184. I should like to begin by congratulating Mr. Emilio Arenales, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Guatemala, on his election as President of the General Assembly, a signal honour which we have conferred upon him in recognition
of his outstanding abilities as a statesman and experienced diplomat with years of successful United Nations service to his credit.
185. The honour his election signifies for the Republic of Guatemala — Mr. Arenales’ illustrious homeland — is shared more especially by the other sister republics of Latin America and is a source of great pleasure to those of us who elected and acclaimed him. We hope that he will soon recover from the illness which has kept him away from his important functions for the last few days and we extend to him our best wishes for a speedy recovery.
186. I should like to pay a tribute to Mr. Corneliu Manescu, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Romania, for his performance as President of the General Assembly during the twenty-second session on. When we elected him to that important office we knew that he would perform his duties with wisdom and prudence. I am grateful to him for having allowed me, in my capacity of Vice-President, to preside over the Assembly on two occasions.
187. We extend a welcome to the honourable delegation of Swaziland on its country’s admission to the United Nations. Swaziland is joining us in our work at a time when the world needs the edifying understanding of all those of us working in this amphictyonic forum for peace.
188. In conveying our greetings to U Thant, our Secretary-General, I should like to reiterate my Government’s high esteem for the devotion with which he is carrying out his delicate mission. Our appreciation also goes to his highly efficient associates.
189. As on former occasions, my delegation intends to co-operate in the search for constructive solutions and effective measures which, being based on the legal and moral principles of the Charter, will help to strengthen the peace which must be our greatest desire.
190. The Assembly in which we are participating is marking a new stage in the work of the Organization that we set up at San Francisco twenty-three years ago, when the conflict which had been devastating mankind since 1939 was still in progress.
191. We are representatives of both Governments and peoples: of responsible Governments which are guiding the destinies of our nations, and of peoples who know that this Organization was set up for the purpose of ensuring prosperous and effective peace and of providing a pledge of justice and respect among nations. We represent Governments and peoples who know that this Organization is the most respected forum in the world, from which all may freely express their thoughts and state their problems. We are representatives of Governments and peoples who are aware that this Organization professes faith in fundamental human rights and is based on the legal equality of States — as any international system must be — and governed by rules such as collective defence and the peaceful settlement of disputes, and that it enables regional organizations to operate for the greater safeguarding of peace and is working, through the Trusteeship System, to bring about the advancement and independence of peoples through self-determination.
192. Now that our Organization will soon be completing its twenty-fifth year, it is reasonable to ask whether it has achieved the aims for which it was created. In my country’s view, the answer would be that the United Nations has achieved outstanding successes, more indeed than merit the criticism of its detractors. We would qualify our reply by asking what would happen to the world if our Organization did not exist. So we must continue to place our faith and optimism in it and invoke the generosity of Providence to ensure the success of our work.
193. We did not imagine, when we signed the Charter in 1945, that the United Nations would operate in a world free from tension. Indeed, we created it precisely for the purpose of finding suitable ways of settling tense international situations, striving for peace based on security and justice, in keeping with Pascal’s wise lesson that force without justice is tyranny, and justice without force is a farce.
194. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted twenty years ago, marked a glorious victory in the annals of this century. The 1950 appeal to Member States to help the Republic of Korea to repel the aggression to which it was falling victim — the first example of collective defence offered by an Organization of armed forces — was another victory for the United Nations, as were the steps which led to the withdrawal of foreign troops from Iran and the communist repression in Greece.
195. The Technical Assistance Programme, which has worked to bring about better social and economic conditions, the admission of new States to the international community, the progress and independence of countries which only yesterday were dependent peoples, and the work being done by specialized agencies to create a more human world in which man constitutes the centre of the universe, also reflect brave action by the United Nations — the soundest and most efficient organization ever conceived by the genius of civilized man.
