Nobel winner condemns S.A. rugby tour

Press, 21 April 1986, Page 32

Nobel winner condemns S.A. rugby tour

NZPA-Reuter Johannesburg The Nobel Peace laureate, the Most Rev. Desmond Tutu, has condemned an imminent unofficial rugby tour of South Africa by a New Zealand team but the proGovernment news media have welcomed the event. “We can’t keep wasting time on things like that when our people are dying. I think it’s disgraceful,” said Bishop Tutu, the newly elected head of the Anglican Church in southern

Africa State-run Radio South Africa said the tour showed South Africa’s skill at wriggling out of international boycotts clamped on the country to protest against apartheid. The radio also said the tour could spell the end for amateur rugby and split international rugby down the middle. The white opposition Progressive Federal Party said it wished the New Zealand tour success but taxpayers should not foot the bill for any costs.

“It would seem that in order to get a tour to South Africa it has been necessary to throw the whole rugby world into turmoil, renege on our word and break the amateur code of the past,” the party said. The party said it hoped the Springboks would be paid the same as the New Zealand players. It said the tour should be used to try to focus attention on areas of sport where racial discrimination still existed in an effort to force Government action.