Cablegram Hag 201 THE HAGUE, 18 December 1948, 11.40 p.m.
IMMEDIATE SECRET
My telegram HAG 200. [1] Indonesia.
Memorandum opens with reference to Netherlands Government Communication [2] of the 11th December to the Good Offices Committee. It goes on to cite the efforts of the Netherlands Government since August 17th 1945 to come to terms with the Indonesian Republic and the latter’s alleged failure to implement the Linggadjati agreement and the Renville principles. It claims increasing critical conditions in Indonesia resulting from ‘determined efforts made by organisations and individuals acting under direct or indirect responsibility of the Republican Government’ to impede the political, social and economic organisation of territories outside de facto Republic control.
2. Instructions to the Crown Representative referred to in my immediately preceding telegram are next described and the memorandum continues with a reference to the efforts of some friendly powers to induce the Republic to change its attitude and to Hatta’s ‘personal desire which the Netherlands Government had never doubted, to make further efforts to reconcile the Netherlands and the Republic point of view’. However, as ‘binding declaration’ sought by the Netherlands Government in respect of certain essential points in Hatta’s letter [3] was not forthcoming and the text of this letter was in conflict with official Republican statement regarding the basic issues in the dispute the Netherlands Government impression that Hatta’s conciliatory views were his own and not necessarily those of his Government, had only been confirmed. Moreover, the announced departure of Soekarno and six of his Ministers for India and the fact that the Netherlands Government had received information that no reply could be expected had ‘placed the Netherlands Government in a position where no intervention on the part of International organisations or of friendly powers can be of further assistance and where it has no other course but to carry out on the basis of its undiminished responsibility for the state of affairs in Indonesia those measures which are indispensable to the creation of conditions which will enable Indonesia to take its place among other nations of the world as a Sovereign and independent Nation, freely linked with the Netherlands in a Netherlands-Indonesian Union’.
3. The memorandum concludes by declaring that the Netherlands Government will not go back on any of its past pledges in regard to the future of Indonesia but that ‘it will not permit extremist or Communist groups to prevent the realisation of the aspirations of the Indonesian population’ and expresses the hope that all friendly nations will understand and support this policy.
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1 Document 383.
2 See Document 364.
3 See Document 370.
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[AA:A1838, 854/10/4/2, vii]