196. Over the past thousands of years, man has come a long way along the road to higher levels of well-being and dignity. Yet wars, as an instrument of power and domination, have been fought without their painful consequences being properly understood by the leaders of the nations. In the present century mankind has suffered two world catastrophes, in which our nations were forced to participate by the very laws of survival. After the First World War, the victors met at Versailles and organized the League of Nations, whose Covenant was basically designed to ensure respect and maintenance of the territorial integrity and political independence of the States Members
of the League. This was the beginning of the movement of individual States towards an international community.
197. As the century wore on, western statesmen began to realize that world peace was being threatened by the reign of force. The world was shaken by the failure of the international body .n the face of the avalanche of conquest. They tried again to stem the tide of catastrophe by generous gestures in the form of the Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928, which expressly condemned recourse to war for the settlement of international crises, and the Anti-War Treaty of Non-Aggression and Conciliation of 1933, inspired by Mr. Carlos Saavedra Lamas, the Foreign Minister of the Argentine Republic. But all was in vain. The danger grew and violence began to impose a “new order” in the old
continent, with bayonets and guns.
198. The historic process conceived in the womb of tyranny followed its horrifying course under the will of a tragic man who laid waste all Europe with his armies. The Locarno Pact of 1925, which laid down mutual guarantees for Germany’s eastern frontier, was trampled underfoot in 1936, when the troops of totalitarianism marched into the demilitarized area of the Rhine. The world was plunged into darkness. Only scraps of the Versailles Treaty of 1919 remained, and the individual rights secured at such sacrifice were snuffed out in the enslaved territories. Reason finally prevailed, however, and despotism was crushed by the victorious armies of the democracies, under the command of that glorious soldier of history, General Eisenhower.
199. The San Francisco Conference, in which I had the honour to participate as a delegate of my country, was held in an atmosphere charged by the clash of differing ideologies; yet those who upheld them were determined to reach legal or doctrinal compromises which would make it possible to erect a new international edifice, and the overriding criterion was that the Great Powers should be given the decisive role in the maintenance of peace. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt justified the preponderance of their influence when he said: “As these four nations must inevitably bear major responsibility for the maintenance of peace in the post-war period, there is no possibility of successfully establishing a general international organization if these States are not prepared to support it".
200. We admit that the sacrifices which the Great Powers made in order to defeat Nazi-fascism gave them the right to be known as “great” in the international community. A reflection of that right is to be found in the privilege accorded in Article 27 of the Charter. But that right not only gives the Great Powers privileges; we consider that they also have a duty to maintain peace and to preserve what they achieved by efforts which gained the recognition of the free world.
201. We must show that the universal system known as the United Nations is capable of maintaining a world governed by the rule of law and justice. This Organization neither is nor can be a world government. Although it is true to say that no State can be compelled to do anything by force, it is equally true that ail States must do all they can to reconcile their differences. As has already been said, the independence of peoples is ensured by the inter-dependence of States within freely accepted associations.
202. This Organization is a product of the war, as was the League of Nations. The League, suggested by President Wilson in the Fourteen Points he put forward fifty years ago, on 8 January 1918, was incapable of dealing with the aggression against China in 1932 or with that against Abyssinia in 1935, let alone the annexations of Austria and Czechoslovakia. The shattering war which erupted in 1939 and lasted for six long years swept away the few hopes still cherished by the world.
203. This Organization, successor to the League of Nations, acts on the basis of experience; it was conceived and organized by States which laid down in the Charter, as a condition for the admission of new Members, that candidates had to be peace-loving States. Thus, since the United Nations is intended to ensure international peace by means of a security system based on the rule of justice and law in relations between all the States forming it, the Governments of all those States must set an example by respecting the decisions adopted here.
204. A demonstration of the flexibility of the Charter is to be found in the “Uniting for Peace” resolution of 1950, whereby the General Assembly assumed the functions which it should exercise for the maintenance of peace, especially in view of the fact that the Organization’s general machinery is paralysed as a result of the inexorable and obstructionist effects of Article 27.
