SOUTH AMERICAN CAMPAIGN AGAINST EUROPEAN COLONIES

Grey River Argus, 12 April 1948, Page 2

SOUTH AMERICAN CAMPAIGN AGAINST EUROPEAN COLONIES

BOGOTA, April 9 Guatemala is formerly opening the compaign to eliminate all of the European colonies from the Western Hemisphere and its envorons, demanded in the Colonial Sub-Com-mittee of the Pan-American Conference to-day, the return by Britain of the Falkland Islands and British Honduras. A Reuter correspondent here says: The United States will eventually disclose that it flatly opposes the discussion of the colonial issue in the conference, where Turopean parties to the dispute are not represented.’ The Chilean delegate did not speak during the debate. He commented afterwards that no dispute existed over the sovereignty in the Antarctic, because Chile occupied her territory there. The leader of the Venezuelan delegation (Mr Romolo Betancourt) called on the Pan American Conference to-day to abolish British, Dutch, and French colonial possessions in the Americas. He called for the liberation of Jamaica, the other West Indian colonies, the Guianas, British Honduras, and other disputed areas, and announced that Venezuela reserved the right to press her own territorial claims on the Guianas. He also proposed that the colonial peoples should decide their future by plebiscite. The plebiscite would give the alternatives of independence or association with a Latin American country. Mr Betancourt said that tne peoples of the British possessions would not be asked to vote in a plebisciee if they wished to stay in the British Commonwealth. Confidence that a satisfactory agreement over the Falklands could be reached with Britain as a result of the discussions now going on at Buenos Aires between the two countries was expressed by the Argentine Foreign Minister (Mr. Juan Atilio Bramulgia) in an interview. “The British are ’ gentlemen ,and 1 think the dispute can and. will be settled in that spirit,” he said. He had jointly arranged with Chile for a conference to settle all Antarctic claims —a conference at which Britain, the United States, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Norway, and all the countries interested in the problem would be represented. "We do not consider we are harrying Britain in the dispute over the Falklands,” he continued. "We consider it to be a matter of justice, and justice is not affected by passing events.” ___