Defection attempt by Afghan athletes

Press, 22 July 1980, Page 1

Defection attempt by Afghan athletes

NZPA Moscow 'Several Afghan athletes reportedly sought to defect to the West yesterday, adding more angry politics to a sports tournament already reeling from boycotts and controversy. The C.B.S. news, a United States broadcast network, reported that one member of the Afghan Olympic team approached C.B.S. to say that he and several other Afghan athletes “don’t like it here, and want to go to the United States.” The C.B.S. said the United States embassy was aware of the Afghans’ feelings, “But it was powerless to act.” It said C.B.S. News “withheld the story, but a British television news organisation

went ahead with it, alerting Soviet authorities.” “The Afghan athletes who want to defect realise that security may be beefed up round them now, but feel that getting their story out is their last chance of escape,” the network reported. The Afghan Olympic teams have been riddled by defections since the Soviets began pouring some 85,000 troops into Afghanistan last December to bolster' that country’s Marxist Government: Seven out of 11 wrestling squad members defected to Pakistan in July after seven basketball players and a national volleyball player fled there in June. A number of soccer players had defected while

in West Germany a month before.

Meanwhile, the impressions of Moscow that two leading New Zealand Olympic officials have gained are favourable, according to an unsourced report in "Sport in the U.5.5.R.,” which is distributed by the Soviet Embassy’s information office in Wellington.

The chairman of the New Zealand Olympic committee and a member of the 1.0. C. executive board, Mr C. L. S. Cross, is quoted as saying that the Games village is probably the best he had seen at any Olympics. “One could hardly dream of anything better,” he said. First day’s competition, Page 23.