Uruguay

The delegation of Uruguay shares the feeling of satisfaction with which the unanimous election of the President of this Assembly was received. His many personal virtues, which have already been justly praised, permit us to hope that under his wise direction the discussions initiated here will lead to positive results. It is the fervent hope of my delegation that this may be so. 78. The President is assuming this office — which is both an honour and a burden — at a time when to the anxiety caused in the world by international tensions has been added the grief felt at the tragic loss of the Secretary-General, Mr. Dag Hammarskjold, and some of the United Nations most loyal workers. The delegation of Uruguay wishes to associate itself with the tributes which have been paid to them and bows in reverent memory of these people and of all the others who have given their lives, and who until a few hours ago were still giving their lives, to the service of the lofty ideals of the United Nations. 79. The uppermost concern in our minds today is peace — not that there has ever been any time when peace was not the ultimate objective of this community of nations. The United Nations was created in order to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind. Its paramount objective is peace and its working principle is the creation of the necessary conditions for the maintenance of international security. If carefully considered, the ether activities carried out by the Organization, in the exercise of a competence which is today considerably broader than it was in its early days, are, despite all their importance, nothing but tools or means the better to further this supreme cause of peace. 80. Today, here and now, this peace is in peril. The United Nations is at a difficult — we might almost say crucial — moment of its history. A challenge has been issued and this challenge affects us all, because in the last analysis we are all united in the same destiny, tragic as that destiny may be. 81. Even less can those fail to recognize this, who represent nations that greatness is not measured by the number of army divisions, but by the strength of their spirit and wisdom of their institutions and the exercise of the civil virtues of tolerance and concord. For small nations, indeed, world peace is a singularly precious thing. Other nations may, with more or less success, venture forth on the stormy seas of war. For small nations there is no choice. Peace is a precondition of their survival, since only in conditions of genuine peace can they fulfil their ineluctable mission of ensuring the happiness of their citizens.. 82. For that reason, the small countries have a special right to make their voices heard and their will felt in the decisions of the Assembly. If those who talk about a family of nations and a universal community of peoples are sincere, they must recognize that the clamour of those nations, regardless of the military power behind them, is the expression of the general will, the will of the peoples, which — as the wise saying has it — is the will of God. 83. I have not said these things on the spur of the moment. My country, Uruguay, is small if it is measured in terms of military or economic power, but as it happens, its spirit, the spirit of its people, is one of total dedication to the cause of peace and justice.. Perhaps its Spanish heritage gave our people a special feeling for great universal causes, a sense of mission — and by definition a mission must be carried out for the general benefit — like that which at one time was the glory and splendour of the mother country; perhaps as a result of its painful struggle for independence, which was prolonged beyond the date of its formal recognition, it came to feel more than others the need for a world governed by rules of peaceful coexistence. Be that as it may, it reaffirms today its faith in the principles which it has always professed: pacific settlement of disputes, the virtues of arbitration, respect for the rules of international law and ethics. 84. It would take too long to list the series of real difficulties which today oppose this universal cry for peace and keep the world in that intermediate stage, the cold war, with its consequences of distrust, fear and suspicion; it would take too long and it would really be pointless, if you stop to think that conflict, as expression of opposition of interests, seems to be the very essence of international life, just as occurs within a national society in encounters between individuals. The greatest difficulty is not the existence of the conflict itself, however serious that might appear to be. The greatest difficulty is the fact that, in spite of the tremendous progress made during the last decade, international society has not yet found the proper tools for its solution. The reason for this is basically simple: the International community lacks any deep awareness of its unity, even as its members lack awareness of their condition as such, that is to say, of being parts of a whole; it lacks the unconditional acceptance of the idea of the common goal, common to all mankind, on which the welfare of each of its members ultimately depends. The dissolution of the Christian community, which occurred several centuries ago, caused the West to lose that awareness of its fundamental unity and as a result we have lost the only common ground in which discussion and argument could take place, every nation began to consider itself an end in itself, to practise an egoism it regarded as sacred, and to accept reasons of State as a rule and standard for its actions. With the disappearance of the common ground of beliefs and values which constituted the bulwark of cur civilization, there was no longer anything to stop the enslaving development of a policy of force, which, based on the idea of unlimited sovereignty bound by no ethical rule, was to lead mankind to the serious catastrophes of the present century. 