NEW DELHI, India: India said Sunday it has decided to withdraw from the Common: wealth Games, becoming the 24th to join the boycott over Britain’s refusal to impose economic sanctions on South Africa.

The boycott has threatened the credibility of the games — held every four years and considered one of the sporting world’s premier events —and possibly the unity of the 49-nation Commonwealth.

There was still uncertainty Sunday whether Sri Lanka, Malawi, Swaziland, and Botswana will participate in the games due to open in Edinburgh, Scotland, on Thursday.

Fifty-eight countries and territories were invited to participate in the event but 23 have now declined to protest Britain’s refusal to impose economic sanctions on South Africa’s white-minority government.

A spokesman for Prime Minister Margaret Alva said Sunday India decided to boycott the games in “solidarity” with the black African nations that led the boycott. “We have decided to withdraw,” she said in a telephone interview.

On Saturday, India offered to participate in the event if Britain agreed to work with it and five ‘other Commonwealth nations at a summit of their leaders in London next month on measures designed to force South Africa to end apartheid.

The British Foreign Office on Sunday apparently rejected the proposal, “Our position remains the same,” a spokesman said. “Whether India or any other country decides to stay in or boycott the games it will not change things in South Africa.”

“We had hoped that Britain would come out with some gesture” indicating it was prepared to consider India’s proposal, Alva said, “Since there is nothing, we are boycotting.”

‘One boycottinging nation, Zambia, said if the summit does not produce tougher British position, it may withdraw from the Commonwealth, a group of 49 former British colonies,

Last month, the Eminent Persons Group, a fact-finding group of former Commonwealth leaders, recommended the organization take “economic measures” to avert a bloodbath in South Africa.

‘Thatcher has rejected imposing, sanctions on South Africa, maintaining they will hurt the nation’s black majority. More than 2,100 people have been killed in racial violence in South Africa since September, 1984 opposition politicians criticized Thatcher’s stand on sanctions.

Social Democrat leader David Owen told the Sunday Express that the boycott was “a serious and deliberate warning to all of us in Britain, and particularly our government, that the Commonwealth is in danger of breaking up.”

Article extracted from this publication >> July 25, 1986