Rob Muldoon and Sonny Ramphal Eyeball-to-eyeball across the Gleneagles fence

Press, 4 August 1981, Page 17

Rob Muldoon and Sonny Ramphal Eyeball-to-eyeball across the Gleneagles fence

From

KEN

in London

On the Springbok, tour issue, there could hardly be two men more opposite in viewpoint than New Zealand’s Prime Minister. Mr Muldoon and the Commonwealth's Secretary-Gen-eral. Mr Shridath Ramphal. At a recent press conference in London. Mr Muldoon said he had known Mr Ramphal, “a very intelligent man,” for many years, and it was obvious he respected his abilities. But it was equally obvious that they were poles apart over the tour. Throughout the period leading up to the Springboks’ arrival in New Zealand, the Secretary-General insisted that the understanding of Commonwealth leaders after signing the Gleneagles Agreement was that there would be no significant sporting contacts between Commonwealth countries and South Africa. After all. it was an accord aimed at fighting the oppressive apartheid policy permeating the whole fabric of society in a country that had decided to leave the Commonwealth.

Mr Ramphal has even recalled Mr Muldoon's statement at his press conference after Gleneagles: "I am well convinced that there will be no rugby test between New Zealand' and South Africa, while South Africa is select-

ing its rugby teams on other than a fully integrated basis."

Mr Ramphal does not accept that there were exceptions or reservations at Gleneagles which diminish the obligations of governments. Neither does he accept that just because New Zealand has decided not to withhold visas it thereby is absolved from its obligations under Gleneagles "which is about apartheid and the international campaign against it."

Reflecting majority Commonwealth feeling. Mr Ramphal emphasises that New Zealand's refusal to stop the tour is a major setback to that campaign. He does not consider that the New Zealand Government should have necessarily withheld visas. He thinks the Government could have leaned more heavily on the rugby union to stop the tour. The Third World-domin-ated Commonwealth may well be split asunder over the issue when it comes before the heads of state meeting in Melbourne, especially now that Mr Muldoon has threatened to bring up human rights in African countries. -

At all events, the Commonwealth is unlikely to feel the same again about New Zealand, highly regarded for

its equitable race policies which Mr Muldoon lauds as "second to none.”

“All along," says Mr Ramphal. "there has been hope that ways would be found for the Springbok tour not to take place by a further and more successful approach to the rugby union."

He adds that there was a deeply felt and sincere feeling among Commonwealth high commissioners that every possible avenue should be explored. That was why. on July 10. the decision to transfer the Commonwealth Finance Ministers' meeting was postponed for 10 days as a number of countries wished to ensure every opportunity was given New Zealand to stop the tour.

Mr Muldoon's television appearance in which he referred to the wartime camaraderie of New Zealanders and South Africans caused deep disappointment. It was seen by some African Commonwealth representatives as a distortion of the present leadership of South Africa which is committed to a policy of apartheid. The Commonwealth decision to change the venue of the Finance Ministers' meeting from Auckland to the Bahamas, is seen by Mr Ramphal as helping to undo the damage of the Springbok tour.

He sees the decision as making the Commonwealth stronger, not weaker, more principled, not less, and "standing by the people of New Zealand who in such large numbers have taken their stand against apartheid in support of Gleneagles and in rejection of the Springbok tour."

What kind of man is this 52-year-old Guyanan who heads such a diversely representative international body? Shridath Surendranath Ramphal has been often described as one of the world's most skilled- diplomats. Working in the interests of today’s 44 nations linked in the Commonwealth, a grouping that has been called "an accident of history." he needs to be.

He was born in New Amsterdam. British Guiana (now Guyana). His family was among the wave of Indian immigrants which reached Britain's only colony in Latin America in the 1880 s. His great-grandmother came to a sugar plantation with her son from Bihar, India, on a two-year indenture. She was a widow, a virtual outcast in India.

After two years she returned to India, hoping to be accepted, but in vain. Back she went to the plantation in

Guyana, and there the family stayed. Mr Ramphal's family was neither poor nor wealthy.

