Tour sweetener for visiting archbishop

By CATHERINE MASTERS

Crippling Third World debt, the HIV/Aids crisis and appalling poverty weigh heavy on his mind ... but the truth is the Archbishop of Cape Town, in South Africa, is here for the rugby.

Really? You came all this way for the rugby test between the Springboks and the All Blacks on Saturday?

Yes, says Archbishop Njongonkulu Ndungane, amusement in his eyes.

He is crazy about the game, and when Jubilee 2000 Aotearoa (New Zealand's arm of the movement dedicated to cancelling the debts of poor nations) invited him to New Zealand for a speaking tour, the lure that did the trick was a ticket to the Tri-Nations test match at Eden Park. Or, as he puts it, the ticket was the "cherry on top".

He had to admit to a prison record before he could get in.

"This officer when I approached him asked is this true ... I told him I was a political prisoner on Robben Island with Nelson Mandela for three years in the sixties, and, of course, I was let in."

The rugby-mad Anglican Archbishop, who replaced Archbishop Desmond Tutu, predicts, not surprisingly, that the Springboks will win but most of all he believes he is in for a good game.

Who will the South Africans have to look out for? Jonah Lomu, of course, who has yet to score a try against the Springboks.

"I think that you've got a good side. I think that Jonah Lomu takes four men to bring him down. But he's not tried against us, has he . . ?"

Before democracy came to his homeland, the All Blacks were a favourite of black South Africans, but these days they support the national team.

Another drawcard for the archbishop is the 20th anniversary of the infamous 1981 protests against the touring Springboks.

South Africa was a fledgling democracy and its "miracle transformation" was helped by the stand of the protesters, he said.

The protest showed that apartheid was morally indefensible.

"That a nation like New Zealand, which is rugby fanatics and very much a sporting nation, could take to the streets because they recognised the inhumanity of the apartheid policies, the contribution of the people here to that was a source of strength for us and we're grateful."

The challenge now was to rebuild the nation, not easy given the widespread Aids problem and huge burden of debt.

Repayments alone cost 46 billion rand a year (around $NZ12.6 billion).

It is debt which keeps the country in a strait-jacket, and the archbishop advocates richer countries adopting a bankruptcy facility for poor one who have no hope of paying it back. Rules should then be created to control borrowing and lending.

His major concern, though, are the diseases, especially HIV/Aids, which affect the poor.

In South Africa it is estimated a third of the population will have died of Aids in 10 years.

Although a long way away, New Zealanders could do their bit to help by entering into creative partnerships and doing something - anything - "the emphasis is on doing".

* Archbishop Ndungane speaks in Wellington tomorrow at the Wesley Centre in Taranaki St at 7.30 pm, and in Auckland on Sunday at Holy Trinity Cathedral, Parnell, at 5 pm.