Govt rep. sought for S. African rugby congress

Press, 2 July 1983, Page 3

Govt rep. sought for S. African rugby congress

NZPA staff correspondent London The South African Rugby Board has invited the Prime Minister, Mr Muldoon, to send a Government representative to an international congress for rugby media in South Africa in August. Similar invitations have gone to the British Prime Minister, Mrs Thatcher, and the Australian Prime Minister, Mr Hawke. The Commonwealth Secretary-General, Sir Shridath Ramphal, the chairman of the South African Non-Racial Olympic Committee, Mr Sam Ramsamy, and the president of the Supreme Council for Sport in Africa, Dr Abraham ‘Ordia, are also being invited. Invitations are going to about 100 sports editors and rugby writers from Britain, France, Argentina, Australia, Hong Kong, Fiji, Western Samoa, Tonga, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and New Zealand to attend the congress from August 19 to 31. About 20 New Zealand sports editors and rugby writers have been invited. Details were given yesterday by the chairman of Freedom in Sport International, Mr Tommie Campbell, who is consultant to the South African Rugby Board on the congress. The international president of Freedom in Sport, Lord Chalfont, who was a Minister in Sir Harold Wilson’s government, will chair the meetings. Mr Campbell said the congress slogan would be “File away the past, concentrate on the future.” Its aims would be to examine changes that had taken place and were taking place in South African rugby, to “hear the other side of the one-sided story which has been spread all over the world,” and to give the sports media the opportunity to examine, query, and debate at first hand the course the Rugby Board had decided to take. Speakers would include the Rugby Board’s president, Dr Danie Craven, the South African Rugby Federation’s president, Mr C. C. A. Loriston, the South African Rugby Association’s president, Mr C. G. Mdyehsa, and representatives of Coloured and African sports bodies and opposition political parties. South African Ministers invited to address the congress include the Foreign Minister, Mr Pik Botha, the National Education Minister, Dr G. van N. Viljoen, and the Constitutional Development Minister, Mr J. C. Heunis. Meetings will take place in Cape Town and Pretoria and the journalists will also visit Johannesburg, Soweto, Durban, Port Elizabeth, and the Transkei. Mr Campbell said he had told the South African Rugby Board it must take a new initiative. “The information that should have been forthcoming from the board on what it says it is doing for nonracial rugby is five years behind,” he said. There had been a total breakdown in communica-

tion between the board and Foreign Ministers in countries sucn as Britain anu New Zealand, he said. He hoped Mr Muldoon would agree to send an observer. “It does not matter a damn who it is. It could be anyone,” Mr Campbell said. Dr Craven, in his letter to Mr Ramsamy, who lives in London but originally came from South Africa, said, “This invitation includes an address from you as to your views about South Africa and why you have taken a stand against us. “We sincerely hope that you will accept our invitation for if you mean it well, as we do, we must put our heads together for a common course.” Of Mr Ramsamy’s campaign against apartheid, Mr Campbell said, "We are both trying to attain a similar thing in different ways.” He hoped it would be possible to establish an international media committee to monitor changes in sport in South Africa independently, meeting in South Africa once a year. Mr Campbell said three New Zealand journalists — Terry McLean, Alex Veysey, and John Brooks — ’ had already accepted invitations to attend the congress. Veysey and McLean both denied that they had accepted invitations. Veysey said it was extremely unlikely he would accept if an invitation was offered, and McLean said he would first consider the terms under which an invitation might be issued. Veysey writes for a Sunday newspaper, the “New Zealand Times,” and McLean for various publications, including newspapers in South Africa. Brooks, a rugby reporter for "The Press” who is covering the Lions’ tour, said in Dunedin yesterday that he had received two personal approaches to inquire whether he would be interested in an invitation to the proposed rugby media congress. He had expressed interest in the idea, but had not yet received or accepted an invitation. “I would like to visit South Africa to see the situation there for myself, instead of relying on second-hand information, especially about integration in sport. Whether the congress will turn out as it is planned, and would expose all points of view and useful information, remains to be seen,” he said. “The invitations to rugby writers appear to be entirely personal, and at this stage the approach to Mr Brooks has not been considered as a reporting assignment,” said the editor of “The Press,” Mr E. B. Lock, yesterday. “We have no wish to close our minds to what is said and done in South Africa; yet, if reporters are to go to any country with open minds they must be pretty sure that they will also have a reasonable opportunity to use their eyes and ears to get a balanced impression and a fair picture of the facts,” he said. “We view the congress . with some scepticism and we would not willingly lend the name of ‘The Press’ to this, or any other event, that became purely a propaganda exercise. “From the newspaper’s point of view, the congress is still a non-event. We have not been asked to attend it or to select a representative. I dare say that we will not be invited. If a member of our staff is privately invited to some occasion, that is his business, though Mr Brooks has told me that he will discuss any invitation with me when he learns more about it.”