Test Of Anguillan Views

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31946, 25 March 1969, Page 15

Test Of Anguillan Views

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) THE VALLEY

(Anguilla), March 24.

Mr Tony Lee, the British Commissioner in Anguilla, who has been the target of demonstrations for two successive days, faces another possible test of Anguillan feelings about him today.

Mr Lee, who was prevented from reaching his office in the island’s administrative block by a screaming crowd of 300 on Saturday, said he might make another attempt today. “We will see what the situation is,” he said.

“If they are making a fuss, there is no point in going.” A mock funeral for Mr Lee was held in Anguilla yesterday by a group of Anguillans calling for the removal of the diplomat installed as commissioner when British troops landed last Wednesady.

A sign on the side of a flower-decked coffin said: “If Lee Don’t Go, Anguilla Is Dead.” Observers said that the views of the 6000 islanders might be tested today because the small local police force, which consists of five men and two women, was expected to resume duties alongside the 42 London policemen now in Anguilla. In other developments, Mr Robert Bradshaw, Premier of the St Kitts-Nevis-Anguilla association from which Anguilla broke away in 1967, was reported on his way to London. British Government officials did not confirm the report.

Diplomatic sources at the United Nations said Mr Ronald Webster, the self-styled president of Anguilla would seek a meeting with the Secretary-General (U Thant) and with Britain’s chief representative, Lord Caradon. British police on Anguilla handed out leaflets yesterday saying that Britain would continue to prevent any out-

side interference in the island's affairs. The leaflets contained a message from Mr Lee saying that no-one would be prosecuted for past political activities but warning that from now on the rule of law would be maintained without fear or terror. British troops would be withdrawn as soon as the police were able to cope with the situation. Mr Lee promised extra money from Britain for development of Anguilla, which has no telephones or electricity supply. Apart from Mr Bradshaw’s reported movements, three other Caribbean leaders were due in London where the House of Commons was to hold its first full-scale debate on the Anguilla situation. They are Mr Bradshaw's deputy, Mr Paul Southwell, the Prime Minister of the Bahamas, Mr Lynden ” Pindling, and the Governor of Antigua, Sir Wilfred Jacob. British spokesmen said the visits were not connected with Anguilla. Comment on the Anguilla invasion in Sunday’s newspapers ranged from a justification of gunboat diplomacy to the “Sunday Times” scathing headline, “Brute Farce and Ignorance.” A preface to a two-page article on Anguilla by its Insight team, the “Sunday Times” said: “The point of the story goes beyond a quarrel between two faraway islands. It is that a British Government is still capable of replaying Suez not as tragedy but as farce.” Of the island it said: “Almost the only strange activity of which Insight found no trace after an investigation that led from Miami to Massachusetts and from Monte Carlo to Aberystwyth was the one which the British Government loudly cited as its justification for intervention: The Mafia’.’’ The “Observer” had a lead-

ing article headed: “Anguilla —Force and Folly,” which said: “Not since Suez has Britain applied force as ineptly as it did last week in Anguilla. The charge against the Government is not that it mounted too great a force for the operation but that it should have felt that force was needed at all.” But an article in the “Sunday Telegraph” by Peregrine Worsthorne is headed: “Still Room for Gunboats.” After commenting that the British Government overreacted to the Anguillan situation, he said: ‘The truth is that although Britain has lost its heart and knack for such operations, and likes to regard them as wholly anachronistic in the second half of the twentieth century, the objective need for them is probably greater today than it ever was in the heyday of colonialism.” He added that much of the world, including Africa, South America, the Caribbean and the Indian sub-continent could not manage its own affairs and therefore could not be regarded as living in the post-colonial era except in an entirely national sense.