Civil strife
"This obligation has also been given effect to in a number of treaties-some of them of long standing such as for example, the Convention on Duties and Rights of States in the Event of Civil Strife adopted at Havana in 1928 which obligated the signatory states “to use all means at their disposal to prevent the inhabitants of their territory, nationals or aliens, from participating in, gathering elements crossing the boundary, or sailing from their territory for the purpose of starting or promoting civil strife."
The same prohibition has been the subject of conventions going back to 1936 regarding the use of broadcasting for inciting the population of any territory to acts incompatible with the internal order or the security of the territory.
The same concern for preventing intervention finds expression in Article 2(7) of the 1945 Charter of the United Nations which says “nothing contained in the present Charter shall authorize the United Nations to intervene in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any state.
It is clear that intervention of the kind sought to be prevented maintained above are to be strongly and effectively condemned by the world community of nations.
One can do no better than quote the British in this, after their own abortive intervention in the 1956 Suez affair, when two years later the types of intervention were described by the British Foreign Secretary in the House of Commons in July, 1958, in the course of discussing outside intervention in a civil war in the Middle East as follows:
"The House must face up to the problems involved in this question of indirect aggression...
"What happens? A foreign Government determines to use a dissident element within another State to overthrow the legitimate Government by force. The technique is the smuggling of arms and explosives, the infiltration of agents, a virulent propaganda campaign, incitement to insurrection and finally, the plot against the lives of the constitutional leaders. That is the technique and that is the problem.
"We have to admit that no answer has yet been found to it. I believe that unless an answer is found, the independence and integrity of one small independent State after another is bound to be undermined and finally destroyed.
"...On the general points of principle affecting indirect aggression. I believe that a country has the right to ask for help from other countries when it feels itself to be in danger. I believe that a country has the right to ask for help against aggression, whether direct or indirect. I believe, too, that another Government has the right to respond to such requests, and that such response is in accordance with the spirit of the Charter.
"I believe that this is in accordance with the established rules of international law. Unless countries are prepared to respond to such appeals for help we shall see one country after another go down before this form of aggression, and all the steps which we
