P.M. let the side down — Sir Shridath

Press, 7 August 1981, Page 5

P.M. let the side down — Sir Shridath

NZPA London An article by Sir Shridath Ramphal. the Commonwealth Secretary-Gen-eral,. has appeared in “The Times” under the headline: “How’ Muldoon let the side down.” The article says: Whenever the Commonwealth makes a stand for principle there are usually dissenters who inveigh, against it and invoke the spectre of a Commonwealth endangered. South Africa has been at the heart of many of these challenges:. Each time, through the courage and vision of its great statesmen — men like Macmillan. Nehru. Pearson, among others — the Commonwealth has stood firm.

They had to contend with bigotry and prejudice, with blind resistance to change, sometimes with well-inten-tioned anxieties about change, and always with much foreboding about the future of the Commonwealth.

It was so over the question whether an apartheid South Africa could be welcome to Commonwealth membership, so over the issue of arms sales to South Africa, and so throughout the unhappy Rhodesia chapter. But each time the Commonwealth was right, and was right to have persisted — and each time it grew stronger. The Springbok tour of New Zealand has faced the Commonwealth with a similar option: to draw back from commitment, or to stand up for its highest principles. Once again, the issue concerns South Africa — for the Gleneagles Agreement is about apartheid. It seeks to eliminate sporting contacts with South Africa. It imposes important litigations on Commonwealth Governments and seeks the support of Commonwealth sportsmen in the wider effort to secure for millions in South Africa release from the gross and systematic denial of even their most basic human rights because of their colour.

The agreement’s premise is that every Commonwealth Government is serious in this endeavour. No amount of innuendo

can change the letter or spirit of the Gleneagles Agreement. Its full text was in "The Times" of July 29. Its language is not .ambiguous. nor is its intent — it does . not employ, “weasel words" designed, to mean all things to all leaders. It is a clear statement of political commitment deeply rooted in principle that it is “the urgent., duty of each . . . Government vigorously to combat the' evil apartheid by withholding any form of support for,’ and taking every) practical step to, discourage sporting contacts with South Africa.” No great question of interpretation is at issue. No-one, argues, for example, that the Government of New Zealand is obliged by the agreement to use its immigration powers to prohibit sporting contacts. It could use those powers: it hasinvoked them to discourage other “cultural exchanges,” there is no impediment in law nor, indeed, in the political ethos of the region where other governments have been ready to refuse even transit visas to the South African team.

It has chosen as a matter of policy not to withhold visas — as it always said it would not: But that does not dispose of the Government’s obligations under Gleneagles. The very act of self-abnega-tion raises a duty to fulfil them through other means. Gleneagles left it to each government to find and employ its own means of discouragement — and it held out the assurance of success. Commonwealth leaders were unanimous that in the light of Gleneagles "there were unlikely to be future sporting contacts of any significance between Commonwealth countries or their nationals and South Africa. ” On June 14. 1977, two days after Gleneagles, Mr Muldoon specifically affirmed this: "We will continue to persuade New Zealand sporting bodies to abandon sporting contacts as we have successfully done for some considerable time now. I repeat — I do not think New Zealand will ever play a racially selected South African team again."

Thequestion is'not one of interpretation, it is one of performance -r- )and it is one on which many.; Commonwealth Governments are less, than satisfied. And these doubts have grown in recent weeks. Y"'"

The (New Zealand) Rugby Union says that the Government has never, asked it to withdraw the invitation to the Springboks,

On July 29 the acting Prime Minister (Mr MacIntyre) outlined in Parliament the steps the-Govern-ment had taken in expressing opposition to the tour. He referred to four letters to the Rugby Union expressing “concern at the invitation." asking the union "to reconsider," “to think again" and “to weigh the consequences."

Commonwealth Governments could perhaps be forgiven the belief that this was somewhat less than vigorous discouragement of the tour by all practical means. As military forces are now called in to facilitate the tour that belief is bound to sharpen. In moving their Finance Ministers’ meeting from New Zealand — it was scheduled to begin within a few days of the departure of the South African team — Commonwealth Governments were simply protecting themselves and the Commonwealth from appearing to condone this ill-conceived tour so alien to the intent of Gleneagles. They were not pronouncing judgment on the question of non-compliance or on New Zealand's record on human rights. It was a necessary

reaffirmation of their own commitments to the agree,ment. and against apartheid. They, too. have rights — in this matter, they felt a clear duty to exercise them. Their decision was made, of course, in sadness, not retribution. and only after they had failed through every national, regional. Commonwealth and international entreaty to secure the'tour's cancellation.

For the Rugby Union, in particular, that refusal was an act of gross indifference to wider interests — to Commonwealth harmony — to the Commonwealth Games at Brisbane in 1982, and not least, to New Zealand itself. The Commonwealth, however. cannot be similarly indifferent. It has made its position clear. There will be continuing argument — but it will be on the central issue of where each stands on apartheid and South Africa: for. make no mistake, this is how the issue is seen in the Commonwealth and in South Africa.

I have no fear for the Commonwealth’s future while it remains true to itself. Already, its collective action has helped to undo some of the damage of the Springbok tour. It has made the Commonwealth stronger, not weaker. It will be assailed. of course, by those who prefer to see it less resolute on the question of South Africa. But. as in the past, the Commonwealth will survive these attacks and be the better for the battles it must fight from time to time to maintain its stand for higher principles.