SECTION B
The Washington Post
Outlook
SUNDAY, JULY 16, 1967
COLUMNISTS
EDITORIALS
R
B1
Sun Setting Luridly on Bits of Empire
No Laugh to Anguilla, Politically Adrift
ANGUILLA, West Indies
By Laurence Stern
Washington Post Staff Writer - It is all too tempting to cast it as a comic opera,
a Ruritanian happening, this spectacle of little Anguilla becoming Britain's first ex-colony to seek re- union with the Crown.
The case and the plot are rich enough for a dozen Peter Sellers comedies.
But there are overtures of serious trouble in the circumstances that caused 6000 normally gentle Anguil lans on this patch of coral and vol-
By Laurence Stern-The Washington Post
Peter Adams, sometimes called the "President of Anguilla,” holds a press conference after the islanders voted overwhelm- ingly for secession from the State of St. Kitts, Nevis and Anguilla.
canic debris to cut themselves loose from the central government some 70 miles away.
"Legally, we are wholly independent and adrift," declared one island lead- er after the secession vote, in a state- ment that was both a celebration and a Jament.
Aside from its 15 man ruling council, the island has little in the way of for mal civil govenment. Since the forcible
breakaway from the central govern- ment of Premier Robert Bradshaw, the Anguillans have flown the Union Jacks, the flag of San Francisco, which was donated by an admiring newspaper editor from that city, and now no flag at all. The island is, in a sense, a stateless state.
Anguilla is pressing its case for af filiation with the rest of the world both in London and at the United Nations. Its leaders have appealed to the United States and Canada adopt it as foster parents but both deferred to Britain's seniority as co- lonial proprietor of Anguilla for the past 300 years.
to
And Britain takes the view that the thunder on the islands is purely an internal matter for the newly emanci pated state to solve.
All this has led to a serio-comic es- calation of both offensive and defen- sive actions on both sides. Anguillans, fearful of invasion by Bradshaw's lil- liputian navy and air force, are ready at a moment's notice to block the island's airstrip with metal drums and automo-
biles. Rifles and revolvers are legion on the island.
An Overseas Expedition
ND IN THE capital city of Basseter
re on St. Kitts, there are persistent reports of arms shipments flown in to Anguilla by night from Antigua. The prison at Basseterre holds 22 political prisoners implicated by Bradshaw's police in a zany, pre-dawn shoot-em- up on June 10 during which no one was hurt and not an inch of territory was exchanged,
The government is convinced that the ineffectual attack was launched from Anguilla's shore. Among those ar rested were the leader of the opposi tion Political Action Movement (PAM), William Herbert, and two white Kitti- tians from prominent island families.
Since the incident, Bradshaw has im- posed near martial law on his island and has sworn in 162 "special con- stables"-citizens whose duty it is to help check subversion against the gov ernment. Some apprehensive residents of Basseterre liken the special con- stables to the ton ton maconte or- ganized by Haillan dictator Francois Duvalier.
"Man, there is intrigue all around this city." said one well-known Kit- titian. "People are terrified to talk. Bradshaw's got spies all over the place,
Anguilla
Anguilla - Self-styled independent republic 175 miles southeast of Puerto Rico, formerly a part of St. Kitts-Nevis-Anguilla self-gov- erning state in British Common- wealth.
Government 15-member Ruling
Committee.
Area-35 square miles.
Population-6000.
National resources - One salt pond. Principal export-Salt.
Chean Sea
Scrub ki
ANGUILLA
Wiles
Crocus Hill,
FLORIDA
Atlantic
Ocean
U B
REP
JAMAICA
DOM PUERTO
RICO
ANGUILLA
Miles
300
The British Empire has long since passed into history. The larg er elements broke away to form the Commonwealth, and one by one Whitehall has been gently nudging the smaller fellows out of the nest into independence. Some of the fledglings, however, are tearing up the roost prematurely: Aden in the Middle East and Anguilla in the West Indies, for instance. And alien forces are causing trouble for Gibraltar and Hong Kong, two crown col- onies that Britain is in no hurry to relinquish. The situation in these far-flung hotbeds is explored on this page and Page C3.
坚决支持
An export version of Mao Tse-tung's Red Guards at work in Hong Kong.
like that woman in the green dress who is coming toward us now."
Another implored: "Please, in the name of God, don't use any names if you write about this. They have thugs who will cut your throat gladly for 25 cents."
There is a strong undercurrent of admiration for the Anguillan secession in Basseterre. "Now that they broke away," whispered a "St. Kitts white" woman. "Anguilla is our nearest free republic."
Bradshaw refuses to see reporters these days on grounds that the British and American press have projected a harsh and unfair image of him to the outside world. "He went out of his way to talk to reporters, but he feels it is pointless," explains the bearded young Minister of Education, Fitzroy Bryant.
