WEST NEW GUINEA

Press, Volume XCIV, Issue 28128, 17 November 1956, Page 11

WEST NEW GUINEA

U.N. To Debate Sovereignty

(Rec. 9 p.m.) NEW YORK, Nov. 15. The people of West New Guinea would join an alien people and an alien culture if their country became part of Indonesia, Mr R. G. Casey? the Australian Minister for External Affairs, told the United Nations General Assembly yesterday. The Assembly decided to discuss Indonesia's dispute with the Netherlands over the sovereignity of West J(ew Guinea by a vote of 47 to 18, with 14 abstentions.

Mr Casey, in opposing the Assembly taking up the dispute, said that as part of Indonesia the people of West New Guinea would “be a permanent colony with no prospects of deciding their own future, and no certainty that their development would even be promoted to the stage when they could do so.”

Mr Casey said that the inscription of the item was unjustified under the United Nations charter and that renewed discussion on the question of West New Guinea would achieve nothing. “The question of West New Guinea is no threat to peace,” he said. “I have been glad to see statements by Indonesian representatives that they will not resort to force .over this issue.

“I cannot take seriously any suggestion that the Netherlands maintains its sovereignty over West New Guinea so that it could in the future undertake imperialist expeditions into Indonesia.”