Sport - Olympic Games 1992

ANC To Ask Sporting Bodies To Pull Out Of International Sport 

 

By Anli Serfontein

 

JOHANNESBURG, June 24, 1992 Sapa-Reuter

 The African National Congress (ANC) will ask South African sporting bodies to pull out of all international sports including next month's Barcelona Olympics in protest at a massacre of township blacks.

 ANC sports chief and national executive committee member Steve Tshwete said on Wednesday the black opposition movement had decided at a meeting of the committee on Tuesday to call a summit of sports bodies shortly to hear the ANC's request.

"The country is in a state of mourning. We will ask sporting bodies to reimpose the moratorium until the political situation is normalised," Tshwete said in a telephone interview.

"But we don't want to prescribe to them. We want them to see our point of view."

Tshwete said the ANC believed a moratorium should affect a soccer tour by Cameroon in July, rugby union tours by New Zealand and Australia in August and South Africa's participation at the Barcelona Olympics.

(c)Reuters