International Affairs

By Prof. Venkatarangaiya, M.A.

THE twelve-week session of the Central Assembly of the United Nations which met at Paris on September 21st adjourned on December 11th to meet again on April 1st, 1949 at Lake Success to continue discussions on the remaining items of the agenda which were left undisposed off at this session. It was attended by 2000 delegates representing all the fifty-eight member nations. It is estimated that at the meetings of the Assembly fifty million words were spoken. The cost of the session to the various nations came to more than two crores of rupees. Naturally the question is asked whether anything has come out of all this tremendous effort and huge expenditure.

One has however to confess that the results have been most disappointing. Inspite of the Assembly having sat for three months it was not able to get through all the items on the Agenda, even though some of these items like the future of the Italian Colonies and the treatment of Indians in South Africa were of great urgency. On most questions which it took up for consideration the decisions arrived at were of an inconclusive character. This was the case with the Reports of the Atomic Energy Commission, of the Military Staff Committee and of the Commission on Conventional Armaments. The stalemate regarding the international control of Atomic Weapons, the strength and composition of the Armed Forces to be made available to the Security Council by Member Nations and the reduction of National Armaments has not been resolved, The situation today is the same as what it was before the commencement of the session. Certain decisions were arrived at on the question of Korea, Greece and Palestine but they are not of any fruitful character as they were not based on agreement between Soviet Russia on one side and the other big powers in the other, an agreement so essential for effective world policies today. A resolution was passed on Korea setting up a Permanent Commission to replace the former temporary one with a mandate to work for the unification of the country and to bring about the withdrawal of the Soviet and the American occupation troops. But the Soviet Group opposed this resolution and there is therefore no prospect of northern Korea which is under communist control becoming united with Southern Korea which is under the control of a Government democratically elected. Moreover as Russia has already treated in Northern Korea a fairly large army consisting of Korean communists it has decided on withdrawing its own armies in January 1949. But in the South the Government has as yet no armies of its own and therefore it has to depend for protection and defence on American forces. Under these circumstances the permanent commission will not be in a position to carry out the mandate entrusted to it. As regards Greece the Assembly has decided inspite of the opposition of the Soviet-Group to continue the special committee previously appointed to watch the border and report on the help given to Greek guerrillas by Albania, Bulgaria and Yugoslavia. The failure of the Greek Government to suppress the guerrillas inspite of the large amount of aid which it has been getting from the United States shows that there is no prospect of the civil war coming to an end in the near future and that the only effective solution for the Greek problem is again an understanding between Russia and the United States which is as distant as ever. On the subject of Palestine whose consideration was most inexcusably delayed till the last moment although at the beginning of the session everyone felt that it should be immediately taken up a resolution was passed setting up a three-man committee with the United States, France and Turkey as members to try and seek peace between the Arabs and the Jews without the Assembly indicating at all the lines on which it should carryon its work. No reference was made to the Bernadotte plan. The utter futility of a resolution like this is shown by the fact that during the last few days war has become renewed between the Jews and the Egyptians in the Negev and the Jews were not only able to occupy the whole of it but also capture with the help of their naval troops the city of Gaza–the seat of the Provisional Arab Palestine Government and it is now reported that they are invading Egypt itself. It looks as if the Jews would not only be able to consolidate the State of Israel but also extend its boundaries still further. The same thing has to be said about the decision of the Assembly to continue for another year the special Interim Committee, the Little Assembly as it has come to be called for performing the useful service of making preliminary studies and serving as the agent of the Assembly between sessions. This was opposed by Soviet Russia last year and the same thing happened this year also.

There are however certain other matters on which the General Assembly deserves to be credited with having accomplished some good work. Of these the more important ones are the Declaration of Human Rights and the draft convention banning genocide (race murder). Debates on Human Rights have been going on for the last two and a half years and the Declaration now approved lays down that all men and women are born free and equal in dignity and rights, irrespective of race, colour, sex, language or political opinion. Its thirty-one articles cover rights of free assembly, free choice of employment or domicile, marriage, social security and the right to rest and holidays with pay. The rights listed are described as a common standard of achievement for all peoples. The draft convention banning genocide defines genocide as destroying in whole or in part a national, ethnical, racial or religious group by: (1) killing members of the group; (2) causing seriously bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (3) deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (4) imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; and (5) forcibly transferring children of the group to another group. By adopting the Declaration of Rights and the Convention on Genocide the Assembly partially redeemed itself of the charge of sterility. But even here the Soviet and the members belonging to the Soviet Group did not extend in a full measure their cooperation to the other member States.

