Panama

May I say first of all that my delegation greatly appreciated the election of Panama to one of the vice-presidencies allotted to Latin America at this session of the General Assembly. I should also like to express once again to the Secretary-General our confidence and gratitude in respect of the work he is doing in the interests of mankind and of the United Nations ideals. 2. The delegation of the Republic of Panama would like to point to two facts which it considers most significant and gratifying, as the fifteenth session goes into its second week of deliberations. 3. The first, Sir, is your election as President of the General Assembly — a well-deserved tribute to the small but energetic country you represent and to the outstanding personal qualities you have so often demonstrated in your work with the various organs of the United Nations. 4. The second fact is the admission to the United Nations of fourteen new States — indeed, from this afternoon, sixteen, with the mission of the Republic of Mali and the Republic of Senegal, which to the satisfaction of all of us are to become part of the Assembly this very afternoon. The creation of these new States comes as a climax to the vigorous and untiring efforts made by their peoples in their determination to live their lives as free and independent communities. These youthful nations come to join in the debates and decisions of the General Assembly at a decidedly awkward juncture in international politics. The cancellation of the Summit Conference which had awakened high hopes of bringing to an end, once and for all, the long, senseless and dangerous period of the cold war, and the consequent interruption of the talks in the Ten-Nation Committee on Disarmament at Geneva are unhappy events that not only stand in the way of an era of international peace and security but also place an ominous question-mark against the whole future of mankind. 5. The advent of sixteen new Members to the United Nations is of the utmost importance for the Organization, since it brings nearer the time when this will be an Assembly of all mankind and emphasizes the increasing weight of the smaller States in the Organization’s deliberations. To whatever part of the world they belong, these small States are united by a unanimous desire for peace with justice, and my delegation is therefore confident that in joining the United Nations they will not add to the causes of dissension and conflict, but will rather collaborate in preventing the disputes between the great Powers from degenerating into a new armed conflict that might well bring with it the extinction of the human race. Abundant examples show that the smaller nations are a factor making for conciliation and mutual understanding in regard to the disputes between the great Powers. 6. I should like merely to mention the recent meeting of the United Nations Disarmament Commission, which came about, through the determination and astuteness of its Chairman, Mr. Luis Padilla Nervo, the Head of the Mexican delegation. He has earned the gratitude of all of us, inasmuch as, despite resistance at the outset from the Eastern countries, he succeeded in obtaining the agreement of both sides on a number of points. As we know, the Commission agreed [70th meeting] — and agreed unanimously — that the breakdown of the disarmament negotiations in the Ten-Nation Committee at Geneva was to be regretted. It also agreed to recommend that continued efforts for general and complete disarmament under effective international control should be made, and it recommended that the General Assembly give "earnest consideration" to the problem, reaffirming at the same time the "continuing and ultimate responsibility of the United Nations in the field of disarmament". Thus I feel that I am not overstating the case if I say that the primary function of the Smaller States in this Organization, side by side with their endeavours to secure the best possible safeguards for their own independence and development, is to make themselves a real force for mediation and agreement between the Eastern and Western Power blocs. The reason I feel this is because the rift between East and West casts an ominous shadow over the life of these small nations, as indeed of mankind as a whole, besetting with obstacles and uncertainties the path followed by the smaller nations in their efforts to solve knotty problems of social and economic development which will enable vast numbers of people to enjoy their fundamental rights and obtain the things they need for a free and worthy life. 7. The smaller nations have a very significant role to play in the creative tasks of the United Nations. But in referring to small nations, we should point out that the word “small” merely conveys the notion of size, which prevents us from appreciating the quality of the work achieved by these countries within our Organization, In the aggregate, the so-called small nations total hundred of millions of people, and in a number of instances their destinies are ruled by-men who in respect of intelligence, culture and high moral standards are among the most outstanding personalities of today. If all these nations can agree that it is in their best interests to establish and consolidate a kind of peace free from the suspicions and rivalries of the so-called great Powers, if they all adopt as their rule of conduct within and without this Organization the principle of not allowing themselves to be used as a pretext or a battleground in any cold war manoeuvring, there can be no doubt that the present rival blocs of Powers will soon find ways and means of settling their differences in a peaceful manner, and universal disarm ament will enter upon a stage of real achievement. 