Statements on the Tunisian Question in the UN Security Council

Professor Bokhari was President of the UN Security Council during April 1952.
Statement on April 4, 1952

The delegation that inscribed its name next on the list of speakers is the delegation of Pakistan. If my colleagues have no objection, I shall now proceed to speak in the capacity of representative of Pakistan.

My delegation has listened to the intervention of the representative of France with the care and the interest that it fully deserved. I was happy when I discovered that he had expressed the desire to be the first to speak in the procedural debate regarding the adoption of the agenda. I was, however, surprised when he stated that his delegation would vote against the inclusion of this item in the agenda. I was surprised, not because I did not expect such an attitude on the part of the delegation of France but because, having shown his strong disinclination to having this item included, the representative of France nevertheless made a speech which could only have been made if the agenda had been adopted. He did so because, obviously, he felt the need to do so, showing thereby that there was need, at least on his side, to discuss this question fully. This being so, it is a matter of surprise to us that he should then declare that he would oppose the adoption of the agenda. This could only mean that while he himself wanted to have the opportunity, did have the opportunity, and actually used the opportunity, to make a speech as though the agenda had been adopted, he wished to preclude others from doing the same. Of course, amongst the others, those who sit around this table could not be excluded because they are entitled to take part in the discussion exactly as the representative of France himself has seen fit to do. But it was a little unfair to have made a speech and presented the point of view of France so very ably, I may say - as though the agenda had been adopted, and then, by opposing its adoption, to seek to refuse the same opportunity to ten other delegations which have written in to the Security Council.

If one is to follow the logic of the speech made by the representative of France, it is not only necessary to adopt the agenda; it is necessary forthwith to ask the ten delegations -member nations which have approached the Security Council on this matter - to take their seats at the Security Council table to oppose their point of view to the French point of view.

The representative of France went further. He read out passages from the explanatory note which the ten delegations had appended to their letters and such unpleasant remarks -unpleasant to him - as he thought needed countering. He not only did his best to counter them, but he also called them slander. In other words, he accused eleven nations of having made a slanderous statement against the Government of France. Against this accusation, I, speaking as the representative of Pakistan, protest -and I am sure that the other ten delegations, had they the chance to speak, would also protest. It was not our business, our intention or our desire to slander either his great country or his Government in any irresponsible manner.

The representative of France has made various suggestions and innuendos. For example, he has suggested that we, the ten or eleven gullible nations, foolishly listened to certain irresponsible persons in the corridors of the Palais de Chaillot and thereupon took action which we ought not to have taken. I am glad he has mentioned this because it gives me the chance to say how great was our patience and our sense of responsibility and after what great reluctance we have brought this matter to the attention of the Security Council.

As the world now knows, two Ministers of the Government of Tunisia two Ministers who, so far as I know, as long as they were Ministers of the Government of Tunisia, enjoyed the confidence of the Government of France - came to Paris and wrote a letter to the President of the Security Council, drawing the attention of the Security Council to a certain sad and lamentable state of affairs in Tunisia. Nothing came of that letter. It lay in the archives of the United Nations for a long time. It did not officially see the light of day either in the Palais de Chaillot or in this mansion of many windows. It lay there until my delegation asked that copies of it should be circulated.

After that, although we knew that this letter had been lodged with the President of the Security Council and although we knew that, during the same days, massacres, riots, arrests, sabotage were taking place in Tunisia - I mention merely the acts of violence; I have no intention at this stage of apportioning blame to anyone - although we knew this, we waited patiently in the hope that the French Government in its wisdom would realize the gravity of the situation and try to come to an amicable understanding with one of the most gentle people on the face of the earth.

We waited for many days. We parlayed. We discussed the matter amongst ourselves. We made informal and friendly approaches to the French Government through various channels. Nothing happened. We realized that this was a matter of grave importance but not one in which we should be in any indecent haste to embarrass the French Government provided it was full of good intentions, which we hoped it was.

There was a strong feeling that the matter should be raised in the General Assembly in Paris during the last weeks or even earlier. However, wiser counsels prevailed. We were asked to be patient. Fifteen nations in a body went to the President of the General Assembly, Mr. Padilla Nervo, and begged him to approach the French delegation and, through it, the French Government, and ask it, in the name of peace, security and friendly relations among nations, not to drive the Tunisians to a point of desperation. Otherwise, feelings in our own countries, which are most sympathetic to the cause of the Tunisians because they are a suppressed nation, would run high.

The President of the General Assembly promised to convey our message. He did. We waited. It was not the Tunisian Ministers who wandered up and down the corridors of the Palais de Chaillot; it was we who did so. We waited for an answer, a gesture of some sort. No answer and no gesture were forthcoming.
After another wait, we went again to the President of the General Assembly and once more begged him to convey our feelings to the French Government through such channels as he thought best. We told him that the most natural and the most normal thing for us to do would be to give vent to our feelings in the General Assembly. But during the last days of the Assembly, we did not want to make the task of the United Nations difficult and complicated. He then promised to convey our message to the French Government. We presumed, I am sure, he did. Nothing came of it.

We then asked ourselves whether we should raise the matter in the General Assembly. However, we were handicapped considerably because not long ago, the same nations whose names are now inscribed on this complaint, had had a most lamentable, unfortunate and unhappy experience. Some of us had tried to raise the question of Morocco in the General Assembly. This item on the provisional agenda had to go to the General Committee where nations such as those with their names on this document did not have a majority. The General Committee did not allow that item to be discussed. True, it said that the discussion of this item should be postponed for the time being. But we know very well that the words "for the time being" merely meant stalling and indefinite postponement.

The matter came to the plenary session of the General Assembly and representative after representative spoke very strongly about it. But we did not succeed even in getting that item on the agenda.

Disappointed, we still thought we would wait. Indeed, we came over to New York. We discussed the situation amongst ourselves. Every day, we read the news in the press. Every day we hoped for some signs of improvement. Everyday we hoped for some sign of better understanding between the French and the Tunisians and we prayed for the safety of the Tunisians and of the French Republic. Every day, the news got worse and worse.

We then thought that perhaps we should not rely entirely and solely on newspapers. Perhaps it would be best to see if we could not get some Tunisians over to New York so that we should cross-examine them and find out exactly what the situation was before we, as responsible delegations, took the matter to the Security Council. We found that there were insurmountable difficulties in the path of the Tunisians coming to New York. We understood that the diplomatic passports of responsible ministers were taken away from them. I would be very glad if the representative of France would contradict this statement. I would be only too happy to listen to his contradiction. The fact remains that we understood that owing to passport difficulties they could not come. We tried desperately to have other people come. There were all sorts of difficulties in their way, too.

Then, very great friends of all the nations whose names are given here told us that the French Government, which was then going through a parliamentary crisis, could hardly be expected to take any clear action in this matter with such a great problem as the parliamentary crisis facing it. We were not full of optimism but we thought that it would at least be chivalrous on our part, if not wise, to wait until a government in France was stabilized. The Government was stabilized. We were happy for the sake of France. We were full of hope that now that the Government had been stabilized, a step forward would be taken.

