Departmental Dispatch Hag 69/48 THE HAGUE, 30 December 1948
INDONESIA
While there has been surprise as well as pain discernible in
reactions in the Netherlands to the course of the Security Council
debates on the Dutch action in breaking the truce in Indonesia,
the general effect of external censure has been to weld public
opinion in favour of the action into a coherent whole. Apart from
the Communists, only the Left Wing of the Labour Party, through
HET PAROOL, continues to utter audible protests.
2. Dr. van Royen's claim that the Netherlands point of view had
not been properly comprehended in Paris, and that the Security
Council had shown partiality in ignoring the positive points in
his statements, has been given wide publicity. The Netherlands
delegate has been generally represented as the dignified and
scholarly spokesman of a small but independent Power courageously
defying the far from disinterested strictures of the majority of
the Council and the Powers accredited to it.
3. The remarks of the Australian delegate to the Council have been
given wide newspaper coverage, and various photographs have been
published drawing attention to the chance fact that his place was
alongside that of Dr. van Royen. In some papers an attempt was
made to give an unfavourable 'angle' to the Australian statements
in the Council, their vigour not being without effect on a people
so sensitive to criticism and so bent on self justification as the
Dutch. There have, however, so far been no noteworthy adverse
comments on the Australian Government's policy by any Netherlands
Government spokesman or any influential organ. Even news of the
boycotting of Dutch ships has been published with little or no
commentary or rehearsal of past history. I am moreover informed by
the Immigration Attache that there has been no perceptible falling
off in applications for passages to Australia or diminution in
public interest in the Australian migration scheme.
4. There has been disappointment at the continued lack of sympathy
for the Dutch cause in the United States, and the E.C.A. decision
to suspend Marshall Aid procurement orders for Indonesia. The
United Kingdom is regarded here, as a result of its less positive
attitude in Paris, as having shown 'more understanding' of the
Dutch position. The decision to send the Netherlands Ambassador in
London, Jhr. E.F.M.J. Michiels van Verduynen, to Indonesia may
legitimately be interpreted as a recognition that the Netherlands
Government needs a skilled and moderate publicist for Dutch policy
as well as a senior official to ensure consideration by the local
authorities in Batavia of the wider international issues present
in the minds of the Government at The Hague. In its comment on
Jhr. Michiels' appointment, the Liberal NIEUWE COURANT Suggests
that Dr. Beet acted on his own authority without consulting The
Hague in the removal of the Republican leaders to points outside
Java and in the recall of the military observers of the Committee
of Good Offices to Batavia. The conclusion drawn by this paper is
that Michiels' mission will be to keep some kind of a restraining
influence on Dr. Beet's administration.
[AA: A4231/2, 1948 THE HAGUE]