South African Officials Meet With IOC Advisers

In an unusual and potentially significant move, International Olympic Committee representatives met for the first time Tuesday with officials of the South African National Olympic Committee, a group the IOC does not recognize and one it expelled in 1970.

The five-hour meeting in Paris brought together two unlikely groups--hard-line anti-apartheid activists Sam Ramsamy and Fekrou Kidane, who are advisers to the IOC Commission on Apartheid and Olympism, and three officials of the white-dominated SANOC: President Johann du Plessis, Vice President Issy Kramer and director J.B. Du Plessis.

Ramsamy said the meeting was held to inform SANOC officials what changes would be required within South Africa before readmission could be considered.

South Africa was expelled from the IOC because of its official policy of apartheid, or racial segregation.

Ramsamy said in an interview Tuesday night from his home in London that while the meeting went well, the IOC “cannot even consider reviewing South Africa’s position until there are single genuine non-racial unitary sports federations in all the Olympic disciplines.”

Ramsamy said he and Kidane will give a verbal report to IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch, as well as a written report to the Commission on Apartheid and Olympism at its next meeting on Feb. 19 in Kuwait.