205. A well-known internationalist maintains that peace is a product of war. We might add that war is the product of a badly administered peace, of a peace which is not well guarded. But how is peace to be properly administered? By preserving good faith in international relations. The world is anxious for peace, but for an effective and just peace, not peace resulting from the handing over of sovereignty to an aggressor. The fact that this Organization arose from the ashes of the war imposes upon us the duty to understand that it has an obligation to win the battles for peace. If those battles are lost, we shall inevitably slide back into war; and if that were to happen in this nuclear age, there would be no victors as there were in 1945. There would simply be victims sacrificed owing to a lack of understanding. We should not worry about the differences that arise between States; it is logical that they should arise and that they should give rise to problems. That does not matter. What does matter is that those problems are not being solved.
206. The preamble to the Charter reflects the spirit of documents which have become pages in the history of mankind. Under the Washington Pact of 1 January 1942, the Governments of twenty-six nations adhered to the common programme of purposes and principles set out in the Atlantic Charter of 14 August 1941. The Moscow Declaration of 30 October 1943 and the Dumbarton Oaks proposals of 1944 are also part of the very roots of this Organization.
207. With this in mind, we refer to the armed invasion of Czechoslovakia, an act which has cut all of mankind to the quick and dealt a mortal blow to the legal and moral principles which should govern relationships between the States participating in this universal forum. The presence of foreign troops in Czechoslovakia has converted that country into a subject nation, subjected by the force of the occupying foreign armies, subjected by an act of force which flouts the precepts of the Charter. The territorial integrity of Czechoslovakia has been violated. There has been interference in the domestic affairs of that country, without any request by its Government.
208. Let us recall what Mr. Pleskot, the representative of Czechoslovakia, told us a short time ago from this very rostrum: “Last August the Government of our country found itself faced with a new reality. The troops of five socialist States had entered Czechoslovakia. In the new situation the Czechoslovak people maintained their composure and displayed exemplary unity and discipline .... The Czechoslovak Government was fully aware of the gravity of the moment and of the fact that the future of our nation was at stake." [1682nd meeting, para. 117].
209. Mr. Pleskot also told us that it would be of no interest either to the United Nations or to the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic for the situation in Czechoslovakia to be exploited in an attempt to revive the atmosphere of the cold war [ibid., para. 119]. In this way he supported his Government’s request that the item concerning the situation in the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, placed on the agenda of the Security Council on the initiative of a number of States, should be removed therefrom. [Ibid.]
210. I disagree with Mr. Pleskot’s view; the Security Council is competent to consider this case, which constitutes a real challenge to the prestige of the United Nations. The functions of the Security Council are explicit as regards the maintenance of international peace and security. Article 2 (4) of the Charter expressly states:
"All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any State, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.”
211. We also know that according to the declaration in resolution 2131 (XX):
"No State has the right to intervene, directly or indirectly, for any reason whatever, in the internal or external affairs of any other State. Consequently, armed intervention and all other forms of interference or attempted threats against the personality of the State or against its political, economic and cultural elements, are condemned”.
212. With regard to the tragedy of South Viet-Nam, my Government cherishes the hope that from the negotiating table in Paris there will emerge some beginning of an understanding, the beginning of “a political solution on honourable terms — a solution consistent with the safety and national existence of all of the smaller nations of South-East Asia", to quote the words of Mr. Dean Rusk, United States Secretary of State.
213. Let us also recall what that distinguished statesman said in his speech to this Assembly on 2 October this year; Mr. Rusk said:
"We want to ensure that the people of South Viet-Nam can decide their own destiny free of force. We believe that the question of the reunification of Viet-Nam should be decided through free choice by the peoples of North and South Viet-Nam without outside interference. We want a settlement on the basis of the 1954 and 1962 Geneva Agreements.” [1677th meeting, para. 43].
214. With regard to the problem of the Middle East, we feel the same concern as yesterday. It is essential that each of the parties to the dispute should contribute what it is its duty to contribute, what it is obliged to contribute, to further the desired negotiations that the world expects. Generally speaking, any negotiation presupposes the abandoning of extreme positions, a sacrifice which must be made in the higher interests of peace. Let us dispel mistrust and applaud the work which Mr. Jarring, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General, is doing with so much care and patience.
