Sportsmen urged to reject S.A. offers

Press, 29 June 1983, Page 3

Sportsmen urged to reject S.A. offers

NZPA London Leading cricketers and rugby players should not “put profit before principle” ar-d become South African “mercenaries,” said the Commonwealth SecretaryGeneral, Sir Shridath Ramphal, yesterday. Opening an international conference on sanctions against apartheid sport, Sir Shridath said South Africa had made only cosmetic law changes on segregated sport. “This veneer of change is constructed upon a policy of highly selective dispensation extended only and very obviously for the duration of the sporting encounter and backed up by a massive propaganda campaign abroad,” he said. “When the match is over and the stumps of convenience are drawn, the dark cloud of apartheid reenvelopes all those who for tactical reasons had been temporarily allowed out from under it.” Sir Shridath did not name the sportsmen at whom his plea was directed, but they are mainly English and West Indian cricketers, English and New Zealand rugby players, and their governing bodies. Reports in Britain are that South Africa is offering contracts to some of the world’s top cricketers who

were in England for the World Cup. Sir Shridath said ample evidence existed of the political importance to South Africa of sports contacts with its traditional rivals. “It matters not to the South Africans if they split the cricket world on racial lines: that would be, after all, no more than an external expression of apartheid’s base purpose,” he said. Sir Shridath said South African sports bodies, acting with commercial interests and their Government, were attempting to procure internationally respected sportsmen. “South Africa is an old hand at illicit dealings. “But so far the merchandise has been arms, oil, nuclear technology and such like. “Now it is for the bodies and souls of our sportsmen,” Sir Shridath said. He urged the New Zealand and English Rugby Unions and the M.C.C., in contemplating tours of South Africa, to weigh the freedom of their sportsmen against “the trampled freedoms of millions in South Africa.” “In contemplating playing with South Africa there are no trade-offs. To participate is to colloborate. It is as simple as that.” The domestic implications

of playing host to South African sports teams has been all too forcefully demonstrated in recent years, Sir Shridath said. “In New Zealand for instance, which in spite of the objections of a large proportion of its people, witnessed the 1981 Springbok rugby tour, the social and political cost is even now being counted,” he said. “The divisive effects of this massive denial of the international boycott have left many New Zealanders determined that the import of such malignancy must never occur again.” The lessons of the New Zealand experience had a salutary effect within and beyond the Commonwealth, he added. Sir Shridath, a former Foreign Minister of Guyana, said some sportsmen had already succumbed to the temptation to put profit before principle. “Many others stand on the brink, waiting for signals, for guidance, for a sense of direction from their governments and sports organisations, and a wider public,” he told delegates. Sir Shridath said he pleaded with the M.C.C., as it voted on sending a team to South Africa, to be sensitive to the strength of feeling on apartheid. It was not easy to separate the M.C.C. from Britain

on this issue, he said. The Commonwealth had acted over the Falklands war because it was right to do so and because it had a duty to stand with Britain. “But the Commonwealth will in this matter expect Britain to stand with it in a cause that is as righteous,” he said. In a report to the confernece HART, the New Zealand anti-apartheid movement, said it had reluctantly been forced by events since 1981 to conclude that the New Zealand Rugby Union had every intention of going ahead with the 1985 All Black tour of South Africa and that the New Zealand Government would take no effective steps to prevent it. HART believed that the Government could secure the cancellation of the 1985 tour without changing its stated polices if it really wanted to, the report said. “We consider that a direct specific request from the Government to the N.Z.R.F.U. to cancel the tour in the national interest would almost certainly result in the tour’s cancellation. Mr Blazey has said as much himself.” HART urged the conference to come up with a “coordinated multi-pronged strategy” aimed at the total sporting isolation of South Africa.