3. I should like at the very outset to express the feeling of admiration and respect with which my country joins in the tribute paid recently to the Secretary-General, Dag Hammarskjold, in his own native land, by all the nations of the free world, a tribute to a man who died tragically in the service of the brightest ideal of modern mankind— that of universal peace and concord. The finest tribute that could be paid to this extraordinary man, this standard-bearer of peace, this apostle of brotherhood, would be to have all the nations represented here join selflessly in choosing as his successor someone capable of serving the United Nations with the same lofty spirit of self-sacrifice as he displayed in the cause of furthering the unity and solidarity of the human family. This tribute would also be extended to the great Swedish nation, which has given this world Organization two martyrs: Count Bernadotte, who fell heroically in the deserts of the Middle East, and now Dag Hammarskjold, struck down by the same fatality which has pursued all redeemers since God Himself died on the cross to give us an example of the power of blood to inspire great causes and great human ideals.
4. For perhaps the first time in the history of the United Nations, a country of the Americas is re-entering this world Organization after having acquired the moral licence to belong to an institution founded precisely to defend the right of man to live in a world free from fear and injustice. The Dominican Republic has been a Member of the United Nations since the Organization's inception in 1945, but it is only now, after years of purely theoretical adherence to the principles of the San Francisco Charter, that, in full awareness of its duties and responsibilities, it is really entering this world forum which should count among its Members only those nations for which international agreements are not a myth, and human rights not a fiction.
6. After the fall of the man who for thirty years personified the Dominican State, we established in our country a regime which is based on the rule of law and which has gradually been modelling its institutions on the pattern of representative democracy. Instead of the single party, as we find in countries where political activity is reduced to directives handed down by a totalitarian authority, various competing parties have emerged, parties in which the divergent ideals and desires of the Dominican people have at last found expression, Fundamental civil rights, without which freedom and civil order are inconceivable, have been extended to all citizens who now, after thirty-one years of political obscurantism, freely exercise their constitutional rights and privileges. The iron curtain which encircled the island, and through which independent opinion could scarcely filter, has been lifted, and the right to travel freely has been accorded to three million people who were virtually cut off from international political life and from world civilization. Today, no arbitrary requirements obstruct the issuance of passports and visas to enter and leave Dominican territory. This political realignment of our country with the countries of the free world has been strengthened by the emergence and consolidation of political organizations which carry on their public activities free from arbitrary restrictions, and which fully enjoy the right of peaceful association and the right to elect and to be elected in genuine elections supervised internationally and conducted with exemplary impartiality with the technical help of experts recommended by the secretariat of the Organization of American States. In addition to these decisive steps in the area of political reconstruction, we have taken other no less important steps to promote free enterprise and to rid our economy of all reactionary controls. The monopolies that benefited individuals and the enterprises established to divert much of the nation's economic activity towards selfish ends are being eliminated, and the widest freedom is being .restored to business and private initiative. A series of new laws, drafted in a broad spirit of social justice has been enacted to abolish all taxes which in the past weighed heavily on the consumer and made it practically impossible for the poorer classes to subsist. The basic commodities in our export trade have been brought under a new system of duties which channels most of the State's revenue towards the farmers.
7, The institutional life of the country has been reorganized on a truly liberal basis. Noteworthy accomplishments in this field include the law which restores full administrative authority to municipal councils and re-establishes the unrestricted principle of autonomy of municipal corporations, the law which establishes the independence of the University and reinstates the principle of academic freedom in the oldest institution of higher learning in the Americas; the bill to enforce the constitutional principle of the separation of powers and ensure the tenure of judges and the independence of the judiciary — the basis of civil order in any civilized country; and lastly the laws designed to organize the juridical system and to endow the nation with a political physiognomy of a thoroughly republican character,
8, Thus, a Government based on law is coming into being in the Dominica Republic. The dictatorship has collapsed, and on its ruins we have begun to build, patiently and without demagogic show, a regime cast in the forms which we inherited from the founders of the Republic and which are basically the same as the time-honoured forms fashioned by the creative genius of Bolivar, San Martin, Washington, O'Higgins, Morazon, Juarez, Marti and other great heroes of American independence. This is why I stand here unabashed and speak with a clear conscience and with no fear of offending the memory of my country's founding fathers, whose solemn rights we have vindicated and whose unfading legacy we have kept pure as the metal used to case the bells of resurgence. The case of the Dominican Republic is heartening proof that democracy i3 steadily gaining ground in the Americas and that, despite the poverty which afflicts most of our peoples, despite the distress which ravages our unblessed masses and the difficulties placed by our underdevelopment in the way of our progress towards the high goals of justice, despite all this we are resolutely advancing towards that hard-won ideal achieved in the Americas by only the few nations which can honestly affirm that the lands of the hemisphere are infertile for dictatorship and oppression.
