Although Mr. Boland is not present, my delegation would like to address the following greeting to him.
136. We are far from your country, Mr. President; few of your countrymen live among us, yet this has not prevented our having a sincere and devoted admiration for your peopled perseverance in its historic struggle for freedom. We admire Ireland for the fervour of its faith, which is also ours, and thus we feel at one with you and are happy to congratulate you on your election as President of the Assembly, on behalf of our delegation and of the Government and people of Costa Rica, who hope for great things from your efficiency, equanimity and clear intelligence.
137. Storms have raged around this fifteenth regular session of the General Assembly of the United Nations. May it please God to disperse them, so that with tranquil minds we may calmly discuss the difficult and serious problems of the moment, which the United Nations has to resolve in accordance with the provisions of the Charter.
138. There can be no doubt that the outstanding feature of this Assembly which will go down in history is the admission of Cyprus and of the new independent nations of Africa to the United Nations. In greeting them warmly on behalf of my delegation and my country, I should like to recall some of our experiences which we think may be of assistance to them, especially to the smaller countries, because of their similarity to us.
139. We do not attempt to go beyond the limits within which a weak and small country like ours must develop. On the contrary, we strive to avoid exaggeration and to keep cur sense of proportion, which shows itself in the humility, simplicity and sincerity of our feelings.
140. Costa Rica became known to the world when it was discovered by Christopher Columbus on behalf of the Catholic Monarchs. From that time until we became independent, in 1821, we were a colony of Spain. I think it only fair to refer to certain violent words and offensive ideas which have been indulged in here in connexion with Spanish colonialism in America. Every age has its own political features. No one can claim, for example, that at the time of Queen Isabella the Catholic the democratic system was established in the newly discovered lands, since that system was not practised in Spain at that time. We should remember that the Spanish conquest as such was one thing and the colonial administration another. The "conquistador" was a man of war, and war, unfortunately, has always stirred up primitive instincts in men and made them as fierce as beasts. The Spanish administration was distinguished by the many laws it made to protect the indigenous inhabitants; every complaint was heard by a regional or metropolitan court. It should not be forgotten that Iberian officials in America were subject to impeachment proceedings, which consisted of broad public and judicial inquiries into their administration, and an official could not leave his previous jurisdiction until an absolutory sentence had been pronounced. The basis upon which this great Spanish enterprise was built was the evangelization of the indigenous inhabitants in order to open their minds to the light of Christianity, which is love, charity, equality and peace among men. We have heard enough of the black legend against Spain. Spain gave everything, absolutely everything — its spirit and its flesh — for its colonies. The material decadence of Spain began with the discovery of the Indies, but there was no spiritual decadence because its quixotic spirit, its Christian philosophy and its splendid generosity run freely in our veins, together with the untamed Indian blood. Spain did not enrich itself in America; it ruined itself there. I hope I may be pardoned for this digression, which I have made for the sake of historical truth and in gratitude to what is our mother country, not in fine poetry but in the reality of prose.
141. Costa Rica was born to independent life in such hard economic conditions that it looked as though our terrible poverty might bring about our destruction. When we became independent from Spain, having reached our majority, we offered an easy prey to European imperialism, from which danger we were freed by the Monroe Doctrine, which did not, however, bring us any possibilities of economic development but, through isolation, greater poverty. Many years passed, while we prepared ourselves, through the education given in our schools, to live in dignity. During those years, up to the end of the last century, it was only our pure faith in our own destiny that could, begin to break down our long and painful isolation. from a world indifferent to our longing for progress and culture. We are still fighting; desperately for the economic development which Latin America needs if its peoples are to live in the dignity proper to men who love freedom. What a different picture we see today, when we welcome new countries into this great institution, the United Nations, in which they will find political safeguards, technical assistance, human brotherhood and certain protection!
142. I have made this survey of our own experience in order to show the new countries the importance of this Organization as an institution set up not only to keep the peace, but to help, protect and advance all peoples who aspire to independence. We, the small and under-developed countries, have no part in the disputes of the great Powers except to take care that we are not used as a pretext for developing conflicts between us which encourage cold wars and create tensions which may finally destroy the world. We must steadfastly stand by institutions — in this particular case the United Nations, to which we are deeply grateful, not only as the people of a Member State but also as human beings who realize the value of its universal protection.
