Cablegram (unnumbered) BATAVIA, 26 December 1948, 12.40 p.m.
IMMEDIATE
Following is conclusion of report telegraphed to Security Council by Committee this morning.
Quote- Committee will exert utmost efforts to carry out functions conferred upon it in Security Council’s resolution 24th December, namely, to observe and to report on its observance by parties. But if fighting is to give way to negotiations, Committee as a whole recognizes that certain inevitable difficulties must be overcome.
Members of Committee differ only in relative weight they give these difficulties set forth in the following:
(1) Negotiations presuppose two parties, each uncoerced by armed force of other and each prepared to move toward reasonable viewpoint of other.
(2) Politically, people of one party, without whose support any agreement, even if achieved, may well be unenforceable, will be reluctant to accept as bona fide any negotiations in which again they start with an area under their control diminished as a result of the resort to armed force by other.
(3) Practically, when demarcation line no longer exists, it becomes virtually impossible to ascertain positions of Republican forces, particularly in view of capture by Netherlands forces of Republican High Command.
As result it becomes necessary to observe any events of military nature throughout islands of Java, Sumatra and Madura. This would be difficult enough in itself but Committee sees no possibility of its observers being able to distinguish reliably between internal security measures by Netherlands and hostilities between parties.
Unquote.
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[AA:A1838, 854/10/4/3, ii]