20

On 10 May at the first meeting of .the sub-committee the United Kingdom submitted new suggestions relating to the disposal of Libya. The United 'Kingdom delegate explained that his Government had taken advantage of the presence of Count Sforza in London to discuss with him the possibility of reconciling the views of the United Kingdom and Italy. As a result of these talks an agreement had. been reached and was now advanced as a solution which the General Assembly might endorse. The new United Kingdom proposals after certain modifications were accepted by a majority of the sub-committee and were passed to the Political Committee in the form of a draft resolution recommending — " 1. That Libya be granted independence ten years from the date of the adoption of the resolution, subject to approval by the General Assembly ; and " (a) That Cyrenaica be placed under United Kingdom trusteeship ; " (b) That the Fezzan be placed under French trusteeship ; " (c) That Tripolitania be placed under Italian trusteeship by the end of 1951 and that, until that date, the British temporary administration be continued with the assistance of an advisory council comprising Egypt, France, Italy, the United Kingdom, the United States of America and a representative of the people of the territory; " 2. That Italian Somaliland be placed under Italian trusteeship." " 3. That Eritrea, except the Western Province, be incorporated into Ethiopia, with appropriate guarantees for the protection of minorities and municipal charters for Asmara and Massawa ; and that the Western Province be incorporated into the Sudan ; "4. Finally, that agreements designed to give effect to those recommendations be worked out by the Trusteeship Council or the Interim Committee of the General Assembly, as the case may be, and submitted for approval to the fourth regular session of the General Assembly." The sub-committee also presented as a minority proposal an Iraqi draft resolution recommending immediate independence for Libya. In the main committee the procedure by which the sub-committee's resolution had been reached was strongly criticized by several delegates. An attempt had been made, it was asserted, to impose upon the Political Committee a solution which was the result of a " deal" concluded outside the United Nations and having nothing to do with the discussions of the previous four weeks. Criticism was also levelled against the substance of the resolution on the grounds that it ran counter to the clearly expressed wish of the inhabitants of Libya and Somaliland that the Italians should not return and that instead of settling the whole problem it was merely creating new ones. The delegate for Pakistan stated that the peoples concerned had asked the United Nations for bread and were to be given stones. He stated he would vote against