The Decision on u.N.E.F.'s Withdrawal

34. The decision to withdraw U.N.E.F. has been frequently characterized in various quarters as 'hasty', 'precipitous', and the like, even, indeed, to the extent of suggesting that it took President Nasser by surprise. The question of the withdrawal of U.N.E.F. is by no means a new one. In fact, it was the negotiations on this very question with the Government of Egypt which, after the establishment of U.N.E.F. by the General Assembly, delayed its arrival while it waited in a staging area at Capodichino airbase, Naples, Italy, for several days in November 1956. The Government of Egypt, understandably, did not wish to give permission for the arrival on its soil of an international force, unless it was assured that its sovereignty would be respected and a request for withdrawal of the force would be honoured. Over the years, in discussions with representatives of the United Arab Republic, the subject of the continued presence of U.N.E.F. has occasionally come up, and it was invariably taken for granted by United Arab Republic representatives that if their Government officially requested the withdrawal of U.N.E.F. the request would be honoured by the Secretary General. There is no record to indicate that this assumption was ever questioned. Thus, although the request came as a surprise, there was nothing new about the question of principle nor about the procedure to be followed by the Secretary General. It follows that the decision taken by him on 18 May 1967 to comply with the request for the withdrawal of the force was seen by him as the only reasonable and sound action that could be taken. The actual withdrawal itself, it should be recalled, was to be carried out in an orderly, dignified, deliberate and not precipitate manner over a period of several weeks. The first troops in fact left the area only on 29 May.

The Possibility of Delay

35. Opinions have also been frequently expressed that the decision to withdraw U.N.E.F. should have been delayed pending consultations, of various kinds, or that efforts should have been made to resist the United Arab Republic's request for U.N.E.F.'s withdrawal, or to bring pressure to bear on the Government of the United Arab Republic to reconsider its decision in this matter. In fact, as the chronology given above makes clear, the effectiveness of U.N.E.F. in the light of the movement of United Arab Republic troops up to the line and into Sharm el-Sheikh had already vanished before the request for withdrawal was received. Furthermore, the Government of the United Arab Republic had made it entirely clear to the Secretary General that an appeal for reconsideration of the withdrawal decision would encounter a firm rebuff and would be considered as an attempt to impose U.N.E.F. as an 'army of occupation'. Such a reaction, combined with the fact that U.N.E.F. positions on the line had already been effectively taken over by United Arab Republic troops in pursuit of their full right to move up to the line in their own territory, and a deep anxiety for the security of U.N.E.F. personnel should an effort be made to keep U.N.E.F. in position after its withdrawal had been requested, were powerful arguments in favour of complying with the United Arab Republic request, even supposing there had not been other overriding reasons for accepting it.

36. It has been said that the decision to withdraw U.N.E.F. precipitated other consequences such as the reinstitution of the blockade against Israel in the Straits of Tiran. As can be seen from the chronology, the U.N.E.F. positions at Sharm el-Sheikh on the Straits of Tiran (manned by 32 men in all) were in fact rendered ineffective by United Arab Republic troops before the request for withdrawal was received. It is also pertinent to note that, in response to a query from the Secretary General as to why the United Arab Republic had announced its reinstitution of the blockade in the Straits of Tiran while the Secretary General was actually en route to Cairo on 22 May, President Nasser explained that his Government's decision to resume the blockade had been taken some time before U Thant's departure and it was considered preferable to make the announcement before rather than after the Secretary General's visit to Cairo.