Banned editor warns of race war risk

Press, 2 June 1981, Page 2

Banned editor warns of race war risk

PA Auckland The banned South African editor, Mr Donald Woods, believes a racial civil war will erupt in South Africa within two years.

Unless white South Africans make real concessions to the black majority, Mr Woods can see “a whole replay of the Rhodesian situation.”

He said that the solution was to sit . white and black leaders around a negotiating table to find a democratic system under which all lived in peace.

"It is the only way to avert a racial civil, war,” he said in Auckland yesterday. "If the whites were willing to make real concessions it could work.”

"If not, I can see a whole replay of the Rhodesian situation, where the whites will be forced eventually to negotiate anyway but will have to make more concessions than if they agreed to talk right now.”

Mr Woods, aged 48, said that before any negotiations took , place the whites would have to .free all political prisoners and those jailed without trial.

A fifth generation white South African, Mr Woods was banned in South Africa in

1977 after taking an antiapartheid stance through his newspaper, the East London “Daily Dispatch.” He is touring New Zealand trying to convince New Zealanders that the Springbok tour should not go ahead.

He said that he found it extraordinary that the decision on the tour should be left to the New Zealand Rugby Union “because of an abdication of responsibility by the Government.” Describing himself as a keen rugby follower, Mr Woods said that he could understand why sportsmen were angry that they should suffer while trade With South Africa continued.

But he said that sport was a luxury which did not feed. Black South Africans could see why countries did not want trade bans because of the jobs at risk,but they Xcould not see reasons- for continuing sports contacts, he said. t /" “The J South African Government has pulled a real con job on the-world with its' propaganda,” he said. It has done a good job of conning people into thinking that there had been significant progress.

“There are 317 racial laws. The Government is to scrap

or relax two or three of these and everyone says ’this is great, this is progress.’

“But that still leaves 315 apartheid laws, and you can’t convince a black South African that there has been progress.”

Mr Woods is emphatic that South African rugby has not moved towards integration, nor has the present Springbok side been chosen on merit.

The inclusion, of a Coloured player,Errol Tobias, in the side was “tokenism.” Although a good player, Tobias was not the best available, Mr Woods, said. He would like to . discuss the tour issue with members of the Rugby Union because “Bin sure there are people within- rugby .who are not happy with what’s happening/’ >. If the tour went ahead, New Zealanders would have to show black Africa and Third World nations that. most New- Zealanders were opposed to the tour. New Zealand would suffer internationally . unless this was Hone. TM.lrish',, for instance,- had - shown that their rugby team had gone to South Africa with the support of only a third of the coiintry.