Prohibited I m migrant
THE Central African Federal Government's pathological resentment of criticism simplY reflects its realisation that it has something to hide. Sir Roy Welensky underlined the weakness of the case for Federation by raging incoherently about the Monckton Commission's terms of reference and refusing to comment on the con' tents of the report. Now, Per Westberg, a• distinguished Swedish author and journalist on African affairs, has been declared a prohibited immigrant, because his book in Swedish, Prohibited Area, which has sold over 15,000 copies in Scandinavia, is deeplY critical of Federation. Mr. Westberg is a Liberal, which is a fairly conservative thing to be in Sweden, and has no Left-wing connections; his condemnation of Federation is based on an objective study of the facts as he saw them on the spot. He joins an increasing company of people who have been either declared prohibited immigrants or had their residence permits revoked with no reasons given--A. E. Lewis of the TUC, John Stone- house, Doris Lessing, George Houser, Michael Scott, Basil Davidson, Rosalynde Ainslie of Africa South, the Rev. Tom Colvin, Peter Kuenstler, Michael Faber, Commander Thomas Fox-Pitt of the Anti-Slavery Society, and several others. If the Federal Government believed that a look at Partnership in Practice had any chance of disarming its critics, it would be short-sighted to deny them the opportunity of studying it. It clearly does not: and Mr. Westberg's exclusion gives a truer indication of the facts about Federa- tion than all the lavish advocacy of it being undertaken by Voice and Vision in the advertise- ment columns of the British press (advertising a country's political set-up in this way is an un-, usual activity for a government; it suggests an awareness that the gingerbread needs gilding). Two of the most unsatisfactory of the Monck- ton recommendations are that the prohibition of immigrants should be a matter for the Federal and territorial governments in consultation— giving the Federal Government the chance to wield a big stick in what should be a territorial matter; and that deportation of 'undesirable aliens' should remain wholly a Federal concern. The Westberg case shows that this will have to be altered, if there is to be the slightest chance of Monckton's proposals working.
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