8. It is, after all, not enough to repeat what we all know — namely that nuclear war is not only a monstrous crime against mankind, but is utter folly, since, whoever is foolhardy enough to start it, with the first clash the antagonists would both lie bleeding and prostrate, and any victory there might be would bear bitter fruit that none would wish to taste. It is not enough to know this and to repeat it over and over again, for, as we plainly see, this does not-put an end to the tension and wrangling which keep the world on tenterhooks and prevent the systematic use of its resources for the task of ridding mankind of its age-old handicaps. 9. If the smaller nations can come to an agreement and adopt a policy, not of passive neutrality, but of active mediation designed to put an end to a situation fraught with dangers and alarming prospects, the moral force they muster will be overwhelming. But this implies, first and foremost, that side by side with the political independence now won by many nations there must be independence of thought and action, which will keep them free not so much from economic and political colonialism — now rapidly disappearing — as from ideological and spiritual subjugation and colonialism, whose slender, cunning web can enmesh us without our realizing it. 10. These are a few general ideas on the role which, in my delegation's view, the smaller Powers should play if their participation in the Organization's activities Is to be fruitful for themselves and in keeping with the paramount interests of all peoples of the world. 11. With the permission of the Assembly, dedicated to the task of harmonizing the efforts of the nations of the world to achieve the common purposes set forth in the Charter, I should like now to refer to a question intimately bound up with the history, the present and the future of my country, the Republic of Panama. We emerged as an independent country in company with the group of Spanish-American peoples which shook off the Spanish yoke during the revolutionary period between 1810 and. 1824. Of our own accord we joined with New Granada, Ecuador and Venezuela in what was then called Greater Colombia, and we remained united with the nation which grew out of the former vice royalty of Santa F6 until the dawn of the present century. In 1903 we became an independent republic, which was promptly recognized by the United States of America, and our infant nation negotiated with the United States Government the Convention which made possible the construction of the inter-oceanic canal. We have nothing to conceal in regard to these historical facts, for every nation's history demonstrates that a country never rejects any help favourable to its aspirations towards independence. Nevertheless, the 1903 Convention, being the product of a particular period in the history of international relations — a period of ideas, tendencies, and procedures for the most part, fortunately now no longer current in the affairs of nations — contained provisions of the most serious import for our Republic's independent life. Hence, from the very day of its signature, generations of Panamanians have been fighting not only to eliminate such interpretations and applications of the Convention's provisions as they found unacceptable, but also to secure the amendment or suppression of those of the provisions which offended the national feelings of Panamanians or imposed an unduly heavy burden on the Republic. One will, one belief, one aim — this is what has guided and united all Panamanians, men and women, young mid old, governing and governed, in their endeavour to place on a footing of equality and justice the relations between their country and the United States of America based on the construction of the Canal. 12. As regards Panamanian sovereignty over the Canal Zone, Panama's position has never varied. "The strip of land known as the Panama Canal Zone", as Mr. Ricardo J. Alfaro put it, "has been neither purchased nor conquered nor annexed by, now ceded nor rented to, the United States, nor has its sovereignty been transferred by Panama to the United States. This, incidentally, has been corroborated by distinguished United States citizens in official or private opinions and statements. Let me quote a few of them. 13. During the negotiations which led up to the Isthmian Canal Convention of 1903, the United States Government issued an official statement to the effect that it disclaimed any intention to increase its own territory at the expense of any of the sister Republics of Central and South America and desired, on the contrary, to strengthen the power of the Republics of the continent and to promote, develop and preserve their prosperity and independence. President Theodore Roosevelt, during whose administration the Isthmian Canal Convention was signed, declared in an official letter to his Secretary of War, William H. Taft, later President of the United States, that there was not the slightest intention of establishing an independent colony in the centre of the State of Panama, let alone of interfering with the affairs and prosperity of the people of Panama. Mr. Elihu Root, attending the Third International Conference of American States held at Rio de Janeiro in 1906 as Secretary of State, said formally, in an endeavour to allay suspicion and remove misunderstandings that had arisen during the previous year: "We [of the United States] wish for no victories but those of peace; for no territory except our own; for no sovereignty except the sovereignty over ourselves". Mr. George W. Goethals, the illustrious American engineer who completed the construction of the Panama Canal, stated bluntly in his book on the Canal project that, under the Convention with Panama, the United States had only a right of way for a canal. 