Britain Promises 1987 Vote in Isles in West Indies Hit by Corruption

The British government Friday promised new elections next year in the Turks and Caicos Islands, a tiny dependency in the West Indies where Britain dismissed the local rulers on grounds of corruption.

“It is essential we put right what has gone wrong,” Foreign Office Minister Tim Eggar told the House of Commons. “Many of the islanders would like to see an end to present abuses.”

The Conservative government of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher on Thursday dissolved the local government of the 12-island chain with a population of about 9,000 people and assumed direct rule.

The move came after a British investigative commission concluded that there was evidence of corruption in several Turks and Caicos government departments.

After threatening to resist, the islands’ Chief Minister Nathaniel Francis, 74, and the other ministers handed their resignations Thursday to British Gov. Christopher Turner.

Francis’ predecessor as chief minister, Norman Saunders, is in jail in Miami, where he was convicted last year on federal charges of aiding drug smuggling through the islands.

Eggar said the islands’ local executive council was replaced by an advisory council chosen by Turner from among “the most respected and responsible islanders.”

He said a constitutional commission to be headed by a senior Caribbean statesman, whom he did not identify, would report by the end of the year, followed by new elections.

London’s Daily Telegraph said that a senior British “military adviser” had arrived in the islands and that troops were on standby to be flown in if necessary.

However, there were no reports of significant opposition to the British action on the islands.