My interest in the Commonwealth started back in the 1940s when I was at Oxford. This was a time when colonial territories were struggling for their independence. India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka had already attained their independence within the Commonwealth in 1947, but African nations, led by charismatic figures like Nkrumah in Ghana, Kenyatta in Kenya, Seretse Khama in Botswana, Kaunda in Zambia, Nyerere in Tanzania, Nkomo in Southern Rhodesia, and a whole raft of countries in the Caribbean and the Far East such as Jamaica, Fiji and Malaysia were all campaigning for their independence. Britain at this period was by no means wholly committed to a multi-racial Commonwealth, and faced problems of racial tension within the UK itself. As a result of my commitment to decolonisation, I have been privileged to count many of the Commonwealth leaders as life-long friends.
I had early on taken a great interest in the plans to federate Northern and Southern Rhodesia and Nyasaland, all still under minority white rule. In my first speech as prospective Liberal candidate for North Devon in July 1952, I said that federation, without African support being a condition of acceptance, was doomed to failure. Significantly, talks on Southern Rhodesia’s position in a future federation took place at the Victoria Falls Conference in 1952 with no African present. In practice, the Labour government laid out the plans for a Central African Federation, and the subsequent Tory government gave it legislative effect – in short one loaded the gun, and the other squeezed the trigger. However, I deal with Rhodesia in the next chapter.
One of my commitments was in regard to the Rivonia Trial in South Africa, where there was a very real possibility that if found guilty, Mandela, who was one of the accused, and at least some of his co-defendant’s would have been hanged. In May 1964 Judge De Wit adjourned the case for three weeks in order to consider his verdict and sentence. In those precious weeks the world was galvanised into action. All-night vigils were held outside St Paul’s Cathedral in London and I myself became Hon. Secretary of the world campaign for the release of South African political prisoners – specifically calling for an amnesty for all political prisoners, the ending of the Rivonia Trial and the abolition of the death penalty. We lobbied scores of governments and although I can only claim that we played a small part, the UN Security Council, with four abstentions that shamefully included the UK and USA, urged the South African government to end the trial and grant amnesty to the defendants. This was backed by the UN as a whole. In the event the accused were sentenced to life imprisonment.
It is a chilling thought as to what might have happened had the majority view of the whites been allowed to prevail and the death sentences had been carried out. The history of South Africa might have been very different today. Notwithstanding twenty-seven years in prison, Mandela has shown tremendous magnanimity and a total lack of bitterness. This attitude and that of de Klerk, the last white President of South Africa, brought about a measure of reconciliation in South Africa, which is nothing short of a miracle. Mandela’s address to both Houses of Parliament in Westminster Hall in July 1996 was tremendously moving and I leave the last word with him by quoting the wind-up of his speech:
‘To close the circle, let our people, the ones formerly poor citizens and the others good patricians – politicians, businesspeople, educators, health workers, scientists, engineers and technicians, sportspeople and entertainers, activists for charitable relief – join hands to build on what we have achieved together and help construct a humane African world, whose emergence will say a new universal order is born in which we are each our brother’s keeper.’
And so let that outcome, as we close a chapter of two centuries and open a millennium, herald the advent of a glorious summer of a partnership for freedom, peace, prosperity and friendship.
In 1961 South Africa decided to cut links with the Crown and become a republic. In view of her changed status, it was necessary for her to apply to re-join the Commonwealth. The Commonwealth heads of government were due to meet in London at Lancaster House. A group of MPs, of whom I was one, and who included Fenner Brockway, Barbara Castle and Edith Summerskill, took the view that the racialist policies practised by South Africa, particularly following the 1948 election, which had enshrined apartheid as a social objective, were incompatible with a multi-racial Commonwealth. We therefore decided to protest outside Lancaster House by organising a Black Sash vigil along the lines of the heroic women protesters, outside Parliament buildings in South Africa, wearing black sashes as a mark of protest against apartheid.
We planned that each picket would be four in number and would last two hours. We did not intend to cause any obstruction and, if attacked, would not resist. As a preliminary measure we called on Pandit Nehru, the then Prime Minister of India, to inform him of our intentions and asked for his vote on the question of South Africa’s exclusion from the Commonwealth. The answer was a very carefully chosen diplomatic reply, much to the fury of his sister, Mrs Pandit, who was then the Indian High Commissioner in London. ‘Of course he will vote on the right side for non-racialism. He should have told you so without equivocation’, she said.
I suggested to my colleagues that we should inform the Commissioner of Metropolitan Police at Scotland Yard of our intentions to minimise any difficulties which might arise. We were immediately received by the Commissioner, who thanked us for our courtesy but said that the area in question – around Lancaster House – was not within his jurisdiction since it was the Queen’s private property. Would we like to talk to the Lord Chamberlain at St James’s Palace? We gratefully accepted this suggestion and a call was duly put through to his office. Lord Scarborough was away in India, but the Deputy Lord Chamberlain, Sir Norman Gwatkin, would be delighted to see us straight away. He likewise thanked us for our courtesy in coining to see him, but said there was some difficulty involved, since the Commonwealth delegates were the Queen’s personal guests whilst at Lancaster House and it would be a little embarrassing for her to invite her guests on the one hand and license a protest against them on the other! Why didn’t we mount our protest on the steps of Lancaster House, which come under the Ministry of Works and therefore it would be a matter for Lord John Hope who was then Minister of Works Would we like to see him? We replied that we would, and accordingly a telephone call was put through there and then. He agreed to see us after lunch. He received us very courteously, to which we were becoming accustomed! He said he couldn’t allow us to picket the steps of the front door of Lancaster House since he was responsible for the unimpeded entry of delegates and there simply wasn’t the space. He said that he could offer us the strip of roadway leading from the Mall to Lancaster House. I replied that there was another point of entry by road from St James’s Palace. ‘Very well’, said the Minister, ‘you can have two pickets’. ‘That will mean’, said I rather churlishly, ‘that we will have to double the number of people required for picket duty.’ ‘I am afraid that is your problem’, said the Minister. ‘Right’, I said. ‘We accept’. ‘But you haven’t heard the conditions on which I am granting this. One of your pickets will be directly under the Duchess of Gloucester’s bedroom and I want firm agreement that there will be no noise after ten o’clock at night.’
