Ecuador

158. Owing to the unexpected delay of some hours in the arrival of the Minister for Foreign Affairs of my country, I have the honour to come to the rostrum at this late hour in the afternoon and extend to you, Mr. President, on behalf of the Government of Ecuador, our greetings and warm congratulations on your election as President of the General Assembly for this session. The confidence that has been placed in you is certainly due to your personal qualities; but it is also placed in the people of Guatemala, which has left from the remote past, in the stones of its pyramids, evidence of one of the richest cultures in history; a people which fought in the recent past and is fighting in the present to consolidate its political freedom and economic independence, and which hopes to find in a prosperous future a destiny befitting dignified, dedicated and courageous peoples. 159. I also wish to express on behalf of my Government, my delegation and myself our highest appreciation for the outgoing President, Mr. Manescu, who throughout his remarkable term of office managed to combine courtesy with efficiency, discretion with energy, firmness with cordial respect for all representatives whatever their rank, and who at all times set an example of unwavering loyalty both to the letter and to the spirit of the United Nations Charter. 160. This unwavering loyalty, which must be presumed to inspire both the person who has the honour to conduct the Assembly’s debates and each of the representatives who are its members, is not easy to maintain at moments of crisis for the Organization which may impede an objective appraisal of the facts. The loyalty shown by Mr. Manescu as President of the United Nations General Assembly is particularly praiseworthy since, under his wise and calm leadership, we managed to avoid difficulties which might have shaken faith in the value of the Organization itself. 161. It would be credulous to believe that those difficulties have been overcome, but it would be too easy to blame the Organization for not overcoming them. Political difficulties, the continuing reprehensible existence of war, attacks on the independence and sovereignty of States, are all flagrant denials of the purposes and principles of the United Nations Charter. But this does not entitle us to conclude that the twenty-three years of the Organization’s life constitute the history of an immense and sad fiasco. 162. It would perhaps be more realistic to say that we are living in a transition period between two historical eras and that the United Nations has been unable entirely to detach itself from a world in conflict and hence so turbulent as it is today. On the one hand, the Organization has been asked to do more than its institutional powers permit, and on the other hand attempts have been made to convert it into a retrograde tool of power politics. Some have urged it to provide solutions for immediate problems and situations which need to be placed in an historical perspective of gradual change, whereas others have criticized it for appearing to go too fast. 163. It has not been easy for the United Nations to evolve in this world of conflict; and it must be agreed that one of the facts which confers the greatest honour and prestige on the Organization is that, instead of becoming ossified in the ideas and ideals of the men who created its twenty-three years ago, it has endeavoured to become a dynamic instrument in the service of international co-operation. 164. The great wisdom of the men who founded the United Nations was that they did not attempt to turn it into a super-State, nor to make a world parliament out of the General Assembly. National parliaments are based on elective and demographic factors which enable majorities and minorities to interact within representative democracy; whereas the United Nations was based on the sovereign equality of States large and small, whose votes cannot be weighted by the density of their populations. 165. Unlike the League of Nations — whose very name evokes the balance of power and interest inherent in any league, the United Nations endeavoured and is endeavouring to be the organization of the international community for the fulfilment of the great human purposes. The intention was not to establish a league of nations which would be used as an expression of power politics, but a community of peoples—the peoples of the United Nations to which the ever moving preamble of the Charter refers — whose aims were set out in the purposes and principles of the document which was drawn up twenty-three years ago at San Francisco. The peoples of the United Nations undertook by it to practise tolerance and co-existence, and to seek peaceful solutions for their disputes. They also undertook to set up an organization of the international community. 166. Hence the United Nations Charter which established this organization is at the same time the legal constitution of the international community and a multilateral treaty in which the States which signed it on behalf of their peoples laid down binding obligations, voluntarily accepted, to fulfil the purposes and principles on which the Organization is based. 