1959-11-13 — Page 61

THE CHINA MAIL, FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 1959.

ASSIGNMENT AFRICA

Rene MacColl takes tea with Roy Boy'-the fighter who is facing his toughest battle This

blockbuster Welensky

THE

Salisbury, S. Rhodesia.

THE man used to be a professional pug (heavy-weight champion of Rhodesia in 1928). He used to be an engine driver. He used to be a bartender.

He smiles

at those 'pangs of

Prime conscience'

Now he is Minister of the Federa- tion of Rhodesia and Nyasaland.

And I can aussure YOU that Sir Roy Welensky ("Ray Boy" in conversa- tion around these parts), the Polish Jewish- Afrikaner who is top man here, is a man who down talks as directly as he used to jab

He resembles in ip- An unexploded

pearance

blockbuster.

bave West, Africans

sever understood the Idea tolerance either towards the weak or towards a opposition

political

Lat

Is

Rovernment Asy going to develop here, if i in going to retain what I consider are the fundamentals of good Kovernment the rule of law and so will have to develop from these of and away African institutions and ideas.

بانی

"We believe

Ghana Banda is the nationalist leader of Nyasaland, at present

in gaol at Gweio in Southern question Rhodesia] It wasn't n

ما

of whether he was going make trouble, but only a ques- Lion of wben”

Then I popped the 64.000- dollar question: "Are you satisfied

necessary

that it

15 really Lako Lo

the emergency action and to put people in prison without war- rantar"

A

there WES Welensky: definite need to declare the emergency a need that was proved by events,

"You have gol to remember that when you have trouble of this kind special steps have to be taken and none of these steps down here exceeded those taken in both Renya and Malaya when the need arose."

1

Party politics

mentioned

Cummings

MAO

See you soon! Charlie

LIKE

"Ugh!

Dangerous Red!"

BEGINNING TODAY: A FRESH LOOK AT THE MOST CONTROVERSIAL DATE OF THE DECADE

"I

I was glad to be there

THINK you can see quite a lot through

the glasses now," said the officer of the watch as tre Hugh handed me his binoculars. Mr that while our Gaitskell's speech in Parlia I picked them up,

roved pace in the direction of repre- ment in which he stressed

over the waters for a minute sentative government is slow, it that if al next year's discussiona wall in the logu run prove more the Federal Constitution it and then picked out a low, palm permanently

developed that any part of the sandy beach with successful mable,"

Federation clearly desired to accede then it should be allow Things in the Federation argod to do so. pretty tough just now, and Sir when Sir Roy noted that this is bellet In the not democracy he was not guilty smile. "I don't think

Democracy

And he hus 21 completely

tough-mile

now

contro- righteousness of the

polletes verdal

being of the pursued by this, one young nations of Africa and of the Commonwealth.

an

and

Roy gave another huge there is any danger of secussion from of understatement,

the Federation by Nyasaland. If talking the whole question could be For example, I was

African this morning to

taken out of the cockpit of last week was barrister who

British party politics the ides would die much quicker than it representing a client sentenced it nine months hard labour for is going to die anyway.

word uttering

"If you are going to breaks up the Fexteration who is going 10 guarantee its debis?

the that "ar

accept you Federation can be broken up - then someone is going to sep into the breach and provide the necessities for the secessionists.

the

of the outskirts

from beneath Peering out lashly-sprouting eyebrows, and merely honding me at cup of tea, Sir "Ufalu" (Freedom) at a public

hat meeting on Hoy declared: "We do claim that we are a democratic Salisbury. State but we do claim that we are moving towards mouracy.

de-

47

Tyranny

the

trees. That was roughly the position of El Gamal

where the

para- airfield troopers had dropped the day before.

I tmavowed the glasses from right to left and there was the

burning city of Port Said.

I

looked for the entrance to the

Suez Canal

.. ditch of des-

tiny, gateway to the East.

But it was obscured by great clouds of black smoke from the burning oil refineries,

It is not a pleasant sight to seo-a' burning city, I had that tingling sense of excitement, "You know. I Ket Shalf-fear, half-exhilaration that amusement out of the pangs

the approach of by conlence suffered some of the politicians there in Briisia.

"It's

of

back

to sy for the politi

talk about 'freedom."