We complied. The pickets went ahead and carried place names of Sharpeville and Lange, the sites of notorious massacres. Ours was a dignified, and I believe effective, display. South Africa withdrew her application to re-join the Commonwealth. It was a particular joy to me thirty-three years later to attend the service at Westminster Abbey in July 1994, welcoming a fully democratic South Africa back into the Commonwealth.
One slightly humorous spin-off was the reference to a photograph of a very tall Edith Summerskill and a comparatively diminutive Barbara Cast lion picket duty as ‘the Elephant and Castle’! It wasn’t strictly accurate or original since it had previously been applied to a photograph of Barbara with Sir Andrew Cohen, an immensely tall colonial governor. However, the job of politicians is to keep good jokes in circulation!
I wondered where else in the world it would be possible to organise a protest in such a civilised manner.
During the six months leading up to the heads of government meeting in January 1971 in Singapore, the Commonwealth was within an ace of disintegrating, as a result of Edward Heath’s government’s decision to resume arms sales to South Africa. There had been a reference in the Conservative Party election manifesto, ‘A Better Tomorrow’, that Conservatives would lift the non-mandatory embargo on arms sales. The embargo had been approved by the UN Security Council in 1963, and the Wilson government had honoured it. Within a week of the Conservatives’ election victory on 18 June 1970, the South African Foreign Minister, Hilgard Muller, was waiting at the Foreign Office door. As Harold Wilson put it, it was like an alcoholic waiting at the pub door for opening time.
At the Foreign Office meeting, Muller referred to the Simonstown Agreement of 1955, when Britain handed over the naval base near Cape Town, and had agreed to supply anti-submarine frigates as part of South Africa’s programme of naval expansion to guard the sea route round South Africa.
Some weapons had already been supplied by 1964, and there was continuing agreement to cooperate on the sea route. In 1970 Alec Home, then Foreign Secretary, agreed to honour the pledge to sell arms for this purpose and this was indicated to the press before the matter was discussed in Cabinet. Heath wrote directly to the Commonwealth heads of government with reference to the Simonstown Agreement, saying that Britain could not continue to benefit from these valuable defence facilities without being prepared to consider requests for equipment directly related to the sea routes, which we believe to be implicit in this agreement’. The statement to this effect would be made in ten days. Although Heath stressed that the equipment would be for external defence, and not for internal security, there was no hint of what he was considering supplying – some helicopters, for which frigates had been adapted, or a whole new range of equipment?
The messages from the Commonwealth heads of government started to come in. Most were concerned that these weapons could be used for internal security against the African population in South Africa, and in any event would result in the building up of the defence capacities of South Africa. Kaunda sent messages to all Commonwealth heads of government; Nverere said Tanzania would withdraw from the Commonwealth if Britain went ahead with a definite decision to resume arms sales; Zambia, Uganda, India and Sri Lanka were also likely to withdraw if Nyerere did so. Pierre Trudeau, the Liberal Prime Minister of Canada, sent Heath a letter expressing his own ‘serious misgivings’, and claiming that many Commonwealth governments were likely to interpret any arms sales as ‘an implicit gesture of acquiescence in the policy of the South African government towards the African population’.
At that stage I went to see Arnold Smith, Secretary-General of the Commonwealth, to urge that a compromise be sought, and suggested that since some thirteen Commonwealth countries bordered the South Atlantic and Indian oceans, could they not form a joint study group which might take the heat out of the situation. It would not matter in practice if they never met but it would be a face-saver for all concerned. Arnold indicated that he favoured the idea and suggested that I should write to Pierre Trudeau in the hope that he might raise the matter at the impending Commonwealth Conference. This I did. Heath, after much persuasion, agreed to postpone his decision to sell arms until after the United Kingdom government had had an opportunity to consult the Commonwealth. Some of the heat was already drawn. In the meantime Kaunda was drafting a declaration of Commonwealth principles, to be presented at the Singapore summit. The dangers of a massive split still remained. It is believed that the Queen was advised against going to Singapore to discharge her now traditional role of entertaining Prime Ministers and Presidents at a state banquet and granting an audience to each in turn. She did not in fact attend. The plenary conference in Singapore agreed to set up an eight-nation study group consisting of representatives from Australia, Britain, Canada, India, Jamaica, Kenya, Malaysia and Nigeria plus the Commonwealth Secretariat. After some skilled drafting amendments by Pierre Trudeau, who had already played a significant part in setting up the study group, agreement was reached on the declaration of principles.
Heath was advised by his Law Officers that he was only under a legal obligation under the Simonstown Agreement to supply helicopters, four anti-submarine frigates and some naval spares. A month after Singapore, he announced that Britain would sell South Africa seven Wasp helicopters. He ignored any other request. In practice six helicopters were delivered. In 1974 Wilson, following his general election victory, scrapped the Simonstown Agreement. Nigeria, India and Malaysia withdrew from the study group on maritime routes. The whole idea of the study group was dropped. It had served its purpose, granting time for second thoughts.
I was invited by the University of Cape Town to give the annual Feetham lecture in the spring of 1972. It was a lecture designed to remind people that there was segregation in the universities which the academic world deplored. It was fully backed and organised by NUSAS (the National Union of South African Students).
I arrived in Johannesburg and spent the first night in a hotel. Whilst I was dining, my suitcase was broken into and an electric razor stolen, which presumably was intended to persuade me that it was a burglary. In fact I could tell that my papers had been examined, but fortunately there was nothing of any consequence in the case.
