SPIR offer to finance Games group to S.A.

Press, 17 February 1983, Page 3

SPIR offer to finance Games group to S.A.

PA Wellington SPIR. the New Zealand organisation for sporting freedom, has offered to finance three members of the New Zealand Olympic and Commonwealth Games Association on a “fact-finding” trip to South Africa. A letter from SPIR New Zealand, in which the trip was mentioned, was tabled at the monthly executive meeting of the association in Wellington. The letter said that previous correspondence had been sent to the association asking that the association make itself “familiar” with the situation in South Africa by sending a delegation to that country on a fact-finding mission.

SPIR New Zealand said it would undertake to find the necessary sponsorship for up to three members of the association's executive, as mentioned in a letter sent to the executive in September last year. The letter received by the meeting renewed the offer to "go and assess the situation in South Africa for yourselves." A reply from the association, was requested.

The association's chairman, Mr Roy Dutton, said that the offer was "fairly nebulous." “There is not sufficient in the invitation to respond to. either to turn down or accept. We have had no discussion of the pros and cons at all.” Mr Dutton said. The national organiser of

SPIR New Zealand. Mrs Elizabeth Sutherland, said last evening that she was surprised that Mr Dutton had considered the offers "nebulous”

“We made it perfectly clear, in black and white,” she said.

SPIR New Zealand urged members of the association to become informed about conditions in South Africa if they were to make vital decisions about sports contacts. “At the moment it is condemning a country that it is ignorant about. That is not a strong position to condemn it from,” said Mrs Sutherland.

The conditions of the tour would be the same as those which applied to Mrs Sutherland's visit last year, and which would apply to the visit this year of three National Party members of Parliament. They would be free to go wherever they wished and to meet people o’f all opinions, she said. Leading sports organisations in various countries had made similar trips in recent years, and all had returned to recommend that their countries resume'sports contacts with South Africa. Mrs Sutherland said that if a delegation from the New Zealand Olympic and Commonwealth Games Association accepted the offer to visit South Africa, the trip would be funded by the South African “sporting fraternity,” and would have nothing to do with the South African Government.