Cricket rebels

Press, 10 February 1983, Page 16

Cricket rebels

Sir,—There are many white South African liberals for whom I have the utmost admiration and respect — namely. Dr Neil Aggett who on February 5. 1982, was found hanged in his cell after being tortured by security police, and Donald Woods a former South African newspaper editor now in exile. E. Mulcock (February 8) must still believe in the tooth fairy if he thinks you can divorce sport from politics. Even the ancient Greeks failed to keep politics out of sport almost 2000 years ago. I agree there has been some dilution of the apartheid system because of sporting boycotts and isolation. The National Party said in 1975 it would give back the right to meet and play sport with anyone in the world, then pressed sports bodies into withdrawing from the 1980 Moscow Olympics. So much for the democratic rights of New Zealand sports bodies to go wherever they choose. — Yours, etc., P. A. ROONEY. February 8. 1983. Sir,—l can assure A. Ward (February 5) that I have no Soviet masters. The sinister significance of “State-trained (and owned) teams" entirely escapes me, He writes "... witness the total lack of Soviet supporters at World Cup soccer.” Can A. Ward bear such witness? Did he attend all matches in which the Soviet team played? When apportioning seats for foreign nationals wishing to see their athletes perform at any Olympic Games, the host nation allots them in national blocks. To deduce from this practice, followed for the Moscow Olympics, that "Russians were not permitted to sit among foreigners for fear of being contaminated." is the ultimate in absurdity. What does upset me is that “sportsmen and women can move around the world and compete against each other as freethinking humans." excepting only South Africa’s overwhelmingly black majority. Shame on the West Indian cricketers for trafficking with the white oppressors of their black-skin brothersYours. etc.. M. CREEL. February 7, 1983.