3.48 p.m.

Mr. Harold Wilson

(Huyton): This debate on the Adjournment enables the House to deal with the issues raised in the Official Opposition motion tabled last Tuesday. Clearly the fact that the Portuguese dictator is now in London means that our repeated demand that the Government should cancel the invitation is already bypassed by events, but the fundamental issue remains, and the House cannot escape responsibility for deciding it tonight.

I must make one thing clear at the outset. The Labour Party's categorical objection to this visit was declared months ago. It was not a belated response to these latest revelations of Portuguese atrocities. It was a condemnation of the whole lifestyle of Portuguese Fascism at home and repressive colonialism abroad. As we made clear, the reports last week led to our renewed demand of cancellation. They did not affect our repeatedly stated view that the invitation should never have been made.

There is nothing wrong in celebrating a centenary if we are clear about what we are celebrating. In ordinary circumstances a little nostalgia about past history is not out of place. If nothing had happened more recently it might even have been agreeable to join in recalling the diplomatic and marital manoeuvrings associated with the dynastic claims for the throne of Castile in the stormy 1370s and Britain's involvement through the marriage of John of Gaunt with the daughter of Pedro the Cruel, the mutual exchanges through the century of wool and wine, the flowering of the alliance in the lines of Torres Vedras and Corunna, and the conferment of the Marquisate of Douro on the British general in an Anglo-Portuguese alliance the against oppression.

It is pleasant to recall those associations but now we are forced to look at them through a glass darkened by more recent events Portugal—our ally in World War II? When her concept of the alliance could most kindly be described as unhelpful, at any rate until it was clear which side was winning: and even then there was the official Portuguese State mourning for the death of Hitler.

Nor has she any claim on Britain's hospitality, still less support, when we consider that Portugal, above all nations, has frustrated and sabotaged the sanctions programme against Rhodesia which Britain, under successive Governments, and the world community have enjoined. So, while the claims of nostalgia are slight, the odium of Portugal's record of colonialist oppression is overwhelmnig.

Last week there was the publication in The Times of reports of the most outrageous and bestial atrocities, revolting even in a world that has become inured to war and genocide. Those hon. Gentlemen on the Government benches, and their supporters outside, who, like the Prime Minister last Tuesday, have reacted with mock-righteous ideological passion to our demand that the visit be cancelled seek what we regard as an unworthy refuge in two characteristic evasions. First, it is argued, what warrant is there for supposing these reports to be true? Secondly, even if they do suggest circumstantial support for the view that they are true, why has there been so long an interval—seven months—between the alleged event and its disclosure?

On the second point, I remind hon. Gentlemen opposite that the atrocities at My Lai in South Vietnam took place in March 1968 and they came to light in November 1969, about 20 months after the event. No one now would deny that it took place, and that was in a country—South Vietnam—crowded with the world's journalists and camera crews. It was an atrocity that was perpetrated by a small number of soldiers of a free and democratic country, the United States of America, which has a questioning Press and a vigilant and free Congress—not, as in the Mozambique case, where the troops are the forces of a deeply-rooted Fascist régime, and it is a régime where there is not even a pretence of democratic institutions either in the metropolitan country or in the colony, and where there is a total suppression of Press freedom in both.

If it took 20 months for My Lai to come to the light of day in a country where there is a vigilant Senate, I do not think one can sustain the argument about the fact that it has been seven months in Mozambique. There has been no freedom of Press reporting in Mozambique—or in Angola—and no independent journalists free to observe and file their reports except under Army supervision. There were no camera crews as, for example, there were in both Federal Nigeria and the Biafran enclave.

The reports in The Times have been challenged, and we have to form our own judgment. Every right hon. and hon. Member has to do that. I believe that the editor, in a matter of such moment for international relations and standing in the world both of Portugal and Britain, would not have printed these reports, and at such a time, unless he had good reason to believe them.—[Interruption.] We are dealing today with a very important issue affecting the standing of this country. We are not dealing in the small change of the petty minds of hon. Gentlemen opposite.

These reports have been widely supported by other reports, again accompanied by a great amount of detail, circumstantial it is true, but circumstantial in the sense that, unless one asserts total and calculated dishonesty on the part of the priests and others concerned, it gives a great deal of chapter and verse and goes beyond the possibility of rumour-mongering on second-hand and third-hand accounts. When the reports were published, in my statement, which I issued immediately, I said that the Prime Minister, unless they were immediately and convincingly repudiated, should cancel the visit.

The House must take into account, and every hon. Member must judge for himself, the supporting evidence, before and since last week, in the shape of reports and statements from the priests concerned, from Spanish missionaries, Portuguese priests, the International Commission of Jurists, Amnesty and other independent observers. There were, long before this, reports in the overseas Press of parallel atrocities in the Mucumbura region; of the arrest and imprisonment without trial of priests who carried documents and photographs of atrocities in the Tete area; of the burial by Burgos priests of the victims; of destruction bombing of peaceful villages; further evidence in support in reports from Madrid published last Saturday, of statements by priests, eyewitnesses, recently returned from the areas, and evidence of 31 Presbyterian clergy imprisoned without trial.

I referred just now to the two Catholic priests who have been held without trial for 17 months. This is not in question. They claim, and others support their claim, that they witnessed the alleged atrocities. On the BBC on Sunday a Portuguese information spokesman was asked why the priests had not been produced before now to say what they saw. The reply of the Portuguese spokesman is a classic. He said: Those priests have been imprisoned and they will have a fair trial in September, I think. They have been accused of collaborating with terrorists and we know of many facts and many cases that they did so. The Portuguese information statement was pre-judging the trial. There is nothing like a fair trial— we know of many facts and many cases that they did so. It is that kind of judicial morality and suppression of evidence for which hon. Gentlemen opposite will be voting tonight.

It is a matter for concern for this House that there are a number of independent allegations of the participation of Rhodesian troops in these events, despite denials by the régime. Still more recently, reports of alleged atrocities in the village of Chawda were published in Sunday's Observer.

Mr. Robert Adley (Bristol, North-East)

Does the right hon. Gentleman believe that the attitude of the World Council of Churches is in any way relevant to the issue?

Mr. Wilson

I have not referred to it, but the short answer is "Yes".

On Saturday the BBC reported that five Spanish priests expelled from Mozambique earlier this year, who had pursued their calling in the area in question, have said that if they are allowed free entry into Mozambique they are prepared to justify to any impartial international investigating team the evidence about the Portuguese massacres provided that their personal safety is guaranteed.

