The eighteen principles provided for the eventual establishment of a sovereign independent state which would be joined in a union with the Netherlands under the Dutch crown. The Republic would be a state within this Union, and a plebiscite would be held within a year in Java, Sumatra and Madura, to find out whether the people of those islands wished to be part of the Republic. All states of the area would be accorded 'fair' representation in an interim government to be set up before the United States of Indonesia came into existence. The Good Offices Committee would remain available to assist the constitutional development if either side wanted it (the Netherlands had previously held that the Committee had no role to play except in relation to military disengagement). Until the United States of Indonesia was formed, Indonesia would be under Dutch sovereignty.
But the Agreement said little about the nature of the interim government to be formed before the proposed United States of Indonesia came into existence, nor the degree of influence which the Republic would have within it; nothing about the conduct of foreign relations during this period; nothing about the powers which the Netherlands representative would hold; practically nothing about the nature of the proposed Netherlands-Indonesia union that was eventually to be established: in a word, nothing about most of the subjects that had been in dispute before the first police action took place.
During the following months, therefore, the Good Offices Committee tried to secure agreement on the detailed implementation of the Agreement. To secure a military disengagement, fifty-five observers, operating in teams of three, supervised the withdrawal of 35,000 Indonesian forces from behind the Netherlands lines and freed about 9000 prisoners held by the Dutch. But progress on the political issues proved much harder. The Dutch, meanwhile, on the basis of their military gains, proceeded to strengthen their position in apparent defiance of the Agreement. For example, they caused, or allowed, the formation of new states in eastern Sumatra, western Java, and Madura, though they had undertaken to form no new states. They began to set up a new interim government, in which the Republic was not represented, claiming this was not the 'provisional government' provided for in the Agreement but an interim authority. This then proceeded to give substantial power to the local states which the Dutch had created. Conversely, the Indonesians were, according to the Dutch, responsible for periodic breaches of the ceasefire.
This attempt by the Dutch to strengthen their own position in defiance of the Renville Agreement aroused concern among those members of the Security Council most sympathetic with the Indonesians. Australia, China and Colombia called for a strengthening of the mandate of the Good Offices Committee to enable it to play a more positive role in implementing Renville. In particular it should be able to initiate proposals, as well as respond to those of others. The United States, however, and other states supporting the Dutch, opposed this. So for the moment the Council contented itself with asking the Good Offices Committee to keep it informed of progress towards a settlement.
The Good Offices Committee accordingly became more active in organising new meetings between the parties, to clarify and elaborate the Renville Agreement. These however, brought agreement no nearer. The Dutch called for a rigorous application of the military agreements (which had favoured them), but did nothing to implement the political aspects except on their own highly partisan interpretation. The Republicans insisted that the Dutch should take no political action except in accordance with the Agreement, and should agree to substantial representation for the Republic in the interim government that was to be set up. In May the Dutch, claiming that agreement with the Republic was impossible, proceeded to call a conference of representatives from thirteen areas outside the Republic, to consider the formation of the United States of Indonesia: an act understandably denounced by the Republic as a violation of the Renville Agreement. Military incidents between the two sides began to recur. Dutch-owned estates in Java were destroyed by the republicans. Mutual blockades were maintained.
To help avert a critical breakdown, the US and Australian representatives in the Good Offices Committee decided to put forward their own ideas about the way the Renville Agreement should be implemented. The essence of these proposals (the Critchley-Dubois proposals) was that a constituent assembly should be created in elections held throughout Indonesia, and this should in turn form a provisional government. This would decide on the representation of states in the United States of Indonesia with the help of an expert committee. Each state would then decide whether or not it would join the union. These proposals, though by no means favourable to the Republic (since they made possible the fragmentation of Indonesia into many states), were accepted by her as a basis for discussion. But they were rejected by the Netherlands, whose military position was now a strong one, and which claimed that the Good Offices Committee had no mandate to promote proposals of this kind.
First Veto Exercise in United Nations
