Flight cancellation stopped Iraq trip

Press, 10 April 1980, Page 7

Flight cancellation stopped Iraq trip

A breakdown in air services prevented the president of the Canterbury Trades Council (Mr W. R. Cameron) attending a trade union conference in Bagdad. Mr Cameron was to have been a guest speaker at a Pan-Arabic agricultural workers’ conference in Iraq. He then planned to visit Kabul, where he was to be shown round by the Afghan Trade Union Congress. Mr Cameron left Christchurch on March 25. He returned on Good Friday without having set foot in Iraq or Afghanistan, but in the 11 days abroad he managed to

reach Bangkok and Rangoon, and even found time to have talks with trade union officials in Australia. “When I got to Sydney, they cancelled my flight out because of mechanical failure,” said Mr Cameron. “Then by the next day, I had missed the connection.” Mr Cameron said he waited at Sydney Airport for three days, but all flights through to Bangkok were full. He then telephoned the conference organisers in Bagdad and found that the confer-

ence was due to end that afternoon. As a last-ditch measure, he took a flight to Rangoon because he had heard that Gulf Airlines flew from there to Bagdad. He was unable to get out of Rangoon. “So after four days of shopping round the Middle East, 1 decided to come home,” Mr Cameron said. On the way, he stopped off in Sydney for talks with the Trades and Labour Council on wage indexation and problems of industrial relations, then arrived back in Christchurch on April 4.