That word and also L』ཎཱ have never belleved word "Kwaca" (The Dawn) are that the granting of universal slogans of the various proscribed African Nationalist Congresses. adult suffrage would help us

You can go to gaol for giving In our one serap

problems down in these paris.

the thumbs up sign in public Congress Nationalist (also sultrage Lesture). "Univeral doesn't apply in the US. 11

Habeas corpus, the traditional an absolute and total myth that base of Anglo-Saxon freedom clans to

is out Dut what is meant by treedom? it settles any problems.

undue tyranny, fron

Freedom from what? 1:15 to accept "People like

the window. parrot cry about aduk universal Sufrage being the answer to everything, but they don't or won't realise that in many parts of Africa the people are just about where the Ancient Britons were at the time of the Roman Jandi

Lali

He paused, sipped his glass of Russian fea, then con- finued entally: "A democratic

of Government,

system

People here can be arrested And put away for as long as five yearn without a warrant,

statement ul wthout

charge against them and, on oocaatan, without any auto matlo report of the tribunal's findings.

Di

comes with danger.

Cowering

but then came

a bitter

moment

BY DONALD EDGAR

чо one of the carriers dived us and fired their racke

out by Navy House.

minutes later four

Candra

curridors

SUES

days they mehed very

I love Harold

London Expeces Bervice

Pity is replaced by a belief in the

rightness of the

cause, It is only

that which can justify the

beastliness

of force

badly Lutenant-colonel Crook

had

Indeed. And the flies, a plague managed to get before the order of flies, were beginning to to stop, multiply,

Odd sniping went on in the Troops were moving into the city for a few days.

the town Tate purs

The Inhabitants, who at The Arabs quarter had been had fawnad on us as conquerors,

to refuse to began operate, Nissors'

Palacy

Hotel.

The

filed were

stretcher-cares.

with The place had

forward burned to the ground. It mirst boon turned into the

have been mainly of wood. hospital.

From time to time a surgeon There w

Rusan self- ridicu propelled gun lurching drunken-

There was

... generally looking lously young... would COMIC ly at a corner, out in his blood-stainext apron, Russian rocket-dring lorry wit take a drink or a cup of tea, only half its weapons fired.

Rinks, machine-guns, phaff at a cigarette and then go back to the cutting.

from

OVET

Just

Ол

They had landed right behind puddles

By the ansault troop.

down they looked very grey and rather older

mails,

We were now anchoring the quay and the beach Royal

An

Marines were still cleaning up Bodies snipers. Tanka cluttered hull down along the streets... –

Egyptians were being brought Outside the firing died down. wilbdrow And all around The Royal Marines But I could not help feeling back to a cage,

from the city they had was the sad debris of war. The for the women and the children

General Sir Hugh Stockwell, penetrated and spent the night British presence in places like who were cowering under the

strong-points charge of the operation, in And. of smoke.

of the Nyasaland has brought all the pall

Juruse the staff. He strode things that are normally under- brave men on both sides who landed from a launch with his beaches,

at that moment were trying area as if he was on an Alder- stood by freedom,

they hard to kill each other,

shot parade ground. I watched like

But then pity is replaced by him with a mixture of admire. a belief in the rightness of the ion and surprise. cause. It is only that which can justify the beastliness of force.

"Belare we fot there of things plenty had

wo had n slavery. It's time

about all little bit of realism this.

There was a special beauty Bloody

The

"I've never supported that And since all of the 400 old hubboleth of the Leftish about those hours as we steamed

of politicians

the Western ny people gaoled under Federation

In convoy to the mouth of the Canal. Practised in Britain, could not security regulations In Southern countries that all you have to the 'new nations is

The sos was very blue. reasonably Rhodesia are Africans, this has do with survive without £1

African ve them universal adult been taken by the

tradies sun was shining. And all around educated electorate.

a few ultrage and

us were the British and French "A democracy is almost the public as another instance hardest form of govemment to racial injustice and discrimina- uniens. It just doesn't work.

"Let's get this straight: upfloets looking very elegant but a curtain purposefulness achieve, and one has only got lion.

till now

has with the impression spread that the people of the that you do not see in a Coro- African continent have only two nation review. choices before them domina- tion by either whites or blacks.

to look around to see the mess that genuinely civilised peoples made of it."

זיי

and

1

The thugs

But now to Sir Roy, loutly An arch mile creased Sir Hoy's seamed

worldly gainsaying any such notion. "I countenance. "Of course," he simply do not accept that the regulations Inve said,

lave considerable emergency with sympathy

Nkrumah in made race relations any worse," Ghana and with the problems he said. which he is facing in trying to run G democratte system Lovernment,

The vast majority of the of Africans heaved a sign of relief when the thugs and the bullies

"He has now realised as I of Congress were properly dealt

ok violence

this

Now and again a ship would move in and launch a broadside. "I have never believed that. There was a French battleship the left which was

over out

"I believe that, tven pounding Port Fund where the reasonable chance, will French had landed.

work out a system here in which people of all races will

live happily side by side. The Burning

black and white races will complement one another.

