Trouble for Team NK in Zim
May. 2nd, 2010 11:09 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mahnmutN.Korea World Cup base moved to Harare
The Zimbabwe government has decided to move the base of the North Korean football team to Harare, the capital, after protests threatened in the western city of Bulawayo over that country's involvement in massacres there in the 1980s.
The North Korean squad for the World Cup in South Africa was originally set to be quartered in Bulawayo.
Activists in the city had declared they would demonstrate against the team's presence, after North Korean army instructors in 1983 trained the newly-formed Zimbabwean army brigade that went on to slaughter thousands of civilians during a small insurgency in the western provinces of Matabeleland.
Reports put the numbers killed in the operation, which wound up in 1987 after the opposition entered a union with President Robert Mugabe's party, at between 8,000 and 20,000 civilians.
Groups representing Matabeleland's ethnic Ndebele minority had threatened to disrupt training sessions and games in Bulawayo, and organize protests among Zimbabweans based in South Africa.
Tourism Minister Walter Mzembi told reporters this week that the team from the Korean dictatorship of leader Kim Jong Il, which is due to play friendly matches against the Zimbabwe national team, would now be based in Harare.
Mzembi attributed the decision to the availability of superior pitches in Harare. "It's purely a sporting issue," Mzembi said.
Meanwhile, Amsterdam-based radio Voice of the People on Thursday quoted unnamed officials in Zimbabwe's sports ministry as saying that the North Korean authorities had chosen Zimbabwe as their team's base because it would be more difficult for them to defect and seek political asylum here.
The official was quoted as saying that North Korea was "happy with security arrangements" in Zimbabwe.
"It is much easier for the North Korean players to break away from the camp and seek asylum in South Africa than it is here in Zimbabwe," the official said.
The Zimbabwe government has decided to move the base of the North Korean football team to Harare, the capital, after protests threatened in the western city of Bulawayo over that country's involvement in massacres there in the 1980s.
The North Korean squad for the World Cup in South Africa was originally set to be quartered in Bulawayo.
Activists in the city had declared they would demonstrate against the team's presence, after North Korean army instructors in 1983 trained the newly-formed Zimbabwean army brigade that went on to slaughter thousands of civilians during a small insurgency in the western provinces of Matabeleland.
Reports put the numbers killed in the operation, which wound up in 1987 after the opposition entered a union with President Robert Mugabe's party, at between 8,000 and 20,000 civilians.
Groups representing Matabeleland's ethnic Ndebele minority had threatened to disrupt training sessions and games in Bulawayo, and organize protests among Zimbabweans based in South Africa.
Tourism Minister Walter Mzembi told reporters this week that the team from the Korean dictatorship of leader Kim Jong Il, which is due to play friendly matches against the Zimbabwe national team, would now be based in Harare.
Mzembi attributed the decision to the availability of superior pitches in Harare. "It's purely a sporting issue," Mzembi said.
Meanwhile, Amsterdam-based radio Voice of the People on Thursday quoted unnamed officials in Zimbabwe's sports ministry as saying that the North Korean authorities had chosen Zimbabwe as their team's base because it would be more difficult for them to defect and seek political asylum here.
The official was quoted as saying that North Korea was "happy with security arrangements" in Zimbabwe.
"It is much easier for the North Korean players to break away from the camp and seek asylum in South Africa than it is here in Zimbabwe," the official said.