Inspite of these achievements there is much truth in the observation of Mrs. Vijayalakshmi that “the present Assembly compares very unfavourably with the two previous assemblies as regards the amount of work got through.” Everyone felt that there was tremendous wastage of time, endless repetition of the same set of arguments, and an artificiality of atmosphere due to the realisation that debates and discussions led nowhere. This failure of the Assembly to turn out work of real significance is due as everybody now knows to the cleavage between Soviet Russia and the United States. The United Nations Organisation was started on the assumption that the great powers who acted together in fighting Germany and Japan would continue to act together in solving the problems of peace. But fundamental differences have arisen between them with the result that on almost every subject the Six States forming the Soviet group find themselves in a minority against the forty-six States which generally vote together under the leadership of the United States. Moreover it was assumed that the treaties of peace with Germany and Japan should be best left to be settled by the big powers and that the Assembly and the Security Council could come in to maintain peace after the treaties were concluded. But events during the last three years have taken a quite different turn. The big powers have not been able to enter into peace treaties with Germany and Japan. And the responsibility for it seems now to be thrown on the United Nations Organisation. The action which through the initiative of the United States in General Assembly was called on to take in respect of Korea is an instance of this. But the Assembly and the Security Council are not bodies fit to settle issues in dispute between the great powers. Herein lies the explanation for the sterility of the United Nations Organisation. Unless and until the Great powers realise this and try to settle among themselves without abusing the power of Veto the questions that have now become a source of controversy between them there does not seem to be any prospect of the United Nations Organisation realising the aims with which it was established. Time alone can show whether such an understanding is possible. As things stand the suspicion between the East and the West has become deep-rooted. The latest illustration of this is the statement made the other day by President Truman, enigmatic as it appears to be. He observed: “Contracts are not sacred to the Soviet Government. I made certain specified agreements at Potsdam none of which have been kept by the Soviet Government. Certain agreements were made at Yalta, none of which have been kept. I am exceedingly sorry for that, because the Russian people are a great people. I am sure that if the Russian people had a voice in the Government of Russia, these agreements would have been kept.” This shows that President Truman is not hopeful of any friendly standing with Russia so long as the present Government headed by Stalin and Molotov continues to be in power and there is no chance of its being replaced by a freely elected popular government.

The consequences of this growing disagreement between the East and the West are now quiet plain. The idea of collective security has to been practically abandoned. The earlier system of pacts and alliances is once more come to the forefront. The Northern Atlantic Pact under which the United States and Canada are to enter into an alliance with West European powers is an instance of this. The effort to reorganise the British Commonwealth of Nations as to reconcile republicanism with membership in it is another instance. Necessarily under this system the race in armaments is bound to go on at a much quicker pace. The British, suffering as they are from shortage of man power for industrial purposes, have now reconciled themselves to the extension of conscription to eighteen months. Atomic weapons are being piled up in the United States. Preparations for chemical and bacteriological war-fare are going on in countries which feel that for some time to come the manufacture of the atom bomb is beyond their capacity. The world is now in the same position as it was before 1914. It has learnt nothing from the two world wars.

Will it be right however to conclude from all this that the United Nations Organisation deserves to be scrapped? Certainly not. It may be weak today. It might have caused much disappointment. But if mankind is to enjoy peace and security it is only through such an organisation with some of its technical defects removed. The fact that it is now being utilised by the Great powers to publicly condemn each other and to carry on propaganda indicates that it is a powerful instrument today for the shaping of world opinion. It is better even to have an unsatisfactory and cumbrous international forum than none at all.

The events that are now taking place in Indonesia illustrate the value of such a forum. The Dutch have resorted to military action against the Republic in contravention of the Renville agreement entered into in January 1949. Republican forces have been completely defeated and Dutch military rule has been re-established over practically the whole area. Brutal force has succeeded for the time being. But the Indonesians are not going to yield. They have now taken to guerrilla tactics and they may resort to scorch-earth policy. Even some of the puppet governments set up in the course of last year by the Dutch are in rebellion against them.

