Text of the Speech made by Mr. Walker (Australia) in the Security Council Meeting No. 772 held on 20 February 1957

Text of the Speech made by Mr. Walker (Australia) in the Security Council Meeting No. 772 held on 20 February 1957

The Australian delegation is happy to see that the representative of India is well enough to take his place at the Council table this morning and to make the further statement on behalf of the Government of India that we were promised.

We have listened with great interest to this statement, and I must say that I personally feel more convinced than ever of the desirability of this Council arranging for its President to visit the area and to report back to the Council as provided in the four-Power draft resolution [S/3787] that is before it.

I feel it desirable to comment briefly on the two sets of amendments submitted to the Council by the representatives of the Soviet Union and Colombia.

As to the Soviet Union amendments [S/3789] I am afraid I see nothing in their favour. Is the representative of the Soviet Union really interested in a sound and rational discussion of this problem of Kashmir? His own statements seem to contradict his amendments. At the 770th meeting, Mr. Sobolev had this to say:

The Kashmir question has in actual fact already been settled in essence by the people of Kashmir themselves, who consider their territory an integral part of the Republic of India". [770th meeting, para, 135].

If this question of Kashmir has been settled, why does the representative of the Soviet Union support a proposal that the President of the Council should go to the sub-continent to investigate the question? Surely there would be no point in our requesting you to make this long and arduous journey to India and Pakistan if the matter were already settled. One may well ask: What are the real objectives of the Soviet Union in this connection ?

If we look further into Mr. Sobolev's statement, we find that he has proclaimed that:

"the Charter does not provide for the use of United Nations forces to impose by force a plebiscite in any country." [770th meeting, para. 139.]

Of course not. But I suggest to my colleagues that this is a gross distortion of the wording and intention of the draft resolution. If Mr. Sobolev had read the preamble carefully, he would have noted the words :

"...in so far as it" - the proposal of the representative of Pakistan concerning the use of a temporary United Nations force-"might contribute towards the achievement of demilitarisation the use of such a force would deserve consideration',. [S/3787.]

Nobody has suggested in this Council that troops should be used to force the holding of a plebiscite in Kashmir.

Of course, it does not come as a surprise that the Soviet Union would be opposed to any suggestion of a plebiscite which would enable the people of Kashmir to express their own views. on their future political allegiance. After all, the Soviet Union. has often shown a preference for other methods of determining such questions.

Nor, I suppose, should we be surprised that the Soviet Union is opposed to any proposal for the introduction of a temporary United Nations force into Kashmir. We are all familiar with the position of the Soviet Union on the United Nations Emergency Force at present in the Middle East.

And as for Mr. Sobolev's suggestion that all would be quiet in Kashmir were it not for artificial attempts to create trouble there, these words have so familiar a ring that they can carry little conviction to the Council, particularly in view of the statements we have heard from the parties.

In short, the amendments of the Soviet Union representative seem to me to ignore all that has gone before on this question of Kashmir.

With regard to the amendments proposed by the Colombian delegation [S/3791/Rev. 1], I would only say that while I fully appreciate its motives in putting them forward, I find them difficult to accept since I feel that the draft resolution as it stands would provide a suitable basis for the mission that we wish to entrust to the President of the Council.

Before concluding these remarks, I wish to correct certain references that the representative of India made last Friday [769th meeting] to my own statement in the Council [768th meeting, paras. 48 to 59]. Mr. Menon complained that I had drawn an analogy between the United Nations Emergency Force now in Egypt and the proposal of the representative of Pakistan which is referred to in the draft resolution before us. Moreover, he said that this analogy "comes ill from the representative of Australia, who initially refused to have anything to do with this business of sending a force to Egypt in order to implement the purposes of the Charter" [769th meeting, para. 103.].

I can only say that Mr. Menon's recollection was at fault when he made this remark. There were three votes in the first emergency special session on the subject of the United Nations Emergency Force. On the first of those resolutions Australia abstained because the preamble recalled earlier resolutions relating to the withdrawal of the United Kingdom and French forces which we had not supported. But we made it clear that we supported in principle the establishment of UNEF and we voted for the next two resolutions dealing with arrangements for the Force. So there is no foundation for Mr. Menon's suggestion that Australia's position on UNEF has been such as to make it inappropriate for me to draw an analogy between that Force and the Force proposed for Kashmir, if I had desired to do so. As a matter of fact, my observations on this question were carefully worded to avoid entering into any discussion of that kind.

What I said about the Pakistan proposal for a United Nations force is as follows:

"The idea", I said, "is perhaps not a new one, but it gains in interest and importance from the recent experience of the United Nations in the establishment and operations of the United Nations Emergency Force in Egypt. Without drawing any parallel between the situation that led to the General Assembly's decision to establish that Force and the problem of securing appropriate measures of demilitarisation of Kashmir as a preliminary step towards holding a free and impartial plebiscite, it would seem to us very difficult for anybody to deny that the use of such a force, insofar as it might contribute towards demilitarisation, would, in the words of the draft resolution para. 53.]. 'deserve consideration'." [768th meeting,Para 53.]

I appreciate that Mr. Menon did not have the text of my statement before him when he spoke and that may explain why his own comments somewhat distorted my remarks. I have gone into this partly in order to set the record straight and also if possible, to reinforce my previous plea to Mr. Menon to recognize our good will in this matter and to accept our draft resolution in the spirit in which it is offered.

I must say that regarding this proposal for the use of a temporary force, the comments of the representative of Pakistan, (770th meeting, para. 120 to 128) towards the conclusion of his speech on Monday, indicating his understanding of the functions that a United Nations force might fulfil in this connexion, struck me as being very reasonable. But these are only observations which, along with the other statements made here, would need to be taken into account by our President in his discussions with India and Pakistan.

It is the hope of the Australian delegation that, along with other matters, our President will explore this proposal with the Governments of India and Pakistan and that they will give this, as indeed the other matters studied by the Council on this occasion, their closest consideration.