11021948 Text of the Speech made by Mr. Noel Baker (UK) in the Security Council Meeting No. 244 held on 11 February 1948

11021948 Text of the Speech made by Mr. Noel Baker (UK) in the Security Council Meeting No. 244 held on 11 February 1948

1. find it difficult to believe that in the early days of the League of Nations, while the Covenant was still being taken seriously, the Council of the League would ever have agreed to such a course. We were hoping that this Security Council, by the very fact that it is permanent, would be more effective for this pur­pose than the Council of the League. Of course, we recognize that there must sometimes be intervals when delegations must consult the Governments which make the decisions at home. We are more than grateful for the assurance which was given us by our ndian colleague yesterday afternoon. He is making no attempt to break off this affair and to withdraw the matter from the Security Council, but he is coming back as soon as he usefully can. We all agree that the item stands on the agenda. It is a matter of course. We all agreed that, if developments should make it necessary, we shall proceed. That is a matter of course, and India will be represented, as our colleague told us, very well. We all agreed that we must resume the question soon. The question is: how soon? I should be the last man to desire to express a firm view if the visit which is to be made to New Delhi will advance the cause of peace. But, as I am at present advised, it seems to me that the shortest period as yet proposed in the Council—the Chinese representative's fifteen days—is extremely long and the longest to which we ought now to agree, because this is a serious matter.

The representative of India told us yesterday that a battle was taking place in which 14,000 men had been launched against the positions of the Indian Army. That fact shows that large forces are now engaged. It is a big concentration. In any campaign, that would be a considerable engagement. Therefore, I hope—and I am sure that our Indian colleagues will do their best to justify the hope that they will return to us not necessarily at the end of the period which, in its wisdom, the Security Council may decide, but at the earliest moment when they see their path clear before them to useful work.

I want to add that I hope that what is being done today will not be taken as a precedent for future cases. I think that is a matter of the highest importance. While there may be every justification by what the Indian delegation has asked, and to which we shall agree, there might, in another case, be no justification at all. That is why I hope it will be firmly esta­blished that this is not a precedent which can be held to bind the Security Council on any future occasion that may arise.

Secondly, I want to make a very brief amplification of what I said yesterday about the draft resolution presented by the President and the Rapporteur [document SJ667], out of which this request for adjournment has arisen. No one has asked that the Security Council shall vote on that draft resolution; no one is going to ask it. The Security Council, as I think, has given it a broad endorsement. But I venture to think that supposing we had voted on it, supposing we had made a formal decision, of course it would still have been open to the Security Council to make amendments to it, to make additions or deletions either by agreement of the parties or to meet the view of one of the parties which we thought was well founded.

Of course, it is not a binding document. If it had been voted, it would not be a binding document ruling out everything else. It could be changed or added to in any way. And, of course, not every member of the Security Council is in agree­ment with every detail that appears in the resolution. In my experience, that is always true in every document agreed to by any democratic body. I do not know what the experience of other members of the Security Council may have been in their respective parliaments at home, but I doubt if I have ever voted for a bill in the House of Commons of which, in all its details, I approved. But broadly, we think this is a good and reasonable basis of discussion. For my part, I would have thought the same of the memorandum presented by the representative of Colombia at the 241st meeting of which the representative of India spoke some favorable words the other day.

Thirdly, in taking this view of the draft resolution submitted by the President and the Rapporteur or of the memorandum submitted by the representative of Colombia, I am sure that every member of the Security Council has acted according to his conscience and with absolute impartiality between the parties. The members of the Security Council have no reason in the world to do anything else. With equal understanding and equal friendship for two great peoples, they have sought to do equal justice to them both. And as they have begun, I am convinced they will go on to the very end of all our work.

I now come to one or two of the important matters which were raised in the Security Council yesterday afternoon. The representative of India, with the courteous firmness which he always shows, told us that he wanted us to do more about clauses 4 (a) and (b) of the President's resolution. He said that he wanted drastic action taken by Pakistan to stop the fighting. We all want drastic action taken by Pakistan to stop the fighting. He said that India wanted those two clauses [ have mentioned in the President's draft resolution to be much developed. We all want those two clauses to be much developed. For my part, I could write a long essay on the subject.

