andMr. McQuillan asked the Minister for External Affairs what reason the Irish delegation gave for refusing to support the recent Afro-Asian proposal at the Trusteeship Committee of UNO in relation to Southern Rhodesia.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Afro-Asian Proposal on Southern Rhodesia.
34.
The proposal to which the Deputies refer requested the Special Committee on Colonialism set up in November 1961 "to consider whether the territory of Southern Rhodesia has attained a full measure of self-government" and to report on the matter to the Seventeenth Session of the General Assembly. The Irish Delegation did not intervene in the debate and abstained on the vote. The reason we abstained was that at no time since the United Nations was established has it ever been questioned that Southern Rhodesia was a self-governing territory and it has been accepted as such without question by various international organisations. If the United Nations were formally to enquire whether the various States, members of the United Nations or of international organisations have attained a full measure of self-government it would lead into a very wide field.
We are well aware of the regrettable fact that the indigenous inhabitants of Southern Rhodesia have not been adequately represented in the legislature and not represented at all in the Government. Had the proposal been confined to calling for a change in this situation we would, of course, have supported it.
Surely the case which the Minister says weighed with him weighed equally with the Afro-Asian group who put down this proposal and would the Minister not have been wiser to be guided by their version in this regard rather than by the complacency of the British and French, on whose side he stood in this regard? He sat on the fence.
I have explained to the Deputy that we abstained.
That is what I say. The Minister sat on the fence; he washed his hands. These people needed support at the United Nations and he did not give it to them.
This is a debate.
We took an independent judgment of what was wise in regard to the matter. We believe that the case of the indigenous inhabitants and their right to have some say in their Government would have been better served if our advice had been taken and that we had called for that rather than go into some artificial and totally beside the point inquiry.
And is it suggested that we here in Ireland know more about this than the Afro-Asian people who put it down? Do not talk rubbish. The Minister knows very well he was merely placating the British.
Whatever he was doing, he was not placating the British.
Selling out again.