I flew down to Cape Town where I was met by the group of students, who pointed out to me that the two burly-looking gentlemen sitting in the waiting room had been sent to ‘look after’ me. I went over to them and said: ‘I gather you are keeping an eye on me. This is just to tell you that I shall be going straight to the Vice-Chancellor’s house where I am staying and will not be going out this evening. I say this in case you want the evening off.’
I was in fact due at the Vice-Chancellor’s to meet other members of the university. The Vice-Chancellor of Cape Town University, Sir Richard Luyt, was a very remarkable man. He was an Afrikaner, an international rugby player and a liberal. At one time in his career he had been in the British colonial service as a political secretary in Kenya and also Governor of Guyana, which after independence asked him to stay on as Governor-General. The Nationalists in South Africa could hardly accuse him of being a dangerous Marxist.
The chairman of NUSAS, Michael Harris, was anti the South African government and pro almost anything British. During the night the news had come through of the death of the Duke of Windsor, who as Prince of Wales had been Chancellor of Cape Town University. Michael had requested that the portrait of the Prince should be placed in the university auditorium where the lecture was to take place. This was done and the portrait was draped in black crepe.
There is a university song in Latin of which one line is ‘floreat respublica’ (may the republic flourish). Michael changed it to ‘pereat respublica’ (may the republic perish). Very few of the distinguished staff knew much Latin and it was a cause of great amusement to many of us to watch them singing lustily the revised version!
I also paid a visit to Witwatersrand University in Johannesburg to deliver a lecture. I said that I was familiar with Sir Robert Birley’s (the educationalist and headmaster of Eton) legacy known as Birley’s Law. This stated ‘That the gentlemen from the Special Branch are to be found in the second row’. However, reassuringly I noted that the second row was occupied by Mr Oppenheimer, who was Chancellor of Cape Town, the Chancellor and Vice-Chancellor of Wits and many other distinguished people. I apologised for the absence of prominent clergy including Trevor Huddleston, Ambrose Reeves, Jose de Blanc and John Collins, none of whom could be present, and indeed would be most unwelcome to the government had they put in an appearance.
I met some very wonderful people of all races who courageously were carrying on the campaign against apartheid. None of them would have dreamt that it could have ended without bloodshed.
Two of my closest friends in Africa were Seretse Khama, the Chief of the Bamangwato tribe in Bechuanaland – now Botswana – and Ruth Williams, his wife. He studied at Fort Hare University in South Africa and went on to Balliol College, Oxford, where he shared rooms with Eric Lubbock, now Lord Avebury. Whilst reading for the Bar at the Inner Temple in 1948, he married Ruth – as a white woman, this breached tribal traditions and convention. Despite the support his marriage received from a gathering of the tribe, successive British governments from 1949 to 1956 barred him from returning to his country. I went on a Liberal delegation as a Young Liberal representative in 1951 to the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations, Patrick Cordon Walker, in the course of which we urged him to end Seretse’s banishment. He returned home, having resigned his chieftainship, as a private citizen with his wife.
He joined the Bechuanaland Legislative Council in 1961 and in 1962 formed the multi-racial Democratic Party. In 1965 he became Prime Minister and negotiated independence. In September 1966 he became President of Botswana and received a knighthood from the British Crown which he used throughout his life. His fourteen years in office were a model of racial harmony and tolerance, and firm opposition was shown to the racism of neighbouring Rhodesia and South Africa. Botswana was, and still is, the most democratic country in the continent of Africa.
On one occasion when I was dining with Ruth and Seretse in Gaborone, Seretse asked me whether my college, Trinity, Oxford, still shouted abusively at neighbouring Balliol. I said: ‘You embarrass me. You tell Ruth of these exchanges.’ Seretse replied: ‘Trinity men used to shout over the wall and from neighbouring windows, “bring out your black men”.’ ‘Oh,’ I replied. ‘That’s all changed. There are so few white men in Balliol that they now cry out “Bring out your white men!”’
Following one landslide election, the opposition was reduced to three MPs. I said to Seretse that the very measure of his success had almost wiped out his Westminster-model opposition. He replied that one problem which he faced was that a salary was paid to the Leader of the Opposition. Any one of the three MPs could qualify as Leader of the Opposition. What should he do about the salary? I suggested that he split it three ways and this he did.
During the Rhodesian declaration of independence (see Chapter Six), I made regular visits to Zambia, which borders on the Rhodesian frontier. There was no doubt that sanctions against Rhodesia had a debilitating effect on the Zambian economy, but this was a price the country was prepared to pay.
Kenneth Kaunda, the country’s first President, is a close and valued friend. We used to have a working lunch together – just the two of us in the cavernous state dining room at State House. I became increasingly a means of communication between our governments, and used to appear on Zambian television discussing the political situation.
When the Commonwealth heads of government conference took place in Zambia in 1979, Kaunda was fulsome in his praise for the part the Queen had played in resolving the Rhodesian crisis. He made an extraordinary gesture when he discovered that the state banquet to be given by the Queen to the Presidents and Prime Ministers was to be held in a hotel. He made State House available to her and removed himself to the State Lodge up-country. Zambian ministers found it a strange experience to go to State House – before independence the residence of the Governor, and thereafter of the President – to see the Royal Standard, with the Queen in residence, and to be received by royal staff. This was a tribute to both President and Queen. A similar gesture was made by Seretse Khama during the Queen’s state visit to Botswana.
The recent move in Zambia to strip Kaunda of his citizenship, on the grounds that although born in northern Zambia (then Northern Rhodesia), he was a citizen of Malawi (formerly Nyasaland) because his parents came from there, effectively declares much of his 27-year rule illegal. This finding is petty, childish, vindictive, and shows a contempt for the initial years of independence.
