CAB148-30-Defence and Oversea Policy Committee Meetings Relating to 1967 Disturbances-1967 — Page 184

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for a more representative caretaker government to be established in South Arabia before independence should the United Nations call for this and for

this caretaker government to be able to amend the constitution if it

wished. We should also ensure that Aden itself was generously represented

in relation to its population both in the Council of Ministers of the new

state and in representative bodies. We must also reserve until independence those sovereign rights we now have in Aden which are essential

to the conduct of our withdrawal, the preservation of human rights, the

control of land and the preservation of the public service. He would

make it clear to the Federal Government that our consent to the proposed

constitutiton was dependent on these points being accepted: if they were

not willing to agree, he would propose to hold constitutional discussions

with them at the end of June or soon thereafter. The newly appointed High Commissioner (Sir Humphrey Trevelyan) was in full agreement with these

proposals and had stressed the importance of carrying them into effect

quickly; if the Committee agreed with them, he proposed that they should be

announced in Parliament in the following week in connection with the

Second Reading of the South Arabia Independence Bill. He would make

further proposals about South Arabia to the Committee at the next meeting

of the Committee.

In discussion there was general agreement with the proposals by the

Foreign Secretary. It would be important however to ensure that

arrangements for the franchise in Aden Colony were not such that a majority

of its residents were denied the vote, though difficulties would

inevitably arise in respect of that considerable proportion of them

who were inmigrants from the Yemen.

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The Committee

(1) Approved OPD(67) 43.

(2) Invited the Foreign Secretary to consider the extent

to which the resident population of Aden would receive the vote under the new franchise.

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