1. Mr. President, I should like to begin my address today by expressing the gratification of the Brazilian Government at seeing you preside over the work of the twenty-third session of the General Assembly. For my Government, your presence in the Chair represents not only the election of a representative of a sister nation of the Hemisphere but the choice of an experienced statesman, former permanent representative of Guatemala to the United Nations and its present Minister for External Relations, whose legal knowledge and political experience are a pledge of the successful outcome of the twenty-third session of the General Assembly. Allow me also at this time to express our gratitude to Mr. Manescu, Foreign Minister of Rumania, for presiding over the proceedings of the twenty-second session with such tact, impartiality and objectivity.
2. On behalf of the Government of Brazil, I wish to express our deep satisfaction at seeing today in our midst the representatives of Swaziland, which has just been admitted to our Organization. During the relevant proceedings of the Security Council, Brazil had the occasion to strongly support and recommend its admission, which bears a special significance for Brazil in view of its historical and cultural bonds with the nations of the African continent.
3. We convene here for the twenty-third session of the General Assembly at a time of insecurity for international peace and for the cause of law and justice among peoples. The year 1968 is one of tensions that test to the utmost the purposes and principles which gave life, shape and content to the San Francisco Charter. The events in Czechoslovakia, the absence of any progress in the control of vertical nuclear proliferation, the dismal failure of the last session of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) are all aspects of a deplorable reversion to the most primitive of logics: the logic of force. The patient labour of the United Nations on behalf of international peace and security, economic and social development, human rights and the emancipation of peoples is in danger of suffering a serious setback.
4. Not only the small and middle Powers suffer the impact of events which threaten the return of the atmosphere of the cold war which we thought had become a thing of the past. Also threatened are the expectations of a permanent understanding among the great Powers. What a precarious security is that in which the tranquillity of peoples is contingent upon the existence of arsenals that daily increase in their sophistication. The world is lacking in the mutual confidence essential for the development of political co-operation among nations.
5. Which way are we bound? Towards a new cycle of the cold war? Will we consign to oblivion the political and cultural experiment which seemed to place humanity
at the threshold of a new destiny?
6. The United Nations was built upon the idea of the maintenance of peace through the preservation of the victorious alliance of 1945. In the name of political realism, we were led to accept situations and operational formulae which, to a large extent, were irreconcilable with our juridical conscience and with the principles which preside over our legal systems. Concessions, however, were made to be used according to the principles of the Charter, and to ensure the achievement of its high purposes. These principles and objectives are what make the United Nations so much more than a simple conference-holding mechanism.
7. As unacceptable as the invasion of Czechoslovakia itself are the arguments that have been advanced to justify and condone it. It has been stated in the Security Council that the events in Czechoslovakia are of an internal nature, of sole and exclusive interest to the members of the Warsaw Pact. There was even an invocation of Article 2, para- graph 7, of the United Nations Charter, a curious invocation indeed which purports to construe the action of the Security Council and the United Nations as a violation of this precept, while reconciling it perfectly with the movement of troops and cannons across national frontiers. Never have the rights of force been enunciated in such peremptory and undisguised fashion. As Brazil has already had the occasion to state, we cannot build international peace and security on the precarious foundation of spheres of influence or on the delimitation of power along certain arbitrary geographical lines.
8. No one denies to any State whatsoever the right to provide for its own security and to join whatever military pacts it deems convenient, adequate or necessary to its interests of self-defence. Each State is the sole judge of its own needs and interests. As long as the principles of general and complete disarmament and international collective security do not prevail, the existence of military alliances will continue to characterize world reality. This cannot be said to be perfect or ideal as a state of affairs or, even less, a reassuring one, but it is accepted by the political realism so often invoked in the meetings of our Organization. At any rate, the thesis that joining a military pact implies surrendering one’s sovereignty, territorial integrity and equality before the law, is totally inadmissible. We are face to face with new concepts and ideas which, if not
challenged and repudiated, will render impossible the coexistence of free and sovereign States, conscious of their mutual rights and obligations.
9. We seem to have had confirmed some of the views set forth by Brazil when we were fighting for the fair and equitable Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, in which we would renounce weapons we never wanted in the first place, but not the benefits of science and technology. Both in the Conference of the Eighteen-Nation Committee on Disarmament and in the resumed twenty-second session of the General Assembly, we insisted upon the necessity of a balance of obligations between the
nuclear-weapons countries, and the other nations. And, more recently, at the Conference of Non-Nuclear-Weapon States in Geneva, we had the opportunity to reiterate our
arguments and suggestions. Recent developments have confirmed the precariousness and insufficiency of the guarantees extended to the non-nuclear countries under
resolution 255 (1968) of the Security Council.