167. The international community represented by the United Nations is necessarily based on the sovereign equality of States, irrespective of the number of their inhabitants or the number of square miles of their territory. The sovereign equality of States imports, as a logical corollary, respect for political independence and territorial integrity. The inevitable consequence of this is the principle of non-intervention in the internal affairs of States and the right of peoples to adopt whatever political system they wish. 168. Intervention in the internal affairs of States has left a painful mark in Latin America. For that reason my delegation has defended and will defend the right of peoples to live according to their own principles, to organize themselves as they wish, and to act in conformity with their own lines of conduct, without fearing that ideological dangers, military alliances, the pernicious doctrine of spheres of influence or any other motive may be used as a pretext by any State or group of States to impose submission to any doctrine on a people, or to dominate a people, or to establish an ideological protectorate, with tanks and guns. 169. For the same reason my delegation rejects any attempt to revive the old doctrine of spheres of influence as a means of political or economic domination. On that false doctrine colonialism was based and the old forms of protectorates were constituted, and likewise attempts are now being made to constitute the new forms of ideological protectorates. On the same basis the mandates were established, one of which — that affecting Namibia — is still claimed against all law by the former administering Power. The most obnoxious forms of imperialism are contained in that doctrine of spheres of influence as a means of domination; and that is why we condemn all types of imperium whether ideological or economic, whether of the right or of the left, as contrary to the United Nations Charter and a betrayal of history. 170. Since the United Nations was not constituted as a super-State, and the General Assembly was set up not as a world parliament but as an organization through which the world community of peoples could express itself, the General Assembly is obviously first and foremost a political body. As a political body it has assumed an entirely new function in history: that of reflecting world public opinion. 171. This phenomenon had existed in embryo before the United Nations was founded; but the development of electronics, the widespread introduction of electromagnetic waves for communication and the use of jet-propelled aircraft were needed to create instantaneous world-wide information and thus a world public opinion. The eminent statesman and professor of international law who was elected President of my country by spontaneous popular decision, Dr. Velasco Ibarra, recently acknowledged in his inaugural address that “the speed of information and communication is creating the people of one world”. And he added: “Only a violent upsurge of the international conscience will one day achieve general disarmament, destroy the weapons of mass murder, and create an international force which will punish the aggressor and guarantee true self-determination for the peoples and non-intervention”. 172. Although it is the essential function of the United Nations as the organization of the international community to express world public opinion and thus give a predominantly political character to General Assembly resolutions, these do not thereby lose the legal quality which the writings of eminent jurists and the practice of the United Nations have attributed to them. They frequently clarify law: for example, resolution 95(I) affirmed the principles of condemnation of war which were recognized by the Charter of the Nürnberg tribunal and which had already been incorporated in the United Nations Charter. Or they may be a source of international law and contribute to its progressive development, as when they establish and affirm the rules of jus cogens. In any case those General Assembly resolutions which are more than recommendations are the basis for the dynamic evolution of the United Nations. 173. An example of that process is given by the resolutions which have laid down and confirmed the interpretation of the General Assembly’s own powers, as when it has used its residual powers where the Security Council, which has the primary but not the exclusive duty to act in questions of international peace and security, could not discharge the responsibilities delegated to it by the Members of the United Nations for rapid and effective action. We hope that in future it will not be necessary to use those residual powers; and for that purpose we welcome a suggestion made by the distinguished Foreign Minister of Mexico, Dr. Antonio Carrillo Flores, that those Powers which have veto privileges in the Security Council should exercise voluntary restriction of their negative vote [1681st meeting, para, 11]. 174. Despite the mistakes and frustrations of the United Nations, its history is nor merely one of disappointment. Admittedly a most cruel war is continuing in South-East Asia and bombs are falling on peoples whose youth has never known a single day of peace. Admittedly in central Europe we have seen armed intervention in the internal affairs of the Czechoslovak people, who were trying to concord their socialist socio-economic system with the individual freedoms by which the Charter guarantees the dignity of the human personality. Admittedly in the same area we have heard threats against the Federal Republic of Germany based on outdated interpretations of the Charter which would amount to giving the United Nations the original meaning of the allied nations of the Second World War instead of its present meaning of the organization of the international community. Admittedly we witness the negation of human rights in South Africa, Namibia and Southern Rhodesia. Despite these frustrations, however, we must acknowledge the creative action of the United Nations in many fields of human activity. 