Australia Criticised In Trusteeship Council

Press, Volume C, Issue 29638, 7 October 1961, Page 11

Australia Criticised In Trusteeship Council

(N Z.P JI .-Reuter— Copyright)

NEW YORK, October 6. Australia was strongly criticised in the United Nations Trusteeship Council yesterday. Representatives of Ghana. Tunisia, Burma, Poland and Liberia all found fault with some aspects of Australia’s handling of the administration of the Trust Territories of New Guinea and Nauru. Australia was failing to develop political independence in New Guinea, several delegates complained. The committee is debating the annual report of the Trusteeship Council. After the committee’s de-

bate the report will be adopted, probably in its present form, and passed to the General Assembly for approval. Australia is associated with two of the four trust territories under United Nations jurisdiction. The other two are the Pacific Islands administered by the United States, and Ruanda-Urundi, administered by Belgium. A trusteeship mission under the chairmanship of Sir Hugh Foot, of Britain, is to visit New Guinea and Nauru early next year. Plebiscite Plan In yesterday’s debate, Mr H. K. Yomekepe, of Ghana, proposed a United Nationssupervised plebiscite in New Guinea, as soon as possible, “to determine the wishes of the people.” He noted “with interest" that the administering authority was working on a plan for the economic, social and educational advancement of the territory, but Mr Yomekepe said he regretted the omission of any reference in this programme to the political advancement of New Guinea. It was “inconceivable” that the authority did. not “feel the impact” of the declaration on the granting of independence to colonial peoples, which the General Assembly passed last year. He called the account in the Trusteeship Council’s report on the Trust Territory of Nauru a "very sad one.” It had been proposed that

when the territory’s only economic product, phosphate, had been exhausted in about 30 years, the people of Nauru would be resettled in Australia. or in New Zealand or Britain—the other two joint administering Powers, he said.

The instability of Nauru’s economy resulted from the fact that the Nauruan people had not been integrated into the economic life of the territory, he said. “The interest of the administering authorities lies only in the exportation of the natural wealth of this territory to their own countries.”