164. May we be allowed to add the voice of our delegation to the many congratulations that have already been offered to our President, Mr. Pazhwak, since his election constitutes recognition of his wide experience and his devotion to the cause of the United Nations.
165. I welcome the return of Indonesia and the admission of Botswana and Lesotho to the United Nations.
166. Representing as I do a country of this continent, I should also like to express our gratification at the admission of the new State of Guyana to Membership of this World Organization. I take this opportunity of congratulating the Government and people of Guyana, with which we hope to strengthen our ties in the community of American countries, within its realities and prospects in co-operation with the rest of the world.
167. Year after year, world opinion has been following the work of the United Nations and studying with interest the discussions of the General Assembly. Every delegation in this great congress of the contemporary world is conscious of the dual responsibility it bears. First, there is the national contribution of each State to the cause of world peace, to solidarity and the implementation of the principles of the Charter, and to the strengthening of the Organization as the body best able to maintain an international order on which all geographical regions have pledged they will rely; and secondly there is the collective responsibility of all States Members of this Organization in fulfilling the higher destiny for which the United Nations was created.
168. At every session of the General Assembly, this Organization makes a series of historical projections, and conscious of what has happened in the past, it must not allow a recurrence of the failure of its predecessor, the League of Nations — a failure that was due to the indifference and the conventional attitudes of the majority of its members towards the reign of force which was later to unleash the Second World War.
169. Events have produced numerous problems greater than any of the past. The great changes undergone by the world in the last decades have brought about the abolition of a number of privileges and have made it possible for many countries to take part in the international dialogue on a footing of equality; at the same time, differences have grown deeper; acts of aggression, overt or covert, manifest themselves within the turbulence of the demogogy that inspires them and the defensive strength that is used to resist them.
170. We see a world, disunited and splintered by ideological weapons, which pays no heed to the scourges of hunger, misery and disease affecting millions of people over vast areas of the world but continues to squander billions on armaments in the sinister form of an ever-growing stockpile of thermonuclear weapons. All of this casts a dark cloud, daily more threatening, on the sense of human values, which is making way for a new technological barbarism imposed by the warring ideologies, whose dispute- violent, ambitious and deaf to the voice of reason — threatens the stability of the world.
171. The war in Viet-Nam moves the conscience of all mankind, for the proportions it has acquired exceed those of the conflict of some years ago. Every official invested with high public responsibility realizes that this war represents more than an impediment to the great many international solutions which radiate from the United Nations to every corner of the world.
172. The war also constitutes an insurmountable obstacle to better exchanges, to the execution of programmes that would benefit the great hungering masses of humanity and raise living standards, and to the reduction of the world-wide inflation caused by the arms race. The President of Honduras has publicly expressed his wish that efforts for peace in Viet-Nam should take the path of reason towards the best solution.
173. The path to peace in Viet-Nam will not be found if in advance we label the contending parties as "angels" and "devils". Only constructive negotiations in which the two sides are prepared to agree to a cease-fire and to guarantee the Independence of South Viet-Nam and its right to self-determination can lead to the kind of solution the whole civilized world is waiting for. Fanaticism, hatred, violence, arrogance and intolerance have shown through the centuries that they have never been effective in promoting the conclusion of peace treaties and that when under their influence such treaties have been imposed by force, they have produced even worse consequences. Peace won at the conference table, as has been said, will always be better than peace won on the battlefield. As the representative of New Zealand indicated this afternoon, there should not be unilateral solutions.
174. In their international relations, the small countries have found a greater sense of responsibility in their common ties within a world organization such as this. But their immediate interests achieve more meaningful objective: through regional agreements setting up systems of permanent solidarity. This has been the case with those of us who belong to the Organization of American States, which has functions that are consistent with the Charter of the United Nations. Honduras, together with other American countries, sent a contingent of soldiers to a sister country, the Dominican Republic, in fulfilment of its duty in defence of the American system. The Inter-American Peace Force, in an act of collective solidarity, rendered a service to the cause of representative democracy. Those who have made their fortune by demagogy speaking, in the name of the freedom that they never permit their peoples, cut off by walls of shame, within their dictatorial regimes, condemned that Inter-American Force as an instrument of interventionist aggression. But the great truth, the true reason for satisfaction for all free men of the world and this hemisphere, is that the Dominican people, of its own volition, answered that charge by exercising the franchise, demonstrating once again that free elections are the most genuine expression of a nation's will, a continuing self-determination of peoples, whereby they provide themselves with their own institutions and the leaders who are to guide their destinies.