Harold Wilson, as a good democrat, attached importance to opposition leaders in this country meeting visiting foreign politicians. In 1969 he suggested that I, as Leader of the Liberal Party, should meet President Nixon on his visit to London. This was arranged, and indeed, since then, these meetings have become established practice. I saw the President at Claridges, where there was a police presence lining the staircase, the hall and the approaching streets even more numerous than the security provided for the Soviet leaders Khrushchev and Bulganin.
Nixon was obviously well-briefed and, referring to Rhodesia’s illegal declaration of independence, said to me: ‘I know that the Rhodesian situation is important, but tell me why you think so’. I replied that if there were a third world war it would not necessarily be a clash between Marxist and capitalist opponents. Ironically, the two bitterest enemies at that time were China and Russia, both of whom were Marxist. Conflicts would be more likely to arise through the polarisation of the world on the basis of colour. Jacob Malik, the Soviet ambassador, had told Lord Gladwyn that, in the eyes of the Chinese, the difference between the Americans and the Russians was that the Americans were the white barbarians who came by sea and the Russians were the white barbarians who came by land. Unfortunately, the world was divided into the ‘haves’ and the ‘have-nots’ which in general coincided with the division of colours.
I said that the Commonwealth had come into being almost by accident and was the one organisation covering every continent, creed and colour, which met in conditions of complete equality and relative trust. White supremacy claimed by the Rhodesians was a direct challenge to this concept. The vote in the American Congress to break the chrome embargo to Rhodesia was directly assisting the white Smith regime. Given a substantial black vote in the USA it could become a highly sensitive issue. I think he got the message.
At the independence ceremonies in March 1957 of the Gold Coast colony, which then became Ghana, Vice-President Nixon, as he then was, was representing the USA. Determined to be folksy, he approached a tall man, whom he assumed to be a Ghanaian and said: ‘I am very privileged to be here for your independence celebrations’. The man made no reply. So Nixon tried again: ‘We were under the British yoke ourselves sometime back, it is true – but we know how you guys are feeling today to have got your liberty and freedom’. The man turned and said: ‘Say, Mr Vice-President, I don’t know much about liberty and freedom. I am just a visiting journalist from Alabama!’
My involvement on the ground throughout the Commonwealth was made possible by acting as a roving reporter to the ITV programme This Week. In almost every case, it involved a report on some aspect of pre-independence developments in the Commonwealth. I went to Jamaica to interview Norman Manley and Sir Alexander Bustamante, respectively Prime Minister and Leader of the Opposition. This was to assess the effects of the Commonwealth Immigration Act 1962. I interviewed the leaders of Nigeria, namely Azikwe, Chief Awolowo, the Sardauna of Sokoto, J. C. Okpara and Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, who was tragically to be murdered. I went to Malta during the elections when Mintoff, the Labour leader and Prime Minister, was interdicted by the Catholic Church. Its leader, Cardinal Gonzi, who was as old as time itself, insisted that the church was not interfering in politics but merely defending the inheritance handed down by St Peter!
In Ghana I went to assess the dangers which the Queen would face on her proposed state visit in November 1961, particularly as Nkrumah, the President, had not dared to venture out of State House for several months.
He had assumed dictatorial powers and had made many enemies, and it was thought that there might be a risk of exposing the Queen to violence directed at him. My other concern was that the Ghanaian regime would exploit her visit as representing support for Nkrumah’s Convention People’s Party. They had already printed, as political propaganda, a photograph of the Queen in the Irish state coach waving in a gesture which quite coincidentally accorded with the logo of the CPP, which was an outstretched hand. Nigeria to the south was making a stab at democracy and was anxious that the true constitutional position should be understood, namely that a state visit to a Commonwealth country did not involve support of the current regime.
The Ghanaian Minister of the Interior refused to grant me an interview on TV, but I ‘door stepped’ him as he entered Parliament for the opening of the session and asked him how he could justify the growing list of political prisoners detained without trial or charge. He blurted out a few remarks and disappeared inside. Very shortly afterwards I was approached by an official who said that the minister wished to see me. Before going in to see the minister, I told our cameraman to rush to the airport with the film and get it out of the country and that if I didn’t appear within ten minutes, to alert the British High Commissioner. I found the minister surrounded by three other ministerial colleagues and he screamed at me: ‘Did you record an interview?’ I replied that I had. He then said that he had no idea he was being interviewed, to which I replied that it was hardly surprising since at all times he looked away from me. Another minister shouted at me: ‘How dare you behave like this?’ To which I replied: ‘How dare you speak like this to a fellow Commonwealth MP?’ It had a sobering effect and I went on to suggest that we would not need to use the film if he would give me a proper interview. To this he agreed and I duly proceeded to the minister’s house. He was Kwaku Boateng, whose son Paul became a minister in the Labour government in the UK after the 1997 election.
During my visit, I did what I could to obtain the release of Joe Appiah, the Ghanaian husband of Sir Stafford Cripps’ daughter. He was detained by Nkrumah without trial or charge, and his life was in danger. I went to see Joe’s wife, Peggy, and ironically, next door to their front gate, lying on the ground, was the signboard of a previous neighbour, ‘Dr H. K. Banda, Medical Practitioner’.
I could not resist commenting on the fact that Banda had been detained by the colonial power, the UK, in Nyasaland, whilst Appiah had been detained by an independent African state, Ghana. Which of these two men would find their detention more of a political advantage as far as their prospects of becoming President or Prime Minister of their respective countries were concerned? Years later, I was to re-visit Ghana on behalf of Amnesty International to report on the condition of the political prisoners then detained. My first visit was to the Christianborg Castle where Joe Appiah had his ministerial office. I told him that the last time I had come to Ghana, I had tried to secure his release from prison. I was now urging him to release those that he and his colleagues had detained! I saw about sixty prisoners in all and struck a bargain with the government that I would make recommendations on the whole question of the rights and conditions of political prisoners, and would only publish the report if the Ghanaian government unreasonably failed to act on those recommendations. In fairness to them, they acted on most of the major recommendations.
