318,000 Sq. Miles In Area

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31116, 20 July 1966, Page 13

318,000 Sq. Miles In Area

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter —Copyright) LONDON, July 19. The territory of South - West Africa stretches from the Orange river in the south to the Angola border in the north, and from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to the British Protectorate of Bechuanaland in the east.

It covers an area of some 318,000 square miles, but has a population of only 564,000, of whom 73,000 are of European origin. South-west Africa was a German colony up to World War I. After the war Britain, France, and Italy, on beha.f of the League of Nations, conferred a mandate to administer the territory on the British king. The mandate was In turn passed on to the Union of South Africa at that time a

member of the British Commonwealth. Except for South-west Africa, every territory that was under the League of Nations mandate system has become independent or has been placed under the International Trusteeship system. In 1949, South Africa passed an Act of Parliament making far-reaching changes in

the territory’s constitutional status. At United Nation’s request, the International Court at The Hague delivered an opin ion in July, 1950, that South Africa still had mandate obligations and could not modify the international status of South-west Africa without United Nations consent. But South’Africa held that the United Nations Charter did not compel it to place South-west Africa under trusteeship. A conference of independent African States at Addis Ababa in June, 1960, resolved on proceedings against. South Africa at The Hague Court In November the same year, a complaint was lodged by Ethiopia and Liberia, both former members of the League of Nations.