FOREIGN FOCUS
Mr Bradshaw's chestnuts
CRABRO
Anguilla has disappeared from the head- lines these past six months, -and the world has seemed a duller place without it. The discovery that in Mr Wilson there was a Lord Palmerston longing to get out, the strategic retreat of Mr William Whitlock, the landing of the intrepid band of London bobbies to face a hotbed of mafia, illicit gambling, murder (which eventually boiled down to a single crime passionnel) and arson —all this added immensely to the gaiety of life in 1969. So it was with a feeling almost of nostalgia that I came across a reference to the island in that well-known weekly journal, the Slough Observer, the other day.
And an interesting reference I found it to be. It was an advertisement, headed 'The Anguilla Commission'. 'A Commission' it announced 'has been set up . . . with the following terms of reference: 'Recognising the fact that the island of Anguilla is part of the Unitary State of St Kitts-Nevis-Anguilla . . .
'Having regard to the resolution concern- ing Anguilla adopted unanimously at the meeting of Commonwealth Caribbean Heads of Government at Port-of-Spain in Febru- ary 1969; bearing in mind the problems and consequences that might arise from further fragmentation in the Caribbean. the Com- mission will consider: (a) The causes of the situation that has come about in Anguilla.
(b) The best means of dispelling any misunderstandings relating to that situation, 'And in accordance with the foregoing facts, and with such considerations as the Commission judge to be strictly pertinent, make recommendations that may lead to a satisfactory and durable solution.'
The advertisement went on to invite the submission of memoranda to the Commis- sion from individuals, government bodies,._ and 'organisations of people' whether or not they were "'nationals" of St Kitts- Nevis-Anguilla' living 'at home or abroad', and it was evidently directed at the five hundred Anguillans resident in Slough (who make up about 7 per cent of the total Anguillan community 'at home and abroad').
I found this interesting for two reasons. In the first place I confess I had never heard of the Anguilla Commission. And in the second place I found it a little hard to reconcile its terms of reference (and in particular the act of obeisance to the Carib- bean summit resolution, which called upon the British Government to 'take all neces- sary steps in collaboration with the Govern- ment of the State [of St Kitts-Nevis- Anguilla] to confirm the territorial in- tegrity of St Kitts-Nevis-Anguilla') with the repeated assurances from Mr Stewart and his men—most recently on 2 February last —that 'it is no part of our policy that the Anguillans should be under a regime of which they did not approve'. For they have made it pretty clear that they certainly 'do not approve' of Bradshaw, the Prime Mini- ster of the 'unitary state' of St Kitts-Nevis- Anguilla.
Now of course it was very remiss of me to have missed the Anguilla Commission, for it was announced, together with its terms of reference, by Mr Stewart in answer to
a written Parliamentary question from Mr Nigel Fisher on 23 May last year. Mr Fisher, who has taken a close interest in the island since he and a Labour MP, Mr Chapman. were asked by the then CRO to devise an 'interim settlement' for the island following its UDI from St Kitts in 1967, had asked Mr Stewart about the outcome of his discussions with Mr Bradshaw of St Kitts, who had just been visiting London. Mr Stewart, in his reply, said that he and Mr Bradshaw had had 'a series of useful discussions . . . on the setting up of a Commission to study the Anguilla problem in the light of constitu- tional and other factors and to make recom- mendations leading to a satisfactory and durable solution', and the answer went on to give the Commission's terms of reference.
-In mitigation of my oversight I can only plead that it seems to have been shared, to some extent, by Mr Fisher himself. For just one month later, on 23 June, he asked the Foreign Secretary when the Commission would be appointed and 'when he will be in a position to announce the name of the Chairman and the Commission's terms of reference?' (My italics.) Diplomatically, Mr Stewart replied that he 'could not give a date at present'. At no time, then or since, has Mr Stewart been cross-questioned by Mr Fisher or anybody else about the terms of reference.
In due course the membership of the Commission was revealed. Its chairman is Sir Hugh Wooding, ex-chief Justice of Trinidad and Tobago, and the members in- clude a Canadian ex-Ambassador. an economist from Guyana, and the Jamaican former Attorney-General of the West Indies Federation. The secretary is supplied from the Political Department of the Common- wealth Secretariat (whatever that may be), and it has its headquarters at Marlborough House. Sir Hugh Wooding launched its operations in a long and somewhat con- fused statement published simultaneously in Basseterre, St Kitts, and Anguilla early last month.
Interested parties have been invited to submit their views to the Commission by 14 March, after which it proposes, in the words of Sir H. Wooding, to 'begin our business sessions on Wednesday, 1 April. We shall start in Anguilla and then proceed to St Kitts and these sessions will be held in public . . . In addition the Commission will hold consultations with those govern- ments and organisations whose views it may consider helpful to its deliberation. But it is right that we should state that any such consultations will be essentially private as might take place between individuals or groups of individuals discussing matters of common interest.' Once again, my italics.
Now it may well be true that St Kitts- Nevis-Anguilla would make a more satis- factory economic proposition than Anguilla on its own. It may also be true that for Anguilla to be allowed to get away with its UDI would have embarrassing consequences for some of the other rather artificial group- ings of Caribbean states cooked up by the old Colonial Office. Much the same con- siderations apply as those which led Mr Stewart (staunchly supported, incidentally, by Mr Fisher) to back the Federal govern- ment in Lagos against Biafra. But then a good economic case might be made out for holding that Czechoslovakia would make a more satisfactory economic proposi- tion as part of a `unitary state' with the Soviet Union than it would on its own. I suppose it's all a matter of where you draw the line. I am sure that Sir Hugh Wooding and his colleagues are most anxious not to im- pose on the people of Anguilla 'a regime of which they do not approve'. But I find it a little difficult to escape from the im- pression that the Commission is under no illusion about the type of regime it is ex- pected to persuade the Anguillans that they ought to approve of : their inquiry seems to be of the type which, in Latin, would be prefixed by the interrogative nonne. And I do sometimes wish that our post-imperial- ists from the Colonial Office and in Parlia- ment would desist from the habit of helping some of the less savoury heirs of our former colonial empire to pick their chestnuts from the fire.
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