Canberra, undated
Confidential
Brief on defence matters for use by service officers and others accompanying or meeting the U.N. Trusteeship Council mission to New Guinea 28th February–2nd April1968
[ matter omitted ]
The Mission, particularly the Liberian member, will be interested in looking at defence installations in the Trust Territory in view of allegations in the U.N. that defence installations in Papua and New Guinea are used in connection with the Australian and Allied effort in Vietnam.2
4. The Territories Administration have been asked to grant requests from the Mission to inspect defence installations in the Trust Territory but not in Papua. Inspections, will be in the company of appropriate service liaison personnel and the Mission will be briefed beforehand to the effect that they will be denied access to sensitive areas such as communication centres and arms and ammunition stores which are normally subject to special safeguards.
5. The purpose of arranging visits to Service establishments in New Guinea is to reinforce Australian statements in the U.N. that defence measures, not only in the Trust Territory but also in Papua, are designed solely to develop local volunteer forces capable of contributing toward the immediate defence of the territories in full accordance with the provisions of the U.N. Charter and the Trusteeship Agreement for New Guinea. We have sought to show that the forces have not been used for any aggressive purpose and do not have any offensive potential. Officers coming into contact with the Mission may draw on material contained in Annex A3 in support of their arguments.
6. Officers should seek to avoid being drawn into any discussions on the relationship of defence facilities in New Guinea with the Australian and Allied efforts in Vietnam. They should make every effort to divert attention from the Vietnam question by emphasising the essentially limited defensive nature of facilities (as in paragraph 5 above).
7. Special care will be necessary to avoid being drawn into specific comment in respect of Manus. Officers should know, strictly for their background information , that HMAS Sydney and other RAN vessels refuel at Manus en route to Vietnam. Moreover USN4 vessels, southbound from the Vietnam area occasionally refuel there. So far RAN and USN use of Manus in the Vietnam context has not specifically been raised in the U.N. and it is important that members of the Mission are not given any opportunity to obtain background that could lead to pointed questions in the United Nations. For this reason arrangements have been made to avoid any RAN or USN visits to Manus before, during and immediately after the Mission’s visit there. Moreover instructions have been issued to the Navy to ensure that in respect of visits at other times during the period 28th February-7th April every precaution is to be taken to avoid the attention of the local population of Manus and to prevent any publicity of naval visits in Papua/New Guinea news media or on Radio Australia.
8. If pressed on the question of RAN and USN use of Manus, officers should say that use of the Manus refueling and base support facilities by the RAN and allied navies, in the course of normal naval operations and on passage to and from S.E. Asia, is a well established and known practice pre-dating the outbreak of hostilities in Vietnam. Calls have also been made there by ships from the British, French and Belgian navies, the average frequency of calls by ships of all navies being about 3 ships per month. It could be added, if further pressed, that while rehabilitation and development of the facilities at Manus is designed primarily to provide a headquarters and training establishment for the Papua/New Guinea Division of the RAN it was always envisaged that limited logistic support would be provided at the base for HMA ships on passage in the area.
9. It is stressed that the approach outlined immediately above is only to be employed if Mission members are not satisfied with responses given in accordance with paragraphs 5 and 6.
10. Officers should report immediately to Administration officials accompanying the Mission and to their appropriate Service Department any persistent or pointed questioning from the Mission relating to the use of Manus.
Note
Detailed arrangements for visits to Service establishments are being made by the Papua/New Guinea Administration direct with local Service Commanders.
[NAA: A1838, 689/1 part 4]
The United Nations visiting mission, 1968
The 1968 UN visiting mission toured New Guinea between 24 February and 7 April. It also spent a few days in Papua at the invitation of the Government. The mission consisted of leader J.M McEwen (New Zealand) accompanied by Paul Gaschignard (France), A.F Caine (Liberia) and W.P. Allen (United States).
The missions report was issued by the Trusteeship Council in late May. Excerpts of a departmental summary of the reports conclusions and recommendations read as follows:
Political advancement
(i) The Mission was concerned that a sense of nationhood had not yet developed in Papua and New Guinea to any marked degree.
(ii) It recommended that efforts should be continued to reach agreement on a national flag, a national anthem, and a single name for the two territories.
(iii) It recommended that both the House of Assembly and the Administering Authority should be urged to undertake without delay vigorous and constructive programmes of public education through all media to instil in the people a sense of nationhood.
(iv) ‘The Mission welcomes the constitutional changes made in the House of Assembly which should lead to greater participation by the elected representatives of the people in the Government of the Territory’ …
(vi) The Mission noted that changes in executive government followed a report of a Select Committee of the Assembly and this report called for a review after a minimum of two years.