He said that he wanted specific obligations to be laid on Pakistan about the tribesmen, about the volunteers from the Punjab and about the other matters which he mentioned. We all want obligations as specific, as comprehensive, as the Indian delegation could desire.

India wants a demine made on Pakistan that its obligations be accepted and carried out. We are all quite ready to make that demand, but India wants that demand made now, at once. as the sole action of the Security Council, irrespective of every­thing else we may have to do, and if I understood him rightly yesterday the Indian representative said: "This is our task and other matters which have been raised, if not wholly irrelevant are at least matters which can wait for a considerable time. We must." he said, "concentrate now on stopping the fighting."

That is the point of stopping the fighting. Would it stop the fighting if the Security Council did what it desires? Everything lies there. Suppose we put this demand to Pakistan, and put it

now. Would the inhabitants of Poonch and Mirpur and Rias Lay down their arms? Would the volunteers from West Punjab go home? Would the tribesmen obey the summons of

the Security Council and go back to their barren uplands or would our action have exactly the opposite effect? Would the tribesmen in their tens of thousands—the tribesmen, who, many of them, have hitherto been persuaded to stay at home—come Hooding down to conquer Kashmir, as they believe they can? I have constantly argued that that is the danger, perhaps a mortal danger, to all concerned. The Indian representative brought some evidence to the Council chamber the other day. When that evidence was taken as a whole it supported and very powerfully supported what I have just said. I showed how grave the risks might be, how swift and disastrous the results might be, if the Council made a mistake and acted unwisely or intemperately at this dangerous time.

How can the Council help the Indian delegation to bring the fighting to an immediate stop? We have said very often: by getting a general settlement of the whole Kashmir affair...I think it was the representative of the United States who put it first in our debates. He said at the 240th meeting:

"It is my opinion that, if and when the Security Council deals with this problem, it must consider it as a whole, because unless it does, there cannot be a cessation of hosti­lities. How is it possible to induce the tribesmen to retire from Jammu and Kashmir without warfare and without driving them out? That is the only way it can be done, unless the tribesmen are satisfied that there is to be a fair plebiscite assured through an interim government that is in fact, and that has the appearance of being, non-partisan,"

The representative of China put it, as I thought, in wise and cogent words at the 243rd meeting when he said:

"If you agree to a plebiscite, it must be a free and impartial plebiscite. Furthermore,...the announcement and the estab­lishment of a scheme of a free and impartial plebiscite would be the most potent means to pacify the Muslims and the tribesmen. I cannot think of any other way of carrying across to the people in revolt the message that it is unneces­sary for them to resort to violence; and that, for their own good, they should stop violence as early as possible, because they will have a fair chance to decide their own future."

I endorse those sentiments and I venture to think that even the Indian delegation have given them some support by putting forward, ten days ago [236th meeting], a complete scheme of settlement which covered the restoration of order, the question of military occupation, the organization of government and the carrying out of the plebiscite.

I think the Indian representative retreated a little from that position yesterday afternoon and, indeed, some doubt has been cast on what the Indian delegation really wants. It has been asked: Are they desiring to make this demand on Pakistan, regardless of the consequences to be achieved, on the basis of fiat Justicia, ruat  coelom Are they saying, "If this may mean war, let there be war"? I do not believe it.

It has been suggested that they want action which will shorten and make the action of the Indian Army; that the Indian Army could then finish off the rebels and drive out the tribesmen and volunteers from Pakistan. Perhaps if the Security Council did what the Indian representative desired, it might have that result, though I doubt it.

