The United Nations and Cyprus
The UN General Assembly opened its ninth session on Tuesday by rejecting Russia's demand that the Chinese Nationalists should be thrown out and replaced by the Chinese Communists. Thus one major embarrassment to the West has been postponed. There is nothing else of like importance on the agenda, and on the whole it looks as if little will be done this session to restore public faith in the United Nations. There will be the customary debate on disarmament, but this can only reflect more broadly the Disarmament Commission's complete lack of progress. South Africa will be subjected to various criticisms, and it will as usual indignantly reject them. The duller but more useful debates on non-controversial matters are unlikely to excite any more interest than they have ever done. It is in the vexed matter of colonies that the greatest heat will be generated. Old familiars like Morocco and Tunisia will appear again and inspire the usual propaganda. Indonesia is to challenge Holland's sovereignty over West New Guinea. But it is Britain's turn also this year to stand on the defensive, against Greece's charge that Cyprus is being denied the right to self-determination.' This is a considerable embarrassment to Britain, largely because America's attitude remains uncertain. That it should ever have come about is a diplomatic failure on the part of both Greece and Britain. The new-found concern of Athens for Cyprus into which it allowed itself to be driven by the shrill propaganda of priests and (paradoxically) communists, is no more convincing than the propaganda itself. But it did, however artificially, become a matter of national pride, and so it may be held that Britain erred by refusing in too cavalier a fashion to discuss the question at all. This failure of tact, to put it no higher, has presented Britain and its friends with an awkward problem. It is not one that can be solved by the United Nations, which has no right of jurisdiction over domestic affairs such as this. Greece should have thought again.
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