85. The physical traces of those ravages had been gradually erased, but their spiritual effects remain. In these vast regions of the globe, the values of Christian civilization, which in the last analysis are the values of man, whatever the civilization to which he belongs, are in danger. In these conditions, it must be admitted, the gulf has widened and it has become more difficult for nations to talk to one another. For it is obvious that the goal of peace cannot be attained at the cost of those very values which give peace its meaning. 86. If we work hard for peace, if we are willing to spare no effort to achieve it, it is because peace is the prerequisite* for a life that can be led in dignity and freedom. There can be no peace at the cost of human dignity. Peace, it must be remembered, is not an end in itself: it is only a means to the ultimate end, which is human happiness, the fullness of a free life. For this reason, we could never morally agree to a so-called peaceful coexistence which meant the acceptance or recognition of the slavery of Copies and nations. Such make-believe peaceful coexistence not peace; it is a tragic counterfeit of peace. For if peace presupposes order, that order must be one of liberty and justice. Justice and peace are inseparable. Peace is the handiwork of justice. 87. Therefore, the contribution of our peoples to the cause of peace will be judged by the extent to which we are able to establish the prerequisites for justice in the world. Since justice still consists essentially in the old idea of giving to each his own, it presupposes, in the international order, the recognition of two fundamental principles. 88. The first is that every nation, as well as every individual in every nation, must have opportunities for free self-determination. This is the principle of self-determination which, in reference to citizens, means simply the enjoyment, by each of them, of their natural rights, inherent in their condition as human beings, and which, with reference to nations, means that each of them must be assured of independence, sovereignty and equality. 89. My country has been particularly aware of these problems. At conferences, in assemblies, and through various proposals, we have tirelessly endeavoured to work out an effective system for protecting human rights which, without undermining the sovereignty of States, would bring about conditions ensuring the full exercise of those rights. 90. Much ground still remains to be covered. If we recall that the United Nations receives thousands of petitions every year denouncing the violation of rights in every part of the world, and that the United Nations can do nothing more than place them in its files, it is obvious that what we have been doing until now is far from satisfying the deeply felt* although possibly premature, hopes of the world's oppressed. Nevertheless, as stated in the Preamble of the Paris Declaration, U recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace. 91. Where nations are concerned, I wish to recall here that Uruguay like its sister republics in the Americas, was born under the sign of self-determination. For that reason, we have Joyfully welcomed in recent years the accession to independence of the subjugated peoples of Africa and Asia. For us, self determination is a part of our very being, and we can no more renounce it than we can renounce ourselves. 92. In our inter-American commitments we have emphatically affirmed the absolute right of peoples to be masters of their own destinies, freely to choose their own political Institutions, to achieve economic independence, and to live their own social and cultural life without any direct or indirect interference by any State or group of States, and more particularly without the intrusion of any form of totalitarianism. My country will remain true to that principle, whatever difficulties its application may involve in specific circumstances. 93. Secondly, as a logical corollary — since after all this is no more than a means for the effective exercise of self-determination — my country once again reaffirms from this high rostrum the principle of non-intervention, which is the keystone of the Charter and of our anti-American system, and a safeguard of the sovereignty and Integrity of peoples. Perhaps the reaffirmation of the unconditional validity of that principle is more necessary than ever today, when the classic forms of violence have given way to the underhanded methods of revolutionary war, fomented from Abroad, and aimed at dominating countries by weakening their moral fibre, destroying their religion and traditional beliefs, undermining their economies, disorganizing their production and subverting their internal systems. 94. But justice, the very core and foundation of peace, is not confined to the defence of individual and collective freedoms. Although freedom is indispensable for the full development of the human personality, the human condition requires primary attention to physical needs. Without the life of the body, there can be no life of the spirit, of which the former is a vehicle and instrument. It is there that freedom must begin, in freedom from want, from ignorance, and from the despair which follows in the wake of want and ignorance. If democracy is to triumph and endure, it must be complete and genuine, and it must be a social democracy, for its purpose — and therein lies its greatness — is nothing less than the complete happiness of mankind. 95. Today we are experiencing the last effects of the great industrial revolution which, by increasing the productivity of labour and hence the total output, enabled the broad masses to enjoy the material and cultural benefits of civilization which had hitherto been reserved for a very small minority. The accession of the "fourth estate" to levels of living which had formerly been reserved for the elite, the demand of these broad masses for a more equitable distribution of wealth among all classes of society, their logical claim to participation in government, all these are, fortunately, irrevocable facts which no reactionary political or social philosophy could, at this stage, fail to take into account. 