DOM

On behalf of the Dominican delegation and on my own behalf I take great pleasure in congratulating Mr. Carlos Sosa Rodriguez, the representative of Venezuela, on his election as President of the eighteenth session of the General Assembly of the United Nations. 125. The fact that Dr. Sosa Rodriguez will direct the debates and work of this session of the Assembly is in itself a guarantee of its success. The outstanding qualities of the new President have become manifest during the years in which he has served with distinction and brilliance as representative of his country in this world Organization and in other diplomatic posts.-His tact, moderation, sound judgement, conscientiousness and legal abilities augur well that the problems facing the United Nations will be approached and considered in the way that will most benefit mankind now and in the future. 126. The Dominican people, as a member of the family of American nations, are glad that a representative of our group will serve as President of this General Assembly and, even more so, that he is a worthy representative of the country of Bolívar. This is so because the Dominican people owe a debt of gratitude to the people of Venezuela as their most steadfast supporters in the arduous struggle to free themselves from the cruel tyranny to which they had been subject for more than thirty years. 127. The Dominican Republic stands before you today painfully shaken by the recent events that have caused the suspension of the constitutional rule which began on 27 February of this year. The facts, true or false, have been reported in all quarters of the world, and have aroused great uncertainty. 128. We are the first to regret what has occurred, but in the face of the accomplished fact and completely alien to it, we have acceded to the appeal of the people, and, without any political commitments other than those imposed by the need to help the country and the desire to restore as quickly as possible the constitutionality that has been suspended, we have assumed the duties of the Foreign Office in order to strengthen international relations and thus contribute to the process of reconstruction which is necessary whenever the democratic progress of a nation has been interrupted. 129. We do not condone coups d'état and would never have agreed to participate in the present Government if the military authorities had arrogated to themselves the right to rule the State. Now that the military authorities have discharged what they considered to be their duty, they have established an auspicious precedent in America by handing over control of the Government quickly and of their own accord to a three-man civil executive, to which they are completely subordinate and which the overwhelming majority of the people accept and support, realizing the integrity and prudence of the men who compose it. 130. We offer our friendship to those nations with which we have traditionally maintained relations, and we wish to be received in like manner. This is essential if we are to carry forward the process of transformation inevitable in the world of today, in which manifest inequalities among men anger those who lack all material possessions and harden the hearts of the privileged who are surrounded by abundance. We will never, however, make the task which we are in duty bound to carry out in our nation dependent on our recognition or non-recognition. 131. Our mission will be fulfilled. And, just as the traveller who must reach a certain destination does not abandon his journey for lack of a vehicle, we shall reach that destination. If we go on foot, we shall reach it more slowly; if we go by automobile, we shall reach it more quickly. But there can be no doubt that we intend to reach that goal and shall reach it however difficult the road may be. 132. The generation in the Dominican Republic to which I have the honour to belong accepts the challenge of fate, and with all the respect which we owe to the memory of our forebears, we shall break the shackles of the semi-feudal, patriarchal or interventionist systems which have regrettably produced social conditions that affront the dignity of the worker and the peasant. The forum of the United Nations is an appropriate place to declare emphatically that Santo Domingo will, despite reverses, become through the efforts of its people, a showcase of democracy, founded on a revolutionary process that is genuinely our own. 133. As President Kennedy once said, lost opportunities are seldom recovered. The Dominican Republic may very well prove to be an exception to that rule. If the lessons of the tragedy which our long-suffering country has undergone are correctly learnt, the opportunity of democracy will not have been lost. 134. Democracy in the Dominican Republic did not fail because the people were inadequately prepared to assume their responsibilities. The first genuinely free elections which were held in the Dominican Republic in December 1962 after three decades of political obscurantism proved the contrary. That they were model elections has been confirmed by some forty distinguished representatives from the hemisphere who were invited to observe them at the request of the Dominican Council of State. The failure of democratic government in the Dominican Republic was the fault of its leaders. Democracy did not fail; the Dominican people showed their discipline and responsibility at the ballot box. We, their leaders, failed our people. We must all assume a share of the responsibility for the failure of the administration. The bitter truth is that democracy was very badly served in the Dominican Republic. This is one of the first lessons that must be learnt. 135. This fiasco in the past of the Dominican Republic should be regarded as a prologue to its future. The second lesson to be learnt from the experience of the Dominican Republic is that Latin American problems are primarily political and only secondarily economic. In our preoccupation with economic development, we have lost sight of its political aspect. Within the Alliance for Progress a comprehensive strategy for economic development has been set in motion. However, what we really need in Latin America is an over-all strategy of political development, together with the political tactics necessary to bring it to fruition. 136. Would it not be more prudent to bring all the forces of the hemisphere to bear on the creation of stronger movements based upon democratic foundations and firmly supported by democratic traditions? Would it not be more salutary to devise methods to prevent extremists of the right or the left from destroying the political keystone of a middle-of-the-road democracy? In other words, can we in Latin America achieve justice unless there first exists a political atmosphere favourable to democracy? In our exclusive preoccupation with economic development we seem to be forgetting these facts. 