175. The process of liberation of the colonial countries and peoples is a good example of the moral and legal authority of General Assembly resolutions. From my personal experience I recall that when in 1953 I attended the General Assembly for the first time, the number of Member States was less than sixty and the theory still prevailed that Chapter XI of the Charter had a purely declaratory authority. Those few of us who were then in the ranks of the anti-colonialist struggle upheld the principle of the unity and indivisibility of the Charter, which no one today would deny. The colonialists at that time maintained that the administrative authority was part of their sovereign power and fell within the restrictions of Article 2, paragraph 2 of the Charter. Interpreting the will of my Government, which was then led by the same eminent statesman who is today directing the destinies of my country, I contended that the Non-Self-Governing Territories were a class of incomplete States which had two of the three qualities of a State (a people and a territory) but not their own government, which the administering Powers were obliged to grant them. According to that argument, sovereignty is vested in the peoples and is suspended until the fulfilment of that condition; but there can be no confusion between the administrative authority exercised by the administering Power and sovereign power itself. Today no one invokes (or, if they do, their claim falls on deaf ears) domestic jurisdiction in relation to colonial matters; and, with two exceptions, none of the 125 Members of the United Nations doubts the obligatory nature of General Assembly resolution 1514(XV). 176. Another direction in which the force of international public opinion, represented by the General Assembly, has made slow but sure progress is that of disarmament. The United Nations was born of a war to protect succeeding generations from the scourge of further wars. That war had produced the horror of mass slaughter through atomic explosions. It was natural, therefore, that the first of its resolutions, No. 1(I) of 24 January 1946, should establish a Commission to deal with the problems raised by the discovery of atomic energy, at that time limited to nuclear fission, and that in the same year resolution 41(I) should call for the balanced reduction and regulation of armaments and armed forces. It must, however, be remembered that the problem of disarmament — not the mere reduction and regulation of armaments and armed forces — was not considered as a whole until the establishment under resolution 502(VI) of 11 January 1952 of the Disarmament Commission which had been preceded by the temporary Committee of Twelve, and that the present Eighteen-Nation Committee on Disarmament was only established in 1961 under resolution 1722(XVI). 177. No one who is not supremely naive can believe that one fine day a General Assembly resolution will be able to decree universal peace and that all problems will be solved by implementing the utopian phrase of turning swords into ploughshares and barracks into schools. The process is long and difficult; but there have been such important achievements as the Antarctic Treaty of 1 December 1959; the Treaty banning nuclear weapon tests in the atmosphere, in outer space and under water of 5 August 1963; the Treaty of Tlatelolco for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America, of 14 February 1967; the Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies, of 27 January 1967; and lastly the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, whose imperfections, given patience and good faith, can be corrected. 178. We hope that action by the United Nations, as the means of expressing world public opinion, will press for the achievement as the next step of effective measures for the final prohibition of chemical and bacteriological weapons; reduction of nuclear potential by transferring the use of all fissionable material to peaceful uses; reduction of conventional armaments; and the reservation exclusively for peaceful purposes of the sea-bed and the ocean floor and the subsoil thereof, underlying the high seas beyond the limits of national jurisdiction, and the use of their resources in the interest of mankind, which is to be one of the most important items on the agenda of the current session of the Assembly. 179. Therefore my delegation will support any measure aimed not only at implementing direct or collateral measures of disarmament, but also at reducing international tensions which hinder understanding. It will also support any measure aimed at releasing resources at present devoted to armaments, so that they may be used to help the peoples who are trying to achieve development. It feels that there is a need to study not only the problem of the frantic arms race of the great Powers, but also the piling-up of surpluses of conventional or obsolescent weapons to arm the developing countries, thus creating the danger of local wars or inciting to attacks against the democratic will of those peoples. 180. My delegation believes that what is called the general debate should not be a mere catalogue of problems or a list of agenda items. These items are debated separately one by one. But we feel that there should be a statement of the guiding principles of each State’s international policy. I shall therefore mention briefly some of the principal concerns of my Government. 