S/PV.925 Security Council

Pursuant to the decision taken earlier, and if there are no objections from the Council, 1 shaH invite the representative of Belgium to take a place at the COUDcil table. At the invitation of the President, Mr. Walter Loridan (Belgium) took a place at the CCIUDcil table.

In two lettexos dated respectively 4 and 7 January [S/4614 and S/4616], the representative of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republ1cs has requested you, Mr. President. to bring to the attention of the Security COUDCn "fresh acts of aggression" which Belgium is said to have committed agatnst the Republ1c of the Congo and which he denounces as constituting i1a serious threa+ ton international "peace and securtty" 1 4. Let us examine one hy one the various charges that have been made by the Soviet repreBentative. 5. The fact that the Belgian 11overnment, in its capacity as Administering Auth' diy and in the circumstances which it has desCJ ~oed, granted a right of transit through the Territory of Ruanda-Urundi to troops of the Armée nationale congolaise is not, as has been claimed, at variance with the provisions of the Trusteeship Agreement. What, in fact, do we read in that text? Article 4 stipulates that: "The Administering Authority ••• shaH ensure that the Territory shall play its part in the maintenance of international peacc and security." 6. l do not see in what way the Belgian Government's attitude represents a breach of its obligat.ions. Nor do 1 see why the act for which it is reproached has allegedly prevented Ruanda-Urundi from playing "its part in the maintenance of international peace and security". 7. With th exception of certain provisions, such as those of article 9 to the effect that the Administel'ing Authority shaH ensure equal treatment for an States Members of the United Nations, including freedom of transit and navigation by air, there is nothing in the Trusteeship Agreement for the Territory of Ruanda- Urundi which would appear to be relevant to the matter bafore us. S. The representative of the Soviet Union has invoked two other arguments. One Is taken from operative paragraph 6 of resolution 1579 (XV) adopted by the General Assembly on 20 December 1960 on the question of the future of Ruanda-Urundi. The Administering Authority Is requested in that paragraph "to refrain from using the Territory as a base, whether for internaI or external purposes. for the accumulation of arms or armed forces not strictly required for the purpose ()f maintainlng public order in the Territory". 9. It is quite obvious that the circumstances of the case do not in any way w.1.rrant the claim. that the Administering Authority hal:! concentrated armed forces in Ruanda-Urundi. 10. The same is true of the second argument, which is taken from operative paragraph 6 of the resolution 1474 (ES' -IV) concerning military assistance which was adopted by the General Assembly on 20 September 1960 at the fourth emergency special session. In the view of my delegatlon the provisions of this paragraph are equally inapplicable to the case before 11. The Belgian Government i'esponded to a request which had been made by the official Congolese authority in the exercise of its full sovereignty. That Government did nothing more than make it possible for the Congolese executive power to move a military contingent from one point on Congolese territory to another point on Congoles'e terri1o:cy without leaving any of the troops in question in the territory of Ruanda-Urundi. In doing so ft was not beinga party ta airinternational conf1ict, for no such conflict existed. In reality it is President Kasa-Vubu and his authority which the Soviet Government and Us representative are seeking to attack. They have not resigned themselves to the set-back which they suffered when they tried to p!"event the United Nations from recognizing the rights and pC'wers of the President of the Congo and admitting his representatives to the United Nations. It is against him that they are now renewing their attack in a new guise. They describe as "units of the Congolese Army" conting~nts which challenge the authority of Ml'. Kasa-Vubu, which refuse to obey him and whose attitude constitutes a serious threat to the unity and territorial integrity of the Congo as officially recognized by the United Nations. They would like to ha.ve the former Prime Minister who was dismissed by Ml'. Kasa-Vubu to be regarded as representing the legitimate governn'~ntof the Republie of the Congo. They would like us to reopen the formaI decisions of the Assembly, which were supported by the great majority of African States, and particularly the States of Africa south of the Sahara. In short, they would have us recognize a position which the United Nations Assembly has rejected. 12. To attain this objective the Government of the Union of Soviet Sccfalist RepubUcs has resorted to its usual tactics. It has cried that there is aggression. It denounces an alleged threat to international peace and security. It calls for an urgent meeting of the Security Council. We have seen many examples

