§ Sir Bernard Braineasked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth 637W Affairs if he will make a statement on the recent visit of the Under-Secretary of State to the South Pacific and any decision which may have been taken subsequently relating to the future of Banaba and the Gilbert Islands.
§ Mr. LuardDuring my Pacific visit I had talks with the Banabans, the Prime Minister of Fiji, the Gilbert Islands Government, and a brief meeting with the Deputy President of Nauru.
I made three specific proposals: first, a Banaba Island Council with substantial powers of self-government; secondly, the establishment of an international commission to review the implementation of the proposed safeguards for the Banabans; and thirdly, a treaty with another Power or Powers which might help to secure the rights of the Banaban people.
The Prime Minister of Fiji expressed some sympathy for the Banabans but was reluctant to take sides between two friends. He made it clear that his Government did not therefore wish to participate in international arrangements to safeguard the interests of the Banabans of the kind I proposed.
The Banaban leaders and community made it unmistakably clear that they were concerned only to secure the complete separation of Banaba from the Gilbert Islands. I emphasised our concern that Banaban rights would be protected, irrespective of where sovereignty lay, and the need to look at the compromise proposals suggested, but they refused to discuss with me the details of these arrangements. The Gilbert Islands' Ministers were resolutely opposed to Banaba's separation. They were willing to consider suggestions for special powers for a Banaba Island Council and undertook to examine the Fiji ordinance which sets out the powers of the Rabi Island Council as a possible model. They confirmed that the Gilbert Islands Government were ready to agree to a review of the special Banaban constitutional provisions by an independent tribunal. And they expressed their willingness to enter into a treaty with another Commonwealth Government concerning the rights of the Banabans.
On my return I reported to the Government that, on the main issue in dispute, the constitutional future of Banaba, there was an irreconcilable division between the views of the Gilbertese and the Bana- 638W bans. But while the Gilbertese showed themselves willing to implement an impressive array of special safeguards for the Banabans, the Banabans were not even willing to discuss them. Whatever Britain did, therefore, we could not satisfy both parties.
The Government have accepted my recommendation that we and the Gilbert Islands Government should work out in detail the implementation of special arrangements to safeguard the Banabans' rights and privileges both in the Kiribati constitution and otherwise, as outlined above, and we have asked an existing advisory committee on decentralisation to consider what arrangements could be made concerning autonomy for Banaba within Kiribati.
Meanwhile, the door remains open for the Banabans to respond to the invitation from the Gilbert Islands Government for bilateral talks, or to participate in the discussions on the proposals to which I have referred. Their participation would be welcome.
§ Sir Bernard Braineasked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs whether he has taken steps to establish whether Governments of the three Pacific Commonwealth countries near to Banaba, namely Fiji, Tuvalu and Nauru, would have any objection to the separation of Banaba from the Gilbert Islands colony; and whether the Prime Minister of Tuvalu has already signified to him his view on the subject.
§ Mr. LuardRepresentatives of all three Governments told me during my recent Pacific visit that they regarded the constitutional future of Banaba as a matter for the British Government.