TNAG-0714-FCO40-910-Future-of-the-Dependent-Territories-1978 — Page 171

CODE 18-77

SS 10/76

CONFIDENTIAL

Mus Leblane. Predly to:.

Le MADURE WIND. 18 MADALET WIND

M2 BARLTRUP CCD MA BEATTIE DIEW Then R+R.. JJ-18/1

Mr Jasper HKGD

CC:

Mr Sanders, Research Dept

Mr Posnett, DT Adviser

Mr Stewart, HKGD

Reference

HKG 025/2

RECEIVED IN PERSYRY NO. 51

17 JAN 1978

DESK OFFICER

INDEX

PA

YES.

JJ.

REVIEW OF POLICY OF ACCELERATED DECOLONISATION

REGISTRY

Action Taken

све

Thank you for sending me a copy of your minute of 9 January and your draft outline paper. I do not have any existing material to contribute to this exercise, but like Mr Sanders (his minute of 11 January) I have some fairly fundamental comments on your proposed outline.

2.

I agree with Mr Sanders that, as at present drafted, the paper does not seem to apply existing policy as laid down by Ministers in 1975. Mr Sanders suggests that the precondition that territories should be "capable of sustaining independence" has been interpreted too narrowly, i.e. in exclusively economic terms. I am afraid that I would go even further and suggest that the present draft ignores this precondition altogether in some places. For instance, the question which the Paper asks about the lump sums it is proposed to offer some of the territories which are at present reluctant to move towards independence, is "how much will be a sufficient inducement to them to go for independence?" instead of "how much will be enough to make them financially and economically viable (let alone all the other aspects of viability we ought to be looking at)?" Surely the first stage of any exercise implementing the existing policy is to decide what we mean by "capable of sustaining independence" and which territories can now or can ever be expected to meet this condition and which cannot. It may be that such a classifica.i tion was made in 1975. If so, this probably now needs reviewing. If not, I suggest that it should be an essential part of the present exercise.

3.

The question arises whether the present review needs to go back a stage further even than this and reconsider the policy itself. I have not seen Mr Cortazzi's minute of

6 December which commissioned this review, but judging by the quotation from it in your minute I would say that it was not his intention that we should start again from first principles. His concern was rather that, in territories where the constraints of our present policy preclude independence at least for the time being, we should not allow ourselves to be dragged so far down the path of granting internal self-government that we no longer have the power to fulfil our responsibilities. Even this more narrowly conceived exercise needs to start by identifying which territories can and cannot be expected to "sustain independence", as I have suggested in the previous paragraph.

4.

If Mr Cortazzi in fact had in mind a more fundamental reappraisal of the policy or indeed if the results of the narrower review envisaged above are such as to make clear that a more fundamental review is called for - then we shall have to consider the full range of policy options, which would include,

/on the one

CONFIDENTIAL