137. The third lesson to be learnt from the Dominican question is that the small core of progressive and reform-minded Governments in Latin America is in greater danger of being overturned by preventive coups d'état than by external enemies. The participation of the armed forces in politics is not peculiar to Latin America; it is a universal phenomenon. It exists in the Middle East, in Turkey, in Pakistan and in South-East Asia. It is not unknown in Western Europe. Even in the United States the absolute supremacy of the civil authorities has been defied on various occasions. In the Western Hemisphere, only three countries have succeeded in overthrowing the supremacy of the military. In each case, however, this was achieved through the violent overthrow of the entire social structure. In other countries of the hemisphere, there has been a progressive growth and a maturing of the military establishments, but this does not mean that the military have everywhere abandoned their political interests. Recent events, including those in the Dominican Republic, prove the contrary. The point is that the participation of the military in politics in Latin America has taken very deep roots and has become too entrenched an institution to be eradicated at one stroke. It is well to remember that on more than one occasion in the Western Hemisphere it was the civilian authorities who persuaded the military to engage in political activity. 138. Democratic governments with a progressive outlook must be protected from the demagogues, from the coup d'état of ambitious men and from the political manoeuvrings of unscrupulous politicians who, together or separately, attempt to satisfy their ambitions by playing upon the ignorance and poverty of the people. I emphasize these three dangers because I think it is unjust to put the blame for all the evils of Latin America on the armed forces, which have often made remarkable efforts to overcome their own imperfections. This happened in the specific case of the Dominican Republic, where despite the errors that were made, the armed forces have given positive evidence that they have every intention of discharging their duty. 139. It is absurd to hope that the Inter-American system, as a unit, can serve as a kind of hemispheric shield to protect its individual members against internal attack. Nevertheless, such a shield could and certainly should be forged through the resolution and efforts of the people themselves if democracy is to flourish on the continent. 140. We believe in nations as we believe in their statesmen. And because we believe in their statesmen, we know that in these difficult times in which many countries of our continent have fallen victim to the defects which we should like to correct, these men will in this solemn hour act not according to sterile political conventions but in accordance with a humane understanding of their people and of the individuals who compose them. 141. In the Dominican Republic, the present Government could have promised a return to constitutional normality by Offering to hold elections before the appointed time it had set for the fulfilment of its mandate, which is not to exceed two years and during which municipal, congressional and presidential election are to be held, the first-mentioned immediately after the end of the first year of government. 142. Elections such as those of last December — encompassing in one single poll municipal councillors; municipal executive representatives; representatives to Congress, that is deputies and senators; representatives to the Assembly for the revision of the Constitution; the Vice-President and President of the Republic— would produce results as surprising as the previous ones, because the Dominican people, despite the difficulties of their life, have a kind of instinct which leads them along peaceful paths in the decisive moments of their history. They gave proof of this in their fight against the armed dictatorship of Trujillo and again when they went to the polls on 20 December 1962. Elections would undoubtedly be a further manifestation of democracy, but, in view of the bitter experience that we have already undergone, we ask ourselves whether this manifestation of democracy would be the final proof that we had achieved democracy and that further risks had been eliminated. 143. With obsessive interest, we ask ourselves what is the meaning of democracy. And in doing so, we cannot fail to note the concluding paragraphs of the statement made by the United States Assistant Secretary of State, Mr. Edwin M. Martin, published in the New York Herald Tribune of 6 October, in which he said: "I fear there are some who will accuse me of having written an apologia for coups. I have not. They are to be fought with all the means we have available. Rather I would protest that I am urging the rejection of the thesis of the French philosophers that democracy can be legislated —established by constitutional fiat. "I am insisting on the Anglo-Saxon notion that democracy is a living thing which must have time and soil and sunlight in which to grow. We must do all we can to create these favorable conditions, and we can do and have done much. "But we cannot simply create the plant and give it to them; it must spring from seeds planted in indigenous soil. " 144. These are the seeds which we wish to plant in our own sorely beset country, for we firmly believe that democracy has its roots in the primary political cell of society, whether it be called municipality, city, corporation, town, village, borough, canton or anything else. We are thus convinced that only when man is able to govern himself freely and by his own efforts, resources and incentives in his own small locality and thus to transform it into a small paradise of which he may be proud, will he be equally able to govern that aggregate of localities, great and small, which make up the nation. We want to begin our task of planting the seed in our own soil and thereby constructing a democracy from the base up to the apex and not from the top down to the bottom. 145. We shall start by constructing the Dominican municipality so that it can govern itself and will not be dominated by the central Government along with which it is elected, and so that its destiny will not be directed by political bosses from an office in the National Palace. The continuity of the legislative power must become a firmly established practice; the legislature must he partially renewed so that the national Government will not have to rely on inexpert legislators submissive to its every demand. We wish to establish an autonomous career judiciary, so that the judges will not owe political servitude to the Chief of State and pay lip-service to him which might threaten democracy. We wish to establish a balance of powers so that democracy, which is social equilibrium, shall not be forced to maintain that equilibrium with the absolute power of a single man in one plate of the balance and the sabre of the army in the other. 