Independence for Kiribati

Part of Clause 1 – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 11 June 1979.

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Photo of Mr Frank Hooley Mr Frank Hooley , Sheffield, Heeley 12:00, 11 June 1979

One aspect of this business which disturbs me is that we are getting into a conflict between Parliament and Whitehall. In all my readings of the documents and papers on this matter over 10 years, I have been impressed by the desire of Ministers and Parliament to come to a reasonable accommodation with Banaban requests and the sympathy of Ministers for the Banaban case as they become more closely acquainted with it.

This was particularly the case with my hon. Friend the Member for Eton and Slough (Miss Lestor) and with the former Member of the House of Commons, Evan Luard, as with the noble Lord, Lord Goronwy-Roberts. I felt, in conversations with all three, that they had a great deal of sympathy with the Banaban case and were anxious to find a solution to a difficult problem and to put right a grievous injustice as far as they could.

However, I did not get the impression that the Foreign Office—the Civil Service—had any such intention. It had fixed and definite ideas about what should be done to the Banabans, or to the Gilbertese for that matter, and was prepared to push on with those ideas irrespective of the damage that that might do to our relations with Fiji and other countries in the Pacific, and irrespective of the need to make some fair recompense and acknowledge the hardships caused to the Banaban people themselves.

I hope that, on this occasion, Parliament will show itself capable of asserting its own authority in these matters and come to a conclusion which I believe would not only be more acceptable and fair to the Banabans, the Gilbertese and the Fijians but show at long last that the House of Commons was willing itself to recognise, as the courts of law have already recognised, the grievous injustice done to the Banabans and to make a serious attempt to put this right, or to help to put it right, even at the last moment.

I was disturbed to learn that the Foreign Office had brought pressure to bear on the BBC not to show the television film "Go Tell It to the Judge", which had considerable impact on public opinion in this country.

One problem on Second Reading was that those who wanted to secure a fair deal for the Banabans—and for the Gilbertese, of course—were appearing perhaps to obstruct, or to hold up, independence for the Gilbertese themselves. By voting against the Kiribati Bill, we were accused of trying to stop the Gilbertese from achieving independence and indulging in a unique obstructionist exercise against all the traditions of independence Bills.

That criticism made against what was said on Second Reading cannot be levelled against the amendments. If amendments Nos. 1 and 5 are carried, as I hope they will be, they will in no way impede Gilbertese independence. They will exclude Ocean Island, certainly, but they will not prevent the 50,000-odd Gilbertese people from going ahead with their constitution and becoming the fortieth, I think, member of the Commonwealth or from joining the United Nations if they so wish. The amendments will mean that the road is clear for the Gilbertese people to go ahead as an independent nation. That is not in dispute.

The arguments against the amendment, against allowing the Banabans to express their own identity as they wish to do, fall under three or four heads, but the one most vigorously advocated so far by the Foreign Office—and indeed by some hon. Members—is the notion of territorial integrity.

5.30 p.m.

Anyone who reads a Foreign Office brief from the Dispatch Box about territorial integrity is Satan discoursing on sin with a vengeance. In Ireland, Pakistan and India, in federations in the Caribbean, Central Africa and the Far East, peoples and territories have been lumped together and split up, cobbled together again and chopped to bits without any interest in the folk involved. For the Foreign Office now to talk about territorial integrity is an exercise in unctuous humbug. I guess that Genghis Khan, Tamerlane Alexander and Cyrus did not cut to pieces as many countries and as many peoples as the Foreign and Colonial Office did in its imperial heyday. To talk of territorial integrity in this context is nonsense.

Of course, an important principle is involved once a State has been constituted with recognised international boundaries. As the OAU, the United Nations and other bodies have said, it is wrong to lop or hive off pieces.

It is nonsense to say that because, from historical colonial accident, an Imperial Power has grouped together several islands—as in this case out of sheer greed—there is a divine right for that grouping to last for ever.

As the hon. Member for Essex, South-East (Sir B. Braine) said, some of these islands have been hived off already. Other islands which were in dispute with the United States have been either lumped together or hived off, even when they were 2,000 miles apart. There is no territorial integrity issue. The whole issue involves the convenience of the Foreign Office.

No one can argue seriously that allowing Ocean Island a separate identity, as the Banabans wish, will in some way infringe the fundamental rights of the Gilbertese. The Minister's claim that this will spark off independence rebellions and break-ups across the Pacific it nonsense.

I cannot see how the separation of one small atoll which has been made derelict through the greed of the Imperial Power, can constitute a precedent which will be dangerous in other parts of the world. In any case, as my hon. Friend the Member for Farnworth (Mr. Roper) said, before Britain took over the islands they were independent entities.

In a learned speech on Second Reading, my hon. Friend the Member for Farnworth said that all the islands in the Gilbert and Ellice group, quite apart from Ocean Island, were regarded as autonomous and self-governing units. The territorial integrity issue is an invention by the Foreign Office to justify a policy which has been pursued ruthlessly over the past 60 years and which depends entirely upon greed for the phosphates.

The Committee should not take seriously the suggestion that if this little island does not remain within the Gilbertese complex some great principle involving territorial integrity will be infringed.

The second argument is that the Banabans have a distinct identity. The tenor of the Second Reading debate rotated round that distinct identity. The argument is that to preserve or protect that identity the new constitution should contain some entrenched clauses to protect the Banabans' rights.

The record of entrenched clauses is not happy. One has only to look at South Africa to see what can happen to minorities or, indeed, majorities whose interests are supposed to be protected by entrenched clauses. Constitutions have been torn up all round the world. One cannot argue that the entrenched clause notion gives real protection to a minority or, in the case of South Africa, to a great majority when the sovereign Government take upon themselves the full powers of sovereignty and decide to do what they wish once Imperial control is relinquished.

Even the proposed entrenched clauses are not particularly inspiring. The Minister sent me a note at the weekend saying that the draft constitution was available in the Library. It is a substantial document, but the clauses which relate to the Banabans are not particularly extensive. Clause 119(3), relating to land, states: Where any Banaban possesses any right over or interest in land in Banaba, no such right or interest shall be compulsorily acquired other than a leasehold interest and in accordance with section 8(1) of this Constitution, and then only where the following conditions are satisfied, that is to say—

  1. (a) the Banaba Island Council has been consulted; and
  2. (b) every reasonable effort has been made to acquire the interest by agreement with the person who possesses the right over or interest in the land".
The only obligation on the Gilbertese Government in relation to the land rights of the Banabans, if that Government wish to make a compulsory purchase of land, is to consult. But they do not have to reach an agreement.

The Government must also at least go through the motions of a purchase by agreement before exercising compulsory powers. That is not a solid protection to the Banabans in terms of land tenure but it is part of the entrenched clause provision.

I am sorry to detain the Committee with lengthy quotations, but they are important. I assume that the Government intend to enact these clauses since they have taken the trouble to put the document in the Library. Clause 124 provides that: (1) A Bill for an Act to alter any of the provisions of—

  1. (a) this Chapter; and
  2. (b) Chapter III, to the extent that the provisions of that Chapter confer rights on Banabans,
shall not be passed by the Maneaba ni Maungatabu except in accordance with this section.…(3) At its second reading in the Maneaba the Bill shall not be passed if—
  1. (a) it is not supported by the votes of at least two-thirds of all the members of the Maneaba; or
  2. (b) either the nominated member or a Banaba elected member votes against the Bill."
There are also certain provisions about the days on which it must be read. It continues: if the Bill is supported by the votes of at least two-thirds of all the members of the Maneaba and the nominated member does not vote against it, the Bill shall be passed;