Springbok tour

Press, 13 May 1981, Page 20

Springbok tour

Sir,—With reference to Tony Ward’s article (“The Press,” May 1) about a British Lions party in South Africa, I should like to say that his reference to “whites only” and “blacks only” signs at the Customs in Johannesburg is incor- • rect. I have travelled South. Africa extensively in the last 10 years and the toilets are all depicted with the figure of a male or a female. This incidentally helps with the language barrier when we have foreign visitors. Needless to say, in this light, • one wonders as to the authenticity of the rest of the article. I wish to commend the New Zealanders who support the Springbok tour on their farsightedness, as the media is obviously biased. The rest fol- 1

low the 60 million sheep that roam this beautiful countryside.—Yours, etc., SHIRLEY De GRAAF May 9, 1981. Sir, — I am deeply shocked to read of the intention to stage a ceremony, as part of a pro-tour demonstration, at the Citizens’ War Memorial on June 5. To invoke the memory of the fallen for such an unworthy cause is contemptible and I, for one, wish to register the’ strongest possible objection against this attempt to trivialise their sacrifice. Those who fought and died in war were defending the principles of freedom, justice and peace, not only, for their own country but for all peopleseverywhere. They would not have betrayed those principles or their country, as so many are selfishly determined to do, to promote a mere sporting entertainment. To reduce the complex tour issues to a defence of freedom is at once a misrepresentation and an oversimplification, and there is no doubt that the pro-tour march will be widely interpreted as a march not only for rugby, but also a march for apartheid, and a march for South Africa. — Yours, etc..

J. NGARIMU. May 11, 1981.

Sir,—The withholding of visas by the New Zealand Government for the South African rugby team would be tantamount to the confiscation of prominent South African blacks’ passports by the South African Government. By cancelling the tour, and hence reducing New Zealanders’ freedom, the New Zealand Government will be doing exactly what the South African Government is being criticised for. The anti-tour lobby condones in New Zealand what it condemns in South Africa.— Yours, etc.

R. MARTIN. May 11, 1981.