175. This example will inevitably be reflected in the regional agreements of Africa, Asia and other regions where young countries are concentrating on forming their own institutions in keeping with their history and their peculiar attributes, for otherwise they would be subjected to ideologies and regimes of force alien to their destiny. It has been shown that free elections are the worst enemy of despots.
176. Freedom protected by law is essential if civilization is to preserve its dynamic continuity. As Antonio Caso, the Mexican philosopher, said, "the community which tyrannizes man forgets that we men are 'persons', not 'biological units'". What to many is doctrine, namely that man is a wolf that hunts his own species, may be true in the pursuit of barbarism and slavery, but it is false in the conquest of human dignity as an element in man's scale of values.
177. "That is why " — says the Argentine philosopher Alexander Korn — "man must win his freedom by fighting nature, his fellow men and himself". But that freedom, to assert itself, can only be genuine if economic resources protect the well-being of all and basic human needs do not hamper the flowering of democracy and its institutions.
178. The illustrious Honduran, Jose Cecilio del Valle, in the first years of our common Central American nationality, was among the few who foresaw that for its political emancipation a country must also win its economic emancipation.
179. In a world in which interdependence is a necessity of life, we must find new and more equitable solutions to that other cold war: the war for survival against the predominance of the developed over the developing countries. We believe that the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development will have a decisive part to play in giving effective guidance, provided that a modest effort is made to seek a better understanding of the disparity of social resources brought about by the great differences between the rich and poor countries which create a multiplicity of frustrations that are becoming more explosive every day.
180. The countries of Latin America have left in the history of the United Nations an indelible trace of their sense of the universal and the human. We have always supported emancipation based on the principle of self-determination, when self-determination is a legitimate right. At no time would we be able to favour discrimination — which we consider intolerable, whatever its reasons — because that would be tantamount to condemning the origin and development of our own nationhood. We have been a melting-pot of races: the Indian, by legitimate right; the white man, by his contribution to our culture; and the Negro, brought to America as a worker, has left the fruit of his toil. But all of our races live together united in a common destiny, and they work at a task of continental proportions, that of finding solutions of benefit to all through institutions of permanent evolution.
181. For that reason we can never accept the policy of apartheid pursued by South Africa both on its own territory and in South West Africa, a policy that is contrary to the principles of the United Nations. The defiant attitude of South Africa towards the repeated resolutions of the General Assembly has led to the present crisis over South West Africa. South Africa, the Mandatory Power responsible for that Territory, has overlooked the fact that the legal status established by Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations was subjected to substantial changes in Chapter XII of the United Nations Charter, whose larger meaning is shown by the discussions which took place at Yalta in February 1945, and those which preceded the signature of the Charter in San Francisco.
182. Moreover, by not fulfilling its obligations under the Trusteeship System as defined in the Charter, South Africa has created a situation in which its Mandate may be terminated for one tacit but decisive
reason, i.e. for non-fulfilment of the international obligations deriving from the Mandate.
183. Honduras has supported in the past and continues to support the position of Guatemala in its historic claims to Belize. We have likewise given our support to the claims of the motherland, Spain, to the Territory of Gibraltar and have also been on the side of Argentina in the matter of its rights in the Malvinas Islands.
184. We could not in a spirit of justice and equity look at the different regions to study the crises that are occurring in the world, without at the same time mentioning that the same situation of dominance and injustice has existed for many years in our country, because authorities and citizens of the United States, without any legitimate rights and with no more title than that of mere occupation, are usurping the Cisne [Swan] Islands, which are Honduran territory off our north-eastern coast.
185. The Cisne Islands belong to Honduras because of their geographical proximity, because they were discovered and nobly baptized with the names of San Millan, Santanilla or Santillana by the Spanish conquerors, ever since the fourth and last voyage of Christopher Columbus, and because of the very fact of the independence of Honduras, which, as the legitimate successor of Spain, preserved them from any other colonial claim. To this we must add the unusual express declaration by United States officials that they have never exercised acts of sovereignty over the Cisne Islands.
186. Our delegation wishes this General Assembly to heed the voice of Honduras on this question of the usurpation of our territory, which we have been raising for many years in this world body, so that the most just solution, which cannot be other than the absolute integration of the Cisne Islands into Honduras, may confirm the hopes of our Government and our people that this Organization can act on the basis of the juridical equality of its Member States.
187. We have the most friendly relations with the United States, which have been strengthened through the understanding of our differences in the international and the continental context. But it will be a cause great satisfaction to our country to know that me illegitimate possession of our Cisne Islands by the United States is coming to an end through an act of recognition that the islands do not belong to the United States.
