THE PRESS SATURDAY, MAY 30, 1981. A distraction from Corso

Press, 30 May 1981, Page 14

THE PRESS SATURDAY, MAY 30, 1981. A distraction from Corso

Neither the Prime Minister nor anyone else should be surprised to find that Corso has been offering advice to the United Nations about how best to put pressure on New Zealand to stop the South African rugby tour. For several years Corso has been active in matters which appear to many people to have little to do with its original status as an organisation combining others’ efforts to supply relief services overseas. Nor is it any surprise to • find Corso supporting what it calls “liberation movements’ in southern Africa. Corso’s executive has widened the organisation's objects from helping those in .need to attempting to remedy what Corso believes to be the conditions which create the need. In its recent advice to the United Nations Special Committee on Apartheid, Corso is unlikely to have produced ideas which the committee could not have thought of for itself. Those who approve of Corso’s new directions may be pleased to find the organisation offering a different point of view in international forums from that of the New Zealand Government. Those who dislike Corso’s recent activities, and these people include the Prime Minister, have further evidence to suggest that- Corso hardly warrants support from those whose principal concern is to alleviate immediate suffering among less fortunate people.

, Like any other pressure group, Corso is entitled to express an opinion about the harm which-may be done to New Zealand’s

reputation in the United Nations and the Commonwealth by the rugby tour. Corso speaks for a section of the New Zealand community; its views are only one of many factors that the Government might take into account when deciding this country’s attitude to the Springbok tour, or to international organisations. Corso may be helping to generate confusion about New Zealand's attitudes among some members of the United Nations, an organisation in which the majority of members do not permit groups within their own countries to express opinions at variance with those of their governments. Corso made valid points in its letter to the United Nations. The moral issue is that, by permitting the tour, New Zealand appears (however mistaken the appearance may be) to condone South Africa’s racial policies; this is no small matter. The prospect that the tour will heighten tensions in New Zealand is an important, practical reason for stopping the tour. Both points have already been made frequently and vigorously to the Government, even by some of its own members of Parliament. The Government still has time to take the sensible course, however unpopular it ' might be, and to insist that the tour be cancelled. Mr Muldoon’s disgust at Corso's intrusion may find supporters; it should not be us'ed to distract attention from the wider concern of the Government’s obligation, in the interests of all New Zealanders, to insist that the tour be called off.