22
Afghanistan
Australia
Bulgaria
Chile
China
Congo
Denmark
Czechoslovakia
Trinidad and Tobago
Tunisia
Ethiopia
Sierra Leone
Fiji
Syrian Arab Republic
India
Indonesia
Iran
Iraq
Ivory Coast Mali
UK RELATIONS WITH THE COMMITTEE OF 24
USSR
United Republic
of Tanzania
Venezuela
Yugoslavia
4. The UK abstained on both the resolution establishing
the Committee and on that enlarging it, but agreed to serve on
the Committee, despite our reservations on the resolutions,
hoping that we might influence thinking about the problems
of Dependent Territories and induce greater understanding of
our policies
and difficulties.
However, UK representatives
at the UN had made clear that we would not accept any
form of intervention in the territories for which we were
responsible.
Practice
5. In fet, the Committee tended to adopt a rigid and
inflexible approach to Dependent Territories; stylised demands
were regularly made for instant independence for all
non-self-governing territories, without regard to the
actual situations in the individual territories.
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
I mestions affaire.
The UK and the USA found themselves largely nable
to influence the Committee's thinking in the face of the
overwhelming Afro-Asian and Communist bloc majority, atd
despite our considerable achievements in the field of
decolonisation, the UK was repeatedly pilloried.
*
-2-
/6. The
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