Information about the events which were the subject of The Times reports reached Amnesty International from January onwards. In March, and again in July, the chairman of Amnesty International's executive, Dr. Sean Macbride, the former Irish Foreign Minister, wrote to Dr. Caetano asking whether he could meet the Portuguese authorities. His intention was to raise these matters and other aspects of the case of the imprisoned priests whose goal conditions, including 22 hours a day solitary confinement for 17 months, have been the subject of a report submitted to Amnesty International and the International Commission of Jurists—following an investigation that took place in the gaol—by an African lawyer of unimpeachable legal authority. The lawyer in question—I do not think that any hon. Member will impeach his authority; he is a most distinguished African—is Professor Barend van Nierkirk, Professor of Law at Natal University, Durban. I have his report. So has the Prime Minister. So has the Foreign Secretary. I invite the Foreign Secretary, when he speaks this afternoon, to tell the House that he will table this report from Professor van Nierkirk. It is highly relevant to the debate and the vote this evening.

Is it suggested seriously by hon. Members that all these statements are fabrications for some political purpose? Is it suggested that priests have been turned by some malevolent transmutation into professional perjurers? Is any hon. Member really prepared to rely—

Mrs. Elaine Kellett-Bowman (Lancaster)

The right hon. Gentleman has referred to missionaries. Has he seen the letter in The Times today from David Vicars, the secretary of the United Society for the Propagation of the Gospel—hardly a Fascist organisation—in which he said that his own Missionary Society publishes reports from its missionaries in Mozambique and while these are mainly concerned with the pastoral, medical and educational work of the Anglican Church, they also contain incidental tributes to the Portuguese for the manner in which they administer the country and for the efforts they are making to develop it in the interests of all its peoples. These missionaries also go throughout this area and can also see what is going on.

Mr. Wilson

I have seen the letter quoted by the hon. Lady and many other letters and statements.

It is a fact—I do not think that we shall convince one another across the Floor of the House in this way—that every hon. Member has the duty of satisfying himself from the information available not only in the last week but over the last 30 years.—[Interruption.] I have given my reasons, and if I had been there I should have been under military control the whole way and would never have got through.

Mr. Airey Neave (Abingdon)

rose—

Mr. Wilson

I have given way twice—not for long readings from The Times—and there are many hon. Members who wish to speak. I am sorry that I cannot give way to the hon. Gentleman whom I respect.

Mr. John Wilkinson

(Bradford, West): What about Czechoslovakia?

Mr. Wilson

If it is suggested—[Interruption.] Hon Members should deal with this matter seriously and not show their nervousness by shouting.

I was about to ask whether any hon. Member is really prepared to rely, instead of on what has been stated by priests on a number of occasions, on the word of a professional public relations representative of a Fascist régime, whose first attempt on British radio at repudiation began by denying the existence of the place that was mentioned and who later purported to tell the world where it was.

Mr. Peter Rost

(Derbyshire, South-East): Get the evidence.

Mr. Wilson

Hon. Members may put their own interpretation of the events when they catch your eye, Mr. Speaker.

Even in the case of the investigation that was said to have been ordered by the Portuguese Government, announced last weekend—an investigation by the Portuguese Government, for what that would have been worth—yesterday we read that the Governor of the Province is said to have told British journalists that he had not heard of the investigation, and today we read that the Portuguese Embassy spokesman in London said that Lisbon had asked the Governor only for a clarification, rather than for an official inquiry.

The Prime Minister should have insisted that before Dr. Caetano was feted in this country the Portuguese authorities should have agreed to an investigation by, for example, the Human Rights Commission, or the International Red Cross, or the Save the Children Fund, or a commission appointed by the Vatican or by the World Council of Churches—[HoN. MEMBERS: "Oh."]—or any other body—

Mr. Neave

rose—

Mr. Wilson

I have given way twice and others are wishing to speak. Or, a commission appointed by any other body and in whose findings the world would repose confidence. But this has not happened.

The Government and those who support them do not, I trust, base their case on the argument that if these atrocities did take place we should still be prepared to welcome the Portuguese dictator to our shores.

Is the House to be asked to believe and to confirm in the Division Lobbies tonight the propositions that the Fathers of Burgos and other Spanish missionaries, Portuguese priests, the International Commission of Jurists, Amnesty, jointly with the Committee for Freedom in Mozambique, Angola and Guinea formed a deep-laid conspiracy to fabricate evidence in order to harm the image of the Portuguese Government on the eve of Dr. Caetano's visit? The harm to Portugal's image is caused not by the distortions in the mirror which reflects it but in the reality which it reflects.

To save the time of the House from vain searches by hon. Members for other excuses and justification of the Government's position, I shall refer now to another argument put forward—[Interruption.] I am shouted at by the intellectual hon. Members sitting in the second row from the back on the Government side of the House. I should like to deal with this now. The suggestion has been made that a decision to leave Portugal in the contemptible state of moral quarantine she has earned for herself would equally mean the cessation of diplomatic exchanges with the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe generally, or for that matter, with China, so that when we meet the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe or China—[AN HON. MEMBER: "Or Czechoslovakia".] I said "Eastern Europe", and hon. Members had better start to learn geography; Czechoslovakia is in Eastern Europe, even if hon. Members cannot find it on the map—so that when we meet them we do not meet them as an ally. Such exchanges, whether by Government, Opposition or any hon. Member or group of hon. Members, do not mean for any of us acceptance either of the nature of the régime in question or of acts in denial of human rights committed by that régime.

All of us have expressed our condemnation of the Berlin Wall, including the recent killing, oppression in individual East European countries and the treatment of Soviet Jews, generally and in individual cases, and sometimes hon. Members of all parties have pressed these observations when abroad, with very rough responses.

But the acceptance by both sides of the world and of this House of the doctrine of peaceful co-existence, and bilateral and multilateral discussions between Governments and other representatives and parliaments, whether of Britain, the United States, the Federal Republic of Germany, the Soviet Union, other Eastern European countries, or China, means that while we may abominate their political and social systems and they may abominate ours, the search for peace, for nuclear disarmament, for better understanding—and the purpose, too, of the European Security Conference—must go on. That is why we welcome the speech of the Foreign Secretary at Helsinki calling for much freer exchanges of all kinds and a much more open system in Europe.

These arguments do not apply in the case of this visit by the Portuguese dictator. They have nothing to contribute to the arguments either about security or about nuclear disarmament. [AN HON. MEMBER: "That is because Portugal is a small country."] But more than that. Unlike the countries that I have mentioned, Portugal is not only a treaty partner of 600 years' standing. She is a member of the Western Alliance, a member of NATO. I ask every hon. Member whether he can justify, in the terms of NATO, Portugal's behaviour. Every signatory to NATO asserted his determination To safeguard the freedom, common heritage and civilisation of their peoples, founded on the principles of democracy, individual liberty and the rule of law. That was the affirmation made by every signatory to NATO. Does one hon. Member believe that Portugal, whether at home or abroad, fulfils those requirements of membership of NATO?

Mr. Hugh Dykes (Harrow)

I am grateful to the Leader of the Opposition for giving way at this stage. Why, then. when he was Prime Minister did he not ask for Portugal's departure from NATO?

