CONFIDENTIAL
سلام
D
E
3
than other dependencies in the area (although on most criteria it is better equipped to manage its own affairs). Even if the Mission accepted our existing policy that full internal self-government should only be granted shortly before independence and then for a finite period they are likely to press us for a statement of our policy on an intermediate move to a ministerial system.
6. We have so far been unable to complete the official studies envisaged in Mr Stanley's minute of 2 March as a basis for Ministers to consider whether any modifications are required? in the policy set out in the decolonisation despatch of 13 June 1975 for the small and hesitant Caribbean island dependencies. If meanwhile we wished to avoid any public commitment to further limited constitutional advance in the Cayman Islands we should have two alternatives:-
=
+
a) to hedge, on the grounds that the Cayman Islanders had expressed no desire for a change; or
b) to explain frankly to the Mission the problems we face in granting further constitutional advance without a commitment to eventual independence and to ask for their views on how
interest in independence could best be stimulated in the Cayman Islands.
审
Course (a) is a difficult line to maintain if we are not to seem evasive. Course (b) on the other hand could provide a useful way to begin the process of educating international opinion about our problems. But we could only carry this out if we can be reassured the members of the Mission were sufficiently open-minded to look objectively at the situation. Paragraph 2 of our telegram at Flag C was designed to provide for this.
8.
I therefore recommend that we should adopt course (b) .unless there are strong indications that the members of the Mission would be unreceptive to such an approach or likely to suspect our motives.
15 April 1977
Pes
·P C Duff
West Indian and Atlantic Dept
2 CONFIDENTIAL
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.