Delay for Ugandans

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 33064, 3 November 1972, Page 2

Delay for Ugandans

(NJS.P.A. Staff Correspondent)

LONDON, Nov, 2.

It will be some time before immigration officials complete the formalities for the full quota of 200 Ugandan Asians to go to New Zealand.

In an interview after a reception given by the Acting High Commissioner (Mr M. Norrish) to the first families accepted as immigrants, Mr L. Cross, immigration officer at New Zealand House, said eight families representing 27 people had so far been approved. “We think we should get the 200,” he said. “We are still receiving applications from professional people, but are experiencing some difficulties, because some families have been broken up.”

In some cases the breadwinner in a family was in

England, trying to make emigration arrangements, while the wife and children had gone to India to stay with relatives.

“We like to see the; whole family,” he said. Mr Cross said 38 applications, representing 128 people, were under consideration.

Five families were represented at the function at New Zealand House.

They included Mr and Mrs Jagdish Patel and Mr and Mrs Mahendra Thaker, who will leave by air on Sunday for Wellington.

More families will leave for New Zealand on November 19. Mr Cross said that al) would go first to Wellington, where a committee which included representatives of the Labour Department, the Indian community, and the National Council of Churches was arranging accommodation and jobs. Among the other families approved is that of a formei Ugandan chief magistrate.

Mr B. E. de Silva was chief magistrate in Arua, about 315 miles north of the capital, Kampala, and the home town of President Amin.

Technically, he is still the chief magistrate — he is on leave, and was given permission to visit London for a Commonwealth magistrate’s meeting.

Mr de Silva’s two teen-age daughters, Merlyn, aged 18, and Melona, aged 17, were both at a convent school in Cambridge, England. They will travel to New Zealand with their parents early next month.

Mr de Silva spoke on behalf of the Ugandan Asians at the function, and expressed gratitude to the New Zealand Government for all it had done. “We want you all to know how thankful we are,” he said. "We all owe a debt of gratitude.” Mr Norrish said he thought New Zealand was extremely lucky in the quality of people it was receiving.

“I think you will find New Zealand a place free from tension, and we wish you luck,” he said. The families all seemed eager to get to New Zealand and start their new lives.

“Everybody has been so friendly to all of us,” said Mr Patel. “I don’t mind admitting that at first I had some apprehension, but the way in which all the New Zealanders we have met here have treated us makes me optimistic.” Mr Patel is a lawyer, who qualified in London. Both he and Mr de Silva, who qualified in India, face further examinations before being permitted to practice in New Zealand.