Mr. Wilson

On the contrary, we were extremely vigilant about her behaviour under NATO in relation to the transfer of NATO arms for use in Africa. No one, after what has been reported in these months, and not only in the past week, can possibly justify Portugal in NATO, nor for that matter can they justify the right hon. Gentleman feting the Prime Minister of Portugal last night.

In the absence, therefore, of clear and indisputable repudiation, not only of the alleged atrocities but also of other oppressive brutalities inherent in colonial policy, in our submission Portugal has no longer any claim to our support or to our welcome.

Mr. Neave

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Wilson

I have given way three times already.

It is right that the House today should debate these matters. It is appropriate that since Dr. Caetano is here he should be left in no doubt of the strength of feeling which is held in this country—and not only Dr. Caetano. We are also debating the affront to that common heritage founded on democracy, individual liberty and the rule of law, caused by the stubborn persistence with which the Government insist on going through with this visit to the bitter end.

Has the right hon. Gentleman, who is Dr. Caetano's host, has any hon. Gentleman who is contemplating voting against us tonight, any evidence, any confidence, that the Prime Minister can secure an assurance from his guest that today's speeches in the House of Commons will be allowed to be reported in the Portuguese Press tomorrow? Can we have any confidence of that? [Interruption.] I know that hon. Gentlemen would like some speeches made in this House today to be reported there tomorrow.

I feel that the House should draw a further conclusion from Portuguese policy and from the Government's ceremonial condoning of that policy. In this House we are proud—all parties—of Britain's post-war record of decolonisation. We have had differences between parties and Governments about pace and timing and sometimes about method. Our record has not been entirely free of unhappy, even deplorable events such as Hola and Nyasaland. Bat the vigilance of our parliamentary system and the freedom of our Press are such that any attempt to bury those events from public view and full investigation would never have been a possibility in a free country such as this.

Britain's admitted success in converting subject peoples into independent sovereign States is due, in my view, to three things. It is due, first, to the creation by successive British Governments of local indigenous legislative and ministerial councils with progressively more control over their own affairs. It is due, secondly, to the existence in this House, and indeed in another place, of men and women dedicated to the fight against the old imperialism. It is due, thirdly, to the total rejection by all parties in the House, in the process of decolonisation, of any discrimination on grounds of colour or of race. If there is one blot in the Commonwealth today, it is in a State under African rule, not under British rule, where racial discrimination is proclaimed and enforced.

Sir John Rodgers (Sevenoaks)

rose—

Mr. Wilson

I would like the hon. Gentleman to follow this. I hope what I have said about our record of decolonisation is totally uncontroversial.

Against the British record we contrast that of Portugal—no democratic delegation of government in the territories, no free Parliament where Members can crusade for colonial freedom, and no acceptance of the right of democratic self-government.

Before I sit down I want to say this to the Prime Minister. [An hon. Member: "What about the evidence?"] I have already dealt with that. I hope that the Prime Minister now feels, after all he has heard and read this week, that there is more in the case I have presented today than he showed when he lost his head last Tuesday. We know the right hon. Gentleman to be quick to anger and not over-plenteous in mercy. One national paper referred to him as "bellowing with rage" about this incident last week.

What we would like to see and what perhaps some of the Prime Minister's own party would like to see is a situation in which he just once expressed the same anger on the other side. We would like to see him, just for once, bellowing with rage against white racialism—in Rhodesia, for example, against colonialism and, in today's context, against Portuguese policy in Africa.

The Prime Minister (Mr. Edward Heath)

I have spent the last eight years of my life fighting against racialism in this country.

Mr. Wilson

But not with the same vigour fighting against racialism in Rhodesia.

The Prime Minister once announced at his party conference in 1966 "a great divide" between his party and the then Government on Rhodesia. He cannot deny that. He made much of it for as long as it would run. There is, he will agree, no great divide on Rhodesia today. The only divide now, as he might be prepared to admit with experience, is, as we then asserted, in Rhodesia. But there is a great divide in the world.

The Prime Minister

The great divide is not a racial one. It was whether Britain was going to attempt a settlement by negotiation. Afterwards it was the right hon. Gentleman who then tried negotiation.

Mr. Wilson

The Prime Minister knows full well, and he can look up all the papers, that we had already started on the talks about talks before he made that speech—and he knew it. He then tried to make party capital out of it. That was after his party had split three ways on the vote on sanctions and just before his party voted for the rejection of the "Tiger" settlement. We would like still to see a little anger for once from the right hon. Gentleman on these African matters.

Our 19th century predecessors in this House were men who were not unimaginative or lacking in courage. They had to face the same sort of problems as we face today. When they saw—in Europe, in Italy, Portugal, Spain—the existence of oppressive and anti-democratic régimes, they were quick to decide, not only where the right course of action lay for Britain, but where British interest truly lay. In those days they were not deterred by any fear of guilt by association with those whom authority called terrorists. Garibaldi and the heroes of the Risorgimento, Kossuth in Hungary, the freedom fighters in the Ottoman Empire, the patriots who fought the Carlists in Spain, and the Miguelites in Portugal, were terrorists. They were terrorists because they could obtain freedom only by fighting.

Aneurin Bevan once said that where there was no democracy for counting heads, decisions would be taken by breaking heads. Britain, more often than not, in the last century was on the right side and was not afraid to face the taunt that it was supporting men who might be called terrorists.

Today I believe we are debating what, in another turning point in world history, Campbell-Bannerman castigated as "methods of barbarism". The highest national interests of Britain as well as the needs of the wider community a century ago dictated a Britain vigorously on the side of freedom. So today in a world where issues of freedom and self-government, but still more of race and colour, occupy the centre of the stage, what is both right and in our interest is, by every democratic and peaceful means, leading, as I hope, to international action to provide a cordon sanitaire around the shores of Portuguese African territories, to support fighters for freedom against their oppressors.

4.20 p.m.

The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Sir Alec Douglas-Home)

When the Leader of the Opposition succumbs, as he does frequently nowadays, to spasms of political opportunism— [Interruption.]— it is always possible to answer him immediately with his own words and his own actions. This is so today both about Britain's relations with Portugal and about visits by Prime Ministers or other Ministers overseas, in the context of massacres, proved or unproved.

On relations with Portugal the right hon. Gentleman had this to say in 1969: Portugal is, of course, an old and loyal ally within NATO. This does not mean that we support her policies in Africa ".-[OFFICIAL REPORT, 11th February 1969; Vol. 777, c. 1117]

Hon. Members

Do you?