(Vii) ‘The Mission expressed the hope that when that time comes, or even earlier the House of Assembly will not hesitate to propose changes leading to full ministerial responsibilities’.
(viii) ‘The Mission was happy to note the system of local government councils has expanded considerably, but feels that the time has arrived for the councils, particularly the more experienced, to be given more autonomy’.
(ix) The Mission recommended that the necessary legal and administrative arrangements should be worked out promptly so that a common salary scale for local and expatriate officers can be put into effect as soon as possible …
Economic advancement
(i) ‘The Mission commends the work being done to develop a sound, over-all economic development programme and trusts that it will be implemented as rapidly as conditions permit’.
(ii) ‘The Mission is of the opinion that the development of land in the Territory cannot proceed in an orderly way until the difficult problems of land tenure have been resolved’.
(iii) The Mission believes that a proportion of overseas investment is necessary for the reasonably fast development of New Guinea but … it hopes the Administration’s policy of requiring Territory participation in large enterprises will be continued and expanded …
Social advancement
(i) ‘The Mission commends the Administration for the impressive advances made in education, particularly tertiary education, in the past two or three years’ … 1
Future of the Territory
‘While it appears that the people of the Territory do not yet feel ready for self-government or independence, the Mission feels that this attitude must not be used as an excuse for delaying progress towards self-determination. The Mission recommends:
(i) That there should be a more vigorous programme of political education through all available publicity media. In particular, a greater effort is required to explain what is meant by the terms “self-government” and “independence” and the significance of the local government councils and the House of Assembly as integral parts of their own Government;
(ii) That every effort be made to associate the people more closely in the exercise of power in order to facilitate a transfer of responsibility when self-government or independence is achieved;
(iii) That a firm assurance of some kind be given to the people that self-government or independence does not in itself involve the cessation of financial aid and technical assistance from Australia. The people should also be informed of the experience of other Territories which have become independent in recent years and which are still receiving aid, not only from the former administering country, but also from other countries and from international organisations as well.2
The Trusteeship Council endorsed the report mid-year.3 Given that the reports of the mission and Council were considered ‘generally favourable’, Territories suggested to Barnes during October that he distribute them to members of parliament in Canberra and Port Moresby.4 He did so under cover of a note in which he said he was ‘particularly pleased to find that a number of observations in the reports accord with the aims and policies of the Government’.5 He added that there had since been ‘a number of significant advances in the Territory’ which were ‘consistent with the Mission’s findings’.
1 The brief was prepared by Defence in consultation with DEA and Territories (see memorandum, DEA (C. E. McDonald (Dependent Territories Section) to UNNY, 21 February 1968, NAA: A1838, 936/30 part I).
2 In late October 1967, the Australian Mission in New York had cabled DEA: ‘the Russians have taken every conceivable opportunity of attacking us on the grounds that we have military bases in New Guinea which are there for national purposes and from which aggressive operations have been launched against the people of Vietnam. We have given replies in the Fourth Committee, Trusteeship Council and the Committee of Twenty Four (as recently as last month) along the lines that the Charter and the Trusteeship Agreement give us the right to have defence installations in the Trust Territory, that nothing done there has been contrary to the Charter and that installations in New Guinea have not been used in connection with our military support for Vietnam’ (cablegram UN1548, 28 October 1967, NAA: A1838, 689/1 part 4). The USSR raised the issue again during December’s debate in the General Assembly (see Yearbook of the United Nations 1967 , New York, 1969, p. 611 ).
3 The annex quoted UN provisions for the use of trust territory resources in self-defence, maintenance of law and order, and the maintenance of international peace and security as required by the Security Council. It outlined the status of the PNG division of the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) and of the PIR, which were ‘consistent with self defence and with no aggressive intent’.
4 United States Navy.
1 Inter alia, the mission also recommended that efforts be made to have more girls attend school; that separate primary ‘A’ schools—which had a syllabus the same as that in New South Wales and were dominated by expatriates—be abolished; and that more encouragement be given to the formation and strengthening of trade unions.
2 Anonymous (probably DOET or DEA) press release, undated, NAA: A1838, 936/5 part 6. For a verbatim copy of the mission’s conclusions and recommendations, see paper by UN information centre, Port Moresby, 21 June 1968, NAA: A452, 1968/3864.
3 See Yearbook of the United Nations 1968 , New York, 1971, pp. 686–91.
4 Submission, Besley to Barnes, 22 October 1968, NAA: A452, 1968/3864.
5 Undated note by Barnes, attached to loc. cit.