Cablegram K46 BATAVIA, 24 January 1948, 5.40 p.m.
IMMEDIATE SECRET
My telegram K.45. [1] The Committee will go to Djokjakarta to-day to obtain, if possible, the Republic’s unconditional acceptance of the six principles. I will suggest that their reply makes use of the Hague statement that the Netherlands accepts fully and unconditionally and expect the same of the Republic.
2. The Belgians and especially Americans are greatly concerned about the Republic’s reference to official summary record of formal meeting at Kaliurang on the evening of January 13th when you will remember Graham and Van Zeeland committed themselves to the hilt in clarifying the political principles. [2] They are anxious the Committee should make its position clear.
3. The Americans prepared a draft letter from the Committee to the parties which amounted practically to an attestation of the Committee’s position at Kaliurang.
4. I insisted that this was entirely unacceptable and a series of drafts have been prepared in an endeavour to obtain our agreement.
The latest which incorporates many of my suggestions appears satisfactory. I have however reserved our position, on the basis that your agreement should be obtained. If you are opposed, I should be glad to know immediately.
5. The relevant passages are as follows:
‘At formal meeting at Kaliurang on January 13th the representatives on the Committee of Good Offices did their best, while being without preparation or charter, to answer questions put to them by members of the Delegations and the Government of the Republic, and within these limitations, the views they expressed at that meeting represent their individual opinions. It goes without saying that representatives on the Committee adhered to the spirit of the views they expressed at this meeting, as at any other meeting, and which are recorded in the summary. However, as you are aware, the comments that representatives on the Committee were called upon to make could not, being impromptu, be offered as definite views of the Committee or even be expressed with the precision which should be accorded to discussions of important and complex matters’.
‘Because of the importance of the matter discussed at Kaliurang the Committee recognised the desirability of presenting to the parties written clarifications of its concerted views which would have a definite status with regard to the truce agreement and the twelve associated political principles and to the additional six principles. The Committee therefore drafted a statement of clarifications which it handed to your delegation on 14th January and which it later presented at the Plenary meeting on board the U.S.S. Renville on 17th January. [3] To repeat, this statement represented clarifications of the Committee’s concerted views. It was not the intention of the Committee to present this statement as binding upon the parties and the Committee did not in fact [propose that it should be so considered]. [4] Reference to the document in question will make clear that each of the seven paragraphs were offered as understandings or suggestions on the part of the Committee’.
6. Graham has made a typical personal plan for your acceptance.
‘For the sake of our future usefulness to all concerned and our own clear and unquestionable integrity, we should make clear that we make no decision as a Committee without careful consultation as a Committee and without apprising the other party, otherwise we express impromptu personal views contained in a summary, not a verbatim record’.
7. As far as I can learn, to-day’s Cabinet change is not connected with acceptance of the proposals and does not reflect a crisis at Djokjakarta. [5] It will however, provide an opportunity for the strongest possible Republic Cabinet. Hatta is acceptable to the Dutch.
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1 Document 29.
2 See Document 21, note 8.
3 The statement of clarifications, S/AC.10/CONF.2/5 and 2/6 of 17 January, contained seven paragraphs in which the Committee of Good Offices, inter alia, affirmed that on signing the Truce Agreement, both parties would be committed to the Twelve Political Principles (Document 23); that acceptance by the parties of the Six Additional Principles (Document 24) would not change the status of the parties in relation to the Security Council; and that Republican representatives should be allowed to accompany the military assistants of the Committee in order to implement the Truce Agreement.
4 The words in square brackets have been inserted from the letter from the Committee of Good Offices to the Republican Delegation of 25 January S/AC.10/CONF.2/13 in United Nations, Security Council official Records, Third Year, Special Supplement No.1, pp.71-2.
5 When the Sjarifuddin Government signed the Renville Agreement, the Masjumi and the Partai Nasionalis Indonesia withdrew their support from his Government which resigned on 23 January. The Hatta Government assumed office on 29 January.
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[AA:A1838, 854/10/4/2, iv]