Jakarta, 1 April 1966
363. Secret
Malaysia
I have discussed Malaysia this morning with both Suharto and Malik with some conflicting results. Suharto maintained the usual Indonesian line that Malaysia constituted a danger to Indonesia and had been improperly set up. While it remained in its present form military confrontation would continue. I told Suharto that I was sorry that I would have to report this uncompromising view to my Government, which could not accept that Indonesia had the right by military confrontation to dictate the structure of its neighbours. His reply was quite definite to the effect that Indonesia could not accept as neighbours something which was a danger to her. Suharto made something of the fact that he thought that our attitude towards Malaysia had been dictated by a fear that Indonesia would go Communist and by our worries about the closeness of relations with Peking. He seemed to imply that these two matters having now been cleared out of the way our attitude towards Malaysia should therefore change. I told him that these factors did not constitute the basis of our position on Malaysia, that it was a country which had the right to be left alone.
2. I told Adam Malik what Suharto had said, and he replied that it was an unfortunate fact that the soldiers were not prepared to speak frankly on this matter with foreign ambassadors. What Suharto had said was in Malik’s view ridiculous. Why indeed had the Army already sent people to Kuala Lumpur for discussions with the Malaysians?1 Moreover, it was impossible for Indonesia to maintain substantial military confrontation because the Army was faced with too many tasks internally to be able to spare the necessary forces. As he had with Green,2 Malik suggested to me that we should exercise our influence in Kuala Lumpur to have Malaysia ‘reorganised’ in a manner which would save Indonesia’s face.
3. I told him that what in effect he was asking was that we should tell the Malaysians that Indonesia had been right all along and that confrontation was justified. We could not and would not do this. Malik then said that I could tell the Government that confrontation would fade away. It would just slowly be forgotten. But he said that while Sukarno lived it would not be possible to make a radical change in public policy on this subject. He did not think it possible to change Sukarno’s mind on the matter, particularly as he was receiving encouragement from important places elsewhere. Malik then showed me on a strictly confidential basis a letter from Ayub Khan to Sukarno which Sukarno gave Malik this morning. The letter says that Pakistan understands Indonesia’s attitude on Malaysia and has not the slightest intention of changing its own attitude until Malaysia apologises for the insults to Pakistan made by the Malaysian representative at the United Nations.3 Ayub Khan’s letter to Sukarno is indeed couched in almost sickeningly friendly and encouraging terms. After I read the letter, Malik suggested that it was perhaps in places like Karachi that we should work in order to persuade people like the Pakistanis not to encourage Sukarno over confrontation. He also said he hoped that we would be able to encourage some third party to offer mediation in the dispute quote the Philippines or Pakistan perhaps unquote. I told him that I could hardly accept Pakistan as being neutral in this matter, and he laughed and said quote of course not, but the main reason why you would not accept them is that they would not advocate your own views unquote.
4. Of the two views, I think we can accept that of Malik as being more easily to turn out as correct in the long run but my feeling, after talking to both of them, is that we should in no circumstances expect any early public relaxation of Indonesian attitudes on the matter, and that we should perhaps be on our guard that in order to pacify Sukarno on other matters, irritating gestures may be made on the subject of Malaysia.
[NAA: A1838, 3034/10/15 part 7]
1 See Documents 337 and 343, and paragraph 5, Document 352.
2 Marshall Green, US Ambassador to Indonesia, had had a three-hour interview with Malik on 28 March.
3 Pakistan had taken offence at Ramani’s ‘unfriendly and hostile attitude’ towards it at the UN in September 1965. (Pakistan had threatened to attempt to block Malaysia’s attendance at the non-aligned conference in Algiers because it considered Malaysia opposed its position on the Kashmir question.) On 5 October, Pakistan had announced that it was breaking off diplomatic relations with Malaysia.