The idea of holding South African Games was first dreamed up as a means of providing white South African sportsmen with international competition after South Africa's exclusion from the Olympics in 1968. But the first games in 1969, were a complete flop. White sportsmen only were invited, and as the result of an international boycott, few of the overseas sportsmen who participated were of world class.

Join the "multi-racial" throng

This year the South African Government made a major propaganda effort to use the 1973 South African Games to divert attention from the demand for the elimination of racial discrimination in sport. The Games were widely publicised as being "multi-national" or "multiracial", and one cabinet minister called the Games "a milestone in South Africa's history". After the Games were over the same man proclaimed: "Rejoice, the beloved country", in a nauseating reference to Alan Paton's famous novel attacking apartheid.—"Cry the Beloved Country".

Immediately after the Games had finished, a South African group called the 'Committee for Fairness in Sport' placed an advertisement in newspapers in the United States, Britain, Australia and New Zealand, which attacked "certain pressure groups" for discouraging local athletes from joining the "multi-racial throng" at the Games. "These are the same groups which insist that South Africa should be barred from international competition until it practises sport on a basis of nondiscrimination. In Pretoria at the South African Games competition was strictly on merit - regardless of race, colour, creed or religion. Who is Discriminating Now?"

Observers at the Games have rejected the claim that "competition was strictly on merit". On his return to the United States Stan Wright, chairman of the men's track and field committee of the United States Amateur Athletics Union, stated "The South African Games were an attempt to project the country's programmes in a good light, but I don't think it succeeded at all".

Wright rejected South African Government claims that the Games were "multinational" or "multi-racial" as "a lot of baloney".

"The Minister of Sport (Dr Koornhof) admitted to me that multi-racial and multinational are political terms".

"The term multi-racial is used when you're talking to liberals and want to stimulate them, and multi-national is used when you're talking to the conservatives whom yon don't want to arouse".

No Change in Government sports policy.

Wright's experiences showed that the Games did not conflict with the South African Government's policy of dividing national sporting organisations up on strictly racial lines, and excluding any genuinely multi-racial organisations which opposed that policy.

He pointed out that none of the athletes chosen to represent South Africa in track and field events and many other sports was selected through open trials based on merit, in track and field the few black athletes who competed, about 12 in all, came from the South African Amateur Athletic and Cycling Union, the stooge Bantu union. "These blacks did not go through open championships to pick the men to represent their country", he said.

Another example of discrimination was the fact that the white track and field federation was the, sole administrative voice for all four South African federations (white, black, coloured and Indian), the presence of which was a gross violation of international rules based on the Olympic principle.

Wright told American newspapers that the seating arrangements at the Games were one thing in particular which brought home to him the farcical nature of the whole thing.

"I was sitting in the V.I.P. section, looking down at the section reserved for the Bantus. That's the hypocrisy of it. I'm a black guy and a V.I.P. from another country, so I'm treated differently. But the black who's a native of South Africa" exists under apartheid rule. He couldn't buy a ticket to sit where he wanted by choice".

In a report in the New Statesman (April 20th, 1973) David Leitch described the atmosphere of the Games in Pretoria. The South African Government had tried hard to impress outsiders. "Black athletes have been accepted, if not always precisely welcomed, by security men skulking behind the aspidistras in the Brugers Park Hotel. Usually the only black men admitted there are carrying trays. Efforts were made to remove the 'nie-blanke' and 'non-white' signs".

Leitch mentioned a local joke about the unexpected white victory in the white-black soccer match at the Games. "Every time the white players called 'pass', so the anecdote goes, the athletic black forwards stopped running to search frantically in their shorts for the obligatory book. Off the soccer field spot pass-checks by the police currently run at 1,000 a day, 365,000 a year".

Opposition from International Sports Bodies.

Despite the South African Government's propaganda about the Games a number of Governments and international sports organisations refused to allow participation in the Games.

After the 1972 Olympics at Munich Indian, Pakistani and Kenyan Olympic officials announced that their countries would not take part in the events (Rand Daily Mail, September 5, 1972). The Australian Amateur Athletics Union declined an invitation to send a team of four top athletes to compete in the Games because of a 1970 resolution of the Union supporting the International Amateur Athletics Federation's suspension of South Africa from international competition (The Times, December 13, 1972). The Swedish Sports Federation, representing all the country's Olympic and other sports bodies, unanimously decided to reject any invitation to the Games (Rand Daily Mail, February 16, 1973), and the Papua-New Guinea Bowls Association withdrew from the bowls tournament because of opposition by the Territory's government (Rand Daily Mail, October 31, 1972).

In February the International Amateur Cycling Federation announced that it had confirmed South Africa's expulsion from the world body and had refused to grant dispensation to allow overseas riders to compete in the Games (Rand Daily Mail, February 28, 1973).

673 Foreign Sportsmen duped

There are two important lessons for opponents of apartheid to draw from the South African Games.

Firstly the Games proved to be nothing more than a gigantic public relations exercise designed to fool the world into thinking that the racist Government is prepared to allow sport to be played and organised on genuinely multi-racial lines in South Africa. David Leitch's report in the New Statesman from Pretoria showed that the South African whites were prepared to make a considerable effort to make the Games a success by compromising a few of their prejudices.

The fact that 673 foreign athletes and officials were induced to make the trek to Pretoria for the Games shows how successful the South African regime's poisonous propaganda was in fooling people. No doubt many of these athletes and officials will like Stan Wright of the U.S.A mateur Athletics Union, make negative reports to their national and international sports organizations, but Vorster will still make political capital out of their participation.

Secondly the Games showed that the South African Government had not changed its sports policy at all. The only non-white South African bodies which were allowed to participate were stooge organisations, while groups organised on multi-racial lines were excluded. 'Multi-national' sport in South Africa is a sham and the South African Government only uses it to gain international support for apartheid. We must not let them succeed.