Text of the Speech made by Mr. Ramani (Malaysia) in the Security Council Meeting No. 1249 held on 28 October 1965

Text of the Speech made by Mr. Ramani (Malaysia) in the Security Council Meeting No. 1249 held on 28 October 1965

Consistent with the views my delegation has expressed during the several occasions last month when the question of Kashmir came before this Council, I am anxious once again to emphasise, at least as far as it concerns us, that the immediate and urgent task for the Security Council at this moment is to set its sights no higher and no wider than the strengthening of the cease fire and enforcement of the steps to be taken to arrange the withdrawals. For that reason we would support any resolution which has those immediate objectives.

We should have thought that, in the present context, when the Secretary-General is endeavouring to obtain a modus vivendi between the two States concerned on the implementation of the withdrawal of forces ordered by the Council and has not confessed to any failure in getting, any reaffirmation of the earlier resolution merely because we have had to debate the whole question again would not help the Council or strengthen its arm in reaching its objectives. Indeed we are almost inclined to feel that such reaffirmation, far from strengthening only tends to create a doubt about the firmness of the earlier decisions and to that extent weaken them. Still we do perceive that any possible suggestion of delay in the implementation of the earlier resolution would be met by any resolution which imports into the situation a greater sense of urgency.

It is most essential that our immediate objective should be to strengthen the Security Council's approach to this problem of a cease-fire followed by withdrawals, and once again we repeat that that is my delegation's sole immediate concern: the restoration or revitalization of the Council's moral and legal authority.

It is a thousand pities that the participation of the Indian delegation in the debates that commenced on Monday last, 25 October, should have been aborted and that delegation should have found itself in a position not permitting its further participation in this debate, as the Indian Foreign Minister's letter [S/6833] sets out. It is not for us to examine or to approve or disapprove the reasons that compelled such an attitude.

In this connexion we cannot help recalling that at the 1242nd meeting, on 20 September, I took great pains to make it clear that first things must come first and that second things, if I may use such an expression, merely come in the way of a dispassionate discussion of the first and essential things. Had our view prevailed, we should not find ourselves presenting the spectacle that we now witness in the Council, with one of the principal parties finding it impossible to participate. It is heartening to find, however, that in the letter of the Foreign Minister of India there is to be found the clear statement indeed it is stated more than once-that his Government is ready and willing to co-operate with the Secretary-General in the implementation of the cease-fire and withdrawal. The Government of Pakistan has also already stated its readiness to cooperate with the Secretary-General in this behalf. In the words of the representative of the Soviet Union, when he spoke on Monday: "These are the questions that must be settled first, these are the questions to which attention must be given in the situation that has now arisen." [1247th meeting, para. 241].

However, we are anxious not to be misunderstood, at least by those who have a willingness to understand. We have repeatedly stated and we wish to reiterate our position. We do not say, and we have never said, that there do not exist between the two countries political problems that require solution. We feel too that for the sake of peace and security in that area the sooner they are resolved, and resolved through peaceful processes, the better it would be not only for them but for the whole of Asia and indeed for the whole world. We merely wish to emphasise that the immediate problem I repeat "immediate" is the problem of a cease-fire and withdrawal of forces. Indeed we think we have now arrived at a stage in which actual withdrawals would even more significantly contribute to the strengthening of the cease-fire than peremptory admonitions by the Council periodically addressed to the

parties. I should like to add a word in connection with the statements that were made at the 1247th meeting by the representatives of the Soviet Union, the United States, the United. Kingdom and France regarding the question of the Secretary General's authority in carrying out the resolutions of this Council.

The representative of the Soviet Union, if I may be permitted to summarise his attitude to this question in his two successive interventions, referred to the matter in two aspects. First, he said that the Secretary-General did not have the specific authority of the Security Council to take the steps he had taken, pursuant to its resolutions in the instant matter and second, that he had acted in breach of the provisions of the Charter. Of the two I should consider the second as the more serious criticism, if it is well founded, because the Secretary General's functions do not have even the vestige of an existence outside of the Charter and the necessary intendment of its provisions. This whole question, with all its ramifications, is due to come up for debate in other forums during the twentieth session of the General Assembly. They will provide the appropriate occasions to delve more fully into all aspects of this matter. Therefore my delegation at this stage wishes only to go on record as saying that it is not aware of any provision of the Charter which can sustain that criticism.

With regard to the first criticism, it is only fair to point out that, since resolution 211 (1965) of 20 September, the Secretary-General has supplied us with no less than ten successive reports as of today on his efforts to give effect to resolution 211 (1965). On 27 September, even before the Council met again, the reports had added up to no less than six.

In the very first of those reports, that of 21 September [S/6699], the Secretary-General not only gave us a very detailed report, running to several closely typed pages, of how he was proceeding with the organisation of observers into two groups but also gave us reasonably precise particulars of their number, their staff and their logistical support-both on the cease-fire line and on the international boundary. In that very first report he estimated the cost for a three-month period in the sum of $1,645,000. That figure alone demonstrates that a detailed. compilation of costs had been made, and that he was not merely. guessing

In the third report, dated 23 September [S/6699/Add.2], the Secretary-General circulated copies of his telegrams to the Prime Minister of India and the President of Pakistan, in which he explained why he felt it necessary to regard the two operations as separate exercises-in his own words, "because of the difference in origin of the two operations"-and stated that the United Nations Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan would continue to supervise the cease-fire line and the new group of observers would be organised as the United Nations India-Pakistan Observation Mission.

In his fourth report, dated 23 September [S/6699/Add.3], he dealt with the two operations under separate heads and again explained the need to differentiate between them. He also gave information regarding the countries to which he had applied for assistance in providing military observers for the new group.

In his report dated 24 September [S/6699/Add.4], he indicated his designation of General Macdonald of Canada as the Chief Officer of the United Nations India-Pakistan Observation Mission.

In his next report [S/6699/Add.5] circulated on 27 September just before the 1245th meeting of the Council, he indicated particulars of transport and other logistical support he had been endeavouring to obtain and stated that he was airlifting it to the subcontinent.

For our part, we cannot help but feel that the Secretary General has been diligently and efficiently carrying out the precise duties cast upon him by this Council and has been keeping this Council informed of what he has been doing almost from day to day. If-I repeat if-he was acting in excess of the authority given him by the Security Council in its resolutions, surely it was open to any one of us who felt doubts about the extent of the authority he was exercising in any particular matter to bring them immediately to the notice of the Secretary-General, and if necessary to the Security Council, if a more particularised and precisely delimited authority appeared to be required. And all of us, in any event, had that opportunity during the lengthy gathering we held on 27 September.

I do feel without any intellectual hesitations whatever, that having regard to the crisis that was on our hands with respect to Kashmir, the Secretary-General did have all the authority he needed to mobilise the strength of observers he felt would meet the emergency-and this, precisely and without any ambiguity, was the authority we, the Council, gave him.

Indeed, I venture to think that not to have done what he in fact did would only have left him open to the more legitimate criticism that would have occurred to some others of us: why did he not act and act with the speed the situation demanded, in accordance with the mandate given to him by the Security Council ?