10. Brazil fully accepts a general policy of non-proliferation of nuclear weapons. The success of such a policy, however, depends upon the effective security conditions and increased stimulus of the peaceful use of the atom. We hope that the military nuclear Powers will ponder carefully the latest recommendations made in Geneva, seeing in them not just the specific aspirations of the non-nuclear States, but the basic elements of the preservation of the peace and security of all. We have reached a point in the evolution of history where no real progress can be made towards peace unless guarantees against aggression or the threat of aggression by nuclear weapons are made politically more effective and juridically more perfect. For that purpose, we favour the idea of a world-wide convention, which will represent a step beyond the Charter of San Francisco, and we likewise emphasize the urgency of drawing up conventions for nuclear disarmament, under effective international control.
11. To be valid, a policy of non-proliferation of nuclear weapons must necessarily guarantee unrestricted and non-discriminatory access to science and technology and to
nuclear materials for peaceful purposes. In like measure, it ought to provide for concrete measures of technical assistance and financing. World peace cannot be the resultant of a mere parallelogram of opposing forces. True peace exacts assured co-operation for constructive purposes, to accelerate the economic and social progress of
peoples within the framework of respect for the freedom and safety of all.
12. During 1968, no progress can be recorded in the furthering of solutions to the serious problems of trade and development. At the second session of UNCTAD in New
Delhi, the developed countries employed evasive and dilatory methods and tactics. On 26 March, Brazil made the following statement:
“ The balance-sheet of the Second UNCTAD Conference is dismal indeed. It could have become a turning point in the history of international economic co-operation.
Instead, it may well become a source of frustration and disenchantment. At New Delhi, developed countries could have paved the way for a new era in the field of international economic relations. Instead, by systematically blocking all important initiatives of developing countries, they have chosen to deepen the cleavage between North and South, fraught with such dangerous social and political implications.”
13. After the experience of New Delhi and the results of the debates on the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons in New York, we now venture to express
the hope that, in formulating a legal régime for the sea-bed beyond the limits of national jurisdiction, the interests of all, developed or developing, may be fully satisfied in the
exploration and exploitation of that immense region which is the common heritage of mankind. The result of the work of the Ad Hoc Committee to Study the Peaceful Uses of
the Sea Bed and the Ocean Floor beyond the Limits of National Jurisdiction, to which the Brazilian Government had the honour to extend its hospitality recently in Rio de
Janeiro, can serve as a basis for effective measures to be taken during this regular session of the Assembly.
14. It is precisely in order to fight for a better world that we meet here today in this Organization, which represents our best hope for the establishment of an international
order that will prove just and long-lasting. We are once again called upon to express our ideas and to vote upon the great themes of peace and war, of collective security, of
human rights, of economic development and the emancipation of peoples. We shall have to consider complex problems, both those which appear on the agenda and those
which do not. We will have to contribute, directly or indirectly, to the effect that the Paris negotiations may, within the shortest possible time, bring an end to the conflict in Viet-Nam.
15. As far as the Middle East is concerned, Brazil has expressed its apprehensions as regards the arms race in which the countries of that area are engaged. We would like
to reiterate our appeal for the flow of arms and war material to the parties in conflict to be suspended, limited or regulated. If allowed to go on unchecked, this arms race
can lead to a new conflagration of unpredictable consequences. We still think that resolution 242 (1967) of the Security Council is a fair and reliable basis for the
establishment of peace in the Middle East. We ought to spare no efforts to create conditions propitious to the mission that Ambassador Gunnar Jarring has undertaken as
Special Representative of the Secretary-General, a mission that he is discharging with so much patience and tenacity.
16. Finally, the Government of my country observes with great concern that. there is a continuing violation of the human rights consecrated by the United Nations and the
international community. During this very year, which has been proclaimed in resolution 1961 (XVIII) as the International Year for Human Rights, it was with sorrow and
dismay that we watched the Pretoria Government take a series of measures in relation to Namibia, in flagrant disrespect for the resolutions of the Security Council and
the General Assembly. We again call upon that Government to abide by the decisions of the United Nations. For our part, through the adoption of concrete, specific and
mandatory measures, the Brazilian Government acted promptly upon the Security Council’s decision on Rhodesia aiming at the establishment in that country of a government fully representative of its inhabitants, and at the elimination of its present heinous policy of racial discrimination.
17. Great are the dangers and grave the risks that surround us, and yet never has mankind had at its disposal so many efficient tools to employ in the solution of its problems and difficulties. Science and technology for the first time in history allow an adequate response to the needs of social well-being and progress for all peoples. But, at the same time, there has never been an historical period with such an accelerated chain-reaction of basic problems. The need for frequent readjustments to a great extent explains, if it does not justify, the set-backs which periodically occur in our arduous quest for true peace.
18. Brazil adheres to the belief that the ideals of this Organization will at last prevail over narrow political concepts, over near-sighted and short-term economic positions, over methods of action inadequate to the complexity and unity of today’s world. Amid a sequence of crises we witness the affirmation of a sentiment of solidarity that transcends boundaries and the occasional divisions of mankind. Such circumstances and the simple fact that we gather here today the representatives of 125 nations, strengthen and justify our earnest hopes.