143. In welcoming the newly independent peoples, there is one last experience which I should like to tell them about. We in Costa Rica found that keeping an army was of no use to us, for our habitual love of peace made it impossible for us to think that we might need it to make war on our neighbours. The barracks were used only to train a military class which kept Government in power against the will of the people or acted as an electoral instrument, frightening the voter with its strength and its ability to seize power and impose Governments ready to protect its privileges. We believe that our regional agency, the Organization of American States, and the United Nations are adequate safeguards for peace and justice in the unlikely event of any aggression against us. Convinced as we are of the uselessness of an army in Costa Rica, we finally abolished it under the 1949 Constitution. The Costa Rican budget does not allocate a single cent for armaments. Costa Rica settles its disputes by reason and not by force. It takes its decisions with votes, not bullets. We warmly recommend this attitude to all the new nations, which will find the best safeguard for the stability of their institutions not in armies but in the institutions themselves. I assure my new colleagues that it is much more useful to spend the people’s money on schools than on armaments.
144. That last point in my greeting to the new countries will serve to explain our views on the difficult question of disarmament. What I have said will also show what is our general opinion of the sad situation in the Congo. Let the Congolese themselves settle their own disputes, with their eyes on the future of their beloved country and with the help of the United Nations, not allowing themselves to be used for the purposes of the cold war.
145. We are resolved that Operation Pan America, which was so wisely proposed by Mr. Juscelino Kubitschek, the President of Brazil, will soon be a reality, for the problem of Latin America is becoming more and more urgent,, because of the great and pressing needs of our peoples, who have waited so patiently for the economic impulse necessary for their development.
146. Ever since we have been a member of the Economic and Social Council, we have strongly supported the view that the prices of basic export commodities should be fixed, just as the Governments of the highly developed countries fix the prices of their industrial products. We can no longer patiently accept the fact that, while the wages of our peasants and workmen are subject to the fluctuations of international markets, the wages of workers in industrialized countries rise steadily, so that there is a dangerous difference, leading to constant social tension. Our people can no longer be deprived of the products of modern civilization, which they cannot buy because of the high price, since in order to protect our scanty reserves of gold, and currencies we have to set up excessively high customs barriers. These are supposed to be temporary but they become steadily higher and no one can guess when they will finally be abolished. We must express our gratitude to the United States of America, which has begun to understand our needs and has prepared to meet them. President Eisenhower has started a movement to give economic meaning to the Good Neighbour policy, which will pass from theory into fact, for which we are duly grateful. At the recent economic conference held in Bogota in September 1960, a beginning, was made, with effective assistance, on Operation Pan America, which will stimulate our economic development. In this connexion I should refer to the widely held view that we, the under-developed countries, should not think that all we need for our development is money. That is quite true. We must be morally and socially prepared to make proper use of whatever economic resources we may obtain, not only for scientific and technical ends, for which the United Nations generally provides, but in the educational field and above all for moral purposes, so that we do not waste our strength in sterile political discussions, in disputes between brothers or in impossible ambitions for world political leadership, squandering the energy which our people need. We should concentrate on working twice as hard, intelligently, in true political stability, to protect the health of our people, to build more and more schools and, in short, to achieve the dignity of men who wish to live in freedom. Those who have should give to those who have not. We want to advance along the honest path of freedom, peace and justice, knowing our responsibilities and ready to meet them, working vigorously to rid ourselves of poverty.
147. This does not mean that we should ignore the great international problems, for at this stage in history they concern us all. I had occasion to visit some Eastern countries, where there are dangerous tensions which may give rise to terrible events. Travelling through the lands of the Bible, I became aware of the tenuous impermanence of an armistice and I resolved both to pray to God in church and to ask men of good will, in this temple of the United Nations, to do their utmost to ensure the reign of peace not only in the Holy Places but throughout the whole world.
148. The Organization of American States was born of the genius of the liberator Simón Bolívar. This is one of the many reasons, why we love this regional agency, which, as you know, came into being long before the League of Nations. Latin America has encountered great difficulties in its stormy independent life and, for better or worse, Bolivar’s principle has been upheld. In August 1960, San José, the capital of Costa Rica, had the great honour of receiving the sixth and seventh Meetings of Consultation of the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the American States at which the thorny problems of the continent were discussed. We could not offer our American brothers sumptuous palaces, great parades or lavish festivities. We offered them a clean and simple house, students directing the traffic because the police were busy safeguarding the security of our distinguished visitors, and an atmosphere of complete freedom, where the very word "discrimination" is unknown, in all of which we Costa Ricans take pride. I speak to you from this rostrum with the humility which is a part of our very existence, so that to the voices of so many great leaders who have spoken in this general debate I may add the modest voice of American and world brotherhood.