A few days after the stabilization of the Government, we found that not only did the situation in Tunisia not improve but, to our dismay, horror and surprise, the entire cabinet was arrested by the French Republic. When I say the entire cabinet, I mean all those whom they could get hold of. I understand that the French have not been able to arrest two members of it. This was the cabinet which had been set up in Tunisia as a result of a great rapprochement between these two Governments in the year 1950, and that was to negotiate reforms with the Government of France for a better understanding between these two great nations. This cabinet found itself in jail. It comprised the last of the most prominent Tunisians to go to jail. Every other nationalist leader of the Neo-Destour Party, which undoubtedly has the largest following in Tunisia, was already in jail. Not only that, but according to our information - and I should be glad to hear it contradicted - thousands of people were in concentration camps, hundreds of Tunisians had been killed and it was difficult to get information from certain parts of Tunisia.

We waited. We said, "After all, we cannot be more Catholic than the Pope himself. If the Tunisians form another Government and it works smoothly, we should have nothing about which to worry."

We waited. After days and days, we found that a gentleman by the name of Baccouche had been appointed Prime Minister. We looked up his past record. We asked such people as knew the Prime Minister of Tunisia about his past history. They told us that this gentleman had at one time been a civil servant, that he had occupied the position of Prime Minister I for a little while during the war years, that he was a man with no great following in Tunisia and that he was the only person who, under French pressure, so we understood, was willing to risk his neck to be appointed Prime Minister. We were told that he was to form a cabinet. We waited. Days passed.

Mr. Baccouche, in spite of being the Prime Minister, of having the sympathy of the Resident-General and the support of the French Government, cannot form a cabinet. According to reports appearing in The Herald Tribune or The New York Times, when this gentleman goes to see Bey, so great is the resentment that he arouses amongst people of Tunisia that he goes into the palace by the back door.
The Prime Minister, or the French, did by the use of pressure persuade one other person to become a Minister -one person. But when the time actually came for him to be appointed Minister, he found that public feeling was far too much against him. Then, very wisely, deciding that discretion would be the better part of valour, he refused to be Minister whereupon the French threw him into gaol.

It seems to me that, nowadays, Tunisia is a Utopia in reverse: either you become a Minister or, if you refuse to become a Minister, you become a prisoner.

We tried to find out what had happened since the arrival of Mr. de Hauteclocque - who, I understand from the representative of France, had gone to Tunisia with new reforms, with a promise of hope for the Tunisian people. We gathered information. For the benefit of other representatives at this table, I should like to read out a few sentences which give a description of Mr. de Hautecloque' s arrival in Tunisia, the country which he has gone to befriend, the country to which he is going to give freedom and reforms - according to the French claim.

Mr. de Hauteclocque arrived in Tunis on 13 January. His arrival was made an occasion of the greatest display of force ever seen there. He landed from a cruiser. The whole town was occupied with troops, with armoured cars, with tanks, and all the streets through which he passed were lined with troops. It was not an ordinary reception, but a display of might.

From his first intervention with the Bey, the Resident-General gave him to understand that he would like to maintain direct contact with him. The Prime Minister, however, informed the Resident-General, in the name of the Bey, that all official contacts should take place through the Prime Minister.

When the Tunisian Government submitted its complaint to the United Nations, on 14 January 1952, the Resident-General demanded an interview with the Bey alone, but the latter refused and directed him to the Prime Minister instead. On the 15th, the Resident-General agreed to be received by the Bey in the presence of the Prime Minister. Thereupon, he demanded: first, that the complaint should be withdrawn; second, that the Ministry should be changed; third, that the Bey should sign two decrees, the first appointing the Resident-General as Foreign Minister, the second appointing General Garbay -a name one associates with great military action in Madagascar - as Minister of Defence. The Bey instructed the Prime Minister to answer the Resident-General. The Prime Minister's answer is on record. The Prime Minister said he had been authorized by the Bey to bring this complaint to the United Nations. So much for the point made by the representative of France, that the complaint made to the United Nations was not authorized by anyone. We should have thought that the authority of the Prime Minister was sufficient, but if it is held that the Head of State, the Bey, should have authorized the complaint, then we say that that authorization was obtained.

After this, the Resident-General and General Garbay were called to Paris. They returned to Tunis on 22 March. The Resident-General immediately demanded a private interview with the Bey. The Bey received him on 24 March, but in the presence of all the Tunisian Ministers who were in Tunis at that time. The Resident-General informed the Bey that the French Government was prepared to resume negotiations, on the condition that the Cabinet should be dismissed and the United Nations complaint should be withdrawn. When the Bey refused, the Resident-General produced a document, signed by the French Foreign Minister, giving him, the Resident-General, full powers to act in any way he deemed suitable to re-establish law and order, I hope I shall have a later opportunity to explain what the phrase "law and order" means in colonial governments, and to protect French interests. The Bey replied that he needed time to think it over and that he reserved his position on this subject. The Resident-General gave him an ultimatum of three hours. This was the King of Tunisia, whom the French claim they befriend. Almost at the point of a pistol, with almost the worst methods of arm-twisting, this old and venerable King was being bullied by the Resident-General into giving him a formal answer which would satisfy the Resident-General's logical and constitutional conscience. What other conscience could it possibly satisfy?

Seeing himself ill-treated in this manner, the Bey then cabled to the President of the French Republic, drawing his attention to the pressure exerted on him by the Resident-General in the name of the French Government and demanding the recall of the Resident-General. During the same night, the Resident-General arrested the Tunisian Prime Minister and three other Tunisian Ministers. The fourth Minister who was present in Tunis, Sadullah, was not arrested, because he was very old and ill. But this old and sick Minister demanded that he should be arrested by the French authorities in order that he might accompany his colleagues into captivity. All were sent to the South of Tunisia. At the same time, the great nationalist leader of the Tunisian people, Bourguiba, who had already been incarcerated, was transferred with his companions to the South. Hundreds of political workers, journalists, teachers, lawyers, who had shown nationalist sympathies were arrested. All nationalist newspapers were suppressed. All high schools were closed. Martial law was applied. We have no means of ascertaining the number of arrests allover the country, but it is perfectly obvious that the large concentration camps must contain literally thousands of people.

The Bey's Palace was surrounded by troops. The Resident-General visited the Bey on the morning of the 25th, but no one was allowed to be present during the interview. It was after this interview that the Resident-General declared that the Bey had consented, that a decree was to be issued in the Bey's name. It does not, so far as we know, bear the Bey's signature.

So far as we know, what happened between the Resident-General and the King of Tunisia inside the closed room could not have been very pleasant for the Bey. But the Resident-General, as he walked out of the room, told those present -with grim humour - that what had happened inside had been "a feast of love". It was a cruel, sadistic joke to play on an old man, all of whose companions had been taken away and who had been left there to face as best he could this terrific military pressure of the French authorities in Tunisia.