181. One of these concerns is the imbalance between the population explosion and the available food, clothing and housing. It is true that international co-operation is making a considerable impact on this problem. Studies and technical assistance for increasing the yield and improving the quality of crops; discovery of new sources of food, especially proteins; control of plant and animal diseases; improved methods of exploiting ground water and of irrigation; housing and other programmes implemented by the Organization and the bodies known as members of the United Nations family — all these are evidence of this international co-operation. 182. Another of our concerns is the frustration entailed by the failure to make any positive progress at the second session of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development. The growing poverty of the poor countries and the growing wealth of the rich is not a sound basis for a stable peace, and engenders many of the social conflicts which threaten the internal security of States. Moreover, the modest flow of official financial aid from the high-income to the low-income countries, and the establishment for 1970 of a possible treaty of unilateral preferences in favour of the poor countries, are praiseworthy but insufficient in a world where most countries suffer from such serious economic deterioration. 183. In the political field of the peaceful settlement of disputes we are concerned at the danger of conflicts, especially in the Near East, where it is essential that a negotiated peace, based on respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all States of the area may be brought about under the wise leadership of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General. This region, which has been the cradle of religions and great cultures, has also been a centre of dangerous tensions which must be resolved justly through the methods and principles of the United Nations Charter. 184. To sum up what I have said, my delegation wishes to reaffirm its faith in the United Nations as the organization of the international community for the achievement of its basic purposes. Therefore, in testifying to the trust which my Government and my people place in the Organization, I declare that my delegation will be ready to condemn any aggression and to help to define aggression better within the United Nations, to promote methods for the peaceful solution of international disputes, to condemn any intervention in the internal affairs of States and any violation of their right to adopt whatever form of government they desire, and to condemn all forms of discrimination based on race, sex or religion. In that connexion, in a year devoted to the struggle against discrimination, I wish to express our repudiation of the violation of human rights based on racial prejudice which is occurring in Namibia and in Rhodesia. My delegation is ready to help in specifying the legal rules which should govern co-existence, a field in which the International Law Commission is doing magnificent work; to promote economic co-operation for the improvement of social well-being; and, in general, faithfully to discharge its duties under the United Nations Charter. 185. My delegation is sure, Mr. President, that you will conduct the debates of this Assembly with all your discretion and wisdom. I wish to repeat the confidence which my delegation places in Secretary-General U Thant’s sincerity, dedication and evident awareness of his historic duties. I also wish to express my confidence that every Member of the United Nations will fulfil its duty in these difficult times, when the Organization is living at the centre of opposing forces and of drives towards conflict. 186. These contradictions and conflicts, which the Organization cannot avoid, perhaps arise because we are living in a transition period between two historical eras and therefore in a world dominated by change. During a single generation there has been a violent transformation of ideas and of attitudes to life. Forms of economic production have been changing under the pressure of new techniques; and this has led to changes in the social structure which are not always based on justice. Social forms have changed with the emergence of vast urban agglomerations and large concentrations of population. There has been an intellectual change in the prevailing world outlook, from a perspective three-dimensional world based on the immutability of matter to a world without perspective based on transmutations of matter. There have even been changes in religious attitudes. It may well be necessary in all these fields to give up something so as not to lose everything. 187. In this world in transition, conditioned by great advances in technology, perhaps the most urgent problem is whether the achievements of that technology and the forces it has unleashed are to be used for destruction or creation, for slavery or freedom, for one group of privileged nations or for the community of nations, for small national oligarchies or for the vast disinherited masses. 188. The United Nations, at the centre of this world in transition and in conflict, must remain an alert and vigilant reflection of the world community. History will say whether we have fulfilled our duty or whether we have turned the United Nations into a costly and useless glass Babel.