Problems Over New Home For Nauruans

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30145, 31 May 1963, Page 11

Problems Over New Home For Nauruans

(N ■Z.P.A .-Reuter—Copyright) NEW YORK, May 30. The 2,500 islanders of Nauru favour Curtis Island, off the Queensland coast, for their future home. But Mr R. S. Leydin, Australian administrator of Nauru, said today Australia “could not see its way” to granting the island sovereignty, as the Nauruans had sought.

Nauru, an eigbt-square-mile isle west of the Solomons, will have to be abandoned in about 30 years, when its phosphate riches are worked out.

Free of “poisonous insects, vermin and reptiles” and of "man-eating animals." Fertile, with plenty of fish, mineral resources, fresh-

water supply and a good

The United Nations Trus’.eeship Council has been closely following efforts by the administering authorities to find a new home for the proud island people, who did not wish to resettle on the mainland.

harbour. Easy access to main shipping routes and potential markets in Australia.

The island leaders now belisve their garden of Eden is in sight—on Curtis Island, a 26-mile-long strip of land basking in the south-east trade winds off the coast of Queensland. Mr Leydin told the council at its new session opening today that the Nauruans' resebtlemenit council bag visaed the island during an exhaustive tour of possible resettlement sites, and decided it was “acceptable."

The resettlement plan has to be approved by the Trusteeship Council, the Queensland Government, and the New Zealand and United Kingdom Governments as well as the Nauruans New Zealand and the United Kingdom are partners with Australia in'the agreement under which the British Phosphate Commission is working the phosphate deposits. Requirements Listed The islanders gave Australia a formidable list of requirements. They said their new home must be: Ample in area, with a mild climate, “congenial and better than Nauru" and free of earthquakes, typhoons and tidal waves.

He told the council that the islanders' stipulations on their new home appeared "hard to satisfy," but inspection of the island by Nauruan leaders, which had just taken place, offered "some firm prospect that a place has been found which will meet most of the conditions the Nauruan people wish to enjoy in their new home.” The resettlement committee. which is now on its way back to report to the Nauru Local Government Council, expressed the view that Curtis Island—or possibly nearby Fraser Island,—were ''acceptable as a site for resettlement of their people, subject to agreement being reached on the future form of Government of the Nauruan people at the new home ” The head chief of the island. Hammer de Rotourt. is attending the council session, and is expected soon to give his personal impresaions of the proapective new home. Sovereignty Sought Mr Leydin said that the Nauru Local Government Council had proposed the creation of a sovereign Nauruan nation, but “acute difficulties'’ faced Australia in dealing with this request.

“If resettlement were to be on the Australian mainland or on an island close to Australia, adoption of the Nauruan proposal would mean that the AuMralian Government would have to relinquish its own sovereignty over that part of its country. "In other words, a sovereign Nauruan State would have to be established within Australia's own borders. The Australian Government has therefore decided that it cannot see its way clear to transferring sovereignty of territory which is at present part of Australia."

The Nauruan people’s wish to retain their own separate identity was a most natural one, deserving of deep respect and warm sympathy. If an area were chosen which was now Australian territory, administrative arrangements would be worked out on the genera) basis that, subject to the resettled Nauruans ac-

cepting he privileges and responsibilities of Australian citizenship, they should be enabled to manage their own local administration and to make domestic laws or regulation* applicable to their own community