CODE 18-77
CONFIDENTIAL
HKG.025/
Mr McLar
McLaren,
HKGD MAI
Reference
cc Mr Stratton
Mr Snodgrass Mr Posnett
....
HW 021/1
No
DECOLONISATION DESPATCH
1.
Although you have had copies of several recent minutes about this, I am not sure that you have the latest version of the draft. Here it is.
2. 纂
After my recent visit to Port of Spain I sent Harry Stanley a copy on a personal basis. I attach a copy of his comments which you will wish to take into account in the next edition. I think he makes 6 points:
a) the small re-drafting he suggests in paragraph 2 seems presentationally sound, particularly as we propose using the despatch, or something very like it, as a public document;
b) I am not sure that we can go very far into the fascinating question of what to do with the "don't wants". We have already agreed that this statement of policy should move away from the notion of acceleration which was the core of the 1975 Despatch and, that being so, I do not see the need to try to spell out how we might make independence more attractive than it appears to some of our clients today;
c) that is why I am not sure that the idea of dowries devices to fund budgetary aid which have caused heart attacks among the economists in the ODM but which I still find politically attractive - needs going into on this occasion. We are most unlikely to find a form of words which will get past the ODM mandarins and I see no strong reason to fight this particular battle just now;
J
d) the question of external defence after independence worries me slightly. It is obvious that we can include no thing about post-independence defence guarantees (see Colin Munro's minute to Bill Quantrill of 24 October). All I had in mind was some discussion in the despatch of the dangers that a British pull-out could lead to. These are discussed in Stanley Arthur's telegram Bridgetown No 02 to FCO of 2 January 1979 (copy attached for ease of reference). One way of showing that we have not overlooked this issue would be by including a passage about the possible risks to newly independent mini-states of external aggression and our responsibility beforehand to build up the effectiveness of local police forces to handle any internal troubles but acknowledging of course that we could never create a force able to resist an act of war from outside;
/e)
CONFIDENTIAL
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