World opinion bas bean concerned for sorne time with the temporary troubles which the young Congolese Republic has been encountering in its efforts to establish a stable State machinery. As is known, this situation has been examined by the Security Council, by the emergency special session and by the fifteenth seBsion of the General Assembly. The decisions of the United Nations concerning the Congo Republic, the activtties of the United Nations forces in the Congo and the efforts made by the Secretai"y-Gene~al and his staff for the implementation of the United Nations resolutions are equally known to aU. 15. The present meeting of the Security Council has been convened for the purpose of examining a specific incident, the landing of a smaU contingent of the Armée nationale congolaise on the territory of Ruanda-Urundi and the subsequent repatriation of this contingent. The Security Council is provided with ample documentation on this incident. My delegation has studied the reports of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General [S/4606 and Add.1, annexes IV and VII], the correspondence on this incident between the Secretary-General and the representative of Belgium, the letters and documents submitted by the rcpresentative of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and the letter in reply presented by the representative of Belgium. We have aiso studied the statements made during the present di~cussion in the Security Councn. 16. My delegation is weIl aware that, in the present tense situation prevailing in the Congo, even incidents which under other circumstances would certainly be considered as entirely trivial may assume a dispraportionate importance within that troubled country. For that reason, tne final o'ltcome of this particular incident which has been communicated by the Belgian Government, to the effect that there are no longer any Congolese soldiers in Ruanda-Urundi at the present time, that the Belgian Government has instructed the local authorities to oppose any unauthorized transit in the fuvue, and that it does not intend to authorize any new transit; all these points, which were contained in the "note verbale" of 11 January 18. However, in the case of the Congo, a special situation whi{lh has prevailed for some time has introduced certain factors of a particular character. This special situation was taken in1:o account by the General Assembly when it decided, in its resolution on the Congo, that no assistance for military purposes should be sent to the Congo except as part of the United Nations action. 19. For aU these reasons, my delega1.ion has taken note with sati:;io..:.tion of the statement by the representative of Belgium, to which 1have refelred, :lncerning the incident under discussion. 20. As for the future of the Trust Territory of Ruanda-Urundi, a r2s01ution concerning the prep9.ratory stages for the independence of that country was adopted at the fifteenth session of the General Assembly [1579 (XV)]. The representative of Belgium has reaffirmed the plans for that independence. My delegation is particularly pleased at the prospect of welcoming this new AfricaI1 country in the United Nations as ~ sovereign State in the near future.

The representative of the Soviet Union asked for this meeting to consider what he claims to be fresh acts of Belgian aggression against the Congo and flagrant violations of the statua of a Trust Territory. He repeated those allegationa in very strong terms in his speech yesterday. 22. These are serious cnarges. On the basis of the facts as presented to us in the two reports from the Secretary-General's Special Representative in the Congo, which my delegation has carefully studied, we found it difficult to believe that suchcharges could be justified. The speech which we heard from Ml'. Zorin at the last meeting haSl confirmed our impression. No new a.."ld startling evidence was producedand that was perhaps hardly surprising. But, more than that, by the very nature of his speech the representative of the Soviet Union revealed the true motives of his Government in making such baseless accusations. 23. Let me deal first with the Ruanda-Urundi incident. The charge made is one of "dire;~t Belgian aggression". In the view of my delegation, this would 25. What then remaine? Is Belgium oulpable, to the entent of having deliberately aesisted troops under the command of Colonel Mobutu, in carrying out what all the evidence shows to have been an operaticm internat to the Congo. Again, my delegation did not believe SO on th8 basis of the facts in Mr. Dayal’s reporte; and in the light of subsequent statements, both here and in writing, by the representative of B8lgium, we regard the charges made against bis Government as having no legitlmate foundation. 26. The most that migbt be said 1s that the local authorities in Usumbura did not act in a way which appears at first sight to have b8en altogether judicious, But 1 would remind you, Mr. President, and the members of the Council, of the very diffioult circumstances in which tbese authorities wereplaced. With absolutely no warning at all, some planeloads of armed Congolese soldiers arrive at the airfield. They of a request from the legiti- Head of thefr St&8 that they Ruanda-Urundi on th8ir way to another part of the Congolree State. Given the delicmy of the interual n in the Congo, and in view of the grave r8a itlaa which would, in present ciroumstances. b8 ~laced on atwon8 found harbouriug Cougoleea ti’oopr in a n8i tory, it is 8ntir8ly uud8rstandabl8 at Ruanda-Uruudi ohoee to return these troops aororr possible and without F%v8rnnmnt or the Unlt8d 27. Not only, th8refore, doee no blam8 attsch to th8 t but, in the lateat %Ote v8rba1e” tive hem [S/4621], w8 bave m "If an inhabitant of the' Congo is black, no attention is paid to his rights or demands .. , ,1 by the United Nations, that is. "If an inhabitant is white, then every effort has to be made to prote:Jt him at the expense of the United Nations and punitive or protective expeditions