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BRITISH SERVICE PERSONNEL ON LOAN TO ZAMBIAN FORCES
THE MINISTER OF STATE FOR COMMONWEALTH AFFAIRS (MR. THOMAS) said
that 77 British Army personnel and 115 from the Royal Air Force were
currently serving with the Zambian forces: they were accompanied by about 290 dependants. For two years negotiations had been taking place
with the Zambian Government to obtain an agreement which would give our
service personnel the safeguards normal when they are loaned to another
country for service with its armed forces. The main provisions of
such an agreement were that the United Kingdon service authorities have
the right to exercise all criminal and disciplinary jurisdiction over
loaned personnel conferred by law of the United Kingdon and the primary
right to exercise other jurisdiction when offences arise out of an act
or omission in the course of official duty or when only United Kingdom
security or property or other loaned personnel or their dependants are
involved. The Zambian authorities were refusing to make an agreement of
this kind which they regarded as a derogation from their sovereignty.
A further problen had arisen recently when what purported to be a
Note from the Zambian Government to the Chinese Embassy had been
delivered whether in error or deliberately was not completely clear to our High Commissioner. This dealt with the offer of a £6 million
interest free loan from the Chinese Government to Zambia and with a
request to the Chinese for assistance in building up Zambia's armed forces
in the context of their unwillingness to accept our conditions for the
continued supply of British loan personnel. It had been suggested that
instructions to our High Comissioner in Lusaka should take very firmly
the line that if we could not get the agreement that we wanted, our loan
personnel would have to be withdrawn quickly. It might be better,
however, not to take as firm a line as this, at least until we had
discovered whether the approach to the Chinese was real and whether it
was known to President Kaunda. Our High Commissioner in Lusaka should
be instructed to make a friendly, informal approach to the Prime Minister on this point and report back so that the position could then be
considered further.
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