Veteran Games

Press, 19 August 1981, Page 22

Veteran Games

Sir.-Yesterday it was reported that Mr Clem Green had said that the New Zealand Veterans’ Association had voted not invite any athletes “who carried a South African passport." I must point out that passports are not mentioned in the resolution that the association published last year, as follows: “N.Z.A.V.A. has declined to invite South African veteran athletes to attend the 4th W.V.A.G. as national team or as individual athletes. This decisision is based on the Gleneagles Agreement and the deep meaning toward apartheid that the agreement stands for." One would expect the President of the New Zealand Veterans to resign now that he states that South African athletes were there and consigns the Gleneagles Agreement to hell.— Yours, etc., JACK LOCKE. August 1. 1981.

[Mr Clem L. Green, national co-ordinator New Zealand Association of Veteran Athletes, replies: “The first two sentences and the resolution quote of Mr Locke's letter are of the same intent and effect. Following criticism of me' in European and United States press on our ban on South African veteran athletes, as executive officer of N.Z.A.V.A., I wrote to the African delegate to the World Association of Veteran Athletes, making it quite clear that veteran athletes entering New Zealand on a South African passport would not be permitted to participate in the fourth World Veteran Games. My action was known by and supported by, at the time, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Apart from being responsible for issuing invitations to some 50 other countries of veteran affiliation, I was not a member of the fourth World Games Committee. May I suggest the reference made to the N.Z.A.V.A. president, Mr Gideon Tait, and his, reported statements be taken up directly with him."]