USE OF VETO POWER

Greymouth Evening Star, 1 November 1946, Page 8

USE OF VETO POWER

AUSTRALIAN DELEGATE JOINS THE CRITICS ATOMIC ENERGY CONTROL NEW YORK, October 30. Mr N. J. O. Makin (Australia) was the first speaker at to-day’s meeting of the United Nations General Assembly. He said it was important that the Assembly’s primary function as a forum for open discussion should be maintained and strengthened. Only if every delegate felt completely free to express his views could interna? tional problems be solved in the inr terests of the whole world. Peace could be won and maintained only if settlements were reached by democratic method’s based bn principle rather than on mere expediency and national self-interest.

Mr Makin, dealing with the veto, said the working of the Security Council justified some of the fears expressed at San Francisco. So far, the theory of unanimity among the Great Powers had not worked in practice. It was hoped that in due course the Council’s permanent members would realise the necessity for amending the Charter’s voting provisions, and that the undertakings which the Great Powers gave that the veto right would not be abused but would be honoured. Thwarting the Majority He said the veto was used again and again by one permanent member to thwart the will of a clear majority of the Council, jnostly in matters of procedure or other matters which were not vital to the security of the Great Powers, and which did not involve any great responsibility or risk by them. After seeing the veto rule at work and after hearing the Soviet Union’s unreasonable claims for blocking every proposed recommendation which the Council was asked to make, Australia felt impelled to ask for the inclusion of the subject on the Assembly’s agenda. The Australian Government thought the United States plan for controlling atomic energy offered a Sound working basis. The Soviet proposals, while insufficiently recognising the essential relationship between all the various parts of the great problem, could be fitted into the United States’ general plan.

Australia supported the United States’ view that there must be no veto to protect those violating atomic energy agreements. No veto system could possibly be permitted in the atomic energy agency, because that would mean the right to claim special immunity or exemption from the rules of conduct laid down by the atomic energy control system. Trusteeship Council Answering Mr Molotov’s complaint about the delay in the establishment of the Trusteeship Council, Mr Makin said that it could not have been established earlier. Moreover, the Australian proposal for the establishment of an interim body had encountered Soviet opposition. Mr Makin added that the Assembly was told on the previous day that some countries had begun a campaign against the Veto rights of the Great Powers, with a view to diverting attention from the real shortcomings of the United Nations and a warning was given that if the campaign were successful it would liquidate the United Nations. That serious charge was totally unjustified. Mr Tibucio Carias (Honduras) desmribed Mr Molotov’s reference to Honduras as an outburst of Slav temper in the best Steppe style. He added that it was a slap at all small nations. Russia and Greece Mr Thanassis Aghnides (Greece) criticised Russia’s hostile attitude to Greece, and said that both at the Paris Peace Conference and in the Security Council, Russia’s attitude was harsh. He added that persistence in that attitude “fills my countrymen with amazement and disappointment. They are shocked at the unseemly haste in which a war ally is treated as an enemy, while favours are bestowed on unredeemed recalcitrant enemies.” He urged the Great Powers to use the veto with restraint. Mr Francis Yilescas (Ecuador) told the Assembly that it was essential that the voting procedure should be revised in a logical, legitimate manner. He added that the little nations feared that the political interest of the Great Powers might, in future, gain supremacy over humanity’s interests.

CHARGE OF INTERFERENCE REFUTED NEW YORK, Oct. 30. China did not feel that the presence of United States Marines on her territory was a violation of the United Nations Charter, declared the Chinese delegation in a statement replying to charges made by Mr. Kiselev (White Russia) to the General Assembly of the United Nations on Monday. “The whole world knows that the American forces are in China by her consent and for specified duties connected with the disarming of Japanese troops in China and the repatriation of Japanese prisoners of war and civilians to Japan.” The statement added that the United States forces had not taken part in any of the clashes between the Government troops and the Communist forces, and it paid a tribute to American efforts to facilitate a peaceful settlement of China’s political difficulties. , Opening Russia’s campaign in the Assembly against the presence of British and American forces in nonenemy countries, Mr. Kiselev, on Monday, made the charge that the United States had troops in China aiding the Chinese group fighting the Chinese democratic forces. The cause of peace was not advancing in the Far East, and British and American policy was not furthering co-opera-tion among the United Nations.