Cablegram 3 CANBERRA, 8 January 1947, 12.05 p.m.
IMMEDIATE SECRET
REPRESENTATION IN THE N.E.I.
Acting ‘by direction of his Government’, Netherlands Minister has informed us that no official standing can be granted any longer to any representatives formerly accredited with A.F.N.E.I.; that his Government expects that we ‘will withdraw the former Australian Political Observer with A.F.N.E.I; and that, if we wish to appoint a consular representative in the Indies, we should approach the Netherlands Government from whom an exequatur would have to be sought through the ordinary channels at The Hague.
2. Your 274. [1] Please ascertain from United Kingdom Consulate whether United Kingdom has in fact applied for and obtained from Netherlands Government, without reference to Indonesian Republic Government, an exequatur for United Kingdom Consul-General in Batavia. What formalities in this connection are being employed by foreign consulates in the Indies? 3. You can inform Sjahrir that our reading of the Cheribon agreement appears to preclude us at this stage of the negotiations from formally accrediting a consular or diplomatic representative to his Government. You should assure him however that we wish to establish close links with the Indonesian Government and ask for his general comment on the situation. What we have in mind is that you should be, for all practical purposes and for the time being, the Australian representative with the Indonesian Republic.
4. In the absence of any Indonesian commentary on the Cheribon agreement, we are inclined to attach some weight to the view that the agreement would facilitate the emergence, as a self-governing state in international law, of the United States of Indonesia rather than the Republic of Indonesia.
5. We have an open mind on these matters and would appreciate early advice of the Republican Government’s view of its status under the agreement and particularly of its interpretation of Article 7(3). [2]
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1 See Volume X, Document 279, note 1.
2 i.e. Article 7(3) of the Linggadjati Agreement (see Appendix I).
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[AA:A1838/238, 401/1/1/1, ii]