That is the situation as it now exists. Mr. Baccouche, a figurehead who has been propped up by the French, is the Prime Minister. How long he will last as the Prime Minister we do not know, but if I were to venture a prophecy, I would say that either his own sense of shame or the sense of shame communicated to him by his nationalist brothers in prison will make him drop this post as soon as possible. In any case, up to this time he has not been able to muster one single Minister for his Cabinet. Yet the French authorities, we are told, stand there waiting with beautiful reform schemes and plans of autonomy. With whom are they going to negotiate these-plans? With whom are they going to have these conversations? Or is it the intention of the French authorities to discuss these plans at a table with the French sitting on both sides? Do they merely want to negotiate these terms with their own stooges? If they mean business, if words have not lost their meaning, and if they do want to reach an understanding, it is essential - not only in the name of humanity, but also in the name of ordinary wisdom and logic - that they should negotiate these terms with people who, on their side, can deliver the goods. What is the good of discussing these terms with people of their own making?

That is how the situation stands at the moment. Yet the French representative tells us: Perhaps a few weeks ago the situation might have warranted discussion by the Security Councilor the General Assembly but not now. The worst is over. From now on, an era of great peace, prosperity, happiness and friendship is going to dawn over Tunisia - with thousands of people of Tunisian origin in gaols, with the Cabinet in gaol, with all the great leaders of the nationalist movement - persons who have for years been respected not only at home but also abroad - in gaol.

Is this the new era that is going to dawn? And at this stage we are asked not to discuss this question.

This is my first intervention, and I would like to make it very brief, because I know that time is short and I know that other delegations want to speak too, I will reserve the right to speak again on this subject, but, before I finish, I would like to make one remark: so far as our information goes, we may not succeed in getting seven affirmative votes for the adoption of the agenda. Nobody would be more pleased than we to find ourselves mistaken in this estimate. Of course, as my colleagues know, because seven affirmative votes are required, an abstention has exactly the same effect as a negative vote. Up to this time our feeling is that seven affirmative votes will not be cast. In other words, this item will be submitted once more to the same fate to which the Moroccan item was submitted in Paris. Yet there are eleven nations which have brought this item to the Council. They are Member Nations. They are not irresponsible people who walk around the corridors of the United Nations; they are the United Nations. They are a substantial part of the United Nations. They believe in it, and they consider that this is the only body to which they can come to redress the wrongs of people who have no other recourse.

Would it please the French Government if the Tunisians, agitating for the redress of their wrongs, should do so from irresponsible points of vantage? Is there any organization to which they could do better to come than to the United Nations? Where else would the French want them to go? I would repeat that question for all the Frenchmen who sooner or later might get extracts of this speech. Where would they want the suppressed Tunisians to go if not to the United Nations? What is the United Nations for if a situation like this cannot be aired here? What are we to understand to be our functions around this table if a suppressed people cannot raise its voice here, through eleven responsible nations representing, as my colleagues well know, the whole of Asia with a few exceptions and barring those which are not Member Nations. Practically the whole of Asia knocks at the door of the United Nations. Does it say, "Please punish the French"? God forbid. Does it say, "Please make the Tunisians free tomorrow?" At this stage it merely says one thing: "Please, in heaven's name, discuss this question."

But, if seven members of the Security Council are not available to discuss if, it will amount to this: that the eleven nations are told, "You can go to hell. We will not discuss your question. You may feel strongly about it, but we will not even put it on the agenda to find out what the truth is."

We are like people who have seen a fire. We are not guilty of arson ourselves; we have just seen the fire, and we have come and reported it to the fire department here, saying, "Please, will you look at this fire and put it out?"

The fire department says, "We will not even look." This is a strange situation. But we will go on taking an interest in this question because of the feelings we have for suppressed people whom we regard as our brothers. It was not so long ago that most of those who have put their signatures to these letters were suppressed themselves. So much time has not passed that they should have forgotten the iniquities to which they themselves as subject races were exposed. Therefore, it is very difficult for us to forget the plight of the Tunisians, and we should like to tell them that, whatever the action the Security Council, in its wisdom, may wish to take, (there may be people around the Security Council table whose action might amount to saying, "We do not even want to look at this matter.), we will at least keep this flame in our hearts alive and we will do the best we can.

That is where my delegation in this intervention would like to stop. The representative of France has referred to certain incidents of past history. My delegation reserves the right to refer to them also and to expose still further the situation in Tunisia, the colonial conditions that exist there and the basic reasons for the whole of this agitation. For the present, we are only taking part in the procedural debate and, although my speech, I confess, had certain points of substance in it, these were roused mostly because the representative of France had also thought it fit to include points of substance in his. That concludes my intervention as the representative of Pakistan.

Statement on April 10, 1952
The next name on my list is that of the delegation of Pakistan. If the Security Council has no objection, I should like to address the Council in my capacity as the representative of Pakistan.

By now, all the eleven members of the Security Council have expressed their views with regard to the adoption of this item of the agenda. It has now become clear that six delegations will not support the inclusion of this item. Amongst them are our friends and colleagues from countries for which we have the highest regard. Three of these countries certainly to the average man, represent strong colonial interests. A fourth great country which has no colonial interests has nevertheless chosen to side with them. It is quite certain now that if and when the question of including this item is put to the vote, we shall lose.

Today, 10 April 1952, will go down in the history of the United Nations as the day on which the foundations were laid for the suppression of free discussion in the United Nations. As my wise colleague, Dr. Tsiang, the representative of China, with all his experience of the United Nations, has told us, this would be the first instance in the history of the United Nations, in which the mere adoption of an agenda item was opposed so stoutly in the Council, and to the kill.

This day will also go down in the history of the United Nations as the day of very great and lamentable reversals of policy.|

The last time my delegation addressed the Security Council was after the intervention of my distinguished friend, the representative of France. It would be extremely unfair of me to take advantage of a second opportunity to comment upon his speech. I shall therefore refrain from doing so. But I should very much like this time to read to my colleagues the opinion of the Government of France on the question of whether or not items should be included in the agenda; the opinion of the Government of France on this question on occasions when Tunisia is not involved. I shall read a quotation from a speech made by the representative of France on September 3, 1946, when the Security Council was discussing the Ukrainian complaint against Greece. This is what the representative of France, Mr. Parodi, said on that occasion: "In my view, to adopt the method of declining to place a question on the agenda involves serious disadvantages and risks. Furthermore, on what grounds can it be decided that the complaint is without proper foundation? Does it mean that the Council would judge on the basis of its a priori knowledge of the general political situation? That is possible. It would seem to me, however, somewhat dangerous for the Council to be guided solely by evidence of this kind. For how is it to assess such evidence if it does not examine the question thoroughly? It is to be feared that it would be influenced by general political considerations rather than considerations of justice applicable to the particular case put before it."

Today the delegation of France - a great country and one of the five permanent members of the Security Council, one of the five permanent members who have reared the entire structure of the United Nations on the basis of justice, equality and free discussion - today, I am afraid, that delegation, to quote its own words has been "influenced by general political considerations rather than considerations of justice applicable to the particular case" before us.

So far as my distinguished friend, the representative of France, and the intervention of his Government in this debate are concerned, I shall rest ; there.

