N.Z. cut off from U.N.?

Press, 4 August 1981, Page 23

N.Z. cut off from U.N.?

p.\ Wellington Sport is not the only field where New Zealand could pay dearly for the Springbok tour, according to a view expressed by Russia's Novosti Press Agency. "New Zealand is threatened by isolation by the United Nations, which has repeatedly condemned the ties, sporting included, with South Africa. This measure can be followed by economic sanctions too." the report savs.

The report which was telexed to the new Zealand Press Association from Moscow. and was written by Dr Sergei Zimin, a former Novosti correspondent based in Wellington,' and now a commentator for the agency. Dr Zimin was ordered to leave New Zealand at short notice early last vear.l •The whole world knows that rugby football is practicallv sport number one for the New Zealanders, but do the people in New Zealand know that South Africa regards rugby not as a game, but also as a political tool on breaking down opposition to Pretoria's racism." Zimin describes the invitation to the South Africans to visit the United States at the end of the New Zealand tour as “a political act since rugby football has never been popular in America." "On the other hand, the Springboks’ visit to New Zealand shows the double-faced game New Zealand is playing in relation to human rights," he says. “It will be" recalled that last year, when about 100 New Zealand athletes intended to leave for the Games of the 22nd Olympiad, the Muldoon Government conducted such a strong 'body-checking' campaign that the team manager, Tay

Wilson. found himself virtually in a position of a general without an army. His group in Moscow consisted of only a quartet of canoeists and a solitary pentathlete.

"It is well known that, in our days of the impetuous growth of sporting achievements, an athlete has only one chance in his life to win an Olympic berth.

“Nevertheless, the fact that the New Zealand sportsmen were deprived of a chance of competing in the Moscow Olympics was not regarded at that-time as a violation of rights." The world was now seeing a different picture—the

Springbok team has gone to New Zealand, in spite of many protests, and Mr Muldoon had declared that he would not impede the tour since that would be a violation of civil .rights.

"It is hard to say whether this ’passive’ encouragement of the South Africans is a means of gaining additional votes in the election by playing on the sporting sentiments of the ‘ordinary blokes,’ or something like a New Zealand contribution to the United States strategy of opposing the struggle of millions of Africans for elementary human rights."