Extract from a confidential report from Thomas J. Kiernan
to Seán Murphy (Dublin)
'Ireland's UNO Position and Colonial Disputes'
(D/11) (Confidential)

1. In his declaration of policy speech to the newly elected Parliament in Jakarta, April 9, 1956, the Indonesian Prime Minister, Dr. Ali Sastromidjojo,¹ made a significant remark about the effect on Asian and African affairs of the admission of 16 new members to the United Nations Organisation. It will be desirable, he said, to summon another Bandung conference (of Afro-Asian countries) in view of the new problems in the Asian-African orbit caused by the admission of these new members.
2. Just before the general elections, the Indonesian Ambassador in Bonn, Dr. Maramis, was recalled, (according to a general plan applying to other major capitals) and the Embassy is in charge of Dr. Soeriamihardja as Chargé d’Affaires pending the appointment of a successor to Dr. Maramis. The late Ambassador, whom I had known in Canberra where he spent some time studying with a visiting public administration group of Indonesian civil servants, and the present Chargé d’Affaires are both fairly well informed regarding Ireland’s position in regard to ‘colonialism’.
3. I asked Mr. Soeriamihardja what his Prime Minister had in mind when referring in his Cabinet’s statement of policy to the 16 new members of the UNO. He said that, in a general way, all European countries are lumped together in the Indonesian political mind as unsympathetic to the ‘coloured’ races; and that the absence of any kind of current information about present-day Ireland such as might be given by a diplomatic mission of Ireland anywhere in Asia meant that knowledge of Ireland as a country neither colonial-minded nor supporting any of the exploiting countries was bound to be very limited. He believed however that, even so, the presence of an Irish delegation at UNO would enable Ireland’s policy on colonial matters to be put in its proper perspective.
4. I recall that the brother of the Indonesian Prime Minister, now an Ambassador somewhere, was quite well informed about Irish history since 1916. He was the unofficial agent in Australia of the then-struggling Indonesian Independence Movement, and, at the time, the Australian Department of External Affairs, under Dr. Evatt, was sympathetic to the Indonesians against the Dutch. Sastromidjojo asked an official of the External Affairs Department to arrange a meeting with me. I was not able to give him any help in his request to ascertain if Mr. Dan Breen, TD² could provide notes on guerrilla warfare suitable for use in Indonesia. Mr. Breen’s book had been translated into Indonesian but was not sufficiently detailed for practical operations.
5. It has always seemed to me that by not having diplomatic representation in Asia, at one point to cover a number of friendly and not mutually-antagonistic countries, we run the risk of losing the understanding which exists amongst the older generation, who were in the struggle for their countries’ independence, but which cannot be expected to continue amongst the younger generations born into the promised lands. Our representation at UNO can well be a substitute for our omission to be represented in Asia, provided that the staffing of our representation is adequate to enable our delegation to build on the sympathetic understanding of the sensitive Asian peoples.

[matter omitted]