Sir Alec Douglas-Home

If hon. Members will await my next sentence I shall explain that that, too, is our position which has always been openly explained to the Portuguese. When on this matter the right hon. Gentleman censures us he censures himself. When he said that Portugal was an old and loyal ally the struggle between Frelimo and the Portuguese Army had been going on for years and there had been bitter fights. The United Nations was passing anti-Portuguese resolutions and yet the right hon. Gentleman rose in this House and proclaimed Portugal is an old and loyal ally. Again, and more pertinent to the visit of Dr. Caetano, the right hon. Gentleman just now recalled My Lai. The right hon. Gentleman will remember that at the time of the first reports of events at My Lai he was about to visit the President of the United States. He had this to say of that affair and the question of whether such incidents were part of a consciously pursued policy: And to suspend judgment on that is neither cowardice nor moral evasion on our part … I do not regard it as the right reaction to what this is, an offence against decency, even of this magnitude, to jump to premature conclusions about a friend and an ally."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 8th December 1969; Vol. 793, c. 44.] That is our position too. [Interruption.]

Mr. Michael Foot

(Ebbw Vale) rose—

Sir Alec Douglas-Home

I shall finish the sentence and then give way to the hon. Member.

As I was saying, that is exactly our position. But what kind of intellectual agility is it which allows the right hon. Gentleman to make such an eminently sane judgment about himself and then denounce others who say precisely the same thing?

Mr. Foot

Will the right hon. Gentleman tell us now, because we wish to proceed with the debate, what kind of inquiry he has demanded into the alleged massacre?

Sir Alec Douglas-Home

I am about to say exactly what the right hon. Gentleman said about these inquiries and then I will say what I think of this matter.

Mr. Eric S. Hoffer

(Liverpool, Walton) rose——

Sir Alec Douglas-Home

I shall ask one more question before I give way to the hon. Member. What in the circumstances of My Lai did the right hon. Gentleman do? He went to Washington. [Interruption.]

Mr. Heller

Will the Foreign Secretary accept from me that because my own Government were not always as clearly forward in the fight against these people —[Laughter]—I realise—[Interruption.]— that that may be regarded as a funny sort of position to take—[Interruption.]but it is not funny, because some of us over the years consistently, day in and day out, have been arguing in this House that we should have nothing whatever to do with Fascist Portugal. [Interruption.]

Mr. Churchill (Stretford)

Tell the Leader of the Opposition.

Mr. Heffer

Will the Foreign Secretary now tell us whether it is right for a Government to have the sort of relationship as exists with Portugal, which is a country renowned for its massacre of people over the years?

Sir Alec Douglas-Home

I acquit the hon. Member of double standards but not his right hon. Friend.

Mr. William Hamilton (Fife, West)

Nor you either.

Sir Alec Douglas-Home

I shall cite another case. There is no doubt that there was a large-scale massacre by the North Vietnamese at Hue. That did not prevent the right hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan) from going to North Vietnam. On My Lai, the Leader of the Opposition was even more specific about the inquiry to which he referred. He said: it is not for us to carry out our investigation or to prejudge theirs."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 8th December 1969; Vol. 793, c. 42.] That is our position too. The right hon. Gentleman said that of the inquiry that might have been held in relation to My Lai. To have cancelled Dr. Caetano's visit—

Mr. Harold Wilson

I was referring to an inquiry which was to have been announced, to court-martial proceedings in the United States, which is a democratic country. Everyone had the right to be confident about the findings of that court-martial, and that confidence proved to be justified. It was held in a country where there was a vigilant Senate and a vigilant Congress. What assurances has the Foreign Secretary either that there will be judicial proceedings in respect of anything proved in Mozambique or that there is a democratic parliament to insist upon it?

Sir Alec Douglas-Home

The right hon. Gentleman is falling into the same trap again. He is prejudging.

Mr. Wilson

No.

Sir Alec Douglas-Home

The right hon. Gentleman is saying that the Portuguese are incapable of holding an objective inquiry. I say quite firmly to the right hon. Gentleman that to have cancelled Dr. Caetano's visit on the basis of The Times article, which was at best questionable because it was at second or third hand, would have been to "jump to premature conclusions" and to prejudge a case against an old and loyal ally". How can the right hon. Gentleman talk in this context of judicial morality? When people talk of hypocrisy the right hon. Gentleman cannot complain.

Neither the Government nor the Opposition know what happened in Mozambique at the time or the place mentioned in The Times article. Some priests have made an accusation of a horrifying and large-scale massacre. The bishop refuses to be drawn into the controversy. Other people who know the area have been unable to corroborate it and have cast serious doubts on the story. Frelimo, which might be thought to wish above all others to blacken the character of Portugal, was unable to corroborate the story of the massacre. From the reports of our own representatives in the area there is evidence of many clashes between guerrillas and Portuguese Army troops, but no evidence of anything on this scale.

Mr. Neave

My right hon. Friend will have noticed that I had great difficulty in interrupting the Leader of the Opposition. My right hon. Friend will be aware of the great esteem in which the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees is held. He reported this morning that there is a refugee settlement 30 miles inside the Zambian frontier, 100 miles from Tete, where there are 3,000 Mozambique refugees. No reports of any massacre in that area have been received during the past 12 months on the Zambian side of the frontier.

Sir Alec Douglas-Home

The Leader of the Opposition said this afternoon that everyone must make up his mind on the evidence. What I am saying is that there are certain statements made on one side but there is substantial evidence on the other, and the right hon. Gentleman does not seem to me to have taken that evidence into consideration.

Mr. Jeremy Thorpe (Devon, North)

Leaving aside The Times articles for the moment, and leaving aside the Leader of the Opposition, to whom the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary has made a great deal of reference, does the right hon. Gentleman agree that there is a big difference between a normal diplomatic exchange with any country of the world, with the Foreign Secretary or Prime Minister of that country coming for talks to this country and having an exchange of views, and a State visit, with the Palace laid on and junketings accorded, particularly for close allies? What is gained by having the latter treatment and not the former? Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that very few people would complain if normal diplomatic exchanges took place between us and the Portuguese, the Russians, the Chinese or anyone else? What we object to is the State visit, with all the panoply that that involves. The political support implied is totally out of keeping with the feelings of the Government towards Portugal, and will be wholly misrepresented both in Portugal and throughout Africa.

Sir Alec Douglas-Home

I must put the right hon. Gentleman right on one matter. It is not a State visit. It is one of those visits such as other visits where Communist leaders have gone to the Palace. [Interruption.] The reason why the alliance should be celebrated is concerned with NATO. I shall come to that shortly. I want to take up that matter specifically with the right hon. Gentleman.

The Portuguese have said that an investigation is being made according to their practice and that if hard evidence is produced the guilty will be punished. The right hon. Gentleman himself recalled Vietnam. There the massacre was proved. But he will also recall the wild statements made in the House at the time of the Nigerian civil war, later proved to be untrue. The right hon. Gentleman did not jump to conclusions then, and we should not prejudge now.

