Story of the Cocos Islands
p. 59 · Read in the full issue
The Cocos Islands—a small group of islands in the Indian Ocean inhabited by about 500 people of Malay origin and administered by Australia—have come under fire by the UN Committee of 24. The committee, which has recently debated a report by a UN visiting mission to the islands, is critical of the Clunies-Ross family, who have owned the islands for more than 100 years. It says the family’s links with the islands are “feudal”, and it recommends that Australia take steps to disengage the economic and other ties between the Malays and the Clunies-Ross Estate. So it is that the publication of Cocos Keeling: The Islands Time Forgot, by Ken Mullen (Angus and Robertson, Sydney, $3.95) is extremely timely. Mullen, a wireless operator for many years on Norfolk Island who later worked on Cocos (the island airstrip can be seen in the picture above), tells the full Cocos story.
He tells how the family dynasty began and how it works; what happened to the islands in two wars, and what is likely to happen to them.
It’s a pacey story.