The reference to Banda leads logically to Nyasaland, now Malawi, which I visited during the state of emergency in the spring of 1959. Banda was then detained and the Governor, Sir Robert Armitage, had somewhat foolishly and insensitively decreed that the word kwacha, which means dawn, (i.e. independence) was a banned word and its use was a punishable offence. Ironically, it is now the national currency of Zambia, formerly Northern Rhodesia. I wrote to Banda – whom I had yet to meet – in prison and asked him whether he would be interested, when he was released, in visiting London with all expenses paid and a fee of, I believe, £150, to give me a world exclusive TV interview. The British, being model jailers, ensured that he got the letter and that his reply was duly received by me, the content of which in brief said: ‘Yes’. I then sold the idea to This Week.
Banda was due to be released, and it was arranged that he and I would meet in the early hours of the morning of 7 April 1960 at Rome airport, where we would switch planes in the hope of bypassing the press. I noticed that Banda, who arrived very bleary-eyed and still slightly shell-shocked, was wearing a black hat with a black felt rose in the front. At that moment a very tall bishop, who I believe was the Bishop of Uganda, hove to and asked Banda whether by mistake he had taken his hat. ‘No’, said Banda rather abruptly. I pointed out that the hat he was wearing had got a black felt rose on the front – was this in order? Banda removed the hat and said: ‘All, that fool has taken my hat!’ There had indeed been a mix-up. Exchanges of hats were duly made and Banda started the journey in a very bad mood. To humour him I said: ‘Kamuzu, this is a historic journey. You come out of a British jail before independence and therefore will become President; you arrive in Rome wearing a bishop’s hat and by the time you reach London you will claim to be Sir Roy Welensky’s [former Prime Minister of the Central African Federation] private confessor!’ He roared with laughter and the ice was broken. Another incident which I recall involving Banda was at a state banquet at Buckingham Palace in 1969 for Presidents and Prime Ministers of the Commonwealth. The seating was imaginatively set out in tables of ten, with at least one member of the royal family at each table. Princess Margaret headed our table and at one stage said to me: ‘You seem to know Dr Banda very well. How did you first meet?’ ‘You tell her’, said Banda. As tactfully as I could, I replied that it was on another occasion when he was the guest of her sister the Queen. ‘Where was that?’ she said. ‘Gwelo Jail’, said Banda. ‘I hope you were well looked after’, she said. ‘Oh yes’, said Banda. ‘So much so that my white jailers complained that they didn’t like having to clean a black man’s bath!’
It is a cause for profound concern that Banda was so intolerant of opposition. And yet, as far as his enemies from the Central African Federation days are concerned, he granted them total forgiveness, and in fact invited his two principal white jailers from Gwelo to the Malawi independence celebrations. Likewise, when Roy Welensky’s wife died, he made available his lakeside house for him. I discovered how intolerant he had become when a couple of perfectly innocent magazines on African affairs were seized from me on my arrival in Malawi. They had apparently been critical of Banda in the past and had ever since been on the banned list. The treatment accorded to Aleke Banda (no relation), a prominent dissident, who was given assurances of immunity on his return to Malawi and then kidnapped and imprisoned, was a shocking example of his intolerance.
Malawi itself is one of the most beautiful countries in the world. It reminds me of the Highlands of Scotland in good weather.
Banda’s mix-up with the bishop’s hat reminds me of a similar occurrence at No. 10 Downing Street, at a dinner given by the Prime Minister for the Commonwealth heads of government. As we were leaving, the unmistakable voice of Dr Banda could be heard calling out to President Kaunda of Zambia: ‘Hey, you robber. Put down that mink stole. It belongs to my first lady.’ Somewhat surprised, Kenneth Kaunda replied that he was certain that the stole belonged to his wife and Banda must be mistaken. At that moment Mrs Kaunda came into range and when asked by KK what the position was she suddenly remembered that she had left an identical stole in the car. The situation was smoothed over and I said to Banda: ‘This seems to be a repetition of the bishop’s hat’. ‘You keep quiet about that hat’, he said in a jocular mood.
I had been concerned for a long time as to the self-imposed vulnerability of the Asian community in East Africa: whether providing goods from the street-corner shop or as traders and partners in commercial concerns, dealing in tea, coffee, agricultural products and iron and steel. I remember going round an Asian-owned strip-mill in Kenya, which was a massive commercial concern, and was asked for my opinion. I replied that I was surprised that there was not a single African employee to be seen. One complaint that was often heard was that the Asian community exported a large amount of their earnings back to India, which they regarded as their ultimate base. It therefore came as no surprise, at the time of Kenyan independence in 1963, that pressure was brought to bear on the Kenyan Asians, which prompted many of them to leave the country and come to live in the UK. It was also no great surprise when Asians in Uganda came under attack by Amin in 1972 – although the action that he proposed was brutal and inexcusable.
The statutory position regarding immigration into the UK occupied much parliamentary time. The British Nationality Act of 1948 confirmed the principle of uncontrolled entry into the UK for all Commonwealth citizens. The increase of immigrants in the late ’50s led the Macmillan government in November 1961 to introduce a bill which required Commonwealth immigrants to possess a ‘special skill’ or have a job awaiting them. In the course of the debate on the Kenya Independence Bill in 1963, provision was made for citizens wishing to opt to become citizens of the UK and colonies to do so in preference to becoming Kenyan citizens, within the first two years after independence. The burning question was: what was the legal status of these people as far as emigrating during and/or after the two-year option period was concerned?
