Archbishop attacks rebel cricketers

Press, 5 August 1985, Page 20

Archbishop attacks rebel cricketers

NZPA-AAP Perth The Most Rev. Trevor Huddleston, a leading opponent of apartheid, has criticised the rebel South African cricket tour captain, Kim Hughes, and his team-mates.

Archbishop Huddleston, aged 72, an Anglican, and formerly a bishop in South Africa, said Hughes “must be a rather stupid man” if he was excited and thrilled at agreement reached in the Supreme Court in Victoria on Tuesday clearing the way for the rebel cricket tour to go ahead. “His elation is a sign of almost total ignorance of what is basic and fundamental to world peace,” Archbishop Huddleston said. “Anyone who is prepared to take part in an event which quite clearly is contrary to the Gleneagles Agreement — and to do it for money — clearly does not care at all about human rights.

“You cannot possibly separate sport from the issue of racialism inside South Africa. If you are going there to play games where people are being killed and others being held in prison indefinitely and without trial, and where many are going to be charged with high treason, you are supporting that racial regime without any question, and it is for your conscience to answer to.”

Archbishop Huddleston, who in 1982 received the United Nations gold medal award for his work against apartheid, said the decision by Hughes to lead the tour was “hypocritical and an insult to his people.” “They are going there for the money — and you know where that money comes from — and they cannot say they are going there to play for the game,” he said. Archbishop Huddleston, founder-president of

Britain’s anti-apartheid movement, said the coming - South African cricket tour f was in the worst interests of i cricket in both countries. j Sporting boycotts, he said, were the most effective in- ; strument the anti-apartheid £ forces possessed. Told of Archbishop Hud- j dleston’s attack on him and 'i the rebel team, Hughes said he was tiring of people > criticising him over the £ coming tour. i “I have never met Arch- ? bishop Huddleston and I • don’t know him from Adam, but it’s a free world and everyone has the right to say what he pleases,” he said. “But I don’t have to answer that sort of criticism. I know in my heart that what I am doing is the right thing. Hughes said that he, too, opposed apartheid, but believed sport should not be mixed with politics.