9, The openly conducted process of abolishing all our primitive political methods and of liberalizing our institutions is not, of course, proceeding without impediments or limitations. There are negative elements which are opposing this process of democratization with all the ferocity of their barbarian instincts. In addition, the opposition movements which have once more become part of the Republic's life lack the necessary civic maturity and frequently transgress the limits of the law, openly violating public order and wilfully disregarding the legitimate authority of the State. The new Government, which in effect emerged after the tragedy of 30 May, for only then was it free of the imperious will which for thirty years weighed heavily on the life of men and institutions, is doing everything in its power to offset these two influences which consciously or unconsciously conspire against the rule of law which we wish to establish for our own sake and for the sake of future generations. The suppressed feelings of rebellion and dissent which the dictatorship bred in the masses of the population have burst loose in the country, shattering the controls imposed by many years of Christian teaching on the populace tormented by long decades of terror. Blood has flowed often, placing its deadly mark on the outbursts of violence, The public rostrum and the balcony overlooking the public square have been used for bitter haranguing and for the flag-waving of professional agitators. But the process has begun, and nothing and nobody can restrain the yearning for political regeneration which is sweeping through the national consciousness with the force of a mighty torrent, It is essential that this political phenomenon should be seen without prejudice and that world public opinion should view it with the sympathy it deserves, as a sincere effort to return an American nation to functional democracy and genuine freedom.
10. For over a year the Dominican Republic has been under a severe sentence of banishment which condemns it, like a pestilence-ridden country, to economic strangulation and diplomatic ostracism, The Sixth Meeting of Consultation of Foreign Ministers, which met at San Jos6, Costa Rica, in 1960, meted out a punishment to us upon the justice and propriety of which I shall not dwell for the moment. As everybody knows, we were condemned on that occasion for having interfered in the internal affairs of a sister nation and for having committed a political crime against a distinguished Latin American statesman. I am not denying that that action, in violation of the principle of non-intervention, the bulwark of inter- American relations, and that censurable deed which almost cost the life of one of the leaders of hemispheric democracy, deserved to be punished. But it is not fair that the punishment should outlive the culprit and that an institution characteristic of the Stone Age, when the sons were held responsible for the sins of their fathers and the gates of the accursed cities were painted with the stigma INRI, should he written into international law. The action against which sanctions were taken at San Jos6 is a thing of the past. The whole of America rejected it, but failed to appreciate that a sentence condemning a personal act, born of the enmity between two political rivals, cannot be applied to a people and to future generations who were not responsible for it; those who perpetrated or inspired it are now in their graves awaiting the verdict of history.
11. Almost at the same time as the Dominican Republic, another Latin American country stood in the prisoner's box at San Jose, Costa Rica. The action taken with respect to our country, accused of being a rightist dictatorship and doubtless the most efficient but the most rigid and implacable of all we have known in American in the past century, was exemplary and drastic. But there were no censure or sanctions against the other country, ruled by a leftist dictatorship in which the interest of a foreign Power takes precedence over true interests of the American continent, because such measures were deemed incompatible with the principle of non-intervention and respect for national sovereignty. Now, more than a year later, these contradictions continue to exist and to weaken the faith of our peoples in hemispheric justice and in the effectiveness of the efforts we have exerted for over sixty years to establish inter- American relations on a basis of international honour. If only to prevent that difference in the treatment of two small countries situated in the same geographical area from continuing to irritate that sector of Latin American public opinion which is still sensitive enough to protest against the injustice of any discrimination, this monstrous anomaly should be eliminated, When
I speak of Cuba, I am not censuring that country or challenging its right to determine its own future and to choose its own political institutions. That right is beyond all dispute and it would be absurd to challenge it from the rostrum of an organization which was created precisely in order to defend the self- determination of peoples and to restrain the imperialist designs of the great nations of the world. The impassioned figure of Fidel Castro, the sanguinary prophet of the Sierra Maestra, and the nature of his regime, are not matters to be discussed outside the regional context in a world assembly of free nations where it is assumed that every country has the inalienable right to decide freely whether to serve the god of the hammer and the sickle or continue to cast its lot with traditional Christian civilization,
12, This, I feel, is an appropriate time to declare solemnly that the episode for which we were condemned at San Jos6 is a permanently closed chapter in the history of our international relations. The countries represented in this Assembly may be sure that the present Dominican Government will not commit any act which may be regarded as interference, however slight, in matters which come within the sovereignty of other American states. We should also like to declare solemnly and irrevocably in this Assembly that the new Dominican Government henceforth accepts the jurisdiction of the Commission on Human Rights, of the Organization of American States and of the United Nations. Our unreserved acceptance of those organs and of the principles which they represent, as guardians of the inviolable rights of the individual and as guarantors in America and in the world of the dignity of the human person, shall henceforth be judged in the light of events which have occurred or may occur in the Dominican Republic after 1 July 1961, the date which marked the beginning of the lawful State, for whose political and moral solvency we assume responsibility. Following the tragic events of 30 May, there was a period of approximately one month when the Government authorities were virtually powerless to control the wave of reprisals and violence unleashed throughout the country in the confusion created in Dominican society by that overwhelming event. I should make one last statement with regard to this matter in all sincerity and with the same firmness: with or without sanctions, with or without the injustice of San Jose, the Dominican Republic will continue to be unswervingly loyal to the destiny of America, a destiny which is identified with that of the United States so long as the United States fulfils its task of defending the freedom of the world and of safeguarding our civilization, even at the risk of its own survival.
