COMMONWEALTH TALKS Nine Leaders Will Not Attend

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31153, 1 September 1966, Page 15

COMMONWEALTH TALKS Nine Leaders Will Not Attend

(N.Z. Press Association —Copyright)

LONDON, August 31. Nine heads of Government have announced that they will not be attending the Commonwealth Prime Ministers’ Conference which will open in London on September 6, and another head of Government has not yet replied to the invitation.

The most dramatic decision to stay away was made by the President of Zambia, Dr. Kenneth Kaunda, who said he would not lend his name to Britain’s present attitude on Rhodesia.

“It is regretted that President Kaunda will not attend this very important Commonwealth meeting, to which he could have made a useful contribution.” an official statement from Whitehall said tonight.

“But we welcome the fact that he is sending a representative,” the statement added.

The Tanzanian Government, which broke diplomatic relations with Britain over the Rhodesian independence issue late last year has not yet informed the Commonwealth Secretariat whether or not it will be represented at the conference. The Prime Minister of Ceylon, Mr Dudley Senanayake, who has been in ill health recently, announced that he would not be attending because of pressure of work. Important local matters are also keeping India’s Prime Minister, Mrs Indira Gandhi and the Pakistani President, Field Marshal Ayub Khan, at home. The Prime Minister of Uganda, Dr. Milton Obote, will not attend. The Prime Minister of Jamaica, Sir Alexander Bustamente, who is old and in failing health, has been out of active political work for some time and the Acting Prime Minister, Mr Donald Sangster, is the active head of the Government. He plans to attend the con-

ference: the Prime Minister of neighbouring Trinidad and Tobago, Dr. Eric Williams will stay at home. Dr. Williams has been cri-

tical in the past of the value of the conference as a progressive forum. The Kenyan leader, Mr Jomo Kenyatta, who is becoming more a revered President rather than an active day-by-day politician, has also decided to stay away from London. The Army men who now lead the revolutionary governments in both Ghana and Nigeria, Lieutenant-General J. A. Ankrah, of Ghana, and Lieutenant-Colonel Yakubu Gowon, of Nigeria, have de-

cided that they will be better engaged in their own countries than visiting London. Those heads of government who will gather under Mr Harold Wilson’s chairmanship will be Mr Holyoake, Mr Harold Holt of Australia, Mr Lester Pearson of Canada, Archbishop Makarios of Cyprus, Sir Dawda Jawara of Gambia, Mr Forbes Burnham of Guyana, Mr Hastings Banda of Malawi, Mr Borg Oliver of Malta, Tunku Abdul Rahman of Malaysia, Sir Albert Margai of Sierra Leone, and Mr Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore. | President Kaunda said he I would send his Foreign Minister, Mr Simon Kapwepwe, to the conference.The Zambian leader’s complaint was related to Mr Willson’s adjournment of comproImise talks with the Rhode-

sians after Mr lan Smith’s recent move to assume sweeping new powers of arrest and detention. The Zambian President had

expected Mr Wilson at least to break off those talks. In London, Mr Wilson privately assured the Conservative Party leader, Mr Edward Heath, that the talks with the Smith regime could still be reopened, in spite of its move to take on new unconstitutional powers. Mr Heath called on the Prime Minister shortly after Mr Wilson began to map his plan of campaign for next week’s meeting of the 23 countries.