The

the

The columns of smoke rose have realised fur some time past with

faced with

African continent is higher and higher. But it was wert *Wc it is just not possible to trans-

ONE, to act in awake now and it has got to

A little dream-like. You plant the Westminster form of alternative government on to African soll time and thus reduce the possi- move on. It will only more on

10 the under the system which we are were not mentally conscious of and then expect it to grow as it bitjes

TWO accept and frying. I believe the Federation its done over 10 long centuries minimum;

set an example and a nequiesce in the prospect of a will in Britain."

pattern to be followed by other Sir Roy shifted als vast bulk blood bath.

"My greatest crime is that I African nations." into a more comfortable position and said: "If people in the agreed to attempts to prevent poli- ericus disorders and there's West, including Teftish

ticians in Britain, believe that no question that the disorders the granting of the trappings of were being incited from both democracy to people down here West and North Africa.

is going to ensure that new African States will therefore libi: up

with the West, then they are in for a rude shock.

"African traditions are very different from those of the

6d. a win

crumbling buildings, the glazed eyes, the broken limbs. The sky was full of planes. Circling, swooping, covering. But the most spectacular sight was the continuous taxi-rank of helicopters.

They had carried in a Royal Sir Roy and me if I hadaring Commands that morning ever been in Salisbury before.

Attring the bench mult and

"Had we not acted as we did, Once, I told him, just 30 years Wero Dow bringing back the the position would have got ago. completely out

have been necessary,

"I was quite satisfett atter Dr Banda's return

of hand and long time," he mused, wounded to an aircraft-carrier. One of them gently fell into measures far more severe would "what changer!" Then he

Somehows one did not muddenly burst out: "If you'd the sea.

the pilot or the that told me just 10 years ago that feal for from I would have a black is in wounded.

there It was a lo later that the my Cabinet today, that would be no colour bar in the stench of burning renched

then came post offices here, that there on the wind. And would be black men in the the power of game and the mut- Federal public service I'd ❘ter of machine-guns.

We were very near now. Wi have said: 'Look here, old man,

Just Fancy That i

Warsaw. TURE official Communia newspaper Trybuna 'Ladu naked that

television

in Poland's coffee house. Baid the newspaper, "It would be Letter to Lustell record players than to listen to the það músíolan who plays the piano once is hour."-- WIFI.

exatning H

Us

go and pull yourself together could see the wroclaw blocking cupal The and maybe have your head this mouth of the

landing-crust full at outlet The overturned statue Sir Roy used to fight

the for

theo de Immaga who built

Bonne hat a radia We corner concessixpence on the of on tough chap. A tough battler, With other the big stoned to the tires. A limooth BBC Vice said that all bombing tough betibe_to_come,"

bus cuiuand la Egypt. A --Chanden Express Berpion).

Дете

near

the

an

ALITI-

Past water

ITE

Arst

co- WCTC

organising themselves into Enes to murder anyone who did anything for the Brich, Water and light come on, The dead were finally buried. And then one morning I saw

watch General Stockwell

the arrival of the first UN. obser vers who were preceding the

U.N. troops.

The white

10

were

life ashore. being

Jeeps

clothes munition,

and broken from

The city had suffered const- dorably

trundled But it was coming

Windows

for. The Egyptiana prosed opened.

Faces appearing. Life ward to see this phenomenon. Roeg on

under- Most of them did not Later in the day we were told stand what UN. was

about. that a block of luxury flats had But they felt, Inotinctively, this been taken over for us. It was

was the end of the British.

It was, they say, quite a tear the beach.

historic moment.

Gangs

Sad, humiliating and bitir. It was, for better or worse, the end of an era, of a mode bf thought, of an attitude of mind, I was glad to be there of that moment.

In the morning troops, vchi-

I loathed going

round those eless, tanks, bulldozers, all the

Bals, Broken windows, expen- immense paraphernalla of

the army of 100,000 men was flow- sive clothes scattered over ing remorselessly

But I was even more glad a In Nothing flour. Elegant furniture smash-

from could stop it. cease-fire or ed. And in one apartment a few days later to escape

got a Jeep the decorations for a caldren's the humillation. no cease-fire. wê and had a look at the city. The party were still festobning streets were littered with dead room. sprawled uncomfortably on the asphalt.

the

I went ashore with Brigadier

Well up the Canal, the para- W. J. Oficer, who was medical

froopers were digging in at El

was as far The bodien were already bo Cap. That through We picked our way chief of the invasion troops,

મ few Brighter "Tubby" the rubbic to the battered gimming to sell. In

REMEMBER, REMEMBER,

VILKOM

THE DREADFUL NOVEMBER

SUEZ

AS

Butler and

TOMORROW:

The Battle of Westminster

(London Express Sarośce).

TIMES

"Tut, fut-Don't look, Selwyn, someone-kas written that dirty word again !"