13, The political transformation which our country has undergone and the ideology which prevails among its people and in its institutions are the keys to our position with respect to the world problems with which this Assembly is to deal. On each of these questions— prohibition of nuclear weapons, German reunification, elimination of the last vestiges, of colonialism in Africa, the aggressions in Asia Laos, Cambodia, etc.— our position can only be one of full support of the Western democracies.
14, Having clarified that point, which is so evident as not to require any clarification, X would beg leave to make a few remarks on the problems of my own country, which is as important to America as Laos is to Asia or Nigeria to the future of the African continent.
15. It is imperative that the world should follow attentively the events now taking place in the Dominican Republic. The danger of total disintegration which threatens the American 'continent is not in Cuba, which may already be irremediably lost to Western civilization, but in the Dominican Republic, where another crack in the edifice of America might have disastrous consequences for the future of the hemisphere and its collective security. These are not mere conjectures or empty words. Our country is today an unknown factor and its future is surrounded by enigmas. What is brewing there cannot be foreseen or analysed. A people subjected for thirty-one years to one of the most iron-fisted dictatorships known in our time is anxiously seeking the way to its final redemption. But there are many elements working against that endeavour in the midst of a particularly difficult and complex situation,
16. The instinct of the masses, who want freedom but confuse it with licence and anarchy, is being frustrated in my country by thirty years of political barbarity. The precarious conditions in which our political stability is being developed are aggravated by economic poverty which, in our country as everywhere, is the great catalyst of social crisis, The whole atmosphere is fraught with explosive factors and revolutionary ferment, Ours is a people which, like all Latin American peoples, has an irrepressible taste for polities and hopes for a better life without any dear idea of how to achieve its goals. The oppressed middle-class, intelligent and ambitious, many of whom have risen by the hard road of a university education, and whose desire to succeed is often frustrated because of lack of opportunities for employment and for earning a livelihood by practising their professions, emphatically condemns poverty and economic injustice, but it suffers from the lack of direction as the working classes.
17. Add to that dramatic picture the fact that the whole population is increasing at an alarming rate and that there is not enough employment for about half a million frustrated workers, professional men, students and farmers, who are migrating to the city and being lured by their illusory hopes into its treacherous maw.
18. All that social, political and economic disintegration, inherited from a highly constructive dictatorship which was undermined towards the end fey internal disaffection and physical waste, can be exploited by communism to establish another agency of the Kremlin in the American Balkans.
19. The opposition political parties and movements have resorted to an intemperate demagogy which has thus far proved incapable of drawing up a programme or of being guided by the principles of constructive action, and the precarious position of the Government, shaken by the constant threat of rebellion and coups d'etat, is creating a special psychology which is preparing the whole island for an almost inevitable upheaval.
20. This potentially explosive material, fashioned over thirty years by a totalitarian concept of the economy, human life and social and political relations, is exploited by professional agitators whose objective is not necessarily to seize power, but to prevent the consolidation of any power and the growth of any real democracy within the framework of a Christian and genuinely legal organization of the State,
21. It is essential, therefore, that America should watch what is happening in the Dominican Republic today. The political phenomenon developing there must be observed with true objectivity if communism is to be prevented from piercing that flank of the Caribbean and reaching the very heart of America, that America which should not forget that it was through the Caribbean, through that stormy sea which Humboldt compared to a many-mouthed Mediterranean, that the new barbarians, the implacable enemies of American democracy, came to our shores.