215. We know that Mr. Jarring is fully aware that the purpose of his mission is “to establish and maintain contacts with the States concerned in order to promote agreement and assist efforts to achieve a peaceful and accepted settlement" under the terms of resolution 242 (1967) unanimously approved by the Security Council on 22 November 1967. As the Secretary-General points out in the Introduction to his Annual Report, that resolution “was in itself a considerable achievement and provided a basis for a constructive and peaceful approach both by the parties and by the international community to the bitter problems of the Middle East.” [A/7201/Add.1, para. 47].
216. In a world that is opening up to all the sciences, at a time when mankind is reaching the very summit of his conquests, and when man, in the tranquillity of his laboratories, is unravelling the secrets of nature, there has emerged from the simplicity of matter the greatest potential source of energy ever known. Let us recall that even in ancient times Thales of Miletus combined philosophical speculation with rigid mathematical equations in pursuit of that element which, in microscopic proportions, synthesizes the vastness of the cosmos.
217. Let us also recall that the ancient patriarchs of Science were primarily concerned, in their investigations, with discovering the basis of things, with delving into the constituent structure of matter and with investigating the relationship between the broadest expression of nature and nature itself. Man, indefatigable in his struggle to penetrate the age-old secrets, finally conquered nuclear energy, that terrifying force which, unless controlled, would bring prematurely to pass the Biblical prophecies of doom and which in international contests becomes something unpredictable and menacing.
218. It is also worth recalling that the Inter-American Nuclear Energy Commission was given the main task of helping the American republics, through a co-ordinated plan of nuclear research and training, to promote the exchange of scientific and technical information, organize conferences and other meetings in the field of nuclear energy, assist member States in the preparation of legislative measures designed to facilitate international co-operation, and recommend security measures with regard to public safety in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy.
219. In 1959 I had the honour to preside, in Washington, over the first meeting of that important Commission, which was attended by representatives of the American republics. The Commission has received the co-operation of those republics, and particularly that of the honourable Government of the United States of America. The training courses offered in relation to the uses of nuclear energy in the fields of biology, medicine and agriculture, and its efforts to ensure the success of the First International Symposium on Nuclear Energy, are worthy of our highest praise.
220. In the process of disarmament, the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons is obviously a genuine success, as were the Treaty on the Antarctic, the Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty, the Treaty of Tlatelolco and the Treaty on the Exploration and Use of Outer Space — all documents of the highest importance which call to mind General Assembly resolution 1 (I), adopted on 24 January 1946, whereby we set up the Commission to deal with the problems raised by the discovery of atomic energy. We hope that the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons will gain new adherents among States.
221. With regard to the fourteen resolutions and the declaration adopted by the Conference of Non-Nuclear-Weapon States, held at Geneva from 29 August to 28 September 1968, may we say that their importance deserves the careful consideration of this Assembly.
222. We are concerned about the sufferings of the people of Nigeria. We respect the rights of that friendly nation and in no way wish to interfere in its internal affairs; yet we cannot refrain from expressing our feelings and our concern, as well as our hopes that the tragedy afflicting that people will soon be halted. Perhaps it will end under the sign that this International Year for Human Rights has written across the skies all over the world.
223. As regards the economic assistance which must be given to the needy nations, assistance which overcomes the economic and social under-development that threatens peace, let us not forget what Mr. Eugene R. Black, then President of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, said seven years ago, on 24 April 1961, when he addressed the United Nations Economic and Social Council:
“I realize that the political difficulties with which the United Nations is struggling are, in many cases, reflexions of economic problems. We can expect no lasting political solutions until much more is done to remedy the economic ills afflicting so many countries. In these circumstances it is far more important that the Economic and Social Council should continue organizing co-operation between States with a view to tackling the financial problems of our times. Today it is generally recognized that the less-developed nations need much more assistance from those who find themselves in a more fortunate position. But the needs for financial aid are of such magnitude that it is essential to ensure that aid is used in such a way as to contribute the maximum to the economic growth of the countries receiving it."
224. Mr. President, that is what I wanted to say on behalf of my Government this afternoon. In extending greetings to all my fellow delegates, I reaffirm Nicaragua’s confidence and faith in the United Nations.