146. In order to accomplish this task we shall again make use of the technical assistance which the Organization of American States offered us during the last elections. The effectiveness of that assistance was proved then, and it will be confirmed again on this occasion when we shall have the time which we did not then have. 147. The Dominican Republic, 70 per cent of whose population are peasants, cannot continue to turn a blind eye to the spiritual and material poverty that is the lot of this majority, which has not so far received any positive benefit from the social advances that have been made in the course of the twentieth century. The Dominican peasant, like those of the majority of our sister countries of Latin America, is still subject to the rigours of a permanent outdoor life. His work is bedevilled by a system which leads to the perpetuation of his poverty through indifference towards ignorance and disease and the exploitation of his illusions by the false promises of a succession of candidates who, when they achieve power, ignore those promises or put off their fulfilment indefinitely. 148. Practical and immediate justice for the worker in the fields, on whose labour the present and future of the Dominican Republic depend, must be forthcoming during the tenure of the civilian Government which today guides the destinies of my country. It has an obligation to its people, who, on 20 December last year, cast their vote not for a man or a political party, but for reforms in the economic and social structure of the country which would bring to the homes of the wretched masses not only freedom from hatred but also the possibility of adequate nourishment, of living under their own roof, of cultivating a piece of land of their own and of educating their children. Those promises were unfortunately postponed so as to make way for a series of political adventures which smashed into a thousand pieces the hopes of the Dominican people. 149. It is the duty of this Government —if it is to justify itself before history— to carry out in a spirit free from demagogic motivation whatever efforts may be necessary to restore the faith of the Dominican people in their ability to achieve a better life along the broad highway of representative democracy. It should be pointed out that progress towards this goal will be slower if the political and economic sanctions deriving from certain international pronouncements are kept in force. I must, however, emphatically declare that it is the firm decision of this Government to mobilize all the resources at its command in order to realize the legitimate desires of the Dominican people to free their nation from the status of an economic satellite. 150. As a first step in our resolve to set to work without delay, I make a formal request from this world rostrum to the Secretary-General of the United Nations for this Organization to help us immediately by providing technicians who can proceed as speedily as possible to Santo Domingo to study the legislation that may be necessary to guarantee to the peasants of my country a minimum return from their labour. I wish to put forward the idea that, just as the worker enjoys a minimum wage for his daily hours of work, so the peasant, who cannot limit his working day to a certain number of hours because of factors beyond his control, should have the assurance that when the harvest is in, his efforts will have guaranteed a minimum decent life for him and his family. 151. Latin America, which is basically agricultural, must answer without further delay the anguished cry of an immense majority of peasants whose fate can no longer be left in the hands of those who have exploited them in the past or of the dreamers of today who wish to remedy injustice with empty words and insubstantial promises. 152. I should like, before concluding, to explain the Dominican position on foreign policy, the essence of which was set out in the statement made by the Chief of Government when he took office and is as follows: "Now that absolute tranquillity has been assured throughout the nation together with the full exercise of power by the Triumvirate over which I have the honour to preside, I wish to refer to the very important matter of the foreign policy which the Dominican Government will follow and which can be summed up in the unshakable decision to honour ail international commitments undertaken in the name of the Republic. Within the framework of the Inter-American system, it will be our constant concern to strengthen our ties with the sister countries of America and to fortify the Organization of American States, that regional organization which has so consistently and effectively come to the aid of our country in moments of deepest anxiety. And thus will it be possible to convert into reality the programmes designed to give effect to the concepts of the Charter of Punta del Este, so that the Alliance for Progress may continue more rapidly to assist in improving the level of living of the Dominican people. This is the supreme goal of the Triumvirate, which is convinced of the urgent need for reconstructing the economic and social life of the country, so that the overwhelming majority of the people may be provided with the maximum opportunity for betterment. In referring to this economic and social aspect of the undertakings given at Punta del Este, we do not wish to leave unmentioned the obligations deriving from the Eighth Meeting of Consultation of Ministers of Foreign Affairs, which likewise took place at Punta del Este. The Triumvirate will endeavour with all the means at its disposal, to offer the Western world its fullest co-operation both in the United Nations and at every international conference in which the future of America is involved." 153. I shall conclude by recalling that although in this difficult moment of its history the Dominican Republic is cut off from diplomatic relations with the Governments of Latin America, it does not forget the fraternal ties that bind it to a race which has suffered so much precisely because it has been wanting in the mutual understanding that should exist among peoples having a common ancestry so that they might rediscover their own destiny, which cannot be forged except by ourselves. 154. Santo Domingo, steeped in history and the pride of a whole race, regrets that it is unable to greet those Governments which have not yet officially granted recognition to ours, but it enthusiastically and with deep emotion embraces all the peoples of America, who in the present and for the future constitute the refuge of Christian civilization.