from a Nottingham reader When the new Government of Southern Yemen (the National Liberation Front of what was formerly the Southern Arabian Federatiom) protested agains+ the handing over of the Kuria Muria Islands to the British puppet regime of Oman, Mr, Browm justified the transfer by saying that the islands had originally belonged to that country. This claim has been completely demolished.in a letter to The Times, published on December 14th, from Mrs. C.Se Nicholls of St, Anthony's College, Oxford. In fact it turns out that the transfer of the islands to Britain was a piece of oldfashioned imerialism motivated by pure commercial greed. Mrs, Nicholls’ letter reads: "With reference to Mr, N. Mcleod Innes (December 8), it is true that the Kuria Muria islands were freely transferred by the Sultan of Muscat and Oman to Great Britain, but he was able to be so liberal with his gift because the islands did not belong to him, The cession was a p cal manoeuvre on his part (at various times he also claimed Aden, ~ ra, the Hadramaut coast, the Samali coast, the whole East African Coast and the islands off Madagascar), His cession of the islands did not prevent the expulsion of the first Englishman by the local inhabitants, "4S subsequent British inauiry into the owmership of the islands revealed that the islands, if they could be said to belong to anyone, were the property of the Mahrah be, inhabiting the mainland oposite. In fact, among the Arabs, the isrtads were called Jezair Beni Khulfan, or the i:t islands of the family of Khulfan (a section of the Mahrah tribe), In . 1857 there was a great deal of discussion about the ownership of the islands as a reference to The Times correspondence columns of the year will show. The British eventually enf enforced their possession with warships because in 1856 Peruvian guano had gone up £1 a ton and the Kuria Muria Islands were thought to be an important alternative source of this conmodity,"
In view of these facts the Government ouzht to annul the decision to give the islands to Ome and return them to the new republic.