14. Despite such categorical statements, consequences were drawn from the articles of the Convention of 1903 that impaired Panamanian interests and distorted the original purpose of that instrument. What was of vital interest to the United States, to Panama and to mankind generally was that the route should be opened up so as to allow ships to pass between the two great oceans, the Atlantic and the Pacific — that and nothing more. It could in no way be a matter of life and death for the United States, with its vast economic power, to establish commercial or industrial undertakings in the zone adjacent to the Canal, to the detriment of Panamanian commerce and industry. In no way could it be vital to North American democracy to show favouritism to American workers in the Canal Zone while giving inferior treatment to Panamanian workers. Likewise it could not be vital to the United States that the Government of Panama should cease collecting taxes in respect of activities unconnected with the operation of the Canal, or other revenues due to Panama; or that the Panamanian Government should in other fields be prevented, to the detriment of its fiscal interests and the economic well-being of the nation, from performing functions which are no less proper to that Government in the ports at either end of the Canal than in other areas of the country. Finally, it could not be a vital matter to the United States to see the Republic of Panama, a sovereign nation, deprived of the various benefits to which it is entitled by virtue of its geographical position and of the operation of the Panama Canal. 15. The prosecution of Panama's claims is certainly a dramatic story. After a long struggle, the administrations of Franklin D. Roosevelt and of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, against a background of facts and hopes, created conditions which have undoubtedly helped, and will in the future help, towards the solution of the problems to which the special relations between the two countries give rise. With the good-neighbour policy pursued by the second Roosevelt, who brought cordiality to inter-American relations, the first steps were taken towards eradicating in the Caribbean area certain practices which bore the odious mark of the colonialism that had prevailed at the beginning of the century. The 1936 General Treaty of Friendship and Co-operation modified or annulled some of the clauses of the 1903 Convention which were particularly offensive to the Panamanians' sense of independence, and thus raised relations between the two countries to a dignified level. Again, the compensation agreement of 1942 and the 1955 Treaty of Mutual Understanding and Co-operation — the latter drawn up thanks to the good will of President Eisenhower — represented, in certain ways, important contributions to better coexistence between Panama and the United States, and will have, in the future, to serve as a basis for a fundamental agreement between the two countries, constituting a full settlement of the problems to which the Convention of 1903 gave rise. 16. One feature of the 1955 Treaty was the adoption of a system for the classification of workers on the basis of merit, under which they were entitled to the benefits of the universal standard rules regarding equality of opportunity to work and equal pay for equal work. Nevertheless, the new scale of salaries introduced in the Canal Zone still involves some discrimination in connexion with the worker's nationality, for not only are wages fixed according to geographical areas but, apparently, there are two categories of wages — one for United States citizens, and one for the others. The complaints of the Panamanian workers, which bear also on equality of opportunity, are therefore justified; for although no single case has been recorded of treason or sabotage on the part of Panamanian workers — who, I must say, performed their duties with exemplary loyalty throughout the two great wars involving the United States during the present century — in the Canal Zone the Panamanians are denied, in peace-time, access to so-called "security” positions which are, in fact, nothing of the kind. This very broad interpretation which it has been sought to give to the idea of "security" posts — of special military significance in time of war or threat of war — is an affront to the dignity of the Panamanians; and public opinion in my country accordingly denounces this type of discrimination, just as it denounces any "post classification" that is not based on professional competence and that reflects displeasing criteria whereby preferential treatment is given to workers having a certain nationality or brought in from a certain geographical area. 17. I should be betraying my own feelings if I did not acknowledge, here and now, the efforts made by responsible people in the United States and Panama to establish harmonious relations between the two countries and to improve the social condition of the Canal workers. We know that much remains to be done; but we cannot fail to mention the favourable measures which have recently been adopted for the benefit of our working class, thanks to the personal efforts of General Dwight D. Eisenhower, President of the United States, and Mr. Ernesto de la Guardia, Jr., President of my country. Not only did President Eisenhower, some little time ago, explicitly recognize my country’s sovereignty over the Canal Zone, but on 17 September 1960 he ordered the public hoisting of the Panamanian flag at a certain spot in the Zone, as proof of the sovereignty of the Republic of Panama over that part of its territory which, by virtue of a public Convention, had been allocated for the special purposes of the operation of the inter-oceanic canal. This significant gesture is helping to create an atmosphere of understanding between the two nations; but we Panamanians hope that the order will be applied on a broad and general scale, so that our country's flag may fly proudly throughout the length and breadth of the Panamanian Isthmus. I wish, in any event, to express my gratitude to the Head of State who does such honour to the high responsibilities of his Government and his country. 