1
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R+ 14/10
Mr Stratton
CONFIDENTIAL
Mr Stequart suels
HKG 025/1
RECEIVED IN REGISTRY NO. 51 140CT 1977
DESK OFFICER
INDEX
Yes
PA
PR 24H0 MR QUANTRIC 28760 Mn Livoin, @31/10
MIN FARRELL MY 316
Miss Winks. 2
REGISTRY Action TakeFY
J.J. &
35
For infunalin. No action required I will lungul at offer Mading on 24/10.
c.c.
Jatazilio
No med Mr Duff, WIAD
Mr Jasper, HK&GD
Now P/A JJ 6/12.
1. I am passing on to you as requested the attached papers which have been put up by Hong Kong and General Department for our edification.
2. In general terms I think that the argument about our policy in regard to decolonisation is a little unreal since in practice the way events unroll in each particular territory tend to determine whether or how fast it proceeds towards independence. Like Tolstoy's Generals we only imagine that we are controlling events. Nevertheless I agree with Mr Cortazzi that there is no particular call at this stage of events to exert any particular pressure upon dependency governments to hurry them along. The peoples in the small territories tend to be suspicious or fearful of the world outside and it is not my experience that trying to push them, at least overtly, would be helpful. Even in territories like Belize, which has been ostensibly ready for independence for 14 years, the domestic political climate is a good deal less enthusiastic about independence than it was a decade ago.
3. The particular question which I think induced Mr Duff to ask for these papers to be turned up was a discussion I had with him about Anguilla. My point there was that we should be very chary of entering a box situation from which the exit is not clear. It was in my view a mistake in British policy to allow the Turks and Caicos to retain a separate identity after independence of the Bahamas, thus leaving us with a non-viable territory which has no sensible future on its own and which is a continual toothache for us, particularly for reasons of internal security. If we allow Anguilla to become a new British dependency, not only may we have it round our necks beyond the foreseeable future but we shall almost certainly have a turbulent territory where the threat to internal security and even the external threat (from St Kitts or from the US underworld) are real and continue to involve us. We have no constitutional obligation to take on Anguilla as a permanent dependency and hence, in my argument, it would be in British interests to secure our exit by doing this on an explicitly temporary basis if possible. My own view is that Anguilla could be left to run its own affairs but would probably never do so voluntarily. Mr Duff disagrees with me on almost every point.
4.
One further observation is that we appear to be adopting divergent policies on Anguilla and on Ocean Island.
Mainly
CONFIDENTIAL
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