The Press FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 1972. N.Z. message to Mr Smith

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 32838, 11 February 1972, Page 8

The Press FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 1972. N.Z. message to Mr Smith

Mr Garfield Todd and his daughter, Miss Judith Todd, were arrested in Rhodesia on January 18. Soon after the news of their arrest was known in New Zealand, the Prime Minister (Sir Keith Holyoake) said that he had asked the New Zealand High Commissioner in London to keep in close touch with the British Government about the detention of the Todds. “ I “ am very seriously concerned at this latest develop“ment”, said Sir Keith Holyoake. “The action of “Mr Smith’s regime, unless fully justified on other “ grounds, seems to be a limitation of that freedom “ of expression which was to exist while the Pearce “Commission was investigating the acceptability of “ the settlement terms ”,

Ten days later, Sir Keith Holyoake reiterated a point he had made previously: that the detention of the Todds was primarily a matter for Britain to take up with Mr Smith. He appeared to reject the idea that New Zealand might have some reasonable ground for intervening by saying that the New Zealand Government had no responsibility in the matter. Sir Keith Holyoake’s successor, Mr Marshall, has quickly put the Government’s position in a rather different light—much more the light in which most New Zealanders see this whole disturbing business. The strict legal correctness of “no responsibility” can hardly be challenged. Mr Marshall has probably attached to Mr Todd’s New Zealand origins and citizenship a significance that would hardly be supported by international law. Mr Todd, after all, has been committed wholly to his role in Rhodesia for many years; and it is most unlikely that even he now regards his New Zealand connections as of legal or diplomatic importance.

But it is unquestionably within the competency of the New Zealand Government to express its concern that the Todds have been detained without formal charges being laid against them and without any satisfactory explanation. If New Zealand’s concern can add any weight to British representations regarding the Todds, Mr Marshall’s message to Mr Smith will not have been in vain. Regrettably, it is unlikely that either British or New Zealand complaints to the Rhodesian Government about the detention of the Todds will be any more effective than would be complaints on behalf of other political detainees in Rhodesia. But this is no reason why New Zealand should not make its views known as forcefully as possible.