I was particularly disappointed, however, when I listened to the intervention of my friend, Sir Gladwyn Jebb, the distinguished representative of the United Kingdom. There are many pleasant things which the distinguished Sir Gladwyn and I share. Amongst them are love and respect for the English language. I must complain that the distinguished representative of the United Kingdom did violence to this common beloved of ours today. He read from the letter in which the eleven governments had brought this matter before the Security Council, and when he came to the sentence in which those governments had requested the Council to meet "with a view to taking necessary measures provided by the Charter to put an end to the present situation," he was pleased to call this phrase ambiguous. In other words, to him this phrase meant several things which were confusing. I put it to him that perhaps the best way of describing this phrase would be to say that these eleven nations had put their request to the Security Council in moderate and temperate terms and had given the Security Council the fullest scope under this phrase to do as little or as much as it thought fit to do. This, I submit to him, is not ambiguity - unless we do violence to the English language.

From there he passed on too easily to say that at any rate his delegation did not believe that any solution should be imposed either on France or on Tunisia. Does the phrase that has been quoted include a single word which implies that force is to be applied, that anything is to be imposed? If that was the only objection that the delegation of the United Kingdom had, it was certainly open to that delegation to put forward suggestions and to make recommendations which would not involve imposing a solution upon the parties. It was open to the delegation of the United Kingdom to say: "Let us discuss the matter. Let us not impose any solution either on Tunisia or on France. Let us merely recommend to them that they should come together and solve their dispute." Would that have been an imposition? But, by putting his case as he did, the representative of the United Kingdom tried to give the impression, I am afraid, that the complaint we had submitted to the Security Council was vague and wooly, had a threat behind it, and contained some element whereby imposition on Tunisia or on France of a solution by the Security Council would become essential. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

In his statement there was also a great and lamentable reversal of policy, because the distinguished Foreign Secretary of the United Kingdom had on a previous occasion addressed the United Nations when, on the question of whether matters like this should or should not be included in the agenda, he had been pleased to express his views. I shall read from the official records of the Security Council in the matter of the Iranian case against the USSR, and the complaint of the USSR regarding the situation in Greece. This is what Mr. Bevin said on 25 January 1946: "I am very anxious in all these cases that complainants should be heard by the Council, whoever they may be. I think it is a mistake if a Government feels that having a complaint against another power, whether it be great or small, it cannot come to this Council and state its case. While the Government I represent has been included in subsequent charges of endangering peace, in so far as I am principally responsible, or at least my Government is principally responsible, in the case of Greece, I shall offer no objection to the fullest investigation and discussion. ... If there is a complaint by the Iranian Government against the Government of the USSR, then I think that the Iranian Government should be given a chance to come to the table and state its case. Then we should be in a position to judge whether or not the case is justified. I would like it to go on the agenda, and to have a discussion in the open, because I believe that peace depends upon bringing these facts out before the world, whether they are right or wrong." (Official Records. First Year: First Series, p. 17)

Today, those noble words have been forgotten. Today we are told, not that the bringing of this case will strengthen the principles of the United Nations, but that - and I am sorry to see this in the statement of the representative of the United Kingdom - bringing this matter to the Security Council and allowing a free and open discussion will have a bad effect upon the United Nations.

If a free discussion has a bad effect on the United Nations, I fail to understand what the main function of the United Nations in the world of today can ever be. In order to save the United Nations from decay, and from the bad influence which eleven nations are seeking to cast upon it, the best way, in short, of preserving the United Nations according to him, " would be to stop all discussions and to have a nice quiet life, admiring the new building in which we are situated.

He, and I think the representative of the Netherlands, have made one point very genuinely and very honestly. They have said: if we take any action now, if we discuss this matter in the Security Council now, the negotiations that are going on in Tunisia would fail.

Negotiations between whom? We know that one party is the French. Which is the other party with whom the negotiations are being carried on? The entire Cabinet, which was the last popular Cabinet that Tunisia was given, is in gaol. All the nationalist leaders and workers, and every single intelligent person, more or less, who has shown any sympathy for the nationalist cause, has either been beaten up or put into gaol. Communications in Tunisia are extremely tight at the moment. With whom are the French at present discussing the matter? What are the negotiations which we jeopardize by discussing the matter here? What is the great delicate task that the Resident-General is carrying on in Tunisia which will be jeopardized by our opening our lips here? If a discussion in the United Nations ruins the task which the Resident-General is undertaking in Tunisia, and if free discussion in this international forum hinders him, why, then, it must be hindering him in something evil. It could not possibly hinder him in something good, because I do not believe that a discussion in the United Nations could have such a deleterious effect upon the welfare of mankind.

We have also been told that by our discussing the matter we shall be giving encouragement to the unrest in Tunisia. This has been suggested from the very beginning. It was first suggested by the representative of France, and I believe that some delegations, quite genuinely, have had the apprehension that our words will somehow inflame people.
 
There are two kinds of people in Tunisia: the Tunisians and the French. The French have landed thousands of troops with tanks, with guns, with armour of all sorts. The Tunisians, so far as (know, have no armoury and no arsenal. Therefore, if our words inflame anyone, it could only be the French who could effectively be inflamed. How could the Tunisians be inflamed? They can occasionally throw a bomb. They occasionally create a noise. But all of the total military strength in Tunisia is in the hands of the French. It is they whom we want to stop from carrying on this military operation at the moment, and from carrying on what we described as atrocities - a word which did not fall very easily upon the ears of the representative of France. There is nothing else happening there at present, except that the Resident-General is trying desperately to do something which he can present to the world as the start of new negotiations.

This, coming from the delegation of the United Kingdom, was a matter of surprise to me, because no country in the world has as much experience of such situations as the United Kingdom itself. They very well understand how, on the Indian sub-continent, before the withdrawal of their power, national leaders were thrown into gaol time and again and governments were formed of "local notables" (to quote the phrase that is being used for the stooges in Tunisia), certain understandings were arrived at with the more moderate and the more reasonable elements, as they were called, and that none of these understandings ultimately worked. As long as the popular will was being ignored, no reforms could possibly have worked smoothly and efficiently. In the end, by a gesture which to my mind will remain one of the noblest in history, the United Kingdom thought it fit to negotiate with those whom it had once upon a time put into gaol; it was only then that lasting peace and friendship between the United Kingdom on the one hand and India and Pakistan on the other, was founded. Of this friendship we are proud.

But it was not possible to do that until the United Kingdom took a bold imaginative step. Instead of improvising and living from day to day, trying to deceive the world as regards their intentions and their conduct, they took the bold imaginative step of getting down to the task and negotiating an understanding with the real representatives of the people. This is what the French are not doing in Tunisia, and this is what we expected the delegation of the United Kingdom to tell the French Government, basing it on their own experience of recent history.

