NEW GUINEA TRANSFER
Fijians ‘Shaken By Move
(N.Z. Press Assn,—Copyright) SUVA, October 12. Fiji’s Legislative Council ended its October sitting with a bitter Fijian attack on the handing over of West New Guinea to Indonesia. Mr Ravuama Vunival. supported by two other Fijian members and two Europeans, said “the tragedy of West New Guinea’’ had led simple Fijian villagers to ask: “Is this the writing on the wall for us?”
“We Fijians have been shaken out of our complacency by the threatened alien domination over the 700.000 indigenous people of West New Guinea," said Mr Vunival. a graduate of Cambridge University. “The acquiescence of some Western powers is beyond the comprehension of some of our people." A European member, Mr J. A. Moore, said certain West NeA Guinea people had “pMided with representative Fijians and Europeans to help them. “We were sympathetic but our hands were tied," he added.
Mr Vunival said that as a result of the West New Guinea situation, Fijians had “searching and painfid questions to ask.”
He warned that his speech must not be “distorted and twisted to suggest that the loyalty of the Fijian people to the British Crown has deteriorated.”
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Bibliographic details
Press, Volume CI, Issue 29952, 13 October 1962, Page 10
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196NEW GUINEA TRANSFER Press, Volume CI, Issue 29952, 13 October 1962, Page 10
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