The Eagle, Bryan, Texas
Originally published in The Eagle, Bryan, Texas on Saturday, November 5th, 1977
Long Live Frestonia
Transcript
Long Live Frestonia
Slum Squatters want to join United Nations
By A O SULZBERGER, Jr.
LONDON (AP) – The last house standing on a street of empty, garbage-filled lots fenced off with corrugated iron is the Foreign Ministry of Frestonia.
Frestonia?
It’s the latest member of the world community of nations. At least that’s what Frestonian Foreign Minister David Rappaport-Bramley says.
He has already sent a Declaration of Independence to British Prime Minister James Callaghan with copies to Queen Elizabeth II and the Greater London Council – GLC.
“We have applied for full membership in the United Nations and if faced with GLC aggression we will ask for a UN peacekeeping force” he said.
He may need one. While the borders are quite new the GLC, London’s ruling body, is not likely to look lightly upon losing eight acres of London to squatters, even if it is an isolated slum in racially troubled Notting Hill.
The 120 citizens of the Free Independent Republic of Frestonia are squatters, illegal occupants of empty flats in half-demolished government-owned houses bordering what used to be Freston Street.
The Frestonians don’t see themselves as squatters – they say they are “caretakers and pioneer homesteaders” – and when the city ordered them to move out to make way for industrial development they opted for independence.
“Our case,” reads Frestonia’s application for membership in the United Nations, is that the GLC and the British government, through a long history of neglect and mismanagement of Frestonia, have forfeited the right to determine the future of the area.”
Although the Frestonians accuse Britain of “imperialism” the letter of independence says:
“We hope to establish cordial relations with Great Britain in the future and we shall of course allow free passage to all friendly visitors, with negligible passport and customs formalities.”
“We know people think we’re crazy.” said Geoff Gough-Bramley, proclaimed the Argentinian Ambassador in Frestonia, “but although we’re squatters, we’ve built up a super community in an area that was just left to die.
Several residents have assumed the titles of foreign envoys to Frestonia.
“If it hadn’t been for us,” he added, standing in the shadow of the four-lane West London motorway rumbling overhead, “these houses would have been rat-infested and derelict by now. We have proven that rundown areas like this are worth saving.”
