Aid Banabans, U.N. commission urged

Press, 18 February 1977, Page 5

Aid Banabans, U.N. commission urged

NZPA-Reuter Geneva The London-based Antislavery Society has called On the United Nations Human Rights Commission in Geneva to take up the case of the old inhabitants of the British South Pacific island of Banaba — otherwise known as Ocean Island. The society’s secretary, Cotone] Patrick Montgomery, accused Britain, Australia, and New Zealand of depriving “a small defenceless people” of their single was-; ting asset, phosphate mined on Ocean Island. Ocean Eland was annexed by Britain for its phosphate in 1900, and the Banabans have been moved to Rabi Island, 2400 km away in the Fiji group. Claims by the 3000 Banabans for damages from the British-Australian-New Zealand mining consortium’s stripping their island led to the longest and most expensive court case in British legal history. The court judgment last December awarded the islan-

ders an unspecified amount in damages, although they earlier failed to get an increase in mining royalties. The islanders, however, won a moral victory when the judge referred to the injustices they had suffered. Colonel Montgomery said that Banaba, once covered with coconut and almond trees, would be gutted within two years and turned into “a sterile moonscape of jagged coral pinnacles.” “A small defenceless people has been deprived by three rich nations of its single wasting asset,” Colonel Montgomery told the commission at its annual meeting in Geneva. “Their ancestral homeland has been eaten away and rendered uninhabitable. Their sovereignty has been taken from them, and there is a grave danger that it may not be restored. Their community is in danger.” The Banabans had been campaigning for compensation to re-establish themselves on their home is-

land, and for separation from the Gilbert Islands colony to which Britain attached it in 1916, Colonel Montgomery said. Their case was urgent because the colony was scheduled to become independent of Britain shortly. He told delegates that he was bringing the issue before the commission "because world opinion also is an influence which the United Kingdom Government must take into account.” Britain, a member of the Commission, did not reply to Colonel Montgomery’s statement immediately, and the commission took no decision on whether to debate the problem. The Anti-slavery Society has observer status at the commission, and is allowed to speak in commission debates if nd member-States object. An issue brought up by an observer would normally require support from a full member before the commission put it on its agenda.