18. At the same time, I must reject the insidious remarks of a certain North American politician who, prompted by purely parochial interests, has seen fit to attribute a deeper meaning to the civic demonstrations designed to ensure that the Panamanian flag should occupy its rightful place in the Canal Zone. To brand all Panamanians who defend the integrity of their national territory as radicals, agitators and instruments serving the objectives of communist mentors is to display abysmal ignorance of present-day realities. Perhaps he who does so is hoping to revive, at the international level, the anachronistic function of the inquisitors, forgetting that it was the founding fathers of the nations of North and South America who inspired in the present generations their patriotic eagerness to enhance the prosperity, dignity and prestige of their countries in this hemisphere. 19. I shall now refer to some specific questions appearing on the agenda of this session which concern the nations less favoured by the scientific revolution that began at the end of the last war. The most urgent of them all is, as we well know, industrialization. The struggle against poverty, neglect and privation is an all-out battle to transform the economic structure of the backward countries. The inter-dependence of the nations is a reality which provides the basis for the plans for combining the resources of the highly developed countries in order to increase production in the countries that are still under-developed. Economic co-operation emerges as the inseparable counterpart of political co-operation, and is one essential means of banishing from the world the conflicts by which it is now shaken. Latin America is among the regions afflicted by what it has been agreed to call "under-development " — a social, economic and cultural condition affecting every aspect of its collective life. For some years now the more far-seeing minds of America have been calling for concerted basic action on a hemispheric scale and level in order to deal with this situation. Mr. Juscelino Kubitschek, the President of Brazil, aroused public opinion in the nations of the continent when he proclaimed Operation Pan-America, which gained the support of every Latin American Government and people. The same ideas and intentions have inspired the plan conceived by the President of the United States to improve the living conditions of the Latin American peoples — a plan of vast scope that has won for its author a place not only in history but also in the heart of the American common man. 20. The fact that the Eisenhower plan, started with a fund of $500 million, is regarded as a new Marshall Plan for Latin America arouses legitimate hopes that this noble initiative on the part of the United States Head of State will assume, for the benefit of 200 million Latin Americans, the proportions of the Marshall Plan for Western Europe. It will be recalled that General Marshall, as Secretary of Stats, declared that the United States would have to spend thousands of millions of dollars on the economic recovery of Europe, which had been brought low by the ravages of war; and that when Congress approved his plan it authorized a first sum of $5,430 million, of which $1,150 million was to be used over a period of two and a half months and $4,280 million in the following fiscal year. Latin America did not experience the material and human ravages of the world war but, having helped to win the war by contributing its natural basic products, it still suffers from the scourge of poverty, ignorance and economic, social and political oppression. 21. The Eisenhower plan, accepted by the American Economic Conference, was incorporated in the Act of Bogota of 11 September 1960, which made recommendations to the Council of the Organization of American States on the following points: measures for social improvement; establishment of a special fund for social development (corresponding to the Eisenhower plan); measures for economic development; multilateral co-operation for economic and social progress. In this connexion the purposes of the Act of Bogota include promoting aid between the countries of the Western hemisphere as well as between those countries and extra-continental countries and facilitating the flow of capital and the extension of credits to the countries of Latin America, from both Western hemisphere and extra-continental sources. 22. The Act of Bogota is undoubtedly of deep spiritual significance. Its ideological message, however, can only be understood by the Latin American masses through the attainment of its objectives, which consist in the preserving and strengthening of the free and democratic institutions of the American Republics through the expediting of economic and social progress, so that the legitimate aspirations of the American man, in his efforts to achieve better living conditions, may be satisfied. It is therefore essential that both the plan and the promise shall be implemented, by the execution of specific projects which will abate the impatience of the masses and satisfy their increasing desire for help and support. 23. The achievements of the inter-American system in the social and economic field cannot escape world scrutiny. Do the plans of the American community of nations in this field compare favourably with those of other regional or political groups? A short while ago, in its edition of 31 July — and I mention this as an important fact — The New York Times reported that the Soviet Union and the countries of Eastern Europe had agreed upon a 20-year plan to co-ordinate their economic growth. We consider that any system, which on the pretext of ensuring the economic development, well-being and advancement of a people, robs it of those human and political rights whose conquest has cost the American man cruel sacrifices is unsuitable for Latin America and incompatible with its people's love of liberty. We abhor any material benefit, real or apparent, whose price is the submission of the people to any form of personal, group or class dictatorship, such as the Latin American peoples have, for a century and a half, resolutely combated. For this reason we feel that the American regional organization should come forward firmly with bold plans of its own, lest economic and political plans alien to its spirit and its history should be imposed upon it. 24. Our concern with regional affairs does not distract our attention from the international