Singapore’s Olympic athletes threatened

Press, 12 July 1984, Page 44

Singapore’s Olympic athletes threatened

NZPA-Reuter Singapore Singapore yesterday said it had become the third Asian country to receive death threats from the Ku Klux Klan, an American white-supremacist group, against its athletes particpating in the Los Angeles Olympic Games. The Secretary-General of the Singapore National Olympic Council, Mr S. S. Dhillon, said the threat came in a recent letter received at his office. “I think the rest of the Asian as well as African countries participating in the Olympics received the same letter,” he said. On Monday an official of the Sri Lankan committee in Colombo said its athletes had received a threat from the Klan, and Malaysia’s Olympic Committee last week said it would pass on a threatening letter it received to the United States Embassy in Kuala Lumpur. Mr Dhillon said the unsigned letter had the name of the Ku Klux Klan beneath the emblem of a hooded man carrying a cross on a horse. The racist Klan was formed in the southern

United States after the civil war.

All the letters have threatened to shoot or hang the athletes if they participated in the Olympic Games.

“The blacks and yellows will not be permitted to defile America’s stadiums. We have forced the Soviets out of the Olympics, we shall not permit the apes to be present either,” the letter said.

Mr Dhillon said Singapore had not informed the United States Government about the letter because the council was confident that the organising committee and the Los Angeles police will provide the necessary security. On Tuesday the United States Secretary of State, George Shultz, in Singapore for talks, said that the death threats made against nonwhite Olympic athletes and purported to come from the Ku Klux Klan were so outrageous that he could not believe they were made by the Klan.

Shultz told a press conference that he almost believed the threats were a disinformation campaign. © In a “sanitising” exer-

cise.designed to ensure the safety of athletes from 140 countries, police swept through the two Olympic villages, searching for weapons and setting up around-the-clock patrols, the Press Association reports from Los Angeles.

Two command posts that will serve as “ad hoc” police stations on the city’s east and west sides also were activated, police commander William Booth said.

“The Olympics are right around the corner, so what this means is that we're gearing up,” Booth said.

The “sanitising” of the villages began late on Monday after the Los Angeles Olympic Organising Committee settled its dispute over the $9.5 million security price tag successfully sought by the police department.