Text of the Speech made by Mr. Ramani (Malaysia) in the Security Council Meeting No. 1237 held on 4 September 1965

Text of the Speech made by Mr. Ramani (Malaysia) in the Security Council Meeting No. 1237 held on 4 September 1965

On behalf of the six sponsors-Bolivia, the Ivory Coast, Jordan, Malaysia, the Netherlands and Uruguay-I should like to introduce to the members of this Council the text of a draft resolution [S/6657].

The text is self-explanatory, and I need not dwell on its contents; it is entirely and solely designed to meet the present emergency in Kashmir.

I wish to emphasise that the draft resolution makes no findings; it produces no judgements on the distressing and tragic situation that has suddenly developed along and beyond the cease-fire line between India and Pakistan in Kashmir. I am sure either side has at its elbow allow all the valid reasons to explain, and perhaps also to justify, how this came about and also why it could not be avoided and had to occur . For the immediate present, I venture to think, we should avoid getting entangled in these reasons, having regard to the urgency which faces the Security Council this afternoon.

Hardly thirty minutes ago, as here we exchanged compliments, before proceeding to exchange arguments, a Reuters' report received in New York at 4.28 p.m. disclosed that:

"Pakistani forces pushed deeper into Indian Kashmir today" Saturday, 4 September-"as air fighting between the two countries intensified and the United Nations Security Council met to try to solve what the Secretary General, U Thant, called and 'ominous situation'" and so on.

I have referred to this in passing by way of emphasizing the urgency of the problem with which the Security Council is faced at this very moment.

The Security Council has before it the report of the Secretary-General. It discloses a state of affairs of the gravest kind, with unpredictable potentialities not merely for India and Pakistan but for the wider world as a whole. Even the characteristic moderation of the Secretary-General in the use of language in all his reports has had to be exceeded in the language in which he has presented this report. It underlines the somber shades in the situation and emphasises the risks that the world would be consciously running if nothing were done to moderate and modify the attitudes that created this situation.

The Security Council therefore is faced with an objective situation on, the ground and in the air in Kashmir which cries for the intervention of the Security Council if as indeed it is, the supreme world organ solely concerned with and responsible for the peace and security have received their profoundest shock by the recrudescence of the present violence on a disturbing scale, even in the normally unstable conditions that have prevailed in Kashmir.

The Security Council therefore owes itself and the high purposes for which it has been called into being a duty: to cry a halt to this manifestation which, with every day that passes, is escalating towards a wider war. Limited objectives in a situation of such potential danger cannot for very long remain limited, posting the potential threat of a large conflagration.

As I said, the draft resolution does no more than just call a halt to this escalation. India and Pakistan, as two great world Powers, have less of a duty to themselves than to the wider cause of world peace and world order. They have been and should continue to be an example to the Afro-Asian world. Certainly neither of them, with the wealth of political talent and wisdom with which they have been generously endowed, can seriously believe-whatever the rationalised and articulated motivations behind their respective present stands-that the course in which they have launched themselves, a course, if I may say so, so utterly alien to their cultures and their manifest destiny in the world, can in fact and in truth contribute towards a peaceful solution of their decades-old problems, to which they both have unreservedly committed themselves in the eyes of the world.

The draft resolution calls attention to the obligations already undertaken by the two States and just asks them to desist from pursuing their objectives through the dangerous paths of violence and injustice to their duty to themselves, and in deference to the Charter of the United Nations and their duty to the world.

The world Press has in recent days pressed on and presented to the Governments of India and Pakistan the anxieties of the Heads of States and Governments all over the world at the alarming drift of the situation in Kashmir, and all of them have directly addressed appeals to the Heads of Government in India and Pakistan. Perhaps I may be permitted to mention the attitude of Mr. Lester Pearson of Canada, offering his immediate and personal services to help to bring about a cease-fire, which brings to this problem

its deserved measure of urgency. I trust that this Council will suffer no delay, will act promptly and with all possible speed and accept this draft resolution without a dissenting voice so that the appeal of the Secretary-General may be endorsed with the unanimous strength of the whole of this Council.