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Controversy On S.W.-Africa Report

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter —Copyright) NEW YORK, August 13. The United Nations Special Committee for South-West Africa is scheduled to meet today to continue work on its draft report to the General Assembly, but the chairman, Mr Victorio Carpio, will not be present.

He is on his way to Manila to report to the Philippines Government on his side of the bitter controversy which has been raging for weeks over a joint communique issued in his name and that of the vice-chairman, Dr. Salvadora Martinez de Alva, in Pretoria on May 26. Before he left New York. Mr Carpio, the Philippines Ambassador to Cairo, told reporters he was confident that he could dispel any "lingering doubts” his government might have over his conduct.

that the Filipino envoy approved every paragraph of it. Dr. Martinez de Alva has acknowledged his own part in it.

He told Reuter that he was ready for any investigation of the circumstances of the issue of the communique. He also affirmed his support for Mr lan Berendsen, of New Zealand, and Miss Jacqueline Yarrow, of the United States, the Secretariat officials who accompanied the United Nations mission, and who have been accused by Russia of “imposing" the communique upon Mr Carpio. The United Nations Secretary-General fU Thant) has ordered an investigation into their role in the matter, but no details have yet been announced of how the Inquiry will be carried out. It will be an administrative investigation, not a disciplinary one, and in disclosing that it would take place ths United Nations legal counsel, Mr Constantin Stavpropoulos. emphasised that there was no suspicion of wrongdoing by either officer. Both Mr Berendsen and Miss Yarrow were “very capable." he said and “only words of praise" had previously been heard about them.

The special committee has accepted his denial of coauthorship of the communique, which said there was no evidence in Southwest Africa of a threat to the peace, of the extermination of the natives, or of militarisation of the South African authorities. The seven-nation committee also repudiated the communique as having no binding effect upon the United Nations. Dr. Martinez de Alva, a Mexican diplomat, is expected to take the chair when the committee meets today. He has asserted that Mr Carpio was consulted at every stage of the preparation of the Pretoria communique and

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Permanent link to this item

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19620814.2.126

Bibliographic details

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29900, 14 August 1962, Page 15

Word Count
390

Controversy On S.W.-Africa Report Press, Volume CI, Issue 29900, 14 August 1962, Page 15

Controversy On S.W.-Africa Report Press, Volume CI, Issue 29900, 14 August 1962, Page 15