The press has revealed that about a fortnight or so ago, the French Minister of Overseas France and the British Colonial Secretary had talks together, the subject being Tunisia. I am sorry that the result of this flocking together of the two gentlemen was not a very happy one, if Sir Gladwyn's statement is based on the advice that they gave to His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom with regard to the inclusion of this item on the agenda. Sir Gladwyn Jebb, with a felicity of language for which I envy him, was pleased to call himself a tortoise, and myself a hare, thus accusing me of impetuousness. He added that in the British Commonwealth, to which he and I and our countries have the honour to belong, there is room for many kinds of political animals. This is probably true, but if in the British Commonwealth there are any ostriches, they are not to be found in my country.

I should like now to turn to what I consider to be the most unkindest cut of all; the stand taken by the United States on this issue.

With regard to free discussion, I do not believe that any country in the world has a more honourable record than the United States. Its policy up to the present has been so unambiguous and so full-throated that I take

pleasure - and I think it will warm the hearts of many of us - in going over the passages, some of them very inspiring, in which the United States has during the past years, laid down this thesis of freedom of speech in the United Nations. I shall read out some of these passages in order to give a measure of the great change which has come over some of the major Members of the United Nations today.

May I go as far back as the year 1946, when Mr. Stettinius, speaking on the Iranian case against the USSR, said: "I think the situation would be clarified in all our minds if we could agree on the question of these cases being put on the agenda for discussion at the next meeting of the Council. I wish to make it very clear that the United States Government believes that any Member country of the United Nations which makes a complaint has a right to be heard at this table.

The same representative of the United States, speaking in February 1946 on the question of United Kingdom troops in Greece, said: "It is a good thing, when serious misunderstandings arise between States, that they should bring their problems before this Council."

Mr. Johnson, another distinguished representative of the United States, discussing the complaint of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic against Greece in September 1946, said: "The position of my Government has consistently, since the organization of this body, been that the Council cannot deny to a Member of the United Nations who states that a condition exists that is likely to threaten international peace and security the opportunity to present its case. My Government attaches importance to that principle."

Again, in the year -1947, the same Mr. Johnson, representing the United States, said the following in connexion with the Indonesian question: "The fact that there is shooting and that men are being killed in that region of the world is also very important. Thus it is a legitimate concern of the Security Council, no matter what concept of sovereignty is involved or what may ultimately be decided to be the fact."

Again, speaking on the Chilean complaint regarding the violation of Czechoslovak independence by the USSR, Mr. Warren Austin said: "A decision on the question now pending is not a decision on the substance, and it would not constitute judgement upon the merits of the question. But when a question is raised, as it is here, whether an item should be placed on the agenda for discussion or not, there must be a consideration of the character of the question in order to learn whether the competence of the Security Council reaches the item."

Mr. Austin went on to say: "Can the Security Council evade or avoid the responsibility that is placed upon it to give these charges a hearing - all of them? For these reasons, the United States will vote to place this item on the agenda."

I shall not read all the extracts which I have before me, as I do not wish to tire out my colleagues. The United States has been most vocal and very strong on this issue in the past. Leaving out quotations from the statements of Mr. Jessup, therefore, I come now to the last extract in my collection, which is from a statement by Mr. Warren Austin on the complaint of the failure of the Iranian Government to comply with provisional measures indicated by the International Court of Justice. This is what Mr. Austin said: "The United Nations does deny itself the right to interfere in essentially domestic matters. However, such denial follows the adoption of the agenda and consideration of the point raised; it does not precede it - unless there are opposing contentions." (S/PV.559, p. 42)

Yet that is exactly the attitude which many of those delegations which are opposed to our point of view are adopting on this particular occasion. Questions of competence, if they have not been discussed, have at least been hinted at. Some representatives have indicated what their stand would or would not be on the question of jurisdiction - without, however, consenting to place the item on the agenda.

This great reversal by the United States, after such a clear line of thinking over several years, comes to us, I must confess, as a great disappointment. The first signs of this reversal were visible during the Paris session of the General Assembly last autumn. During that session, when the Moroccan question was raised, the United States took the decision to oppose the inclusion of the item in the General Assembly's agenda. Knowing the past history of the conduct and thinking of the United States on this matter, we felt that this was a small, isolated aberration from the path the United States had always chosen. Not only that: we were happy to remember - I must give all honour to the United States delegation for this fact - that the United States had never opposed the inclusion of an item, even though that item seemed to have implications of grave charges against the United States itself. It was because of this past history that we thought the vote of the United States on the Moroccan question was an isolated instance. There were, perhaps, many considerations which do not obtain in this case - which determined the vote of the United States on the Moroccan question. Perhaps one of those considerations was that we were meeting in Paris. Representatives will remember that one of the strangest speeches which we have ever heard in the United Nations was made by the Foreign Minister of France, who went to the rostrum and asked the Assembly to desist from voting in favour of including the Moroccan item in the agenda because, among other things, the Assembly was the guest of France at the time. It was heartening to find that, there were many delegations which did practice the courtesy which they had been asked to remember. But it would be even more heartening to find that kind of courtesy in the world today were it not for the fact that the lives and liberty of millions of Moroccans were in jeopardy at that time, just as the lives and liberty of millions of Tunisians are in jeopardy now.
Whose guests are we here today that we should adopt the same attitude as was adopted in Paris? Therefore, today's abstention by the United States has a significance which the abstention in Paris did not have. We mourn that abstention.

I am sure it is not for me to tell my friends in the United States and my friends in the United States delegation that this decision would be against a large body of liberal thought allover the world. We all know that, since last meeting of the Security Council, this question has been exercising the minds of people in many countries. There has been a great deal of heart-searching and cogitation everywhere. I do not know of a single liberal newspaper in any country, including the United States, which has taken the positive stand that shutting out this item would be a good policy. I am certain that the Untied States Government have taken the decision after a great deal of weighing and calculating of the risks. I have the fullest respect for their decision, and I hope, for the sake of the United States, that their calculations were correct. They and we, the eleven Members who have brought this complaint before the Security Council - and not only we twelve, but all freedom-loving nations today, in these times of stress and strain, are forever looking for greater and greater and larger and larger unities. That is the only way to save the world.

I very much hope, for the sake of the United States, for our sake and for the sake of all those who love peace and freedom that this act of the United States will not prove to be an unnecessary obstacle in the way of such a quest. As far as I can see, having adopted this clear course for a long time, their reversal today will be very hard to explain to the world even for their best friends. It would almost look as though the United States had made up its mind to do a quick U-turn in a one-way street. What the consequences will be I cannot imagine.

But I congratulate them on including in their statement many heartening words. They have condemned the use of force not only by the Tunisians, but also by the French. They fully realize that the instruments of force are not with the Tunisians, that the balance of such instruments of death is in favour of the French and not in favour of the Tunisians. I take it, therefore, that they have publicly warned the French not to use force. That is what the French have been doing in Tunisia all these days and that is what we fear they will go on doing unless world public opinion is aroused to the situation there. For how can they possibly say that they are not using force when not a single person of importance is free to walk the streets?

I therefore welcome these phrases of goodwill and I think that the Tunisians will welcome them too. The Tunisians have on many occasions looked to the United States for help. The first time the Tunisians made an appeal to the United States was in President Wilson's time. People forget that there have been three or four major near-revolutions there. People forget that the present nationalist movement was born there in about 1904. It is not a creation of yesterday. Only, it is yesterday and today and last week that we have discussed the matter. The Tunisians will hear these words and I am sure that they will take heart.

