A Note From Rabi
p. 33 · Read in the full issue
The Rabi Island Council of Leaders has expressed its dis pleasure at the fact-finding visit to Ocean Island by Mr Richard Posnett, a British Government rep resentative. After the recent court case the UK Government decided to send Mr Posnett to Ocean Island to look at the damage caused by phosphate mining and estimate com pensation. He was also to examine the request for independence for Ocean Island.
The council asked what facts Mr Posnett could gather which had not already been placed on record. The facts were known to the world, and added up to a record of “ex ploitation, broken promises and evasion of responsibility that is without precedent in the history of colonialism”.
The statement added: “Mr Posnett is a former colonial gover nor. He had been, and still is, a ser vant of the British Government.
How can he be expected to look with an impartial, unbiased eye at the issues involved? If Britain wanted to give a semblance of legit imacy to this latest manoeuvre, it should have entrusted the ‘fact-find ing’ to the United Nations so that, at least, the precepts of impartiality could have prevailed.