Canberra, 8 January 1965
28. Secret Immediate
Malaysian Approach to United Nations
Your telegram 23.1
1. In the short time available we can only give following brief comments which have been cleared with Minister. We assume that the Tunku intends to send his communication to the President of the Security Council and not the Secretary-General or the President of the Assembly.
2. We assume that Bottomley’s suggestion for the report to set out appropriate evidence of the Indonesian build-up in Borneo is along the lines of the draft statement which London approved some time ago and which British High Commission has passed to us.2 We think it would be very timely to pass this on to the Security Council as it constitutes evidence of considerable reinforcement of Indonesian offensive capacity in Borneo.
3. We agree that there would be no advantage in calling for an emergency meeting of the Council at present. There could well be occasion before long for calling for an emergency meeting of the Council, but the timing will have to be very carefully considered in relation to Indonesia’s withdrawal from the United Nations (if confirmed)3 as well as to such questions as the immediacy of the military threat and the execution of our plans to cope with it. A premature meeting might jeopardise the effectiveness of a later approach to the Council when it is really needed. It would be very difficult at this time, without compromising our intelligence sources, to bring forward in the Council more evidence that the British propose in the draft statement of the reinforcements which the Indonesians are carrying out. Also, with so many countries and the Secretary-General appealing to Indonesia not to withdraw from the organization, it would be very difficult to prevail on members of the Security Council to join in any sort of censure at this time.
4. We agree with your comment that it would be unwise for Malaysia to try to suggest at this stage what specific assistance the United Nations might give her in the event of farther serious Indonesian aggression. This is something which needs very careful examination and should be given only when Malaysians and the British are quite sure of what they want the United Nations to do. The Tunku’s attitude as reported by you suggests that the Malaysians have no developed ideas as to what would be the objective of going to the Council at this stage.
[NAA: A1838, 3006/4/7 part 33]
1 Document 231.
2 The UK Government believed the Malaysian statement should emphasise Indonesian aggressiveness, providing information about the recent Indonesian attacks and evidence of the Indonesian force build-up, without exaggerating the extent of the latter. In particular, the statement should not contain any reference to ‘retaliation’ or any implication that its purpose was to warn the Security Council about future Malaysian counteraction.
3 At this stage, Indonesia had not formally withdrawn from the UN.