We shall also try to extract such consolation as we can from the last phrase that the United States has used, namely, that they will abstain "at this time". A similar phrase was used when the Moroccan item was rejected in Paris. When the Moroccan item was kept off the agenda, the phrase used was "for the time being". Today, the United States has chosen the words "at this time"

My colleagues know that in our professional diplomatic jargon the use of the words "at this time" is considered to be merely a face-saving device. By placing this phrase in a position in the sentence where it will have the maximum of stress with the minimum of meaning, the impression is sought to be created that there is a great and just reservation still in the mind.

We shall not take the cynical view of putting that construction upon this phrase. I think the best way of interpreting this phrase would be that, here, a tiny ray of the American conscience has struggled through the mists of Atlantic diplomacy. As such, we welcome it and I hope that the time will not come when we shall have to hold the United States of America to its word. I hope that our failure will not mean the failure of the Tunisians.
One further brief statement and then I shall have finished this part of my intervention.

We are not working against the interests of France in this question. Nor do we fail to realize the great bonds of sympathy that tie together the various countries that stand on the other side of the fence today. We assure France that we have always admired that country for its heroism, and we have considerable sympathy for it in its trials and tribulations, which we know have not yet ended, and we do wish it peace and prosperity in the future.

However, we have taken up this matter because we sincerely believe that the interests of France lie in coming to a peaceful understanding with the real Tunisian people, not with stooges of their own making. Mr. de Hauteclocque at the present moment seems to us to be engaged in some frenzied kind of card shuffling hoping that four aces will turn up at any moment. The four aces that he hopes to find he has already imprisoned.

The French authorities seem to think that they are playing with us - the eleven nations that have come to the Security Council -a sort of a game of chess, that they must make a move quickly, otherwise something terrible will happen. We are not playing chess with them. Had we been playing chess we would have timed this complaint much more efficiently; we would have timed it when the French were not able to say "we are, carrying on negotiations". This is not a question of putting in the complaint on this or that day. If Mr. de Hauteclocque can produce out of his sleeve a Cabinet tomorrow, it will deceive no one in the world except himself. He is not trying to checkmate us. If he is, this will be no use to him. He is not fighting with us; we are not fighting with him. He is fighting history, and he will always fail if he chooses to have a headlong collision with the march of events.

Therefore, I beg the French authorities in Tunisia to realize that this is not the occasion for playing a chess game with us and trying to beat us with their quick moves. This is a situation in which formation of Cabinets with what-the United States magazine The Nation calls "brutal speed" will solve the issue. The situation requires a much deeper understanding and a much closer analysis, and in the end, as my friend the representative of the United States of America said, the will of the people will assert itself. We are not working against the interests of France. I think it is the French authorities who are not working in the interests of France. They are working in the interest of a handful of French settlers who have got enormous vested interests there and whose lobbies in Paris are very strong and very vigorous. In France itself there is a vast body of liberal thought which has called the present situation in Tunisia "humiliating". France has great traditions of liberalism and r do not think that these 150,000 French settlers in Tunisia will dim those traditions. They may be able to put them into the background for a while, but they will not be able to do so always.

Therefore, although we have failed, we fifteen nations - the five in the Security Council that might vote for this item and the ten outside that cannot vote - in this task of ours which we considered to be our duty, shall have been defeated by six nations. The world will draw its own conclusions.

What can be done at this stage to remedy this sorry situation? Is there anything left by which we as the United Nation, can redeem our honour a little? If the Security Council is determined to reject this item, I am afraid there is nothing that is left along those lines, except perhaps one small matter which the Security Council in its wisdom, might consent to do.

The eleven nations that presented this case have asked that under Rule 37, they should be allowed to come to the Security Council to present their case. That occasion has not arrived at all. That occasion, on the assumption of which they made the original request, will not arise unless the item is adopted. They have been rebuffed, or, they will have been rebuffed as soon as the vote is taken.

In the meantime, in this procedural debate, they have been insulted. Ten nations outside the Security Council, and one nation inside it, that took up this cause in the interests of international peace have been insulted by my French colleague. He has accused them of having made statements for purposes of propaganda. I know that he may not feel so certain of some of us as he may of others, but I take the farthest country of all -what propaganda purposes could the Philippines have in its mind in bringing up this question before the Security Council? The representative of France has called these delegations and their Governments names in the Security Council during a procedural debate at a time when the question of putting this item on the agenda was being discussed and had not yet been decided upon. After this, ten nations and their representatives have submitted a request that if, in the end, they are bound to be defeated, they might at least be given in all decency the moral right of reply. They have been called names; they have no means of replying to them. We, in all our discussions in the United Nations and elsewhere, have recognized the right of reply to be an inalienable right. Perhaps the Security Council, having discussed the Tunisian question and having rebuffed ten or eleven nations, might at least redeem itself by calling these ten nations to the Council table so that they should be in a position to answer in some detail the charges of lying, the charges of propaganda and the charges of making tendentious statements, which were levelled against them by the French representative at our meeting last Friday. My delegation therefore proposes that, before we come to any decision on the item before us, we should, as the Security Council, extend an invitation to the ten countries which have written in to the Security Council today and whose letters I read at the beginning of this discussion, an invitation to come to the Security Council and exercise their moral right of reply to the allegations made against them by the representative of France. That ends my intervention as the representative of Pakistan.


Statement on April 14, 1952

The Delegation of Pakistan would like to make the following statement' in explanation of the vote that it has cast in favour of inscription on the
agenda of the "Tunisian Question".
Since about the beginning of this year there has been serious unrest in Tunisia. Many cases of killing, violence, shooting and large-scale arrests have been widely reported in the world press.
My Government together with the Governments of ten other Member nations has taken a very serious view of the situation.
We firmly believe that the distressful incidents of the past three months and more are not merely a local, civil disturbance or ordinary breaches of the peace calling for the usual preventive measures by the forces of law and order. They were not brought about by a few foolish or evil individuals on either side.
The situation has its roots in the past, it is extremely precariously balanced at present and bodes ill for the future. That is why, in our view, it constitutes a serious threat to international peace and security.
I beg leave to explain this a little further as justification and explanation of our view and our vote.
The conflict between the French authorities on the one hand and the Government and people of Tunisia on the other that has recently aroused world interest is merely the latest phase in a struggle that has been going
on for many years.
Tunisia was occupied by the French in 1881 when a French force crossed over from Algeria "under pretext of chastising" a certain tribe (says the historian) "and quickly dropping the mask, advanced on the capital and compelled the Bey to accept the French protectorate".

Although the Treaty of Bardo signed in that year conforms to the general pattern of treaties negotiated in the heyday of imperialism between the strong and the weak, nevertheless its preamble speaks of the parties as
"desirous of cementing the ties of friendship and good neighbourliness
which have always existed between the two States". Article 2 of the treaty stipulates that French military occupation will cease when the French and Tunisian authorities will have agreed that the local administration is in fit position to maintain order.