The House will have noticed that during his speech the right hon. Gentleman enlarged his ground from the motion, which referred to the massacre, to a general attack on Portugal's African administration. But when was this demand for ostracism of Portugal generated? It was not during the time when he was in charge of the British Government. For six years he was content to send his Foreign and Defence Ministers to collaborate with their Portuguese opposite numbers in the NATO Council. Only now, when Dr. Caetano is actually here, have the Opposition seen fit to stage a debate. They could have done it at any time in the past few months. They could have raised it in the foreign affairs debate and put their views on the visit to the test of a vote in Parliament. They did not do so. The conclusion is inevitable. They have deliberately sought the maximum embarrassment of the Government as hosts and Dr. Caetano as guest in this country.

Mrs. Judith Hart (Lanark)

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way, but will he please withdraw something he has just said? It is a fact, verifiable by reference to HANSARD, that in the foreign affairs debate about two weeks ago the whole matter was raised not only from the Opposition back benches but from the Opposition Front Bench by my right hon. Friend the Member for Caernarvon (Mr. Goronwy Roberts) and myself, when we asked that the Caetano visit should not take place.

Sir Alec Douglas-Home

The right hon. Lady is right. She and the right hon. Gentleman raised the question. [HON. MEMBERS: "Withdraw."] Of course, in so far as I did the right hon. Lady or the right hon. Gentleman an injustice I withdraw that. But they had many parliamentary occasions to put down motions of censure and did not do so until now.

Only now does the Leader of the Opposition, as I understand it, say that Portugal should be expelled from NATO. He was asked the question on television the other night and answered "I think so, yes". The right hon. Gentleman did not pursue that policy when he was in power, when he could have acted. He accepted that we have a very real common strategic concern with the defence of the North Atlantic area, and that the Portuguese seaboard is a very important part of it.

The facts of geography, which relate to Britain's security, do not change, nor does our mutual interest in trade. It has been suggested in certain quarters that our connections with Portugal are of little value to us. We have very considerable trade with Portugal. The value of our exports to Portugal in 1972 amounted to £114 million. That, for instance, is far greater than our total exports to the three countries of Eastern Europe which the right hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East is visiting at this very moment.

Presumably the Leader of the Opposition argues that Portuguese policies in Africa have got worse since 1970 and this explains to himself his radical change of view. But the fact is that, whatever view is taken of those policies, assemblies have been set up in Mozambique, elected on a common roll, with considerable legislative powers. There is in Mozambique today an assembly with a non-European majority.

I have told the Portuguese Government often that we disagree with their policy towards Africa. We have believed in granting independence to our colonies. There have been criticisms of the timing. Some say that we went too fast, others that we went too slow. There have been criticisms of lack of democracy in some of our previous colonies after the hand-over of power. But we took a conscious decision to grant independence in spite of the various risks, and I believe that that was the right policy.

The Portuguese policies are different, and the right hon. Gentleman has made a forthright attack on them today. But the question before us is not, after the right hon. Gentleman's speech, the African policies of the Portuguese but whether we should disrupt NATO and cast away the alliance with Portgual, and with it part of our own security, because we have a different concept of African policy from that of the Portuguese. A Labour Member shakes his head, but I understood his right hon. Friend to say that Portugal was no longer fit to be in NATO. The right hon. Gentleman said on the BBC that Portugal is outside the pale of civilised society. I do not know exactly what he means. Presumably he means that we should have no contacts with her at ali— unlike Czechoslovakia.

The view of Her Majesty's Government is that we should not attempt to hide or disguise our differences with the Portuguese in Africa. I made that clear in Portugal as Foreign Secretary as long ago as 1961. But the Government believe that we should not throw away the valuable ties that we have with Portugal in a fit of self-righteous indignation based on no foundation of fact.

The Portuguese rôle in the security of Europe and the Atlantic Alliance is important. That being our position, and convinced opinion, it would be the height of hypocrisy not to celebrate the 600th anniversary of the alliance. This country must never allow foreign policy and defence policy to become matters of independent judgment and erratic change, still less political playthings.

The right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition has said that every hon. Member has a duty to satisfy himself on the evidence available to him. I am bound to say that he did so extremely quickly. The House today will have a double satisfaction. Hon. Members will be able to go into the Lobby against one who will jump on any bandwagon to gain a vote and in favour of a firm alliance which serves the interests and security of Britain, Europe and the Atlantic Alliance.

4.41 p.m.

Mr. Frank Judd (Portsmouth, West)

There are some hon. Members who have over many years been pointing out consistently the significance of British involvement with Portugal, both within NATO and within Portugal's general policy. I begin by taking up the issue of the massacre which is now the immediate concern of the House. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition on the unqualified way in which he has spoken out today, and before today, in condemnation of action which can be regarded only as a negation of all the principles which we believe to be worth while within the Western community.

We must recognise that it is a lamentable comment on the state of the media and on public concern in Britain that it takes reports of the severed head of a small child being kicked around as a football before we begin to give a matter of this kind the urgent and serious consideration which it deserves. For many years some hon. Members have been advocating the need to discuss these matters in the House and publicly, but they have received little attention. That is because, for various reasons, the media have not found enough excitement and enough immediate drama in the situation to make it qualify for the type of attention which a minority believe it deserves.

It would be unfortunate if in our real and natural concern about the massacre we lost sight of the main issue. The massacre, however gruesome and however sad, is only a symptom in a long ongoing story. The evidence has been present for more than 15 years. I had the opportunity in 1969, together with some of my colleagues, to visit the Mozambique-Zambian frontier. In the course of that visit we were able to dig shrapnel and the fragments of Portuguese weapons from a Zambian village in which Zambians had been killed. They were weapons of standard NATO style which had been used in the prosecution of Portugal's campaign against Africans struggling for their freedom.

I hope that the House will realise, whatever the ultimate outcome of the independent investigations which we all hope will take place into this particular massacre, that the issue which we are discussing is far wider than any one incident, however serious such an incident might be.

There are several matters which we must bear in mind in the context of evaluating this episode. First, we must comment upon the entirely phoney nature of the sudden resurrection of an old alliance. We must think again of the 1939–45 war when we were struggling, at one stage almost alone, within Europe to maintain and protect democracy as we understood it. The position of our old ally at that juncture was at best ambivalent and at worst downright subversive in the support which it was surreptitiously giving to our enemies, in backing both sides at once. At the end of the war the flags on official buildings within Portugal flew at half mast when the news of Hitler's death was announced. Can it be said that that never marred the relationship between the Portuguese Government and the people of Great Britain?

We must also remember—this makes the situation at the moment quite ludicrous—that at the very time when we are welcoming the Portuguese Prime Minister to this country—with all the trappings of a State visit, even if the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs denies that it is a State visit—no one country has done more to sustain the rebellion against British constitutional authority and the Crown than the Portuguese Government. That Government have flagrantly and openly supported Ian Smith and his illegal régime in their determination to defy successive British Governments and the international community.