188. Our Government has always been prepared — and is prepared at this time — to make appropriate arrangements, on the assumption that the United Nations will listen to what we are claiming justly and — more than justly — by legitimate right. We hope that the Special Committee on the Situation with regard to the Implementation of the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples will study our case when it comes to deal with the Cisne Islands. We shall go into greater detail on this matter in the Fourth Committee at the appropriate time.
189. The small countries understand more and more that their presence in this Organization as participants in a permanent and constructive task represents an important contribution to the strengthening of the United Nations and the solution of its many problems. As was pointed out by our President, Mr. Pazhwak, the United Nations has been the instrument for giving independence to two thirds of the world's population. It has held back the pressing tide of a nuclear war. Together with the specialized agencies it has established standards for international progress in practically all fields of human endeavour and has expanded the world's machinery for co-operation through regional organizations. Our faith and hope in the work of the United Nations, for what it has done and what it will do in the future, cannot be diminished by the crises or the other negative phenomena that now beset the world.
190. Our country, as a member of a regional organization, feels the same concern as other Latin American countries, and as any developing country, when it sees slow progress in general economic and social development; and we therefore support the proposal for a meeting of the Heads of Government of this hemisphere in order to make more effective the purposes of our existing continental programme by adjusting it to accelerate the development of our countries within the Latin American system and to promote its economic integration.
191. In its relations with the Central American region, Honduras has made a supreme effort by contributing to the integration of the Central American Common Market, which, because of its acceleration, has not favoured Honduras as much as its sister republics. We believe, however, that a more just treatment, through incentives from the other members to offset our unbalanced development, is now being applied.
192. My Government endorses and supports the Organization of Central American States and its efforts for the economic integration of the countries of the Isthmus, as the surest and most lasting means of bringing prosperity to all its member countries. This process of our common history has already achieved a notable improvement in the economy of the region and has attracted international attention.
193. We still remember the visit of the illustrious President of Mexico, Gustavo Dfaz Ordaz, to our country during his friendship tour of Central America, which unquestionably resulted in great benefits, as might be expected from countries dedicated to work and to the understanding of common problems through bonds of race, geography and history.
194. The President of Colombia, Carlos Lleras Restrepo, also initiated a policy of closer friendship with Central America, and with that in view high officials of our Government visited the island of San Andres to discuss with the Colombian President matters that could promote better exchanges.
195. In keeping with this constructive trend towards closer relations among our countries, today, the President of Honduras, Oswaldo Lopez Arellano, is in Mexico City, for the important purpose of paying homage to the friendship between Mexico and Honduras and the spiritual ties that have traditionally linked our two peoples. Such exchanges are an example of the cordial coexistence which is a distinctive feature ox international political life in our continent. They implement the duty of peace between friendly nations and improve the prospects for future progress.
196. The other policy — fatal for the destiny of the American hemisphere — is that which aims at overt or covert intervention in internal affairs, through the infiltration of guerrillas, acts of terrorism, assassinations and bloodshed in general. This policy lives by proclaiming a so-called revolution, which is nothing but a permanent state of genocide, in which even fellow combatants are murdered or mysteriously disappear. These acts are contrary to the principles of the United Nations Charter and to the provisions of resolution 2131 (XX), which imposes on all Member States of this Organization the obligation to refrain from any act that might be a direct or indirect intervention in the internal affairs of any other State.
197. The American hemisphere is now the object of a series of attacks designed to destroy representative democracy and its institutions, and Latin America is feeling the consequences of these attacks in its living flesh; but in spite of the tragedy they represent, there exists a firm determination to defend our national and collective system and there is increasingly effective co-ordination — as has been shown by the setbacks suffered by the saboteurs and guerrillas as a result of the actions taken — to ensure that all the communities of the hemisphere may maintain their purpose to acquire for themselves bread and liberty in abundance, in order to defend their institutions with determination and energy. The fact has been overlooked that real development occurs more rapidly in systems of representative democracy than under any system based on force.
198. The present session of the General Assembly is mindful of the statements of the Secretary-General regarding his desire not to stand for re-election. My Government, together with those of the other Latin American countries, has expressed its support of his excellent efforts for the cause of international peace; and it hopes that this Assembly, by majority consensus, will find a solution which will induce him to remain in office, and that the Assembly will also find the best way of permanently upholding the prestige of the Organization and ensuring its constructive historical dynamism, to which all Member States have entrusted their higher interests, especially the small countries, which would have much to lose if the principles of the Charter are not respected and if this Organization loses prestige because of the levity displayed in adopting some resolutions which have no real legal content.