There were five children, and the father was a school teacher. Mr Ramphal senior had a keen eye for the best professional route a young man could take in the circumstances of the day. At an early age “Sonny" ("I used to resent that name fiercely as it seemed so unmanly") was marked out for the law. Inevitably, he went to London. in 1947, to begin his legal education. As a student he experienced his share of discrimination at a personal level, but coloured people in London in those days were a transient community (and he has strong views on’attempts to impose an English culture on immigrants). He made rapid progress. Three years at King's College, London, established his merit. He worked in the chambers of the renowned Liberal politican Dingle Fool, whom he regards as one of the major influences on his early professional life.

After a call to the Bar from Grey’s Inn, he went home to Georgetown, determined to work as a lawyer in his own country. However, he was soon involved in govern-

ment, first working in the colonial administration of British Guiana, and later, as legal draftsman of the illfated West Indian Federation.

When the federation collapsed. he practised in Kingston. Jamaica, for a time, and in 1964, when Forbes Burnham became Guyana's Prime Minister, Mr Ramphal was invited to put his acute legal mind to use as Attorney General.

Later, at the age of 44. he was appointed Foreign Minister, and from this vantage point began extending what he is fond of calling his "reach" to the rest of the world. After 10 years in his own country’s national politics, he agreed to be nominated for the post of Commonwealth Secretary-General, and was elected at the conference of Commonwealth leaders at Kingston in 1975. In many ways, he is a colourful and controversial figure. As a vocal advocate of Third World claims to a greater share of world trade, he had played a major part in negotiating the Lome Convention between the European community and developing nations. Commonwealth observers in London recall that shortly after Mr Malcolm Fraser became Prime Minister of

Australia. Mr Ramphal asked to meet him in Canberra. Mr Fraser was unable to "make" the appointment. Like some other white Commonwealth politicians, the Australian leader saw Mr Ramphal as something of a "stirrer.” determined to force the wealthier countries to give ground to Third World dema'nds. Observers note that it says much for Mr Ramphal’s subtelty that after this doubtful beginning, Mr Fraser came to regard him as one of the main forces for good in the modern Commonwealth. It is interesting that Mr Fraser's stand on sport with South Africa coincides with the views of Mr Ramphal. Later, hearing that the Australian leader was convinced of the advantages of holding a Commonwealth regional summit meeting at

Sydney, the Secretary-Gen-eral seized on the idea and made sure the meeting was a success.

Shridath Ramphal is the chief civil servant of 900 million people who make up the. Commonwealth. He is a Knight Bachelor, but has settled for plain “Mister" which he considers is more suited to his role. Friends call him "Sonny" and to his staff, who are fiercely loyal, he is "the S.G.”

Mr Ramphal is credited with being a major influence in orchestrating the agreement reached at the Luka Commonwealth Heads. of State meeting two years ago on the future of Rhodesia. When the complicated peace formula had finally been agreed upon, Britain’s Prime Minister, Mrs Thatcher, described the Secretary-Gen-eral's direction as “superb." The first Commonwealth

Secretary-General, Mr Arnold Smith, of Canada, had many battles with officials of the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office, who did not much care for a body that, with the end of Empire, inevitably reduced British dominance in the Commonwealth.

Mr Ramphal in 1979 weathered a dispute with Lord Carrington, the British Foreign Secretary, over the machinery for observer teams during elections in Rhodesia. In the end. the Secretary-General won the dav.

After Rhodesia, diplomatic observers, previously cynical about the role of the Commonwealth. conceded that a settlement would have been much more difficult, if not impossible to achieve, without Commonwealth assistance.

Mr Ramphal says that the

Rhodesian effort had given a better idea of the Commonwealth potential that was always there. It was. he adds, a demonstration of a capacity to be effective at a time when the international community was losing confidence in the capacity of the wider world machinery, the United Nations, to be effective.

Mr Ramphal has been mentioned by some as a possible successor to Kurt Waldheim as the United Nations' Secretarv-General.

"I make it a rule not to want that sort of thing." he says. "If you set out to get a post like that, in a sense you demonstrate your lack of fitness for it.

"The main thing is to serve the international community. and you do not have to be the United Nations Secretary-General to do that."