Doubt on visa for H.A.R.T. head

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 32846, 21 February 1972, Page 2

Doubt on visa for H.A.R.T. head

(A’.Z. Press Association) WELLINGTON, Feb. 20. Reports that he might have difficulty in obtaining a visa to visit South Africa have caused concern to the chairman of Halt All Racist Tours (Mr T. Richards, of Christchurch). \ In a letter to the South African Counsul-General (Mr P. Philip), Mr Richards savs he has been disconcerted by a report from a journalist in South Africa that he would have little chance of obtaining a visa. Mr Richards says the report quotes a spokesman for the visa section of the South African Ministry of the Interior in Pretoria as saying: “1 certainly think he would give the visa application attention at a high level. It would probably go to the Minister.” Mr Richards has asked the

Consul-General to comment on the accuracy of this report. He says he has heard that certain organisations in New Zealand have urged Mr Philip not to allow him into South Africa. “I must confess that I find their attitude very puzzling. On the one hand, they claim that one cannot understand

South Africa unless one has been there, and then, on the other hand, when a critic of the South African Government does express a genuine desire to visit the country, they waste no time urging you to prevent such a visit," Mr Richards says. "To claim, as they do, that I am ‘biased’ is a very peculiar reason for their action.

“How many people leaving New Zealand for South Africa, or, for that matter, for any other country, would not go with a series of ideas about that country? "I can state quite clearly, and quite unequivocally, that there is still enough of the academic in me to ensure that were Ito visit South Africa, I would be scrupulously fair, in my assessments and judgments. “To suggest that I could see one thing in South Africa and return to New Zealand, deny its existence, and eloquently fabricate a wholly different scene, is to suggest none too subtly that I am a soul-less liar. This I emphatically deny,” he says.