Further, we must recognise, when we evaluate the significance of Dr. Caetano's visit that it should be considered in the context of Southern African politics as a whole. It is undeniable that there is an economic, military and political alliance between the Portuguese Government, the South African Government and the illegal Rhodesian régime. The Government, as they love to do, have come to the House and said that if they are forced to have relations with South Africa that does not mean that they condone all the policies of the South African Government. That does not mean that they condone the racialist policies of the South African Government. It is, therefore, strange that we should be giving such a fulsome welcome to the leader of a country which, by its policies, is determined to shore up racialism and oppression in South Africa as well as in Rhodesia.

We must not forget the position within Portugal. Some of the immediate preoccupation with the news of the massacre which in recent weeks has taken up so much space in the Press and on radio and television may have resulted in the overlooking of the dire straits which confront people in mainland Portugal who believe in democracy and freedom. In Portugal, of course, there is no meaningful democracy or freedom as we understand it. There are no free trade unions. There is no free Press and there is no free parliamentary system.

No doubt I shall be told, as my right hon. Friend was told by the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, that it is no good singling out Caetano and the Portuguese for special condemnation. The question is asked "What is the difference between a State visit by Mr. Brezhnev from the Soviet Union and a visit by Dr. Caetano from Portugal?" There is every difference in the world. When Mr. Brezhnev comes here we know what the British position is on everything which is atrociously wrong within the Soviet system. We all know that Mr. Brezhnev comes here as the head of a country whose policies we do not support. We understand that it is the meeting between two heads of State on that basis.

I accept that part of the Government's argument that in the kind of world in which we live it is inevitable that we must have diplomatic relations with political systems of which we do not necessarily approve. But the difference between this and the visit by Dr. Caetano is that his comes in the context of the old alliance and of a supposed special relationship. It is used by the Portuguese Government in the same way as the Duke of Edinburgh's visit to Portugal-namely, to suggest that we condone or even approve of Portugal's policies within mainland Portugal and within Portugal's African territories.

It is all very well the right hon. Gentleman saying to us-I always, in a sense, respect his personal integrity in these matters-that he takes every opportunity with his right hon. Friend the Prime Minister to point out to the Portuguese régime that we do not support the policies to which it is committed. But what impact does that have on Portugal or on the world? What impact will that have if such things are said privately in conversations which go unreported in closed rooms? The overt expression of British opinion is a warm, rich and elaborate welcome for the Portuguese Prime Minister.

My right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition suggested in his argument that we were concerned with the self-interest of Britain in the sense of an enlightened long-term prospective. What is so disastrous about foreign policy under the present Government is that all the time we seem to be trapped in a narrow short-term preoccupation which fails to take into account the real challenges to humanity.

My final condemnation of Dr. Caetano's visit within the terms which I have used is that in Southern Africa a great confrontation is developing. None of us can say how long that confrontation will take fully to materialise. None of us can say what course it will take. All of us pray that it will not turn in the end into a ghastly blood bath. But we all must recognise that the confrontation is clearly there. It is between those who are committed to perpetuating unrepresentative, minority white racialist rule, whatever the trappings which may be put on it within Portugal—and sometimes the hon. Member for Haltemprice (Mr. Wall) likes to tell us about democratic elections—

Sir J. Rodgers

The hon. Gentleman talks about racialist rule in these countries. Is he not aware that certain of the governors of these territories are coloured people? There is no racialism there. If the hon. Gentleman wants to go to one area in Africa where there is no racialism, he should go to Mozambique and Angola. I have been there, as others have, and I have seen it with my own eyes.

Mr. Judd

One could argue that the Bantustans in South Africa are not racialist. Indeed, the South African Government would argue that there is African majority rule in the Bantustans, but who would believe that South Africa is not a racialist State and that the African Governments of Bantustans were able to operate in freedom and were not in the end completely under the control of the white racialist régime?

We have to decide on which side we stand in this confrontation. Is it on the side of the emancipation of the majority of the people, or is it not? If we are not on the side of the emancipation of the majority of the people, then, apart from the fact that we may be undermining here at home the values which make our civilisation worth while by our obstinacy and blinkered approach to foreign policy, on the long-term view we shall be undermining our own economic self-interest, because ultimately the majority will triumph and we shall then be seen by them as those who were determined to stand by their oppressors until the last.

The hon. Member for Haltemprice (Mr. Wall) loves to plead the cause of Portuguese enlightenment in these matters.

When I look around the world, I notice that one of the characteristics of the international community in which we live is that those principles which are dear to the very basis of this House and to the very basis of our democratic society in Britain—freedom, tolerance, free communication in the Press—are under pressure on many fronts. I believe that this is the time for statesmanship on both sides of the House to explain to the British people that we must stand firm and seek every possible opportunity to emphasise our commitment to those principles which are the basis of our society.

What I fear is that the reception accorded to the Portuguese Prime Minister on this occasion is an indication that. in the final analysis, somehow or other our leaders do not recognise the challenges which are there to the things to which they subscribe and that in their short-sightedness they are prepared to take action which may in the end undermine the principles of freedom and liberty in our own society as well as in the international community.

Several Hon. Members

rose—

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Miss Harvie Anderson)

Order. I hope that all hon. Members realise how many of them want to take part in the debate.

4.54 p.m.

Mr. John Biggs-Davison (Chigwell)

Whatever doubts there may be about this alleged massacre, there are no doubts about a massacre perpetrated shortly before my first experience of Portuguese Africa. This was as long ago as 1961. It fell to me to be the first Member of this House to tour Angola soon after that vast, peaceful and almost entirely undefended territory had been invaded from across the frontier with the anarchic Congo by the UPA—"Union of the Population of Angola"—terrorists of Holden Roberto.

There was no popular rising. There was a carefully planned series of attacks made simultaneously at widely separate places. When 1 reported to the House in October 1961 I described, correctly, … the biggest massacre of whites that has ever occurred in Africa, and that is something which has largely passed unnoticed in this House and in the Press of this country. Memory and indignation are selective. For example, everyone in this House knows about Sharpeville. What exactly did happen at Stanleyville? How many thousands of people died in Burundi? There is a mental self-censorship of ideology which puts the shutters down.

I added in my speech in 1961: One incident, reported by more than one person, was of a settler put to death by being fed to a circular saw."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 31st October 1961; Vol. 648, c. 61–2.] When I was told that in Angola, I did not believe it, for these were not the Africans I knew. Then the story was given to Le Monde at a conference held by UPA in Leopoldville, now Kinshasa. The Le Monde correspondent reported that UPA leaders had told the conference that the settler and his wife and children were given to the circular saw. He reported that they had said it with broad smiles—avec un large sourire.