96. But the satisfaction of these minimum requirements of social justice, the participation of all members of society in the enjoyment of the material and cultural benefits of civilization, which has been made possible today by the mechanical revolution of Our time, cannot be brought about in isolation by each one of our political communities, and particularly bf the great majority which belongs to the so-called underdeveloped world. The close interdependence in which nations must live today; the inadequacy of natural resources or of the capital needed to exploit them; the economic colonialism under which many countries are still merely the breadbaskets, the producers of raw materials of the industrial Powers; the enormous difficulties encountered by these countries in promoting their industrial development, except at the cost of sacrificing the present generations; the low productivity of labour in vast areas of the world, which makes it impossible for those areas to compete in the world price market, except through expensive subsidies which are paid for, in the last analysis, by the working classes: all these and other factors make greater and closer cooperation among nations absolutely essential. For, just as within each society the callous concentration of wealth in the hands of a few has deprived the masses of their natural right to use and enjoy goods which exist for the use and enjoyment of all, a similar process has been taking place within the international society itself, which has thus been divided into prosperous and powerful nations and nations that are weak and poor. The problem of the equitable distribution of wealth, the problem of the social function of property, now arises at the world level; and the same reasons which justify those who are fighting for equitable distribution within their own nations also justify the demand of the underdeveloped countries for broad and comprehensive assistance from the industrialized countries. 'it must be understood once and for all, if disaster is not to befall all of us, that such cooperation is not a generous donation, nor is requesting it the act of a beggar. If we are truly members of an international community, if there is a basic solidarity among all human beings by reason of their origin, nature and destiny, then the highly developed nations have a natural legal duty to come to the aid of their brothers who are fighting against the handicaps of poverty, disease and ignorance. It would be an irreparable mistake for the Western world to which we belong to allow this revolutionary process, which is inexorably advancing in all parts of the world to go on being exploited, as it has been up to now, by other blocs which, having nothing to lose, play it as their trump card. Our duty as Westerners — and in the final analysis the idea of social justice is a. Western ideals to identify ourselves with this great revolution of our time, to encourage it and to place ourselves at its head. 97. Today we can note with satisfaction that the first steps towards that great goal have already been taken. In my own country, at the historic conference of Punta del Este, the American republics, in an example of cooperation without parallel in history, agreed to form an Alliance for Progress, with a view to securing for their peoples, in freedom and within the framework of democratic institutions, better and fairer levels of living, accelerating their economic and social development, ensuring adequate remuneration for labour, and eradicating poverty, illiteracy and disease once and for all. 98. The struggle for justice, which is the struggle for peace, has its appropriate place within this Organization. Even to the most sceptical mind, the results achieved during these past fifteen years cannot but be regarded as furthering the cause of peace. What the United Nations had done during this period and, what is perhaps even more important, what it has succeeded in preventing from being done — a role none the less vital because negative — justifies in good measure, together with the advances made in the economic, social and humanitarian fields, the hopes which the world has placed in it. 99. It is true that the United Nations has neither changed the basic elements in the conflict between the two blocs into which the world is today divided, nor altered the essential pattern of international politics in our time. Perhaps so ambitious a project was not part of the original plan for its creation. But it has helped those two blocs to communicate with each other, it has thrown a bridge across the gap which, however fragile it may appear at this moment, is still a bridge, a possibility and a hope. 100. Our primary task is precisely to avoid the continuation of the policy of blocs within the United Nations, our task is to foster a kind of "esprit de corps" in all its Members, and more especially among the great Powers. For to admit that the division of the United Nations into rigid blocs is something which cannot be helped would be to admit that the United Nations, which proclaims itself to be united, is disunited, and that would be the height of absurdity. We must at least exhaust the rich possibilities which the United Nations offers as a means for the pacific settlement of disputes on a basis of rectitude and loyalty in our intentions and proceeding}, and in full awareness of belonging to an Organization which is an entity having its own purposes, and the preservation of which is a matter of interest and concern to us all. In this domain, the small and medium sized nations are in a position to play an important role. If, as I said, we could never agree that the so-called "peaceful coexistence" as it has been proclaimed in actions and intentions is morally defensible, we can, nevertheless, take it as a point of departure and a reality on which we can begin to build a genuine policy of peace. When the only alternative to negotiations, talks and meetings is total war, the choice does not appear difficult. In any case, to succeed in delaying a conflict is, to a certain extent, to help to solve it. For the future no longer belongs to man: it belongs only to God.