The Pittsburgh Press (December 16, 1945)
Editorial: Stop the Java war!
An international authority should intervene in the East Indies war. There should be an armistice, objective fact-finding, and peaceful arbitration.
The British are blasting and burning whole villages in Java. This is in retaliation for the slaying of 22 survivors of a British air crash. That, in turn, was in retaliation for British bombing and machine-gunning of rebel demonstrators and alleged British use of Jap troops against the Javanese. So the violence mounts in a vicious spiral.
London’s answer is to send more reinforcements to settle the dispute on the basis of which side has the more guns. The extreme nationalists reply that they will use poison to kill the “invaders.”
All of this is madness. It will not convert the natives to the blessings of Dutch rule. It will not strengthen Britain’s crumbling position in Asia. And it will not obtain for the Javanese the prosperous freedom they seek. No side can profit by a continuation of this colonial war. All will lose, unless the fighting is stopped. Only international intervention can save faces and guarantee a just settlement.
The precise method of international adjudication is less important than speed and results. Action by the United Nations Organization would do more to revive world hope in it, as a potent peace agency, than any number of pious resolutions and pledges for indefinite future. If the UNO will not or cannot act, the Allied Pacific Command or the Far Eastern Advisory Commission could do so.
Neither the Dutch nor the British are in a position to refuse international arbitration with good grace. The Dutch were not strong enough to liberate the East Indies from the Jap aggressors, but had to rely on Allied help – chiefly American – to win the Pacific war. So the Allies have earned, at great price, the right to intervene for a just settlement in line with professed Allied war aims and United Nations pledges.
Indeed, Britain’s only excuse for waging war in Java today is an international one. She says she is there because she was designated as the Allied representative to protect refugees and to complete surrender and disarmament of the Japs. Since British intervention authority derives from the Allies, and since it has retarded rather than advanced peace, the Allies have a perfect case legally and morally to assume the responsibility directly.
The British Labor government, of all parties involved in this bloody dispute, should be the most anxious to turn back this thankless international task to an international body.
That it is an international responsibility is demonstrated by the repercussions not only in all Asia but throughout the world. Certainly, anything that feeds an Asiatic “holy” war against the western nations, as this is doing, is of deep concern to the United States and should be to the United Nations.