SECURITY COUNCIL MALAYSIA DEBATE

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30543, 11 September 1964, Page 11

SECURITY COUNCIL MALAYSIA DEBATE

Resolution Will Try To Meet Crisis (N.Z.PA.-Reuter—Copyright) NEW YORK, September 10. UNITED NATION’S SECURITY COUNCIL DELEGATES, FACED WITH DEMANDS BY BRITAIN AND MALAYSIA FOR CONDEMNATION OF INDONESIAN AGGRESSION, WILL TODAY ATTEMPT TO DRAFT A RESOLUTION TO MEET THE SOUTH-EAST ASIAN CRISIS. Australia has an observer at the meeting who will send detailed reports back to Canberra. No speakers are yet listed when the debate in the council resumes today, but considerable activity is expected behind-the-scenes to seek a formula which will satisfy Malaysian wishes and yet avoid a veto from the Soviet Union.

Indonesia acknowledged in yesterday’s opening session that “volunteers” had been fighting in the Malaysian States of Sarawak and Sabah for some time.

But any resolution condemning Indonesia is considered certain to provoke a Russian veto if the necessary seven votes for adoption are obtained.

Malaysia’s minimum requirement is a resolution affirming her territorial integrity and calling upon Indonesia to cease and desist from aggressive acts. Although the Malaysian Minister of Home Affairs and Justice (Dato Ismail Bin Date Abdul Rahman) had asked yesterday that the council condemn Indonesia’s “aggression,” this was not the main issue. Malaysia did not much care whether the council condemned, deplored, deprecated or declined, a diplomat said. What was important to the federation was to obtain recognition by the United Nations’ supreme organ of Malaysia’s territorial integrity as now composed of Malaya. Singapore, Sarawak, and Sabah, it was stated. OTHER ELEMENTS Additional elements in any draft resolution should include a demand that Indonesia call off all threats and actions against Malaysian territorial integrity, and possibly also an appeal for a return to the conference table in a new bid to resolve differences between the nations by negotiation. Malaysian diplomats were jubilant today over what they considered to have been their delegation’s “victory on points” in the first day of council debate. They acknowledged that the admission by the Indonesian Deputy Foreign Minister (Dr Sudjarwo Tjondronegoro) that Indonesian elements had infiltrated Malaysia, had come as a surprise after earlier statements by Indonesia that the charge was a fake. There was no. doubt, they said, that the development greatly helped the Malaysian case in the council. The “non-aligned” nations on the council such as Bolivia, Ivory Coast and Morocco are said to hold the key to the passage of a draft resolution. POSITION UNCERTAIN So far, the positions of these states remain uncertain. While they are felt to hold a certain sympathy for Malaysia, many observers here believed they would be unwilling to support a condemnation of Indonesia which bases its “confrontation” policy against the federation on anti-colonialist and neo-colon-ialist grounds.