22. I may have taken more time than my country merits to set forth the case of the Dominican Republic, if we compare its conflicts and interests with the serious problems which the United Nations is called upon to consider and resolve in this Assembly. It is obvious, however, that the future of the Dominican Republic should be of concern not only to America but to this world Organization, which had its origin, so to speak, in that tiny corner of the American continent. America is indebted to my country for countless spiritual treasures. It was in our old university, the oldest in the New World, that the first humanists in America were educated—from the first rector of the University of Caracas, established in 1725, and the first rector of the University of Havana, founded in 1728, to the heroes of the spiritual conquest of America; the descendants of Bishop Ramirez de Fuenleal, founder of the first American school in which Latin grammar was taught, and the men who carried on the humanist tradition of Alejandro Geraldini, who, soon after he came to the island, wrote an ode in classic verse to the first university of the New World. But what the Dominicans can be most proud of is not their labour to nurture the spirit and their old university, full of historic parchments and symbol of the immortal radiance with which the beacons of culture illuminate the races of man. Greater than those honours is the glory of having served as the scene of that crucial event which produced the whole idea of the United Nations, an idea which has been in the process of gestation since the most important concept of modern times penetrated the universal conscience, namely, the concept of the, freedom of the individual.
23. For" it was precisely among the first generation born to the daughters of Spain, on the ancestral soil of Santo Domingo de la Espaniola, that the vital question of individual liberty, the greatest achievement and the most significant political fact to emerge in the first twenty centuries of the Christian era, was first discussed. That achievement, greater than the exploit of "the illustrious navigator who broke through the Pillars of Hercules with the keel of his vessels and whose discovery dispelled the shadows of the dark sea, .was the work of a humble monk, author of the Sermon of the Advent, who was later to work with Francisco de Vitoria, the Spanish Socrates, to embody in public international law the fundamental concept of the inviolability of the rights of the/ individual.
24. That missionary was called Fray Pedro de Cordoba and his arrival on the island of Santo Domingo is comparable in the history of America to Saint Paul's arrival at Athens, when the idols came crashing down from their pedestals and the cross on the breast of that apostle of human brotherhood opened its arms before all the people to promise men of good will not only that they should inherit the earth, but they should enter the Kingdom of Heaven and of infinite hope. Thus the doctrine on which this world Organization is founded was born in Santo Domingo, for it was there that an illustrious precursor of the great Spanish theologians of the Renaissance first proclaimed the right of everyone, including the aborigines of America, who were still on the fringe of civilization, to enjoy the rights which were thenceforth regarded as superior to any reason of State.
25. That assertion, Solemnly proclaimed from the pulpit of an obscure hermitage on the island of Hispaniola, set off the most significant controversy in history. While we have passed judgement on it, we have still not resolved it because the drama of man today, the drama of the United Nations, amounts in essence to a struggle between the right of the individual to enjoy his fundamental rights in full freedom in accordance with the Christian concept of human destiny, and the attempts of totalitarian governments to subjugate him in the name of political logic and social expediency.
26. International society, which was still dominated by the spirit of the Middle Ages, with its anachronistic concept of a world divided between two great powers, Church and State, began to undergo basic changes under the influence of the humble Spanish monk who started the crusade in Santo Domingo for the freedom of the indigenous peoples and who enriched jurisprudence from that day forward by introducing a new idealistic and theological concept of the unity of the human family,
27. Before concluding, I should like to take the liberty of recalling from this rostrum the work and the teachings. of those humble missionaries of the old island of Hispaniola, so that the United Nations, guided by the example of that group of religious men who have the honour of having been the first civilisers of the continent, may continue to seek peace, strengthened by faith in God and inspired by the beautiful ideal of human brotherhood.
28. A few centuries later, in his address of 1 January 1863, eighty-seven years after the United States had won its independence, Abraham Lincoln, an apostolic figure who symbolizes the equality of men and of civic rights, condemned violence, called for reconciliation among his countrymen and urged that all conflicts between peoples should be resolved by righteousness of man and the grace of Almighty God,
29. May his lofty example and the words of his unforgettable address in 1863 guide this General Assembly in bringing the ship of peace, now anchored on the shores of the Hudson, into all ports and all continents where the peoples are awaiting it, with the message which will revive the hope which has waned in the hearts of men.