USS RENVILLE, 17 January 1948

It is some four months since the Government of the Netherlands and
the Government of the Republic of Indonesia accepted the help and
cooperation of the United Nations in settling the Indonesian
dispute. That help and cooperation were sent to the parties by the
Security Council in a resolution which described the Committee in
these words:

'The Council expressed its readiness, if the parties so request,
to assist in the settlement through a Committee of the Council
consisting of three members of the Council, each party to name one
member, the third to be designated by the two members named by the
parties.'

From the method of the selection of the Committee, it might have
been expected that the members chosen by the parties would have
been in continual and serious disagreement. At the outset,
however, the three of us resolved that:

'the three members of the Committee met with equal rights and
responsibilities, not representing either of the contending
parties but acting as a body in the spirit of the purposes and
principles of the United Nations'.

I can assure you that our spirit has been one of impartiality, and
that with devotion to the principles of the United Nations the
Committee has striven to perform its task and to do justice as
between the parties without fear of favour, affection or ill-will.

Progress has been slow and the Committee's powers severely
restricted, but today the parties have shown by their truce
agreement that the assistance of the United Nations has not been
in vain. Moreover, they have shown their trust in continued help
from the United Nations by agreeing today on provisions which make
available a continuation of the assistance of the Good Offices
Committee, not only until a political agreement has been reached,
but until the United States of Indonesia actually comes into
being.

Today we have recorded an initial agreement between the parties on
the U.S.S. Renville. It is befitting that the generous action of
the United States which, by sending their ship to Java waters
enabled the Committee to overcome the first difficulties of
bringing the parties together, should provide a meeting place for
the signing of the first agreement reached with the good offices
of the Committee. Thanks must also be expressed for the valuable
help and work which has been performed so unobtrusively that we
have come to take it for granted. I refer to the tasks performed
by the Secretariat of the United Nations and, often under
difficult and trying conditions, by the crews of the American and
Australian planes.

There is to be a cessation of fighting, an agreement has been
reached on twelve important political principles which we hope
will soon become eighteen important principles, and above all is
the implicit agreement by the two parties to do everything
possible to reach a just, full and lasting political agreement. To
my mind the latter is the dominant factor for success, because,
without goodwill and a sincere endeavour on the part of the
parties to obtain a political settlement, the understandings
reached today would be meaningless and the prospects of real peace
and order in these islands would be remote indeed.

Bold signatures on impressive documents cannot alone dispel the
troubles of this archipelago. Even the limited objectives and
understandings of today's agreement will be impossible of
performance unless the two parties approach the problem of
implementation and the political discussions which will shortly
commence, in a spirit of cooperation and tolerance. More important
than the words of today's documents is the spirit behind the
intentions of the parties. I take heart in the good intentions
which the parties have expressed and in the knowledge that the
continued help of the United Nations remains available to them.

Today would appear to mark the close of a stage of the Committee's
work but it would be more correct to note that tomorrow provides
no new task, for the Committee or the parties. We must now
continue to perform the real task we came to these islands to
perform-to assist in reaching a political settlement. Only after
our arrival here were we entrusted with the task of assisting to
obtain a truce. Our work of the past few weeks is no digression,
for the Committee has always taken the position that a cessation
of fighting and killing and a political settlement are closely
related problems. Tomorrow the Committee will be discussing
matters which are at the heart of the dispute in Indonesia.

Today's agreement provides an opportunity for these discussions to
go forward in a spirit of better understanding and cooperation on
the basis of principles of the United Nations. I hope that the
efforts of the parties will soon attain a second but far more
important agreement, an agreement which will bring credit on the
Netherlands, the Republic and the United Nations.