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Mr Stewart
SECRET
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THE ORIGINAL HAS BEEN CLOSED UNTIL ...... EXEMPTION No
ACCELERATED DE-COLONIS,
1.
UNDER FOI
27
HKG 025/1
See also (24) 825)
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You asked me to consider Mr Jasper's minute of 14 April and the attached papers.
2.
If a
As you know already, I am in favour of an ad hoc approach when considering the future of the dependent territories. general solution were possible, I think those who have been living with the problems of dependent territories since the period of peak de-colonisation ended in the late 1960s would have found it by now. I doubt therefore whether it would be worthwhile devoting much effort to trying to find an across the board answer.
3. I am encouraged to think that a piecemeal approach is all that can reasonably be attempted by other papers on the dependent territories that have circulated since Mr Jasper wrote his minute. I have noted, for example, from Mr Stanley's minute of 15 April to Mr Cortazzi on "Managing the Dependent Territories" that the hope is that all the Pacific dependent territories will become independent by 1980, with the sole exception of Fitcairn Island, which will clearly never become an independent entity. If this works out we will have disposed of four of the present eighteen dependent territories, ie the Solomons, Tuvalu, Gilbert Islands and the New Hebrides. Similarly, Mr Stanley's proposed minute to Mr Rowlands, on which I have commented separately, addresses itself to the possibility of some further reduction in our responsibilities in the Caribbean with regard both to the dependent territories and the Associated States. The problem there, as I understand it, is that we need to be careful to avoid allowing further constitutional advance unless we can see our way more clearly towards the territories concerned becoming fully independent at some stage. As paragraph 6 of the general note on Mr Stanley's and Mr Duff's visit to the Caribbean dependencies in February points out, we run the risk of further limiting the powers of Governors, such as they are, to maintain a proper administration and to enforce law and order without at the same time having the definite prospect of being rid of the territories at some stage. It is for this reason, I understand, that we are resisting proposals for the introduction of a Ministerial syster in the Cayman Islands. In such instances, therefore, the concept of "accelerated de-colonisation" may not be relevant. On the other hand, Bermuda ought to be a case where this concept can be applied with vigour.
4. Once the Pacific and the Caribbean dependencies are put on one side, it becomes even more difficult to see how any general solution could be applied. We are left with the "disputed territories" (or "claimed colonies") ie Hong Kong, Belize, the Falkland Islands and Gibraltar, and the uninhabited (or sparsely inhabited) territories ie the BIOT and the BAT. V
CODE 18 - 77
Only Belize,
of these threè territories, is, I think, regarded as a potential
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