BEIRUT, Lebanon -- The Iranian regime of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini said Sunday its athletes will boycott the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics games 'to expose the criminal acts of the world-devouring U.S. government.'
'The 1984 Olympics games of Los Angeles are a mask and facade created by supercilious world powers and the United States for disguising their hideous faces as a means of gaining publicity and whitewashing their crimes,' said Iran's Prime Minister Hussein Musavi in statements carried by the official Iranian News Agency IRNA which is monitored in Beirut.
The statements were read Sunday to a seminar in Tehran on 'Olympic-84' by the superintendent of the Islamic Republic's Physical Education Organization, Sayed Esmail Davoudi.
'Iran had boycotted the Moscow Olympics in protest over the Soviet government's occupation of Afghanistan and it would do the same with the Olympics-84 games of Los Angeles in order to expose the criminal acts of the world-devouring U.S. government,' IRNA quoted Davoudi as saying.
The United states also boycotted the 1980 games in Moscow.
'To show the ignominious character of the United States government, Iran condemns the 1984 Olympics game and that at the same time will publish exposes for unveiling the crimes of the U.S.A.,' Davoudi told the seminar.
He said the United States was involved in 'crimes upon the masses' in the Middle East, Latin America, Lebanon, Salvador, Nicaragua and Grenada and consequently Iran does not judge the United States qualified to host the games.
In Moscow, the newspaper Sovetsky Sport said the summer Olympics at Los Angeles will most likely be officiated by incompetent referees and unqualified judges.
'One can hardly expect the track and field events of the summer Olympic games in Los Angeles to proceed without blunders in refereeing,' the newspaper said.
The Soviet Olympic Committee has yet to announce whether it will attend the games and has previously voiced objections to housing, security and transportation planned for Soviet athletes.
The chairman of the Soviet committee said last week a decision would be made in May.
In the latest complaint, Sovetsky Sport said the Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee 'is showing a complete lack of interest in resolving the problem of judging.'
The Los Angeles Committtee, the newspaper said, 'is planning, contrary to common sense, to nearly halve the number of judges on the tracks and in jumping and throwing sectors as compared with the Moscow Games or, say, the World Championships in Helsinki.'
