§ Mr. G. Longdenasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether his attention has been drawn to allegations made by Major Salah Salem in an official broadcast in Cairo on 16th November concerning a secret report by the former Civil Secretary at Khartoum and its transmission to the Sudan Government; and whether he will make a statement.
§ Mr. NuttingYes. I have seen the text of a statement broadcast by Major Salem which quoted what were alleged to be extracts from such a document, drawn up after a meeting in June attended by Sir James Robertson and by my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury who is now Joint Parliamentary Under-Secretary. An examination of Major Salem's quotations shows that they are verbatim extracts from the October issue of "African Affairs," the journal of the Royal African Society, which recorded a meeting of the Society under the chairmanship of my hon. Friend at which Sir James Robertson gave an address on the Sudan. Sir James Robertson had left the Sudan two months previously on retirement leave. Far from being a secret document, the record of this meeting was both public property and entirely unofficial.
While the document was largely factual, there is no question of it representing the policy of Her Majesty's Government. On a point of fact, one of Major 206W Salem's quotations purported to show that Britain intended to detach the Southern Provinces of the Sudan from the North, whereas the record shows that in answer to a question Sir James Robertson explained that in his view such action would be impossible, and gave the reasons why.