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economic sanctions; a small minority, including the UK, called for continuing the dialogue with South Africa. Mr Neil Marten, for the UK stressed the abhorrence with which the United Kingdom viewed apartheid, but also made the point that ostracism and isolation was not the right way to change South Africa's policies. This could only be done by dialogue and persuasion. Another British speaker Mr Mitchell, said that he disagreed with Mr Marten; he feared that, in the end, the only thing that would change South Africa would be armed confrontation. He supported SWAPO as the only truly representative faction in Namibia.
18.
This exchange between members of the British delegation was given headline treatment in the Zambia 'Daily Mail' on the next day, as was Mr Marten's earlier remark, in the face of some fairly persistent criticism of Britain over her continuing relationship with South Africa, and her previous colonial role in Africa, that the speakers were levelling their criticism at the wrong generation of Britons; the generation who had colonised Africa were long dead.
19. On Namibia almost all the speakers were firm in their support for SWAPO and for a UN-supervised ceasefire followed by elections.
20. An interesting aftermath to the debate on Southern Africa was a rabidly anti British leader, referring to the debate, in the Zambia Daily Mail' two days later. The final paragraph read "We know that the British, regardless of their political party, support oppression and perpetual humiliation of the black man". brought a strong protest from Mr Johnson, the British High Commiss- ioner, to State House, and the Zambian Government were clearly embarrassed; subsequently Mr Marten was called to an unscheduled meeting with President Kaunda, where, whilst no mention of the article was made, President Kaunda laid great stress on building "bridges of cooperation" between Britain and Zambia.
Fourth Plenary:
This
International Collaboration in Combating Drug
Addiction and Trafficking
21.
The opening speech in this plenary was made by Mr Padmore, leader of the Trinidadian delegation - and a Minister in government. In an undistinguished speech he observed that even in the field of drug trafficking the financial flows seemed to favour the middle man of the North at the expense of the growers in the South! He also made the point that for citizens of the Third World it was not only the conventionally trafficked drugs that caused concern, but also drugs which were manufactured by well-established pharmaceutical companies of the "North", which, banned from sale in their countries of manufacture because of their harmful effects, were energetically marketed in Third World countries. An unproductive debate followed. A common Third World point was that eradication of production of the raw material of drugs was expensive in time, manpower and equipment, and often dangerous. Financial help was needed from the drug user countries, as well as a high level of international communication and cooperation if the traffic and its wealthy and unscrupulous operatives were to be effectively countered. Singapore outlined its draconian punishments for traffickers, and rehabilitative measures for consumers, and said these had met with a large measure of success.
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Fifth Plenary:
Law of the Sea
UK)
22. Fiji promoted their bid to house the headquarters of the Sea Bed Authority. This was subsequently backed by Mr Skeet Both Malta and Jamaica aired their own claims. The CPA Treasurer, Mr J Johnson MP (Labour, Kingston-upon-Hull), said that whilst British fishing ports like Hull had suffered drasticall from the new fishing limits, Third World countries had gained, but they did not have suitable equipment to take advantage of their 200 mile limites, nor were they able to guard against the
He depredations of the Russian and Japanese fishing fleets. advised them to take what action they could to remedy both defects. The Kenyan delegate echoed Mr Johnson's remarks on the need for keeping out the "pirates"; Kenya was strengthening its Navy and developing its deep sea fishing industry. He hoped that when the LSC reconvened in New York all countries would work towards the Treaty being signed quickly, eg in Caracas in 1981; he pleaded, as did several others, for no further delays. Canada, conscious of its land-based mineral industry, took its usual stance, with the Third World countries, on limitation of mineral extraction from the sea bed. A number of developing countries spoke strongly against unilateral extraction by the industrialised states.
23. The Falkland Islands chose this session to make a statement on self-determination. Mr Watterson, Isle of Man criticised the UK for not giving to Man what he claimed was their rightful share of oil taxes and royalties.
Panel Discussion: Race Relations
24. There were the usual attacks on British immigration laws and practices from India (virginity tests, entry procedure) and some West Indian islands. Mr Durrant (Conservative Reading) spoke robustly for the UK.
Much fire was diverted from us however by a bitter wrangle that arose amongst various members of the Australian delegation over the treatment of Aborigines. Mr Bob Collins, branch observer from Northern Territories (and married to an Aborigine) playing a rumbustious part.
Remaining Debates
25. The remaining plenary and panel discussions were all on parliamentary subjects. In the plenary on "one party and multi- party parliaments" there was some forceful debating, with the Africans, by and large, explaining the rationale, in developing countries, of one-party government, and the Australians, Indians and others advocating the multi-party system. Mr Mitchell (UK) said it was impossible to decree what was best for other countries, but that democracy within Parliament - the right to say what one wished on behalf of one's constituents was most important, as was freedom of speech and press outside parliament. Claiming the right to speak freely at this particular conference he went on to condemn the Zambia Daily Mail leader of 2 October (see paragraph 20 above) as the "silliest and most inaccurate" he had read for
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some time. Jersey spoke of their "no party" system and this attracted considerable interst from other small islands. Senator John Connell (Barbados, opposition) indulged himself in some disobliging and irrelevant, remarks about racialism in Britain.
Small Country Session
26.
An innovation at this Conference was an ad hoc meeting by delegates from small countries (under 1 million population). Many of their delegates felt that their special interests were somewhat swamped by those of larger countries at CPA Conferences. To give these a good airing next year (in Fiji) they agreed that they would meet for their own 'mini conference 2 days before the start of the main conference.
General Impressions
Their organ-
27. Almost all delegates felt that the Zambians had tried extremely hard to make the Conference a success. isation, hospitality and obvious desire that all should go well, were impressive. There were problems, especially with some of the hotels, but the main fault lay in the accoustics and size of Mulungushi main hall, already referred to. The perennial problems of reading from prepared texts - and constant repetition of points already made by others were also present this year, as was a tendency for some countries to air their particular hobby- horse, no matter how irrelevant it was to the subject under debate. Another general defect was that the strong interest agenda items -Threats to Peace, Brandt, Southern Africa - all came early on; thereafter the Conference tended to tail off - and quite a number of delegates left before the end, a fact noted regretfully by the CPA HQ Secretariat.
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28. As to the value of the Conference, I would agree with previous observers that this lies not so much in the content of the debates - which seldom if ever lead to any direct action (although there is, conceivably, indirect effect on member Parliaments), but in the personal contact between parliamentarians who might never otherwise get the chance to meet, discuss with, and possibly understand the problems of counterparts from all over the Commonwealth. It is probably true to say that, without going to a pan-Commonwealth Conference of this nature, it is not possible to get a true 'feel' of the modern Commonwealth, and for this reason, it is a salutary experience for Commonwealth Members of Parliament.
29. It is a bit disappointing to find, even after the ending of the Rhodesian conflict, which bedevilled Commonwealth meetings for so long, that Britain remains the object, at conferences such as this, of a good deal of criticism, not always good natured, on such topics as race relations and immigration, her "parsimonious" attitude to the Third World, and her "responsibility" for her imperial past. Members of the British delegation at Lusaka had quite a lot of this to put up with.
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