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agreeing to discuss further devolution of powers only on the Condition that the lslands were prepared to contemplate moving to independence within 12 months. Most speakers reflected their particular national concerns, taking security in the broadest sense and including economic well-being. The Cypriot leader again took his chance to argue the Greek-Cypriot case, and appealed for "brotherly help" within the Commonwealth and for pressure to be applied to "the aggressors" with a view to achieving a just and peaceful settlement. One of the UK delegates, Mr Shaw (Cons) spoke of the need for Britain to continue giving assistance in training and equipment to, especially, the smaller members of the Commonwealth; the latter should at the same time seek broader support through regional co-operation, eg in relation to their territorial seas.
11. On the Wednesday morning 28 November the conference reached the one agenda item which we had always recognised could be difficult for us depending on the progress (or otherwise) in the Lancaster House conference on Rhodesia. The subject was "Africa South of the Sahara"; and the main focus was in- evitably Southern Africa, particularly Rhodesia. But two factors undoubtedly ran in our favour: there was evidently a widespread, if unspoken, recognition of the delicacy of the negotiations and of the importance of not 'rocking the boat', and coupled with this was the fact that the great majority of delegates were not well informed about the state of play in the negotiations. They were thus ready to listen with attention to Mr Blaker's careful account of the position and (generally) to respond by expressing the hope that the conference would soon reach a successful conclusion. Even the Tanzanian delegation leader, Mr Kaduma (the former Foreign Minister), who opened the debate, adopted a low-key approach although he did not allow this to inhibit him from criticising western co-operation" with South Africa or the British handling of the Rhodesia conference. Only a Gambian woman delegate built up any head of steam on the subject. The Zambians maintained a helpful silence (though one of them had delivered a diatribe against the West in the debate on the Security of Small Countries). With no more than 12 delegates having taken the microphone, the debate ran out of speakers in a mere 12 hours which is probably without precedent in CPA annual conferences since the Rhodesian UDI. It was all very satisfactory.
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12.
With the end of the debate on "Africa South of the Sahara", there remained little of direct interest on the agenda so far as international affairs were concerned. For the Wednesday afternoon and Thursday morning the conference was converted into a series of panel sessions on various topics (see Annex B), with these running concurrently on each occasion. Several members of the UK delegation played an active part in these, with Mr Abse chairing the panel on "Terrorism" and Mrs Knight and Mr Baker being members of the panels on "The Year of the Child" and "Population Growth & Economic Assistance to Developing Countries" respectively. However (and with no reflection on the UK participants) the CPA Headquarters view is that overall this year's panel discussions were less successful than usual.
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/13.