1. It is a pleasure for my delegation, Mr. President, to offer you its congratulations on the honour which the Assembly has conferred on you and your country by appointing you to preside over the work of the present session. The experience you have demonstrated in similar capacities in other United Nations organs and in other posts, and your ability, prudence and other qualities are undoubtedly an assurance of success in your present duties.
2. My delegation is also happy to welcome to this Organization the new States of Malawi, Malta and Zambia, which have come to take on and to share the heavy responsibilities imposed on all Members of the United Nations by its Charter. The admission of these Members to the Organization is a further step on the way to decolonization, and the fact that when the Charter was signed in 1945 there were fifty-one Members, whereas today the original number has more than doubled, with African nations predominating among the new Members, shows how much progress has been made.
3. The remarks of the Dominican Republic on this occasion and at this stage of the general debate will, in view of the present circumstances, necessarily be very brief and be confined to some aspects of the problems which most directly concern it within the framework of the United Nations. Before taking these up, however, we must express our hope and earnest wish that the difficulties. which the Organization is now facing may be dealt with in a realistic spirit and be satisfactorily overcome, so that its existence and authority may be reaffirmed and it may carry out the task assigned to it in the preamble of the Charter, for the good of mankind. It is hardly necessary for me to say that the United Nations must be preserved at all costs and regardless of the sacrifices involved and that we must all do our utmost to preserve it, since it is our common heritage built up over the centuries in an endeavour to find a formula enabling people to live together in peace and understanding. Now that the formula has been found, we must take advantage of it and prevent it from being thwarted.
4. The Dominican Republic is doing everything in its power to give its people, abandoned for many years to a harsh fate, an awareness of the freedom they had been denied and the means to overcome the economic atrophy which was their lot for more than three decades and has been aggravated by the world situation of today. The progress, as yet rudimentary, already achieved has been due to the goodwill and patriotism of their present leaders and to the initiative of the Dominican people themselves, also, in a particular way, to co-operation from outside sources, among which the technical assistance agencies of the United Nations and’ the Alliance for Progress have played a large part. By its own efforts and with the assistance which it hopes it will continue to receive, the Dominican Republic will inevitably overcome its economic difficulties both for its own benefit and for the sake of other areas in the same region which, lacking adequate natural resources, cannot but profit from any progress made by the Dominican Republic.
5. One of the most serious problems that is already having an alarmingly apparent impact on the country's economic and social well-being and is aggravating its under-development is population growth, which, although a matter of concern in Latin America as well as elsewhere, is assuming unusual features in the Dominican Republic. Even today the Dominican economy produces barely enough food to supply a population of about 4 million, which, within the short space of no more than twenty years, will be doubled. The prediction of Malthus, with all its attendant calamities, is being fulfilled in the Dominican Republic, for while the population appears to be increasing in rapid geometrical progression, the same is not true of the means of subsistence, which appear to have remained stationary or, at best, to be increasing in arithmetical progression. The consequences which such a situation portends are easy to imagine.
6. This grave problem, the dimensions of which were pointed out by Secretary-General Thant in his report to this Assembly [A/5801], has been tackled by the Dominican Government, which intends to solve it not merely by resorting to mechanical or artificial processes of doubtful applicability and efficacy but by employing scientific methods of positive economic value. Accordingly, the Dominican Government, with the help of United Nations technical assistance in conjunction with the facilities of the Alliance for Progress, is at present studying a programme for developing the basins of two of the largest rivers in the Republic. The waters of these rivers will be used to irrigate what is virtually barren land and convert it into a vast source of agricultural products and to produce hydroelectric power so that not only will the present and future food problem be solved, but the general economic progress of the country will be furthered through a rise in per capita income far beyond present or prospective levels. This project, as is obvious, is directly related to the United Nations Development Decade.
7. Against this background, the Dominican Republic reaffirms its decision to support all the measures proposed on the occasion of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, held at Geneva from March to June 1964, and will do everything in its power to ensure their complete and prompt implementation. The application of some of these measures will make a direct contribution to solving the economic problems of the Dominican Republic as well as of other developing countries. Such measures will call for discarding habits of long standing, and this will mean sacrifices which the Dominican people, let it be said in their favour, are prepared to accept in the hope of achieving a better standard of living and of removing the internal tensions which poverty and social injustice inevitably create,
8. A good omen of the success of the measures suggested or proposed at Geneva is the solidarity of the developing countries as reflected in the Group of Seventy-seven, which, let it be said in passing, must, in its membership or composition, be based on the principle of complete universality or be a union of all the poorer countries having the same objective of achieving better economic conditions.
9. With regard to strictly internal matters, the present Government has undertaken to maintain order and the institutions of the Republic in the service of the people and to protect fundamental freedoms. Freedom of the Press and all other human rights are enjoyed by all the Dominican people, who will have the opportunity next September of going to the polls in order to legitimize their country's constitutional status by installing in office a freely elected democratic government.
10. With regard to the purely international order, my Government reiterates and reaffirms its traditional policy of respect for international obligations and zeal for peace. It therefore confirms its adherence to the principles and standards of the United Nations Charter in their full scope and breadth and to the agreements, norms, decisions and opinions emanating from its organs, in particular from the International Court of Justice. My delegation is accordingly in a position to announce that the Dominican Government will ratify General Assembly resolutions 1991 A and B (XVUI), which make provision for the enlargement of the Security Council and the Economic and Social Council. It will also maintain its declared position with regard to the Republic of China and will therefore reaffirm that country's right to occupy the place which properly belongs to it in the Organization.
11. With regard to the problem of disarmament and related problems, the problem of self-determination and its corollary, decolonization, and the problem of apartheid and all forms of discrimination, my Government strongly reaffirms its determination to cooperate in the removal of the conditions which give rise to such problems.
12. The desire of all peoples to live in peace is particularly noticeable in the developing countries, because without peace their striving for economic progress will be blocked. Peace, however, presupposes a juridical order of respect for the norms established and created by law. Within the international community such a juridical order is ensured by the principles embodied in the Charter of the United Nations. Without the United Nations the world would inevitably revert to an era of temporizing between the great Powers and the States dependent on them, that is to say, to a situation containing the seeds of war. In order to prevent ourselves from falling into such a state of affairs, which would be fatal for the smaller states, we must ensure that the United Nations continues in existence and preserves its prestige and effectiveness.
13. We therefore believe that an opportunity to make these principles and ideas live, to restore their full force and to propagate them among all the nations of the world is being offered to us in this year, which has been designated International Co-operation Year [see resolution 1907 (XVIII), a year in which the activities of all the countries represented in this Assembly should and must be inspired by a desire to reduce tension by halting the arms race, by continuing the dialogue between the industrialized and the developing Powers, by eliminating colonialism and discriminatory policies and by determining to resolve disputes between nations by peaceful means.