U.N. Mission Is Not Willing To Return

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31340, 10 April 1967, Page 13

U.N. Mission Is Not Willing To Return

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright)

GENEVA, April 9.

The three-man United Nations team investigating Aden’s troubles is not prepared to return to the turbulent British colony.

At an airport press conference held in Geneva yesterday after the mission arrived from Rome, Dr. Manuel Perez Guerrero, of Venezuela, said the mission had not yet decided whether to accept die invitation of the British Foreign Secretary (Mr George Brown) for London talks.

He said he and his colleagues, Abdul Sattar Shalizi, of Afghanistan, and Mr Moussa Leo Keita of Mali, would discuss it during their Geneva stay —expected to last several days. Mr Shalizi said that reported angry scenes between the United Nations team and British reporters in Aden were caused by a misunderstanding. He said his remarks on British bloodshedding in Aden were provoked by rude language from one of the British reporters. Mr Shalizi had said that “Britain is the cause of more bloodshed in the world than anyone else.” View Reiterated The leader reiterated his view that Britain had not extended satisfactory facilities, but declined to elaborate. According to the Associated Press, Mr Shalizi said that “a rude reporter” remarked that the British Government contributed “a

bloody sight more to the United Nations than our three countries put together.” ‘Huge Joke’

“I explained that the emphasis was as much on the blood as the bloody sight,” he said today. Asked if this was just “a huge joke,” Mr Shalizi replied: “Yes it was. I’m the

not the kind of man to make outbursts.”

In Aden, the British High Commission was cabling Mr Brown a requested “blow-by-blow” account today of events leading to the sudden departure of the mission. Officials have told Mr Brown the mission showed discourtesy to the South Arabian Federal Government and there was nothing it could do to change the Government’s decision to ban the United Nations mission leader from making a policy statement on television. The turbulent protectorate smouldered sullenly tonight after a bloody week of shootings and mystery murders, the “New York Times” News Service reported. While British officers pointed to a “grave deterioration” in the colony, the Middle East Commander-in-Chief, Sir Michael Le Fanu, asserted his men had “nothing to fear” from South Arabian terrorists. Many Weapons High-ranking officers, who declined to be named, reported that terrorists in Aden’s sprawling Sheik Othman quarter now had so many weapons that they had tried to oust the British from the quarter this week. Sir Michael Le Fanu said in a radio address to Aden’s British community that his troops’ “restraint and tactical skill” during the week of rioting had showed they could cope with other “difficult days ahead.” But the high-ranking officers claimed that Arab commandoes—striking across the desert from the Yemen—were stepping up their at- | tacks into the South Arabian I hinterland north of Aden.