§ 69. Mr. Wallasked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on the future of Rhodesian schoolchildren now in Zambia for guerrilla training.
§ Mr. RowlandsSince the question of the schoolchildren was debated in the House on 3rd February, Her Majesty's
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§ Mr. Spearingasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science if she will tabulate in the Official Report the number of places in colleges of education in each convenient region of England and Wales in 1973, and that planned for 1981, showing separately the number and percentage of places in voluntary and maintained colleges, respectively, and the appropriate national totals.
§ Mr. OakesThe following table shows the assessed capacity of colleges of education and polytechnic education departments in 1972 and the number of teacher training places now proposed for 1981.
Representatives in Lusaka and Gaborone and Her Majesty's Permanent Representative to the Office of the United Nations in Geneva have maintained close contact with those organisations and individuals most closely involved with the children
A representative of the High Commission in Botswana visited the camp in Botswana in which the children from the Manama Mission were first held and I subsequently received a report from the High Commission on this matter. I am satisfied that whilst the children were 565W in Botswana they were given adequate opportunity to return to their parents: and that both they and their parents were properly treated by the Botswana authorities, particularly in view of the very difficult circumstances prevailing at the time.
The question of what further action with regard to the children might be feasible and desirable now that they have arrived in Zambia remains under consideration. We have kept in touch with the International Committee of the Red Cross and the relevant United Nations agencies about the situation and the possible need for humanitarian assistance for genuine refugees. The children are presently in the care of one of the Rhodesian nationalist movements at a camp near Lusaka and as such are not under the direct control of the Zambian authorities.
I wish to take this opportunity to express the Government's extreme concern at the involvement of children in the present conflict. Press reports that children have continued to leave Rhodesia for Botswana and Zambia are particularly disturbing and underline in the starkest possible terms the urgent need for a negotiated settlement in Rhodesia.
§ Mr. Kilroy-Silkasked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs whether he will ask the International Red Cross Society to investigate the conditions under which Rhodesians are held in Khami Prison.
§ Mr. RowlandsWe understand that, although the Rhodesian authorities have allowed the International Red Cross Society to inspect certain other prisons in Rhodesia, they have latterly refused to grant them access to Khami Prison. This refusal to grant permission to visit the prison is a matter of deep concern. It will strengthen suspicions about conditions there.