S.A. media accuse world of hypocrisy

Press, 23 July 1986, Page 1

S.A. media accuse world of hypocrisy

NZPA-Reuter Johannesburg South Africa’s pro-Gov-ernment hews media yesterday angrily accused the world of hypocrisy for promoting / sporting and economic, sanctions to force changes in Pretoria’s policies. State radio said a widespread boycott of the Commonwealth Games over the British Government’s opposition to sanctions was absurd and farcical. “The boycotters make no bones about the fact that they are engaged in political blackmail,” the radio said in a commentary which reflects official thinking. “The Games are merely their instrument for forcing a change in British Government policy, a means for coercing Mrs Thatcher into supporting sanctions against South Africa — whether or not her Government believes that to be in the interests of Britain and southern Africa.”

The South African-born athletes Zola Budd and Annette Cowley were excluded from the Games on a technicality, while other participants who had never set foot in the countries they represented were welcomed in Edinburgh, the radio said. The “Citizen,” a proGovernment Johannesburg newspaper, launched scathing attacks on several of the countries taking part in the boycott, saying their own actions did not compare favourably with those of Pretoria. “Other countries have dirtier hands than South Africa could be accused of having, morally and politically,” said the

“Citizen” in an editorial. After condemning Bangladesh, . Sri Lanka, Cyprus, Guyana and the Seychelles, and saying several of the Caribbean islands would be hard, to find on the map, the newspaper said: “We have already referred in other leading articles to the one-party State that is Tanzania, the oneparty State that is Zambia, the pending oneparty State that is Zimbabwe, the genocidal State that was Uganda, the military dictatorships of Ghana and Nigeria, and to India with its awful caste system and terrible sectarian violence.” Further reports, page 3