Fear in the Streets
●RADSHAW'S OBSESSIVE concern toward
more and more "emergency" measures have given rise to fears that the island is heading toward a Haitian style re- gime,
Rigid restrictions have been imposed on public meetings in St. Kitts. Con- versations on the streets are awkward, low-pitched and accompanied by fre- quent backward glances.
Last weekend, without general notice, airport police began impounding movie cameras and tape recorders carried by incoming visitors.
Word is around that the central gov.
ernment is trying to import helicopters from private American suppliers. Heli- copter landings would be the only way to circumvent the simple but effective blockade of Anguilla's airstrip.
But any attempt at military seizure could plunge the island chain into a blood bath. Anguillan spirits are high, especially after the intoxication of newly proclaimed independence.
Bradshaw is not the only specter haunting the Anguillans. Private com- mercial interests are beginning to cirele the island, whose exquisite beaches- among the most dazzling in the Carib- bean-make it a prime piece of off- shore real estate.
Miami and Bahamian-based gambling interests, looking for new elbow room in the Caribbean, are eyeing the drift- ing state with growing interest. Anguil- la's leaders had a picturesque visit last week from an American who said he could bring the island a water system and factories. In exchange, he said that his sponsors, described as a "1000-year- old European religious sect," wanted two square miles or Anguilla turned over to them in perpetuity.
"The committee thought he wanted to start some sort of free love colony and turned him down," said an island source. The Anguillans were also some- what taken aback by the American's dress. He wore kilts.
Help From Harvard
T
HELP GUIDE them through the legal perils of new statehood, sever
al well-to-do Anguillans hired Harvard
Easttoto
constitutional law Prof. Roger Fisher, who flew down from his vacation home in Martha's Vineyard to observe last Tuesday's election.
During the voting and the ceremonies later, the blond, rangy Fisher flitted about continuously, drafting and typing statements on his portable, giving ad- vice and carrying on rounds of con- sultation with island leaders. Fisher bad brought the Anguillan draft con- stitution to the island from Martha's Vineyard in his attache case.
"As an international lawyer," Fisher explained, "I was interested in the problem of the ministate, say the typi cal former colony, that is too small to maintain its own civil service. And then, suddenly, along came Anguilla."
Hong Kong
Hong Kong-British crown colony
off the
southeastern coast of Kwangtung Province, China. Government-Governor acting with advice of 12-member Executive Council, advice and consent of 17-member Legislative Council. Area-398 square miles. Population-3,133,000.
Natural resources-Deep-water
harbor.
Principal exports
Ships, textiles and plastic, metal, electrical and textile products.
Hong Kong Deflated
H
By Stanley Karnow
Washington Post Foreign Service
[ONG KONG-Though perched on the edge of Red China as precari- ously as a village on the slope of a vol cano, Hong Kong is one of the world's exotic boom towns.
Modern skyscrapers, soaring against a landscape of verdant hills, frame a harbor bustling with freighters, junks and sampans. Air-conditioned factories compete with putrid sweatshops and imposing banks rival street corner moncy-changers. Mandarins and mer- chants, sailors, singsong girls, coolies, confidence men and lady tourists from Dubuque all mingle in a thriving jum- ble of East and West that seems to be in perpetual, profitable motion.
This vitality, sustained over the past decade, has stemmed from three main stimuli; orderly British colonial admin- istration. tireless Chinese enterprise and the tolerance of Peking, which earns nearly half its foreign exchange playing capitalist here. Since the mid- dle of May. however, much of Hong Kong's strength and self-confidence has been sapped by a roil of Commu- nist-inspired disorders and violence.
Basically Nihilistie
D
EFYING NIGHTLY curfews, mobs of youths have rampaged through the city's streets, burning buses, smash- ing shops, stoning police and creating other havoc. Peking has encouraged the mayhem, mostly with rhetoric and, for a brief moment last weekend, by a burst of machinegun fire over the bor- der that killed five Hong Kong police-
men.
But while Communist in name and inspiration, this turbulence is really nihilistic in its apparent lack of clear- cut, definable purpose. For at no time have the Communists, either here or in Peking, specifically threatened to oust the British from Hong Kong and reinstate the colony as part of ad- jacent Kwangtung Province as before its annexation by Britain in the last century.
Instead, the unrest here appears to be essentially a spillover from the China of Mao Tse-tung's reckless Cul- tural Revolution. The youngsters swirl- ing senselessly around Hong Kong are. in effect. local counterparts of the Red Guards, motivated by Mao's fuzzy exhortation that "rebellion is justi- fied."
If justifiable rebellion inside China See HONG KONG, Page B3, Col. 1
CHINA
New Territories
Kowloon
HONG KONE +I.