U$ 10.77
Mr Duff
Hus 021/1
afto
Hww-020/548/1
RECEIVED X
- S MAY 1978
INDEX
1
A
ASSOCIATED STATEHOOD"
wull,.
а
26916
1. You invited me to set out my thought-on-the advantages and disadvantages of associated statehood in the light of my own experiences in handling our relationships with the existing Associated States.
2. Our policy in recent years has been based on the received wisdom that associated statehood is a wholely unsatisfactory relationship which places Britain in the invidious position of having to accept responsibility internation- ally for the acts of governments which we have no effective power to control. It is on the basis of this argument that we have sought to expedite the progress of the Associated States to independence, and have declined to consider the possibility of offering associated statehood to other dependent territories.
3. Early independence for the WIAS is in any case the only practicable policy for the simple reason that most of them are demanding it, that we have nothing to gain and a great deal to lose by refusing it, and that it is in line with our general policy of accelerated decolonisation. What we have perhaps failed to consider with sufficient care is whether the shortcomings from our point of 'view of associated statehood are any worse than those of dependent territory
status, and if not, whether there would be any advantage in offering some form of associated statehood to the remaining dependent territories, either as a penultimate stage on the road to independence, or as a permanent arrangement for the very small territories. I am not competent to compare the relative advantages of associated statehood and dependent territory status, but it might be useful if I were to attempt to identify what has gone wrong in our relation- ship with the WIAS, and to discuss whether these difficulties are inevitable in any form of associated statehood, or whether they could be alleviated in a modified arrangement.
4. I think the first point which one is to bear in mind is that the West Indies Act was drafted at a time when it was our policy to discourage the small Eastern Caribbean islands from mo ring to independence, a policy urged upon us by the Americans and which in a y case recommended itself to us because of our own doubts at that time about the desirability of a proliferation of mini-states. But at the same time we were under strong pressure at the UN to permit self-determination for all our territories. Section 10(1) of the West Indies Act was an attempt to satis:y these contradictory pressures: it enabled us to argue, so far unsuccessfully, at the UN that associated state- hood was a voluntary act of self-determ. nation. But at the same time the referendum provisions were designed to riake a unilateral move to independence very difficult. In this they were outstandingly successful.
5. This success has rebounded on us in that it has placed great political ', difficulties in the way of terminating association even though both we and the governments now want it. But this problem could be avoided in any new form of association by giving the territory the power to become independent by simple legislation (perhaps on the condition that a majority of elected members of the legislature must, in the previous general election, have been elected as members of a party which had clearly stated in an official manifesto its intention to introduce such legislation")
CONFIDENTI L
16.