I asked a Parliamentary Question and received a massive ministerial evasion on 22 November 1963:
Jeremy Thorpe: If a Kenyan is a citizen of the UK and colonies and has not yet decided to opt to become a Kenyan citizen in the interregnum, do I take it that he is subject to the Immigration Act unless his passport has been issued in this country, or is he allowed free access?
Mr Hornby (Under-Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations for the Colonies): If the Hon. Member will allow me, I shall leave points about immigration and others which might come up at this stage, because otherwise I might get involved in a rather lengthy argument covering other aspects.
In the wind-up of the debate I again asked:
Jeremy Thorpe: Will the Rt Hon. Gentleman deal with the point about immigration? Do I take it that they would still be subject to the operation of the Commonwealth Immigration Act unless their passports had been issued to them from within this country?
The Rt Hon. Duncan Sandys (Secretary of State for the Commonwealth): I should like notice of that question, but, with reservations lest I make a mistake, I would think, once they have acquired Commonwealth citizenship and have given up their UK citizenship, they would be treated as citizens of the Commonwealth countries to which they belong; but they may for a period still have UK citizenship before they opt for Commonwealth citizenship. That is the point I had in mind.
From these statements it will be seen that the question was not answered. In March 1968 the Wilson government rushed through an Immigration Act creating a voucher system for Kenyan Asians. Again I asked the question, this time to Jim Callaghan on 28 February 1968:
Jeremy Thorpe: As the Rt Hon. Gentleman wishes to remove uncertainty, may I, without breaking the chronological order of his argument, press him firmly to answer the point which has been raised, namely, what is the legal status of these people? If they are UK citizens, what rights have they? What obligations have they? What will happen if they arrive here illegally? Where will they be shipped to? Are they stateless or not?
Callaghan: I prefer not to deal with the question of legal status, because this is a matter better dealt with by lawyers. It is a most complicated subject, and I have not heard it raised as a major question during the discussion. We have been dealing with the more human issues of what happens to these people, and I would like to come to the question later.
One view taken by David Steel in the debate was:
It was the amendment in 1965 to the 1962 Act which did that – i.e. remove the right of free entry into this country of people of the Asian and African communities in Kenya.
The two front benches had agreed to let the bill be introduced without division. My colleagues and I took a contrary view to the effect that the government was in fact saying that a citizen of the UK and colonies had no entry rights and was virtually stateless. We decided to oppose the bill and forced an all-night sitting in the Commons.
At the end of the day, we attracted an opposition vote of over thirty, including lain Macleod and Nigel Fisher, together with other Members from the Labour benches. We then took the fight to the House of Lords where the Liberal peers initiated a debate which was to keep the House up all night. I looked in around 3 a.m. and insisted that any Liberal peer over eighty still attending the debate should go home. It was an unhappy period. Many people had relied on the good faith of successive UK governments. In 1971 the Heath government changed the whole approach to immigration. The Immigration Act of 1971 imposed a single system of control on Commonwealth and ‘alien’ immigrants, while allowing free entry to those with parents or grandparents born in the UK.
On 6 August 1972, in a speech in Kampala, General Amin declared that 30,000 Ugandan Asians with British passports were to be expelled to Britain within three months. He declared that they were ‘sabotaging the economy’. In fact, the Asian community played a dominant role in the Ugandan economy, but kept themselves very much to themselves and failed to integrate with the Africans.
During a BBC broadcast, in which I was canvassing these views, the interviewer challenged me to put up a Ugandan Asian family in my home. I replied that provided they did not feel too cut off in the depths of North Devon, and realised that employment was difficult to find, I would certainly welcome a family. The UK Resettlement Organisation accepted my offer, and chose a family to come to stay with me. There were three involved: Suzie Patel and her daughter Rajna, and Suzie’s brother Subbash. I met them at Umberleigh station, a rural request stop. They had four or five cardboard boxes, which contained all their worldly belongings. They came from a wealthy family, who had directed a large public company – everything had been abandoned.
I took them to their rooms at Higher Chuggaton and to my horror found in Subbash’s room that the bedclothes had been chewed by, at best, a squirrel, or possibly a rat. I told him that he would have to tell his relatives that European houses were infested!
Things moved swiftly: almost at once I got Suzie a job in a North Devon factory, Subbash a place in college to complete his studies and Rajna was accepted by the local school, and a neighbour of mine, who commuted between Cobbaton and Barnstaple, gave them a lift every day.
Subbash turned out to be a very fine cricketer and local cricket clubs competed with each other to get him to play for their side. He soon built up a large number of friends. The Patels stayed with me for the best part of nine months, until they found a flat in Barnstaple. They eventually left North Devon when Subbash found a job in London. They became firm friends.
Editor’s note: Uganda became independent of British colonial rule in 1962 under Milton Obote. After growing ethnic tensions, particularly with the autonomous kingdom of Buganda, Obote imposed increasingly centralised and oppressive government. Relying on the army, he made the mistake of falling out with its commander, Idi Amin, who mounted a coup in January 1971.
An incompetent and brutal ruler, Amin maintained his grip on power through wholesale slaughter of his opponents. Courting public support, he ordered all Asians who had not taken Ugandan nationality (widely seen as exploiters) to leave the country in 1972, a move which helped to destroy the economy. In an attempt to divert attention from domestic problems, Amin launched an attack on Tanzania in October 1978, but was defeated and overthrown by Tanzanian troops and Ugandan exiles in April 1979.
Obote returned to power after elections in December 1980, but was in turn overthrown by Yoweri Museveni’s National Resistance Army in 1986.
In 1975 relations between Idi Amin and the UK government were almost at breaking point. The situation had been inflamed by a British lecturer and author, Denis Hills, who had been found guilty of treason (11 June 1975), for criticising Idi Amin. The exchanges between Kampala and London became more and more strident and there was very real concern that Hills’ life might be in peril.
