§ 2.42 p.m.
§ VISCOUNT MASSEREENE AND FERRARDMy Lords, I beg leave to ask the second Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
§ [The Question was as follows:
§ To ask Her Majesty's Government, in view of the statement made by the Secretary for External Affairs for the Mozambique Liberation Front that terrorist groups are to be trained in military camps in Tanzania for action in Rhodesia, what representations, if any, they intend to make to President Nyerere not to grant training facilities for these terrorists, in order to avoid bloodshed in Central Africa.]
§ THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (LORD WALSTON)My Lords, I am not aware of the statement to which the noble Viscount refers. Her Majesty's Government do not believe that terrorism in any form is the right way of solving the problems in Central Africa or anywhere else. As the noble Viscount will no doubt be aware, the Government of Tanzania are no longer in diplomatic relations with the British Government.
§ VISCOUNT MASSEREENE AND FERRARDMy Lords, while thanking the noble Lord for his Answer, may I ask him whether he is aware that the statement referred to in my Question was that of Mr. Santos Mancellini, and was quite widely publicised in the Press? Is the noble Lord further aware that, though Tanzania has broken off diplomatic relations with this country, she is still in the Commonwealth and is to a great extent subsidised by the British taxpayer? Might I also ask the noble Lord whether he remembers the statement of the Prime Minister, in an interview to the Daily Mirror earlier this month, in which he stated that he did not underrate the horrors of externally inspired subversion in Rhodesia?
§ LORD WALSTONMy Lords, I am aware of all those things which the noble Viscount has stated. But that still does not, in my view, justify Her Majesty's Government in any way interfering and making representations to the Government of an independent country. Her Majesty's Government's views on terrorism are well known and are as I have stated. They are clearly well known to all the other countries with which we are in contact and to those with which we have no diplomatic relations.