burglary that went wrong or a hit and run on the street.”

The idea of a protest was suggested to Flower by Nigel Huff, a farmer friend who took Flower to see the state of disrepair that his land and the surrounding community had fallen into. Olonga and Flower were not close friends so it was a surprise to Olonga to receive a phone call from Flower, requesting a meeting in a local shopping centre, where he was asked if he would take part in a protest.

Olonga was only 26 at the time of the protest, engaged to be married, and had arguably more to lose than his senior team-mate, who had already decided to retire from international cricket at the end of the World Cup.

“I had a very direct e-mail threat [after the first match] saying, ‘we’re going to sort you out — we’re going to kill you,’ ” Olonga says. “That obviously made me realise I didn’t see myself having a future in Zimbabwe. The final nail in the coffin, though, was the day before the final match. I got an e-mail from my former fiancée saying she was ending the relationship.”

Despite the difficulties he faced, Olonga maintains he has never felt any regret about joining Flower in the protest. “I don’t hold anything against Andy,” Olonga says. “He approached me for a just cause that I believed in. I’d do it again.”

The relationship between the two men is an intriguing part of the story. They have never been close, despite the fact they will for ever be linked by this one significant event. Olonga describes them as “comrades” rather than friends, a term that brings a rueful nod from Flower.

“In our playing time there were certain tensions between us,” Flower admits. “We’ve seen each other since and we occasionally keep in touch, but we aren’t the best of friends and we don’t see each other often. I know his wife, Tara, she’s a lovely lady. In fact, this interview has prompted me. I will definitely be calling him up to see how he’s getting on.”

If Olonga, who has not owned a valid passport since his Zimbabwean one expired, had the opportunity to return there, he says he would need government assurances that he would not be harmed. Flower is more confident that he could now travel there safely and his voice wavers for a second time when speaking about his children, who were all born in Zimbabwe but know little about it. He is desperate to take them back to their homeland.

Does Flower have any regrets about the protest or the way things turned out? “It was the right thing to do at the time,” he says. “We were very clear we couldn’t ignore what was happening. I would do it again, given the same circumstances.

“The number of people that contacted me after that protest was a clear indication that it had touched the hearts of a great number of Zimbabweans. If that brought a little hope, if that was an expression of their thoughts, feelings and sadness about what was happening in the country, expressed through our words and our symbols, then I think it was a good thing.”

“One of the key goals was to get the word out,” Olonga says. “We wanted the world to embrace that things were abnormal in Zimbabwe and do something about it.

“That was slightly disappointing. The powers that be on a higher level — the African Union, the UN, or whoever you want to appeal to — the people who had the real power to bring freedom, chose not to.”

Zimbabwe faces elections later this year but the signs are that the violence and turmoil that accompanied elections in 2008 are likely to be repeated. Olonga is hopeful but not optimistic that some change may come about.

“For a long time Zimbabwean people have not had their voice heard,” he says. “Zimbabwe needs someone fresh. Someone who can embrace the challenges the country is facing. Someone who can deal with the past honestly, who can hold those accountable who have abused people, and who can turn the thing around.

“I’m not anti Zanu (PF). I just want the people to have someone who represents them as a servant. You’re supposed to make people’s lives better.”