are dispatched ... " [8/4622, para. 16.] Thp-re i8 not a jot of evidence in the whole record of the United Nations operation in the Congo to justify such a calumny, and it certainiy has no relevance whatever to what happened at Kivu. The military and civilian representatives of the United Nations Command showed a commendable lev",>headedness in a situation of some danger. They stopped the shooting and managed to reduce the considerable tension and feeling of mutual distrust which existed on either side of the irontier between Kivu and Ruanda-Urundi aftel" the events of 1 Jalll~ary. 29. It sh0uld n0t pass unnoticed that, to judge from the report from Mr. Dayal, [S/4606 and k'ù.:i., annex Vn], tr.e United Nations a~tho:dties had willing CO-opf::rHtioa in this respect from the B~lgian2.uthorities in Ruanda-Urundi. To remove any remaining cause of provocation, the Bdgian authorities agreed to withdraw their soldiers from whatever conspicuous positions they had been occupying on the Ruanda- Urundi side of the frontier. 30. There remains the Soviet charge of flagrant ~T!O­ lation of the special status of Ruanda-Urundi. l do not propose to spend much time on this. In the llght of the facts as we now know them, and the explanation given by the representative of Belgium, such an accusation is little short of derisory. The suggestion by the representative of the SovietUnion that the General Assembly 13hould be asked to examine urgently the question of depriving Belg!um of its responsibility in Ruanda-Urundi and of granting immediate !ndependence to that territory takes 110 account whatever of what in f:wt the General Assembly has been doing in the last month or two. 31. As everyone here Imows, there is a most difficult internaI situation in Ruanda and a wide divergence of views between the polltical parties there. The Belgian Government is making strenuous efforts, in co-operation with the United Nations, to promote conciliation and informed the General Assembly less than a month ago that its hope was that independp.nce would be granted to the Territory in 1962. In proposing the immediate grant of independence, does the Soviet representative mean that the trusteeship should he brought to an end without giving time for this process of conciliation? Such a step would certainly not be in the interests ef the people of the Territory and the only effect would be likely to be chaos, bitterness a.nd perhaps violence. From all that we have heard it is clear that the Belgian Government intends to move t0 independence "'ithout any unreasonable delay; but tbe people of tJ. ~ erritory, in co-operation with the 32. So, my delegation has concluded that these accusations are groundless, and we are confident tbat they will be categorically rejected by the Se<.llrity Council. But before 1 finish speaking, 1 should like to draw attention to the devious motives which apparently led the Soviet Government to initiate this particular debate. For 1 think it was clear that to place Belgium in the dock was almost the least of them. It was noticeable indeed how little ofhis speech Mr. Zorin devoted to the actual incident early this month. This tUl'Ded out to be quite a subsidiary theme. Instead, we were treated to a grand orchestration of all the "leit-motive" that we have had te listen to for the past few months. We had colonlalism, we had the conduct of Ml'. Hammarskjold and we had sorne highly specious insinuations about colour discrimination in international policy. The representative of the Soviet Union even managed to slip in a grace-note about the strikes in Belgium. 33. Now, 1 am not going to follow the representative of the Soviet Union into this welter of subjects. The position of the United Kingdom Government on these larger issues is weIl known-on the Congo situation generaIly, on colonies and sovereign independcnce, on the United Nations and the tactics which the Soviet Union has latterly been adopting towards it. This is all ground which has been covered before both here and in the General Assembly. Why then is the Soviet delegation concerned to drag in aIl these issues once again now? The representative of the Soviet Union must be as certain as 1 am that no good, no possible identity of views, can come of arguing about them aIl over again at this specially summoned meeting of the Security Council. 1 am therefore driven reluctantly to the conclusion that it is the deliberate policy of the Government he represents to keep these contentious issues weIl to the fore in our dealings with each other. And for this purpose anything serves-it can be Cuba, it can be an incident at Bukavu-and the Security Council provides as conspicuous and resounding a platform as any. This is in itself a regrettable commentary on the Soviet attitude to the Uni!ed Nations-a blend, 1 regret 1have to say it, of cymcism and contempt. The meeting rose at 12.15 p.m. GREECE-G!l~CE Kauffmann Bookshop, Ath'n••. GUATEM...LA Soei..dad Economico-Finanr'ero, 14·33, Guatemala HAITI Librairie"A la Cara~elle", HONDURAS Libreria Panamericana, HONG KONG • HONG-KONG The Swindon Book Kowloon. ICELAND-15LANDE Bokaverzlun Sigfusar F.. Aust~rstra"ti 18. Ii-IDIA.INDE Orient Longmens, Calcutta, dro., New Delhi and Oxford 800k & Delhi and Calcutta. P. Varadachary & Co INDONESIA·INDONESIE Pembangunan. L1d., Djakarta. IRAN Guity, 482 Fordowsi IRAQ·IRAK Mackenzie's Bookshop, IRELAND·IRLANDE Stationery Office, Dublin. ~d.• Shanghai. COLOMBIA-COLOMBIE Libreria Buchholz, Av. Jiménez d.. Que- •ada 8-40, Bogotâ. 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