I bring this up now because I think we should know what sort of people some of the so-called "freedom fighters" are who are idolised by armchair revolutionaries and even clerics in this country. We should also reflect—and perhaps the Leader of the Opposition should do this, for he is as ignorant of warfare as he is of Africa—on what is involved in insurgency and guerrilla warfare. Atrocities are committed and reprisals are exacted. These are the terrible results of this kind of struggle.

I have seen evidence in Mozambique that Frelimo has undoubtedly murdered, tortured and kidnapped many innocent Africans of different races and colour. Of course it is the black Africans who suffer most in all these conflicts.

Nothing has been said in this House about the attack on St. Albert's Mission. What did Father Hastings have to say about that? One may think that the abduction of Christian African children is somewhat inappropriate among the recipients of subventions from the World Council of Churches. Is Frelimo outside the "pale of civilisation"—words which have been used by the Leader of the Opposition, as we were reminded by my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary?

In 1961, rape, mutilation and massacre committed by drugged and bewitched Bakongo in Angola were answered by terrible reprisals from the settlers, and it took the arrival of the first Portuguese regular troops in that almost ungarrisoned province—it certainly was not held by force—to put a stop to them. The Portuguese Army did so. Honour attended the conduct of its operations there and that, I believe, remains the spirit of the Portuguese Army.

I am glad that the Portuguese Government are rigorously to investigate this allegation. Such inquiries are for the sovereign power concerned. It is not for us to carry out an investigation or to prejudge theirs. Those are words of the Leader of the Opposition, when he was Prime Minister, about the My Lai massacre. He added: I do not regard it as the right reaction to what this is, an offence against decency, even of this magnitude, to jump to premature conclusions…. "-[OFFICIAL REPORT, 8th December 1969; Vol. 793, c. 44.] In 1969, the right hon. Gentleman spoke of Portugal as being an "old and loyal ally within NATO". If he knew that to be the case then, does he not know that the alliance is as necessary today as ever it was? Do we not need to secure the Cape route? Certainly, the Labour Party in office thought so when they delegated increased responsibility to the South African Navy for the security of the Cape route. They understood in office the realities of the fact that the only ports and strategic positions in Africa upon which we could count in war are, apart from French Djibouti, either South African or Portuguese.

I do not see present any shadow spokesman for defence. Yet, when the Labour Government were in office they gave increased responsibility to the South African Navy. If we needed then the support of South Africa and of Portugal, we need it today. We need the Lisnave dockyards of Lisbon, which can take million ton tankers. We need the Sal airport, the objective of the PAIGC revolutionary movement, the "C" standing for Cape Verde islands, who assail Portuguese Guinea from Guinea-Conakry and Senegal. The alliance is necessary, and right hon. Gentlemen who might one day be responsible for the defence of this country ought to know it. That is why the centres of world subversion support Frelimo and all the revolutionary movements operating in Portuguese Africa and Iberian Portugal. The leader of the Opposition told us that he wanted to place a cordon sanitaire round Portugal. He should then have told us what is his alternative strategy for this country and for the West.

Is the right hon. Gentleman perhaps thinking in his arrogance that he can impose his policy upon Portugal? Is he some kind of Brezhnev who would impose upon a Western ally the limited sovereignty "enforced in the Warsaw bloc? Does he think that he can dictate the internal policy of Portugal and the African policy of Portugal? What is the strategy of the Labour Party? Have they surrendered? On whose side are they in the struggle going on in the world today?

The right hon. Gentleman really scraped the barrel when he tried to smear Portugal with racism. That is ludicrous to anyone who knows Portugal or Africa. Ever since that half-English prince, Henry the Navigator, encouraged the intermarriage of white Portuguese and Guinean negresses—before that, there was inter-marriage between white Portuguese and Arabs—Portugal has been non-racial. The infant parliamentary institutions, both in the overseas States and provinces and in Europe, are multiracial.

When some of my hon. Friends and I recently attended the National Assembly in Lisbon—[Laughter.] The hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Michael Foot) laughs. Does he not want to see the evolution of parliamentary institutions? Three of the most eloquent and interesting speeches that we heard came from black deputies, one from Bissau, capital of Portuguese Guinea, one from Lourenco Marques in Mozambique and one from Nampula, also in Mozambique. There is no colour bar in Portuguese Africa.

The hon. Member for Ebbw Vale, who is to reply to this debate, I understand, has not sat in a café in Lourenco Marques where the waiter might be white and the owner of the cafe black. Nor has he been, as I have, in Portuguese Guinea and seen white or almost white soldiers clearing the bush to build an airstrip, commanded by a black Fula sergeant. This is the reality. It is interesting to us, but to the Portuguese it is normal.

The reason for much of this criticism of Portuguese policy in Africa is that people in this country feel a little guilty. The Leader of the Opposition, and indeed my right hon. Friend, took pride in our programme of decolonisation, but in our hearts we know—we have men like General Amin to remind us—that a more gradual advance to self-government would have benefited the poorest, the most helpless, of Africans in the territories for which this House used to be responsible.

In December 1965, Mr. Julius Nyerere, the most ambitious nationalist leader in Tanganyika at that time, was at the United Nations. In reply to a question posed in the Fourth Committee of the General Assembly, he said that Tanganyika should be independent in about 10 years. In fact, it attained independence in 1961. The pace, we know in our hearts, was too fast—[HON. MEMBERS: "Nonsense."] We know it, and those who dispute it, those who were quite happy to see—

Mr. Alexander W. Lyon (York)

That is cock.

Mr. Biggs-Davison

That is not a very parliamentary expression.

Mr. Lyon

The hon. Member has just been criticising the Labour Party for failing to pay proper regard to what was going on inside Portuguese territories, which are very difficult for us to enter but to which he has easy access. I would make the same kind of criticism of him—that he has not been to Tanzania since independence and has not seen the enormous stability of that country and the enormous development of the Africans in it.

Mr. Biggs-Davison

I pay full credit to leaders in such countries, who, against terrible difficulties, which were our legacy, have done extraordinarily well. But my point is that they were ill-served. [Interruption.] If the hon. Gentleman complains about time being taken, I would only point out that he is taking up my time. The argument is the contrast with the more gradual approach of the Portuguese to the devolution of power to the African people.

If we had more humility, we might learn something from Portugal, who is showing Africa an alternative to that kind of self-determination, which leads either to white or to black supremacy.

The larger legislative autonomy now conferred in the Portugese territories, the granting of the title of State to Angola and Mozambique, show that further progress may be in a federal or even a "Commonwealth" direction.

But whatever the direction of the evolution it is for them to decide; it is for the Africans of all colours in the Portuguese territories to decide. They are entitled to our sympathy and our help in the establishment of new Brazils on the African shores of the Atlantic and Indian Oceans.

5.6 p.m.