This temporary occupation claimed to have been undertaken for the maintenance of law and order has, however, persisted to this day without any signs of relaxation. In fact, the French hold on Tunisia has consider-ably tightened during these years.

A convention known as the Convention of La Marsa was signed in 1883 by which time France had had two years in which to dig in its toes. The
word "protectorate" was used for the first time in this convention which did not however, annul or replace or change the fundamental character of the earlier treaty "between the two States". It still assumed a system of collaboration between two Governments and not a system of direct administration by the French.

In practice, however, it was the beginning of vassalization. For there- after the President of France, by a unilateral decree, first took over the promulgation and execution of all decrees issued by the Bey in Tunisia and soon afterwards, again by unilateral action, reinforced the powers of the French representative in Tunisia, who became the so-called "depository of the power of the Republic in that country".

A protectorate claims for its justification the purpose of leading a backward people along the road to self-government. In the case of Tunisia, it has been the reverse process of gradually depriving a free country of its freedom, corroding its sovereignty and replacing its autonomy, which it had enjoyed for a century or more, by foreign domination.

A policy of peopling Tunisia with French settlers has been pursued. French colonists have been given grants of land accompanied by subsidies. A growing number of French agents have been introduced in Tunisian administration. The best land has passed into the hands of colonists coming directly from France or but recently nationalized in Tunisia. Thousands of acres have been arbitrarily classed as "juridical forests" and passed into the hands of the State. A second law has reclassified the forests and put them back into circulation for the sole benefit of the colonists. The Tunisian population is about 3,300,000. The French number about 150,000. The country is controlled by 30,000 officials, which, roughly, comes to one official per 100 inhabitants. More than 3/ 4 of the officials are French. Only about 12 1/2 % of Tunisian children go to school as against 87% of the French children there.

Above all, the French Resident-General in Tunisia has usurped all the power of the sovereign and merely employs the Bey's seal to keep up the illusion of the Bey's sovereignty. The Tunisian people have no elected legislature or parliament empowered to enact even domestic laws and, despite the appointment of Tunisian Ministers, the executive authority is concentrated in the hands of the French officials.

The Tunisians never willingly accepted this domination.

Since the beginning of this century, however, the Tunisian nationalist movement has become growingly dynamic and has taken the same form and shape as in many other parts of the world where subject peoples in the political climate of modern times have awakened, struggled and, in some cases, are still struggling to free themselves of foreign domination and exploitation.

It has also met with the same obstacles, namely, the opposition of foreign vested interests and the shortsighted use of force by the colonial power. A succession of Tunisian nationalist leaders, men of vision and fortitude, have been driven into prison or exile. Some of them have died there.

But in spite of temporary setbacks, the movement has steadily grown. After the First World War and President Wilson's Fourteen Points, fresh hopes filled the hearts of the Tunisians. At the same time, to quote The Economist, "the French Government started systematically to increase the French population of officials and small settlers and the political parties in France began to take sides as between the aspirations of the 'go-ahead' left-wing element known as the Neo-Destour and the settlers".

The hopes and expectations of the Tunisians rose and fell with changes in the complexion of the French Government in Paris. By 1938, the bitterly frustrated Neo-Destour and the pro-colonist French authorities girt their loins for a large-scale conflict. About a thousand nationalists were thrown into jail. The French authorities proclaimed a state of siege in Tunisia which, so far as our information goes, has not yet been formally lifted although fourteen years have elapsed since then.

After the second world war, it became clear that direct administration of Tunisia by France, which was not justified either by the treaties between the two States or by any principle of freedom and justice, needed revision. To quote again from The Economist, "the Government which they (that is, the Tunisians and the French) set out to change was -at the time- composed as follows: The Bey ruled through a cabinet consisting of seven Frenchmen and six Tunisians but their decisions required a Frenchman's "visa" before they were passed upwards. The cabinet was served in economic and financial matters by two elected grand councils of equal size, (one composed of Tunisians, the other of local Frenchmen) but only in an advisory capacity. Local Government too was nominally conducted by Tunisians. But in practice, all internal control remained in French hands because a French official took the chair at all cabinet meetings, because French counter-signature was essential to all Beylical decrees and because French civil controllers supervised even municipal and rural authorities".

To continue the quotation: "In the summer of 1950, the new moods of 1949 yielded two results of importance. In the teeth of the die-hard element among the settlers a new French Resident-General was instructed to institute three major reforms and, if possible, to do so with Tunisian collaboration. He was immediately to re-constitute the cabinet; he was to alter the terms of access to the civil service, making jobs available to Tunisians on a basis of fixed proportions instead of competitive examinations as the French settlers prefer and he was to institute municipal self-government. In August 1950, unprecedently, after consultation with the Bey, he announced the formation of a new cabinet in which the number of Tunisians for the first time equaled the number of Frenchmen and which was to be chaired by the Tunisian Prime Minister, M.Chenik. Among its seven Tunisian members were representatives of all parties except the Communists and the eastward-looking Vieux Destour party. Even the Neo Destour agreed to serve.

"By February 1951 several changes had been secured by agreement including a ruling that ministerial decrees no longer required the hated French visa before passing to the Bey for signature. Everyone was pleased except the settlers. What went wrong in 1951?"

The answer to this question is briefly supplied by the same writer: "The root of the recent troubles is that whereas the Neo-Destour and, indeed, most Tunisians look on these reforms merely as the start of a quick turnover to complete self-government, the French settlers regard them as limits beyond which Paris must not go."

The Prime Minister of Tunisia wrote to the French Resident-General on March 30th, 1951 as follows: "The present cabinet is considerably handicapped by a ceaseless interference with its initiatives….The prestige of a cabinet of negotiation would not withstand for long such pressure, the more so because it has been submitted for several months to the disparaging and hostile action of the French community, both in Tunisia and in Paris. The attitude of the majority of the representatives of the French community both in Tunisia and in Paris, the attitude of the executive of the French section and its attempts to wreck the negotiation are an open secret. Resignation en bloc, political motions, the referring to a mixed delegation of credits which had been asked for by the Prime Minister, all means have been used to render impossible any kind of cooperation between this Assembly and the Tunisian Government."

On April 22, 1951 the Prime Minister again wrote to the French Resident-General: "It would," he said, "be ungracious of me, Mr. Resident-General, to describe here the multiple manoeuvres which preceded and then followed the birth of the cabinet from the spectacular resignation of the executive of the French section of the Grand Council to the deputations sent to the French Government and Parliament, let alone various cases of pressure such as the sending of telegrams to Paris, the circulation of hostile watchwords among the French personnel in various administrative departments, etc. I will not dwell on certain inelegant gestures which I personally had to put up with, on certain oversights which I am willing to believe were quite unintentional…. I would like to direct your attention to a few typical cases which will show the lengths to which may go the wrong-headed hostility of some people towards the Tunisian people and the strange idea they have of French interests in Tunisia".