All are agreed that the responsibility for the military action lies wholly on the Dutch. The United Nations Good Offices Committee observes thus in its latest report: “It is the finding of the Good Offices Committee that the facts establish that no effective notice of the termination of the truce agreement of January 17, 1948 was given by the Dutch Government, and that Dutch forces crossed the Status Quo line and initiated hostile military action against the Republic while the obligations of the truce agreement were still fully operative.” World opinion has without exception condemned the Dutch action. The opinion expressed by Col. Hodgson of Australia before the Security Council is typical. He said: “Tragic is the only word which can describe the Dutch action, for the consequences may well be incalculable, not only in the Netherlands East Indies but throughout South East Asia, and indeed in the metropolitan territory of the Netherlands. The Dutch action is worse even than what Hitler did to Netherlands in 1940. It affects my country. It causes strikes, strife and turmoil. It causes the loss of material necessary for world rehabilitation. It causes loss of commerce. It causes the growth of extremist ideas. Repercussions may well cause a big breach in international peace.” American opinion is also more or less of the same character. A leading American paper stated that this action of the Dutch involved not only the future relations between the Netherlands and the East Indies, but also between All Asia and the West.

The Dutch action has been responsible for the growth of a Pan-Asian feeling in the matter. Pandit Nehru gave, expression to this when he said that the days of imperialism were over, that no imperialist power could stay in Asia and that whatever happened India’s foreign policy would be directed to see that no foreign power ruled over any Asiatic country. It was on the same lines that the Prime Minister of Burma spoke and proposed the convening of a conference of Asian powers to consider the nature of the concerted action they should take to meet the Dutch aggression. Pakistan, Ceylon and the Arab League Countries have also expressed themselves strongly against the Dutch. The action taken by India, Burma, Ceylon and some other Asian countries to ban all air and sea-traffic touching their towns and ports indicates the growing strength of this Pan-Asian feeling.

That the Dutch should have resorted to this action at a time when the menace of communism is growing more and more threatening is all the more deplorable. And all observers have repeatedly pointed that imperialism is one of the strongest causes of communism in S.E. Asia. In China there has been no perceptible weakening of communist advance although they have not been able as yet to occupy Nanking. A coalition cabinet has been formed to run the nationalist government but it is not yet known how much strength it will be able to gather. In South China some of the Governors of Provinces and War-lords have taken the initiative to organise some kind of federation to resist the spread of communism to the South. This might have been responsible for the talk that Chiang and his new cabinet are anxious to continue the civil war not so much to obtain a complete victory–which under the circumstances is an impossibility but to obtain an honourable peace with the “Reds.” Otherwise if communists triumph in the North and if the War-lords consolidate their position in the South Chiang will be nowhere.

The situation in China may also affect the organisation of the U.N. Security Council. China was admitted as a permanent member of the Council in 1946 at a time when she was a great power. But now things are entirely different. Even if the right of China to be represented is not questioned there is the possibility of Russia recognising the communist government as the real government of China and calling on the Security Council to have China represented by a nominee of that Government. An issue like this is sure to complicate the situation.

There is also the possibility that as time passes differences may also arise between France on one side and Britain and America on the other in regard to various matters, relating to Germany. It is true that so far the three powers have been more or less in agreement on several questions affecting that country. But there are also certain fundamental differences. France is afraid of a German military and industrial recovery, while the British and the Americans are not so much alarmed at it as they think that a revived Germany might be a source of strength to them in their war against communist Russia. These differences took a formidable shape recently in connection with the discussions on the international control of the Ruhr industries. It is now stated that the British and the Americans had to some extent to yield to the French in the matter of conferring a wider authority on the International Body to be set up for regulating the production and distribution of the output of the Ruhr mines and industries. But this will not lead to a complete understanding among the three powers. A primary factor in the situation will be the attitude of the Germans themselves towards these schemes relating to their economic future. The fact that in the recent elections of the Western Sector of Berlin the non-communists gained a majority is no indication that all Germans are satisfied with the treatment they are having at the hands of the Western powers. They are sure to feel that they should not toil only for the sake of these powers. The national feeling that is now dormant is sure to come up as an active force in the near future. It is then that the attitude of the Western powers will have to be tested.

This survey shows that there are at present many uncertain factors in the world situation–in China, South East Asia, the Middle East and Western Europe, that mankind is utterly in the dark as to what is going on behind the iron curtain in Central and Eastern Europe and that everything is in a state of flux in Western Europe; and all this makes it impossible to say exactly in what direction events will move. It appears as if there is a considerable amount of truth in the old saying that there is an unknown and unknowable destiny shaping the fortunes of men and of mankind.