Mr. David Steel (Roxbourgh, Selkirk and Peebles)

The hon. Member for Chigwell (Mr. Biggs-Davison) is a consistent apologist for the Portuguese and other régimes in Africa. I will return to what he said in a moment, but first I shall take up two point from the speech of the Leader of the Opposition. He said there was nothing new in the demand of the Opposition that the invitation to Dr. Caetano should be cancelled. I accept that is the case. But from a parliamentary point of view it would have been more effective had we had this debate before Dr. Caetano came here. It would have been more constructive and might well have influenced the eventual outcome of his visit.

It is unfortunate that we are debating this so late in the day. Secondly, while I welcome many of the things said by the Leader of the Opposition I must agree that what was said by the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr Heller) led many of us to remember questions put during the time of the Labour Government by hon. Members in different parts of the House about the discovery of NATO arms in the Portuguese territories and the bromide replies emanating from Ministers in that Government. Having made these two criticisms of the Opposition's case, in principle it is a case which I and my colleagues will support in the lobbies tonight.

As for the hon. Member for Chigwell, he must remember that the actual situation in Portugal is that it is a relatively small and weak economy with almost 50 per cent. of its national budget tied up in a series of colonial wars. Is that the lesson he wants us to learn from Portugal, as he said at the end of his speech?

It is tied up in a series of wars that it knows it cannot win—and that is the lesson which the Portuguese ought to be willing to learn from the experience of other colonial Powers in Africa. It would be a more constructive attitude in this debate if we were to consider—because the affairs of Portuguese Africa are rarely discussed or debated here—ways in which we, as allies of Portugal or as members of the European Community or the United Nations, can, at a multi-national level, assist Portugal to disengage from the territories in Southern Africa, what aid we might give, for example, by education, in the Portuguese territories, to advance self-government in the three territories which it controls at present.

We have to turn to consider the recent incident of the alleged massacre at Wiriyamu. The Foreign Secretary will understand when I use the phraseology of Scottish legal terminology and say that the case is not proven. That would be the right way of putting it, I believe. Equally, there is clearly a case to be answered. There is sufficient corroboration from different priests in Italy and Spain for a case to be answered. That is all we are saying.

I do not think we can accept from an undemocratic Government that some sort of inquiry by an army officer sent out to the area is in any way satisfactory. The least we are entitled to demand, if this visit is to proceed, is that the Portuguese Government should accept some independent inquiry into these serious allegations. Without laying down terms or dictating to the Government what the nature of the inquiry might be, there are many bodies, some mentioned by the Leader of the Opposition, which could conduct an independent inquiry outside the authority of the Portuguese Government, which is what is called for.

I want to answer the point made by the hon. Member for Chigwell about atrocities in other parts of Africa. Of course they have occurred, and on a much larger scale than this alleged massacre at Wiriyamu. That is true. But was it ever suggested that we should invite the Head of State of Burundi to this country and give him a banquet? Was it ever suggested that Labour or Liberal Members were apologising for the state of affairs in the Congo? I do not recall that, and yet we have Members who apologise, explain away, or wish to disbelieve, any allegation made about the conduct of affairs in Portuguese territories.

The most important demand that ought to come from Labour and Liberal Members tonight is a demand for an independent inquiry by some impartial and internationally respected body into what has happened or is alleged to have hap-paned in Mozambique.

We must look at the situation in Portugal. We are seeing a growing number of migrant workers leaving Portugal and working elsewhere, particularly in the EEC countries. There is, therefore, a growing population in Portugal which is experiencing different living standards, which is experiencing what life in a free society can be like. These people return to their country. This is a hopeful symbol which could give rise to possibilities of future change.

There is nothing wrong with diplomatic contacts between Portugal and this country. The Foreign Secretary was wrong to refer to demands for ostracism of Portugal. I do not think that that case has been put at all. What we object to is that there should be a quasi-State visit. I am not sure of the subtleties between different levels of banquet in this country and if my terminology is incorrect I apologise. I find this quasi-State visit absolutely nauseating and unnecessary. More important, it is open to wide-spread misinterpretation, particularly in Africa, about where we stand ill relation to Portuguese policy.

In Southern Africa as a whole, in which I include South Africa, Rhodesia, and the Portuguese territories, there is a real danger that if we do not feel our way towards a peaceful transition towards African self-government we shall see that part of the continent of Africa developing rather like Vietnam. That would be a major tragedy, and suffering of a kind which may have taken place at Wiriyamu would be much greater. It is surely in the attempt to avoid that that we must make clear which side we are on. The great criticism of the Government's invitation to Dr. Caetano is that it muddies the waters and confuses the issue as to which side we are on.

5.14 p.m.

Mr. Stephen Hastings (Mid-Bedfordshire)

I listened carefully to the hon. Member for Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles (Mr. David Steel) and I certainly agree with him about one thing. He said at the beginning of a speech that a great deal of the effect which was hoped for on the Labour and Liberal benches in bringing this debate forward has been totally ruined by the timing. This shows it up for what it is. There is no question about that.

I am sure that the hon. Member's views on Africa are sincerely held. I hold views myself. I have been to Africa quite a lot and I have tried to visit both sides of what is I suppose the sad dividing line. I wish that he would do the same. Perhaps he has. I am sure that he would be welcome if he were to pay a visit to the Portuguese territories. I do not think that he or any other Member of this House would have difficulty. If he had spent an adequate period there, I cannot believe that, knowing him to be a fair-minded person, he would have made a speech like the speech he made today. What he said bears no relation to the situation as those who have tried to find out about it have seen it to be.

The debate has nothing to do with the Opposition's attitude to Portuguese policy over a long period. It was sparked off by a request for a debate under Standing Order No. 9 which was based entirely on the report of an alleged massacre and was immediately supported by the Leader of the Opposition. That is the reason for this debate. To pretend otherwise is false. There is a classic and well-established method of evaluation of intelligence or reports of any nature and it should be known to any ex-Prime Minister and to the editor of any major newspaper in this country. I am not at all certain that The Times has ever sent anybody to corroborate its story. Mercifully other newspapers have done so. When will The Times take the trouble to do so? This was a grave matter to report irresponsibly.

One must get the answer to three questions in order to make a serious evaluation. First, who is the real source? Clearly it is not the editor of The Times. Secondly, did he or they have access to the event? Thirdly, what were his or their motives in making the report?

The matter has been widely discussed in the newspapers and in the House and I do not wish to spend too much time on it, but we are here concerned with a priest who, as far as I know, has never been in Mozambique; who has a well-known anti-Portuguese record dating back to 1954 when he was writing strong articles against the Portuguese before the attack on Goa, and who has now reported a massacre in a place which no one has been able to find. He heard about the matter from priests living in Spain who have been reported to profess that they are principally engaged in anything which will embarrass the Portuguese Government. When, at their suggestion, the matter was checked with priests of the same order in Mozambique, they refused to confirm it and the bishop denied knowing anyth