What we are going to do is open this building as a Liaison Office for the United Kingdom Government.
It is called a Liaison Office because it is a kind of transitional period. Obviously hitherto we have not had an Embassy and shall not have one until independence. But this is to serve either as a kind of Consulate General or as an Embassy until we can formally open an Embassy after independence.
Until now the office has been run from South Africa and now it will be run from here. Anyone who wants help can come here for it or any of the officials here, in connection with UNCTAD, if they wish to get in touch with us quickly, can do it through this office.
So this would be an Embassy if it were full independence, and it is a transitional instrument, that is what it is all about. [end p1]
We shall be raising the flag and it will almost certainly immediately be dropped to half-mast because of the two Signals soldiers we lost through a motor accident yesterday and we would like to do it as a mark of respect to them and a mark of sympathy to their families.