"But nothing," he added, "is irremediably lost yet. There still exist possibilities of agreement and the door remains open for honest, loyal negotiations. The men of goodwill who compose the ministerial team are prepared, in spite of rebuffs and disappointments, to persist in their effort of negotiation continually interrupted by those -very few, but very busy indeed- who find their interest in the continuance of political and administrative immobilism."

Tunisian autonomy of which the King and the people of Tunisia had been so wrongfully deprived, was rendered ineffectual by the intrigues of French settlers, by wanton interference in the day-to-day work of the Tunisian Ministers and by the indignities to which the Tunisian Ministers were constantly subjected.

It was in this mood of disappointment and futility that the Tunisian Ministers went to Paris later in 1951 to remind the French Government once more of its pledges and promises. The reply of the Foreign Minister of France dated December 15, 1951 to their representation dashed all their hopes. It accepted little else than the need for municipal reforms. For the rest, it was a long homily on France's civilizing work in Tunisia and the "essential role" that the French of Tunisia had played in it.

This reply bitterly disappointed the Tunisians and roused serious apprehensions in the minds of people in many parts of the world.

In 1950 M. Robert Schuman had won the hearts of the Tunisians by talking of "independence which is the final objective for all territories of the French Union". In his letter of December 15, 1951, however, he sought to reverse the course of history by emphatically stating, "The French Government is not averse to studying a modification of the present institution (Grand Council), but it maintains that the preservation of the continuity of French representation in the Government of H.H. the Bey is indispensable."

The dismay and the desperation of the Tunisians cannot be better described than in the words of the Tunisian Prime Minister who, in utter amazement at the turn of events, wrote to the French President as follows: "Certainly France has interests in Tunisia and the Tunisian Government reflects faithfully the opinion of His Highness and of his people when it not only readily recognizes these rights but even proposes to guarantee them…. (But) these interests, important as they may be, cannot be permitted to crystallize into political rights with regard to participation in the executive and representative organs of the Tunisian State…. In regard particularly to the question of French financial aid, it is perhaps necessary at this point to make it quite clear that this aid only exists in the form of an advance upon which both capital and interest are re-payable and which is inserted in the budget in the form of an annual loan under the heading of the "Tunisian Debt". Though it is undoubted that this aid benefits the country and the people as a whole, it is nonetheless true that the interests which profit most from this aid are the enterprises holding concessions for the exploitation of natural resources, means of transport, power and energy production, etc., enterprises in which Tunisian participation is practically nil. Frankly, Mr. President, it is very painful to have to state that while the claims of France to the gratitude of the Tunisian people are constantly being evoked, Tunisia's contribution in the hard times endured by the French nation is passed over in silence….Are all these things already forgotten? Is Tunisia to be considered as eternally indebted to France?"

The subsequent events, the arrest of the widely esteemed Tunisian patriot, Habib Bourguiba on January 13 and of other nationalist leaders held in high regard by the Tunisian people, the disorders, the firings, the destruction of life and property, the jailing of thousands of Tunisians and finally of the Tunisian Ministers themselves -these more recent events are well known.

My brief survey of the history of the Tunisian struggle and of the elements at work on either side was intended to put the events of the last three months in their proper perspective.

The French insistence on what is called the restoration of law and order in the circumstances which I have described is comparable to the attitude of the strangler in the fable who tightened his hold on the victim's throat to punish him for the impudent stare of his popping eyes.

These are the reasons why my Government regarded and still regards the situation in Tunisia to be far more than a minor local or domestic matter. The fact that the French Government has announced a new plan of reforms, when nationalist leaders of Tunisia with whom alone such plans can be negotiated if they are to solve anything are all imprisoned, does not fill us with any confidence.

Viewed in this light, the latest news from Tunisia is disquieting. Reporting that a new "Tunisian Cabinet" had been formed on April 12, an Associated Press message, published in New York Herald Tribune, says: "The Cabinet has no powers to speak of. Observers present at the announcement ceremony in near-by Carthage said the Bey of Tunis, the nominal ruler of the North African Protectorate, was unsmiling and 'seemed to be acting out a forced role.' The French Resident-General, Jean de Hautecloque, takes over the Foreign Ministry. The Tunisians also will have nothing to do with the defense of their country, French forces of more than 20,000 men rule the country. The Arab land is under a state of siege….The Bey Sidi Mohammed el Amin Pasha, seventy, bowed to French pressure in approving Mr. Baccouche (as Prime Minister). Usually reliable Arab sources say most of the 3 million Tunisians and the Bey's own 12 children turned against him for yielding….Many newspapers in Paris have not hesitated to call the new Tunisian government 'a Cabinet of stooges' and to criticize the French handling of Tunisia's bid for independence…."

This indicates that once more the French Government is substituting the shadow for the substance and repeating the too-frequent colonial situation in which the aspirations for self-determination are silenced to produce an illusory calm to fit the short-sighted policy of the colonial power. The only wise course for the colonial power would be to enlarge its own vision and respect subject peoples for the sentiments which in other contexts they would regard as constituting noble and heroic patriotism.

An author writing in a well-known American magazine considers it "ironically appropriate that the problems of withdrawal from Africa are posed first and above all at France, the weakest of the Atlantic powers. Now that the British have dismantled half their empire," he goes on to say, "the French stand forth as the greatest colonial power in the world. They govern 80 million subject people girdling the globe inhabiting an area roughly 1 1/2 times the size of the United States….In Africa with wisdom the French still have time to prepare the structure of cooperation to replace the structure of dominion for the inevitable withdrawal. In this they act as trustees of the whole Atlantic world."

In such withdrawal there is no shame or defeat for if the Charter of the United Nations means anything, nothing will ultimately become the metropolitan powers in their colonies more than the leaving of them. It is the earnest hope of all peace-loving nations that such withdrawals will be orderly, involving the least possible moral or physical destruction and that they will leave happy memories on both sides in order that peace should be strengthened in the world.

In voting for the inscription of this item on the agenda, the aims of my Delegation were: first and foremost, the good offices of the Security Council to save the Tunisians from the indignities, hardships, destruction of life and property and the loss of civil liberties, which are being visited upon them for no other fault than that they love their country and their national freedom; secondly, to seek the good offices of the Security Council to resolve the deadlock that is fast destroying the friendly relations that should exist between the French and the Tunisians; and thirdly, to check as quickly as possible the wave of emotion that is mounting in Africa and Asia at the spectacle of a bloody struggle between a weak, helpless and gentle people, and an immeasurably stronger European power several times as strong, whose complete domination .over other people's native soil has no moral justification today.

In the end, I wish to say that my Government and my country have the greatest affection for the people of France, and sincere respect for their great, liberal traditions. As one of Pakistan's leading dailies, The Dawn, has observed: "Whatever our differences on certain political questions with France may be, we in this country hold the people of France in the highest esteem because of that noble cry of Liberty, Equality, Fraternity. We want the French to be our friends in a free world and no effort is being spared by this country to strengthen Franco-Pakistani ties."

If, in trying to uphold here the very principles for which history will ever honour the name of France, I have made heavy demands on the patience of my colleague, the distinguished representative of France, I sincerely crave his pardon.