It was against that background that I rang the Uganda High Commissioner in London to say that relations were getting out of control between our two governments and might I, by visiting Uganda, be able to help, at least as far as Denis Hills was concerned? The High Commissioner asked me to come round to his office at once, and there and then put through a call to Amin. Yes, I should come out to Uganda and catch the next available plane, suggested Amin. Instinctively I thought I needed a little more time and said that I would come out in a day or so. In the meantime I wanted to consult Jim Callaghan, the then Foreign Secretary, to ensure that I didn’t do anything to endanger a highly delicate situation. I remember asking the High Commissioner whether Amin knew what I had said about him in the past. Apparently he asked: ‘Is this the man who described me as a Black Hitler?’ ‘Yes’, said the High Commissioner. Amin laughed and said: ‘After all, that’s politics!’ When I rang Callaghan I was very guarded and indicated that I wanted to consult him as a matter of courtesy. He suggested that as were both attending a diplomatic dinner that evening we could discuss the matter then. On that occasion he pointed out that Lieutenant General Sir Chandos Blair and Major lain Grahame were flying out with a personal letter from the Queen to Idi Amin about Hills (21 June 1975), and although he neither could nor would stop me going, I might think it over-egging the pudding if I went out as well. I readily agreed, and rang up a relieved Marion to say: ‘Uganda is off. The weekend is free – let’s make for Aldeburgh.’
On 1 July 1975 one newspaper reported:
‘HILLS’ HEAD IS OFF THE CHOPPING BLOCK’
Uganda’s military dictator, Idi Amin, today gave way to international pressure and granted Denis Hills, the 61-year-old British author and lecturer, an unconditional reprieve from the firing squad. Hills had enraged Amin by describing him as a ‘village tyrant’ in a manuscript discovered by Ugandan police in Hills’ home.
In 1982 I was back in Uganda. Milton Obote had brought to an end the murderous regime of General Amin and had once again become President. He was himself subsequently to be deposed, and his regime was found to be almost as brutal as that of Amin.
I was catching a plane to Nairobi one Friday afternoon and had arranged to call on the Vice-President, Paolo Muwanga, whose office was in the old Buganda Parliament building, on the way to the airport.
To put the building in context: the British had left an extraordinary constitutional mish-mash at the time of independence. Uganda comprised four hereditary kingdoms, one of which, Buganda, was ruled by the Kabaka, known to those close to him as King Freddie. He was a man of infinite charm, and was well disposed to the United Kingdom, having held a commission in the Grenadier Guards and been an undergraduate at Cambridge. There were also other substantial territories outside the kingdoms in Uganda. The whole country was a republic, and the first President was the Kabaka. Therefore, in part of the capital, Kampala, King Freddie was His Highness the Kabaka, with his own Parliament, and in other parts of Kampala he was His Excellency the President. The arrangement could not last; Obote, in pre-Amin days, ousted the Kabaka, who was to die in poverty and exile in the UK. One of the few civilised acts performed by Amin was to allow the Kabaka’s body to be returned for burial in Kampala some time after, where he lay in state in a glass coffin. I was invited, amongst others, to accompany him on his last journey. I declined, as I had already paid my respects at his first funeral in London and thought it more appropriate that the accompanying party should be predominantly made up of his fellow countrymen More recently, Yoweri Museveni, President since January 1986, who has done much to stabilise Uganda after years of repression and turmoil, allowed King Freddie’s son to return as Kabaka with limited powers.
With regard to the funeral in the UK, the then Labour government was so anxious not to offend Obote during his first administration that it absented itself from the London ceremony, and instead sent a civil servant I thought this outrageous and contacted the Conservative opposition, suggesting that the opposition parties should at least turn out and show solidarity, and this we did.
The Buganda Parliament building is at one end of a processional way, leading to the Kabaka’s old palace. I asked my driver on the way to the airport to drive via the palace, which I wanted to see for nostalgic reasons. My driver pointed out that the palace was now an important military base, and showed some apprehension. I saw no problem, and said we would just drive past. We slowed down momentarily about 100 yards from the main gates and were waved down by two armed guards, who ordered us out of the car. There was little point in arguing. However, the development that I had not bargained for was to be told that I was a spy. ‘You come with us’. Where are you taking me?’ ‘To see our officers.’ ‘That suits me fine.’ A little time later: ‘Our officers have left for the weekend. You must stay until they return on Monday.’ They were singularly unimpressed by my plans to fly to Nairobi that afternoon.
I did not relish a weekend in military detention and addressed the sergeant who had joined the two guards: ‘Sergeant, am I right in saying that the Vice-President’s office is in the Kabaka’s old Parliament building, since I was there twenty-five minutes ago, talking to the Vice-President. Please telephone his office, and if he will vouch for me, you must release me.’ ‘We have no telephone.’ I did not believe him, but I was not in a strong position to argue with him! I came up with an alternative plan: ‘Put me back in the car, with two guards armed with machine guns, one on each side of me, with orders to drive back to the Parliament building.’ When he showed some hesitation, I said: ‘Come on, you are risking nothing if you establish the truth. I am risking my life.’ To my great relief, he gave the necessary orders and I got back in the car with my two heavily armed companions. As good fortune would have it, we approached the main gates of the Parliament building, and the same two security men were on duty who had examined my papers on my visit to the Vice-President. They called up the Vice-President’s ADC, who welcomed me with some surprise to see me back. I explained what had happened and he asked what he could do to help. ‘Tell the two guards to release me and ring the airport, asking the aviation authorities to hold the plane.’ He asked how the soldiers had treated me. I said that their behaviour had been exemplary. By now, duly chastened, the two guards asked if I would give them a lift back to the barracks.
I was somewhat apprehensive about stopping at the barracks again, in case of a repeat performance. Having driven some of the way, I stopped the car and said that this was as far as I would take them; they could either walk the remaining distance, or we could return to the Vice-President’s office. Grudgingly they got out and we parted company. We drove at fantastic speed to the airport, and arrived two minutes before the departure of the Nairobi plane. I determined that in future I would be more cautious in my sightseeing activities!
