CLAIM TO DUTCH NEW GUINEA

Press, Volume XCIII, Issue 27990, 9 June 1956, Page 9

CLAIM TO DUTCH NEW GUINEA

Sir Leslie Munro’s Views

(Rec. 9 p.m.) NEW YORK, June 7. Sir Leslie Munro, the New Zealand Ambassador to the United States, said here today that the Indonesian claim to Dutch New Guinea was a “claim for transfer of sovereignty which would result in the peoples of an underdeveloped area losing all prospect, in the future, of deciding its destiny.” Addressing a Rotary Club meeting here. Sir Leslie Munro said: “Too often today, the cry against colonialism is simply a disguised form of claim of sovereignty. Its purpose is to integrate a colonial area in another State’s territory where all opportunity for self-determination will be lost.” He said that the anti-colonialist and nationalist philosophy of the African and Asian countries was “one of the most potent forces in world affairs."

It was potent because the two great Communist powers exploited it so much. Calling for a new approach to the colonial question, he said that it was important to appreciate the distinction between the type of colony to which the United States and New Zealand once belonged and the type in which the problems of modern colonial policy existed.

Sir Leslie Munro said that among the peoples living in many primitive parts of Africa, and to a lesser extent now, in Asia, the real problems went far deeper than political status. “In such areas genuine solutions can only come through slow processes of education and training in the fundamentals upon which successful selfgovernment must be built.