Rage over charges against Cronje continues

By M. S. Prabhakara

CAPE TOWN, APRIL 10. With the South African Deputy Foreign Minister, Mr. Aziz Pahad, today categorically stating that the relations with India would not be affected by the charges of match-fixing made against leading members of the South African cricket team, there is likely to be a lowering of the political temperature.

Mr. Pahad, who met the Indian High Commissioner, Mr. Harsh Bhasin, at the Union Buildings in Pretoria this afternoon, later addressed a press conference with Mr. Bhasin.

The meeting between them was described by an official of the High Commission present at the meeting as ``very cordial, open and friendly''. However, the rage over the allegations against the cricketers continues unabated at the ``popular'' level.

During the meeting, Mr. Pahad raised the South African Government's concerns regarding the charges of match-fixing levelled against what was a highly-regarded national cricket team. Specifically, the concerns related to the lack of prior information to the South African authorities before the police in Delhi went public; the tapping of telephones of South African players; and the denial of access to the South African High Commissioner in Delhi of the tapes and other information.

Mr. Bhasin said the South African High Commission in New Delhi had indeed been informed before the police went public. He said the police had, quite accidentally, ``stumbled'' upon a telephone conversation, apparently between Hansie Cronje and an Indian bookmaker under investigation on suspicion of being involved in match-fixing, whose telephone they were monitoring. The conversation thus came to be taped. On the issue of denial of access to the tapes to the South African authorities, Mr. Bhasin said no such request had been made by the South African Government either through the Indian mission in Pretoria or through the South African High Commission in New Delhi until this afternoon, when the South African High Commissioner went to the Ministry of External Affairs in New Delhi - a point conceded by Mr. Pahad during the press conference.

These clarifications apart, Mr. Pahad said the controversy would not affect bilateral relations. The ties, he said, had a strong historical basis and recently became more firmly rooted on close political and economic links. The former President, Mr. Nelson Mandela, and the current President, Mr. Thabo Mbeki, had been clear that there was a ``strategic'' aspect to Indo-South Africa relations, Mr. Pahad said.

Interestingly, while maintaining that he would be very surprised if the charges against Hansie Cronje and his colleagues turned out to be true, the Deputy Foreign Minister said the Government would act very firmly if the ``due process of law'' did not prove their innocence.

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Section  : International
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