One of the most curious missions which I was invited to carry out in Africa centres round Rwanda, the scene of the worst atrocities in Africa in recent years. Shortly after the King of Rwanda, a giant of almost seven feet high, was expelled by the Belgians, the Kabaka of Buganda, to whom I was giving trade and investment advice, asked me whether I would see the King of Rwanda. He was then in Uganda, and wanted some advice. I duly met the King at the Kabaka’s palace in 1961, and was told that he was interested in asking me to organise an invasion of his own country so that he could recapture the throne. I replied that this was not really in my line. The King, unperturbed by the show of modesty on my part, asked me what would be required. I said I supposed a portable radio station, a couple of spotter planes, rifles and training facilities for his supporters – possibly in Tanzania. The King remarked that this would be expensive and I concurred. ‘How do we raise the money?’ he asked. I asked him where the Rwandan pygmies stood in all this. ‘Fully supportive’, he replied. Somewhat incredulously I asked him whether he and his fellow giants would lead the pygmies into battle. ‘Certainly’, he replied. ‘In that case’, I said, warming to the theme: ‘I think we can sell the exclusive invasion rights to Metro Goldwyn Mayer for half a million dollars’. ‘Excellent’, replied the King. ‘My Prime Minister will be in London next week and will call on you in order to carry matters further.’ Sure enough, a week later an even greater giant knocked at my front door, and said: ‘I am the Prime Minister. I have come about the invasion.’ Realising that the thing was getting out of control, I said: ‘The invasion is off’.
I was invited by the Australian High Commissioner, Alec Downer and his wife Mary, to come for lunch in their beautiful Wiltshire home to meet Robert Menzies, one of Australia’s most distinguished Prime Ministers. I was surprised but flattered to see that I was the only other guest invited. Clearly the old boy wanted to put me through my paces. ‘Well, young man’, said Menzies, ‘what future is there for your party?’ ‘Well’, I replied, here is something where you could be a real help. You should tell your Conservative colleagues in this country that Australia has a far more representative form of democracy by using proportional systems of voting – the alternative vote for the lower house and PR by single transferable vote for the Senate. Given that the UK adopted a fairer system of voting, the answer is that we would be in government sooner rather than later. For this reason you would find it very difficult to overcome their hostility to a more democratic voting system.’
Menzies had been chairman of the Canal Users’ Association comprising 98 per cent of the users of the Suez Canal. It was clear that he wanted to discuss the Suez crisis. This arose with the announcement on 26 July 1956 by President Nasser of Egypt that he had nationalised the Anglo-French Suez Canal Company. He promised compensation but threatened the imprisonment of foreign canal employees if they quit their jobs. Nasser’s decision to seize the canal came in the wake of the refusal by Britain and the US to finance the building of the Aswan High Dam on the basis that the Egyptian economy was too weak to carry through the project. Nasser said that if the imperialist powers did not like what he had done, they could ‘choke to death on their fury’. Nasser went on to say that he would use the revenues from the canal to finance the building of the Dam. Anthony Eden’s reaction was that ‘a man with Colonel Nasser’s record’ cannot be allowed ‘to have his thumb on our windpipe’. The first diplomatic approach was by Bob Menzies, as head of a five-nation team. He took with him a plan for international control of the Suez Canal. Foster Dulles, the US Secretary of State, brought to London a not dissimilar plan, which suggested an international board association with the UN. Eden, for his part, made it clear that the use of force could not be ruled out and reservists were called up.
On 31 October 1956, British Canberra bombers took off from Cyprus and made bombing raids over military airfields near Cairo and in the Canal Zone. The bombing followed the expiry of a twelve-hour ultimatum in which Britain and France called on Egypt and Israel, who had invaded the Canal Zone, to pull their forces back. The USA, supported by the USSR, tabled a resolution in the Security Council calling on all UN members to refrain from the use of force and to refrain from giving aid to Israel. Britain and France exercised their veto. By 6 November, Royal Marine Commandos had landed near Port Said, and the airfield on the outskirts of Port Said was soon under British control. Britain and France were subjected to enormous pressure to withdraw their forces and reluctantly agreed to a UN plan that allied troops would be replaced by an international force, 6,000-strong, from Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Colombia, Finland and India.
Menzies asked me what I had advocated at the time. I told him that the arguments were very finely balanced, but it seemed to me more realistic to recognise the right of a country to nationalise its assets, subject always to the payment of adequate compensation. We should therefore have called for a three-man commission, composed of one nominated by the UK and France, one by Egypt and an agreed person nominated by the United Nations. Their job would be to hear and determine the level of compensation payable to the Suez Canal stockholders. Secondly, there should be a technical commission, nominated in the same manner, to discuss and recommend canal dues payable and maintenance standards required.
At this stage Nasser had no idea whether he could carry on running the canal without the skills of foreign pilots. Our offer should be that if he accepted the deliberations of the first two commissions, then for our part, we would use our best endeavours to persuade the pilots to stay on. However, if he felt unable to accept these measures, a token sum of $100 million would be placed in a reserve account in Zurich. This would be used to meet the increased costs of ship-owners who would boycott the canal and go the long route round the Cape.
I felt that this was a reasonable offer that Nasser could not risk refusing. Menzies was obviously intrigued and with admirable reserve said: ‘That would have been a very different hand of cards for me to have played’. As it was, he was given an almost impossible job.
The prospect of lasting peace in the area came with the advent of President Anwar Sadat of Egypt, who was the most courageous man I have ever met. Certainly his historic visit to Israel, with his address to the Knesset in Jerusalem, was one of the most dramatic events of the century. Alas, along with Rabin and others, his work for peace in the Middle East was to cost him his life.