Requests made by the General Assembly to pay particular attention to the smaller territories were not met by the Committee of 24 which became increasingly pre-occupied with Southern African questions. The UK and the USA found themselves largely unable to influence the Committee's thinking in the face of the overwhelming Afro-Asian and Communist bloc majority, and despite our considerable achievements in the field of decolonisation, the UK was repeatedly pilloried.
6. The UK and the USA withdrew from the Committee of 24 in 1971, these withdrawals having been preceded by the departure of Australia (1969) and Italy (1970). (Australia re-joined in 1973 following their change of Government.) Our public explanation was that our own process of decolonisation had now reached a stage where experience of the Committee's work had led us to question whether it could offer any constructive help in resolving the remaining problems; and that our doubts on this point had been reinforced by the adoption in October 1970 of a thoroughly unrealistic Programme of Action intended as a guide to the Committee's future activities. This was a reference to General Assembly Resolution 2621 (XXV) which inter alia declared that colonialism in all its forms was "a crime which constitutes a violation of the Charter". Since our withdrawal, the UK has continued to fulfil the obligation under the Charter of providing information on our Dependent Territories. We have also kept in touch with Committee members and Secretariat.
VISITING MISSIONS
...
7.
A recurring feature of the Committee of 24's resolutions on Dependent Territories has been a request to Administering Powers to accept Visiting Missions from the Committee, so that information on conditions in the territories can be collected at first hand. Refusal to accept Missions has resulted in accusations that Administering Powers were being unco-operative. The UK stance on this under both of the last two Administrations has been to accept the idea of Visiting Missions in principle, but subject to the views of the local government and to HMG '
G'S views on whether the Mission would serve any useful purpose. For example, in 1967 the UK representative in the UN Fourth Committee made the following response to a resolution requesting facilities for a visiting mission to Fiji: "My Government has been unable any useful purpose would be served by a visit of the United Nations
to agree that mission to Fiji. The decision not to agree to a request for a visit by a Sub-Committee of the Committee of 24 to Fiji was of course that of the United Kingdom Government, in its capacity as the Administering Power in Fiji. But in making this decision the major consideration for my Government was the declared view of the leader of the majority party ih Fiji who publicly stated, earlier this year, that his Government did not agree that a United Nations mission should come to Fiji." In practice previous governments have adopted a very cautious attitude. We have offered only two invitations, to Aden and to Gibraltar, both in 1967. The Aden Mission turned out disastrously; the visit of the UN representatives coincided with or prompted violent unrest, and the representatives submitted a report highly unfavourable to HMG. The invitation to
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/Gibraltar
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