But even if it did make it a little less long, a little less bloody, it would still be a long and bloody business. What would be infinitely worse is this—and this is what both delega­tions and the Security Council must bear continually in mind —that it would make the hope of real friendship between India and Pakistan, lasting friendship for the years to come, less than it is today. I do not believe, I cannot believe, I will not believe, that this is what India really wants. They must want the full stoppage of the fighting at the earliest possible time; they must want the people of Poonch and Mirpur, the volunteers, the tribesmen, to stop their action because they believe they safely can do so.

Why can we not make the settlement now which the members of the Security Council desire? Why does the Indian representative suggest that a plebiscite, which he admits is not irrelevant, is nevertheless a matter which could wait for a considerable time? Why does he call them as he did, "long-range problems"? I think it would be a disaster both to India and to Pakistan if we so regard them. What is long-term about them? Why should it take long to make a settlement?

The Indian delegation has no doubt given consideration to the matter during the past month. The Security Council has given consideration to it over a considerable time and they pro­duced their scheme within a matter of days—two days if remember rightly.

We start from a very strong position. Both sides want a fair plebiscite. It is contrary to common sense to think that a Government would come to this table and talk about a plebis­cite that was not to be fair. Our problem in the Security Council is to make all parties, including Pakistan and the Kashmiris now fighting against the Indian Army—whom the Indian representative admitted to be parties the other day— regard the plebiscite as fair.

I do not think that ought to take months and months. Why should it? I was very much struck by some words used by the Indian representative yesterday afternoon. He said, towards the end of his speech:

"On the occasion, when the President handed this draft resolution to me, all I tried to persuade him of was that we had spent about a month in talking about generalities. Let us come to brass tacks; let us consider concrete proposals; let us sit down from day to day, hour after hour for the next four or five days and formulate concrete action to be taken. That would be time well spent. However if we now are going to discuss merely gene­ral principles of this sort, get them through the Security Council, and later on begin to sit in order to consider concrete steps—in themselves matters which will involve points of controversy.,." He felt that the Indian delegation had better do what it now proposes.

Those observations make me feel, firstly, that I was right yesterday afternoon in suggesting that if we do have an interval in our discussions, it should be used by our President and our Rapporteur in trying to evolve a much more definite, concrete scheme; and, secondly, I am bound to say that [—and I think most members of the Security Council—had hoped that discus­sions of the kind described would have happened in the last interval between 6 February and 10 February, a period of nearly four days when we broke off for that very purpose.

But even now, in my view, it is not too late to do this. Why should not the delegations of India and Pakistan, the President and the Rapporteur sit down this afternoon and begin to hammer for four or five days on end at the real causes of disagreement? I think they can usefully do it on the basis of the draft resolution presented by the President and the Rapporteur. I do not think that would in any way prejudice the position of the delegation of India. If it were desired, I think the memorandum of the representative of Colombia also could be put in as a basis of debate.

Whatever the basis, of course, the hands of the Indian delegation would be free; but I think it would be a tragedy if the representatives of India where to go back to their country without having, in their own words, "thrashed out the difficul­ties, the real differences that remain," and without understanding fully, on one side and the other, all that is in mind.

There is nothing irrevocable about an aircraft ticket. There may be something irrevocable in the departure of the Indian delegation. Who knows what may happen while they are away? I say, with all respect, that delays and hesitations have caused more unwanted wars than all the other factors in the world, wars that Governments had not planned, wars on which the Governments and the peoples look back with harsh regret,

I believe this is a short-term, an urgent and, as politics go in 1948, an easy problem. I am sure that if the delegations could get back to the spirit of Independence Day five months ago, they could settle these issues without delay. As I said two weeks ago, they have settled by joint action problems that are more difficult and far more terrible than this. In this, form should be nothing; spirit should be all.

On Independence Day the cabinet of the Government of India mad*e a declaration in which they said: "We proclaim that we as a nation and a people stand for world peace and co-operation among nations. We stand for democracy. The method of democracy is to find peaceful solutions for all problems. By violence and hatred, no problem is solved."

Let both delegations take those noble phrases as their pro­gramme; then our work will soon be ended and lasting peace and friendship will be assured.