22011948 Speech made by Mr. Arce {Argentina) in the Security Council Meeting held on 22nd January 1948 on change in Agenda of the Meeting
22011948 Speech made by Mr. Arce {Argentina) in the Security Council Meeting held on 22nd January 1948 on change in Agenda of the Meeting
I am very sorry to have to disagree with the opinion of the distinguished representative of the United Kingdom, who has submitted a proposal to alter the agenda—especially as his view is supported by a legal opinion, and I have a great respect for legal opinions.
We must remember, however, that this is not a court of justice but a political body, which must be governed by fixed rules but cannot pay too much attention to trifling details of form, particularly when they do not involve major questions of principle.
The situation of India and Pakistan seems to me to be more complicated than some members of the Council have tried to make out. I have no special information concerning the result of the exercise of the good offices of the President of the Council with the representatives of Pakistan and India. But seeing that we are assembled here and that the representative of Pakistan has sent us this letter requesting the Council to consider the charges, innumerable charges, formulated a few days ago against the Government of India, it would appear that the negotiations have not been very successful. I am afraid that if we were to try to deal with the question of Jammu and Kashmir apart from other Indian questions, we should never settle anything, and we should be allowing the war to continue and committing a flagrant injustice against these two new Members of the United Nations.
I have the impression that this is a conflict which might be divided into as many as ten different parts, and that there are some who would wish us to deal with only one-tenth, leaving the rest aside. Obviously, if we do not attempt to solve all the difficulties, we shall be unable to solve even the tenth part of the small war which has broken out between Pakistan and India.
For the rest, though I do not know whether the statements of the representative of Pakistan, which we have just heard, are correct or incorrect, it is obvious that just as we cannot cover up the sky with a sieve neither can we close our eyes to what is there before us. The India-Pakistan problem includes at least ten or twelve points, and the Security Council should take them as a whole, for having been informed of them, it cannot ignore one and deal with another merely because that is the only one which has been officially brought before the Council.
Furthermore, we need only read a little of document U, submitted to the Council by the Pakistan Government on 15 January 1948 [in document SJ646] to realize that these claims have been put before us by the Government of Pakistan, at least implicitly, if not expressly. I have underlined the main-ones here. I repeat, we cannot shut our eyes to these questions and ignore them; but supposing that, in order to conform to all the rules of procedure of a high court of justice, we were to take the question of Jammu and Kashmir first and the other questions afterwards, it is obvious that the Council could not deal with them separately but would be obliged to consider them as a whole.
It seems to me therefore that this discussion is irrelevant, especially as the Indian representative has already asked for an. opportunity to reply to the charges made by the representative of Pakistan.
But let us suppose that this is a court of justice. I do not know how it would be in other countries, but in my own, when a claim and counterclaim are presented, the two are not filed as separate suits; the judge settles the two together on their merits.
For these reasons, and because I feet keenly that we are shirking a very serious matter in which the representatives of Pakistan and India appear not to have reached agreement— though I cannot be certain about that as the President has told us nothing—I cannot vote in favour of the motion presented by my distinguished colleague, the representative of the United Kingdom. but even if his proposal is accepted, I wish to state. I shall present a concrete proposal for the consideration of all the questions at issue between Pakistan and India together.
I think that if the negotiations have not been successful (I do not know, but I suspect that they have not), the reason is precisely that they have not been dealt with as a whole. To give only one instance, if we followed this course we should be leaving unsettled the question of the aggression of which..
According to the Pakistan representative's statements, the Government of India has been guilty in taking possession of the Junagadh peninsula—which, indeed, as I see from this map kindly furnished to me by the Indian delegation, is within the boundaries of India, just as Kashmir is. The question would remain unsettled, since the Prince of Junagadh is determined that the State shall become a part of Pakistan.
According to the Pakistan representative's statements, India sent in an army and took control of the -whole territory, though I do not know whether the Prince was expelled. If that is not aggression, if that is not war, if anyone thinks that we should close our eyes to these things, I for my part cannot assent to such a procedure. I shall vote for consideration of all the points in the India-Pakistan problem, including that of the mail which has been mentioned here, the financial question, and all the other questions.
If these problems had been solved before 15 August last year, many unpleasant things would have been avoided, the first being the manner in which the new dominions of India and Pakistan were admitted to membership of the United Nations.
(SCOR, 3rd Year, Mtg. no. 231, pp. 150-152)