Future of Cyrenaica

Press, Volume LXXXV, Issue 25917, 24 September 1949, Page 6

Future of Cyrenaica

According to a report this week, Britain has given the former Italian colony of Cyrenaica in North Africa domestic autonomy. The National Congress at Benghazi was promised this advance more than three months ago in fulfilment of Britain’s policy of leading the people of Cyrenaica to independence under their own leaders at the earliest possible moment. Since 1942, when the Foreign Secretary (Mr Eden) promised the Senussi that Britain would never allow them to fall under Italian domination again, the British Military Administration has been preparing the colony for selfgovernment, hoping all the time that its future would be settled by the Council of Foreign Ministers or the United Nations. When the meeting of the General Assembly in May rejected the Bevin-Sforza plan, which provided for Libyan independence in 10 years and British administration of Cyrenaica meanwhile, the British Government decided that it could no longer postpone telling the Senussi where they stood. The General Assembly will discuss the future of the former Italian colonies once again at its present meeting, and no doubt Britain’s action will be criticised as an attempt to steal a march on the

United Nations. But the British declaration, made after consulting the United States and French Governments and after informing the Italian Government, anticipated any such criticism; for it stated specifically that nothing would be done to prejudice the eventual future of Libya as a whole. Cyrenaica remains as before a British responsibility but has been advanced, within it, towards the goal of selfgovernment fixed in Article 73 of the United Nations Charter itself.