scene. At its fourteenth session the General Assembly requested [resolution 1424 (XIV)] the Secretary-General to examine, in consultation with the Governments of Member States, ways and means of making further progress towards the early establishment of a United Nations capital development fund. We all know the excuses put forward by the great Powers, on the pretext of the current international tension and the impasse in the disarmament negotiations. I take this occasion, however, to emphasize before the Assembly that the great Powers will make the most decisive contribution to fruitful world peace when, independently of any disarmament agreements, they unite in setting up a United Nations capital development fund. They would thus build a bridge between East and West which would help to save mankind from the snares that beset it. 25. Any attempt to ascertain why, despite the great hopes of unthreatened peace which attended the creation of the United Nations, the international situation has deteriorated to the point at which we find ourselves today would be a waste of time. We should be entering a controversial field in which it is very difficult to separate the real facts from subjective assumptions and deductions, and the only result would be to sharpen a debate that is already taking a disquieting turn. What is important now is that we should agree upon the urgent need for the contending camps to recognize things as they are and to renounce, by word and by deed, any intention of subjugating each other, so that they may coexist with the object of solving the problems which burden the lives of hundreds of millions of human beings. In other words, it is imperative that this peaceful coexistence about which both sides speak so much should cease to be a matter of statements, charges and: counter-charges, and should take practical shape in international conduct, so as to make it easier to work effectively for the progress and well-being of every people in the world. Such coexistence should not represent the hostile restraint of the rival Powers, each facing the other with distrust and increasing its means of destruction, but should take the form of an agreement between the large and small nations to coordinate their forces and resources in a broad frontal attack on the privations suffered by a great proportion of mankind. 26. This is not a vague aspiration, but an imperative need of our day. The marvellous scientific progress of our century, which has been given greater impetus by the capture of the last entrenchments of nuclear energy and of the vast realms of outer space towards which men have gazed with awe for centuries and centuries, has today turned poverty into an injustice, robbing it of all the traditional reasons which made it inevitable, and has opened to mankind immeasurable opportunities for improvement and development. Once the incalculable sources of energy that nuclear science places in our hands are directed towards the production of goods that are useful to mankind, they will enable us to overcome all the limitations which today condemn hundreds of millions of human beings to destitution, hunger and sickness. Unfortunately, as we well know, this immense power is at present being used solely for the manufacture of instruments of destruction capable of bringing about, in fractions of a second, the annihilation of entire peoples and the degeneration and extinction of mankind. 27. Such is the fatal prospect of the possibility of a new armed clash between the two great concentrations of power which today confront one another in a state of mutual suspicion and hostility. And this is what we must prevent. This, in the opinion of the Panamanian delegation, is the responsibility that now weighs upon the United Nations and, within this Organization, presents the small nations with a task of the first order. I do not claim that this task will be easy to perform. On the contrary, it is made difficult by certain well-known facts. One of them is that the immeasurable possibilities of progress implicit in the revolutionary discoveries of the last twenty-five years come up against a barrier of all kinds of interests, mental habits and patterns of behaviour which are survivals of former stages, now completed, in the life of mankind. The division of the world into two great concentrations of power, each imbued with a missionary spirit, is itself a sign that we are not keeping pace with history. Much as the two economic and social systems, whose antagonism keeps mankind in a state of perplexity and fear, may differ, much as each of them may claim to possess the one and only formula for bringing all human woes to an end, there is no denying that they have certain features in common and certain points of contact at the material and spiritual levels, and that their mutual exclusivism and claims to orthodoxy make it difficult for other workable forms of human coexistence to emerge from the inexhaustible fund of possibilities which lies in the spirit of man. The problem, to put it in common terms, resides in making the attitude, mentality and conduct of the leaders and the peoples synchronize with the changes that are being brought about by the scientific progress of our age. We have to assimilate the consequences and the implications of the changes which are taking place before our eyes and which, according to an eminent scientist, consist not merely in the new elements that are entering our lives but also in a change in the quality of what has existed hitherto. What is new, he says, is the changed rhythm of the change itself, the fact that the years of our life witness no longer slight adjustments, as did those of our fathers, but very substantial transformations. 28. In the age of nuclear energy, supersonic aircraft, electronic miracles, guided missiles and space vehicles, it is imperative that the world should draw ever closer to the peaceful ideal of a universal order equal for all and respected by all — a goal that can only be reached through the work of the United Nations.