Burma

[prcscct]

Screws start to turn. I hope it keeps up. Players comment in paragraph #4 is a cop out. The whole world knew when the junta took over, some 18 years ago. Pete
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Chris McGreal, Africa correspondent
Tuesday October 9, 2007
Guardian Unlimited

Nelson Mandela has withdrawn an invitation to Gary Player to host a charity fundraising tournament in his name because of the former Open champion golfer's business ties to Burma.

The Nelson Mandela Children's Fund said that it was "not fully aware of the extent and nature" of Mr Player's involvement in Burma when it made the invitation, "nor of the political impact of this involvement". It said it took note of the "international campaign in support of greater freedom in that country".

The move came after a call by Desmond Tutu, the former Anglican archbishop of Cape Town, for a boycott of Mr Player's company because he designed a golf course that is "a playground of the ruling junta in the murderous dictatorship of Burma".

Mr Player said he was "very disappointed" that his "integrity and support for human rights has been brought into question" over Burma and that his company's involvement in the country was "taken entirely out of context" because it began five years ago when the military regime appeared to be relaxing its grip on power.

Mr Player's company has designed hundreds of golf courses around the world, including the 18-hole Pride of Myanmar frequented by Burma's military rulers.

The former archbishop backed a call by his fellow Nobel peace laureate and Burmese opposition leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, for an international boycott of foreign companies doing business in Burma.

Mr Tutu, the patron of the Free Burma Campaign in South Africa, also drew attention to a column in the Guardian by George Monbiot that called for a boycott of Mr Player's company.

Mr Mandela's spokesperson, Zelda la Grange, initially rejected Mr Tutu's plea, saying that the former president "is not going to follow a line simply because it's taken by other Nobel peace prize laureates".

"Nelson Mandela is a humanitarian and will always oppose any human rights violations [but] is it necessary for him to stand up every time they happen and make a statement, at 89?" she said.

Ms La Grange said that if Mr Mandela were to take a public position it could compromise efforts by South Africa's foreign ministry over Burma. South Africa has been widely condemned for failing to back UN security council motions criticising the junta's human rights violations.

But under growing criticism, the Nelson Mandela Children's Fund said Mr Player's participation threatened to undermine the charity tournament.

"Mr Player shares with us a desire to protect Mr Mandela's good name and ensure that nothing be allowed to detract from the potential success of a prestigious event aimed at improving the lives of children in South Africa," it said in a statement.

Mr Player said that his company's involvement with the design of the golf course occurred in 2002 when "the world's relations towards the regime in Burma had thawed; Aung San Suu Kyi had been released from house arrest and it seemed as though real political change was in the air".

"Let me make it abundantly clear that I decry, in the strongest possible terms, the recent events in Burma and wholeheartedly support Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu in his efforts to bring peace and transition to that country," he said.

Mr Player is not known for his sensitivity to the plight of the downtrodden. He described apartheid South Africa as "maligned, misunderstood, pilloried" after he was heckled while playing abroad.

He was closely tied to the ruling National party during the 1970s as a member of a clique that launched a pro-apartheid newspaper with the help of illegal government funding.

He has also been criticised for failing to speak up on behalf of his country's best-known golfer of Indian descent, Sewsunker "Papwa" Sewgolum, who was forced in 1963 to stand in the rain to accept a major trophy because he wasn't allowed inside the racially exclusive Durban Country Club. Mr Player later said he welcomed Mr Sewgolum playing in South African tournaments because he brought "colour" to golf.
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"What America needs is a huge hypodermic needle of morality." Alice Cooper 21 Sept. 2007