1. First, I should like to congratulate Dr. Arenales, Foreign Minister of Guatemala, on his well-deserved election as President. His intelligence and experience lead us all to expect that our affairs will be conducted with distinction. Our pleasure is enhanced because he represents not only Latin America but also a country which, though far from ours, is linked to it by strong ties of brotherhood and friendship.
2. We also wish to pay tribute to the tact and efficiency shown during our proceedings by the outgoing President, Mr. Corneliu Manescu, Foreign Minister of Romania. He represents a country whose political philosophy separates it from our own but which is likewise bound to us by an ancient and common Latin heritage.
3. Furthermore, we welcome Swaziland, which has now become a member of this community of nations and will, we are sure, play an effective part in truly uniting the people of the world and ending colonialism wherever it exists.
4. I shall be brief. I can add little concerning the policy followed consistently by Uruguay in international affairs. It is well known to the Assembly. The various encouraging or disappointing events that either promote or delay practice of the principles which are so dear to us only reconfirm our belief in those principles.
5. We are happy to say that in international law there has been steady even if slow and difficult progress. It can be compared mutatis mutandis with progress in private law. The delegation of Uruguay always comes to this Assembly in the hope of seeing the adoption of new measures for improving coexistence. I must confess that this makes us impatient, and we see the obstacles as reasons that reason itself cannot understand. This parliament seems to us slow to establish the rule of law in practice and to create awareness of its benefits. We know that there are factors beyond its control, but we have a common duty to correct them, because they not only endanger freedom and justice but also raise problems which affect intelligence itself.
6. We have to confess our disappointment at the outset of the twenty-third session of the General Assembly. We have recently heard arguments rather similar to those used in the distant past, back in the eighteenth century, to justify the distribution of spheres of influence, which recall the domestic law of feudal days.
7. In face of such theories, which endanger the very existence of nationality, we reaffirm our faith in the will to survive and the desire for independence of all the nations of the earth, especially the small and militarily weak which look for protection to the rule of law rather than to the political or economic paternalism of Powers whose real aim is to dominate on the pretext of promoting their own development or security. Uruguay once again reaffirms its belief in the principles of self-determination of peoples and non-intervention by States. We regard them as plain rules of positive international law. Every country has a right to its own culture, trade and government. To quote from Corneille’s “Cinna",
“Chaque peuple a le sien conforme à sa nature,
“Qu’on ne saurait changer sans lui faire une injure.”
(Each nation has its own true attribute that cannot suffer any change unscathed.)
8. Today no treaty based on such old-fashioned concepts can be viable. It would be incurably void, either for want of motive, or for defect in its spirit or letter where these purported to take away sovereignty. It would recall the Italian Popular Party’s counter-slogan to Mussolini’s electoral law: “We'll co-operate on our feet, not our knees.”
9. In 1928 at Havana, Uruguay proposed that the principle of non-intervention, based on the indispensable legal equality of all States without which this Assembly cannot even exist, should be made an institution. These joint efforts culminated at Montevideo in 1933 and were reaffirmed at Buenos Aires in 1936, in the Charter of Bogota in 1948, and more fully in Lima in 1938, Mexico City in 1945, Rio de Janeiro in 1947, Caracas in 1954, Santiago de Chile in 1959, and Costa Rica in 1960. It would be inconsistent not to call attention to every infraction of this principle, such as the one that has just occurred.
10. The United Nations has also ruled in this matter. In its resolution 2131(XX) of December 1965 the General Assembly voted in favour of this principle and referred specifically to the precedents mentioned above and to the charters of the League of Arab States and of the Organization of African Unity. It follows that this Assembly also should be consistent and vigorously reject all violations of the rule, regardless of their nature and of the attempts at explanation.
11. We reject intervention of any kind, not only flagrant military intervention but also other more subtle and cunning forms. Uruguay has established a stable, democratic system of government firmly based on popular support; it has brought about peaceful coexistence and has changed enemies into mere opponents, as can be seen in the membership of our own delegation, which includes representatives of all the democratic parties. Like other Latin-American nations, we suffer from the propaganda and activities of small groups with alien and undemocratic ideas which seek to promote, particularly among our young people, outlandish revolutionary ideas and to advocate violence as a means of progress. In financing this propaganda and these activities, other Governments commit actual unlawful and reprehensible intervention. Revolutions without any guiding philosophy destroy existing spiritual and moral values and prevent adaptation of democracy to modern times, which we seek as the way to orderly and peaceful progress. As has been said, we will not agree to any demand in the name of our principles for freedom to destroy freedom in the name of the principles of others.
12. We are concerned about the slow progress of disarmament, the insecurity and expense of armaments and the means of development of which they deprive mankind. In our view this is another obligation. Uruguay has always been a fervent champion of peace and believes that all efforts should be directed towards strengthening it. To strengthen peace is to do more than merely maintain it. Peace can be maintained through force or fear; it is only genuine when based on confidence and brotherhood. These presuppose duties and demand sacrifice. In particular they oblige the major Powers to assist in establishing peace. The results of the Second United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, for instance, give us no cause for optimism on this score.
13. The technological advances which should have opened a bright future have instead ushered in one of deep gloom. I would point out that Latin America, as in its advocacy of non-intervention, has again taken the lead here with the Treaty of Tlatelolco, which in the words of the delegation of Uruguay “is an exemplary instrument by virtue of its juridical acumen, its technical precision, its feeling for reality, and the clear-cut differentiation it establishes between the atom for war and the atom for peace”’. Nevertheless, Uruguay has subscribed to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons [General Assembly resolution 2373(XXII)], which was signed in Washington, London and Moscow on 1 July 1968, accepting it with its defects as a stepping-stone towards the solution of the problem. As we have said before, the Treaty “does not in any way deal with the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons but rather with the non-proliferation of nuclear States"; it does not really provide for the peaceful use of atomic energy for all nations, and, as was so aptly pointed out by the Argentine delegation, merely guarantees “the disarmament of the unarmed”’. Disarmament must be general and complete, and the guarantees should be given absolutely and convincingly by the armed. Only thus will peace through fear be ended, and the gap reduced between ourselves and those few countries that manipulate both the atom and the veto as instruments of obstruction.
14. Another factor for strengthening peace must be the settlement of all other conflicts, overt or covert. For the Middle East a complete solution must be found, not a partial or temporary one. We hope that such a solution can be reached through law and mutual understanding, and similar solutions for the other more serious conflicts that disquiet the world. That will be the way to win back the confidence of world public opinion in these organizations and in their thinking and procedures.
15. I cannot refer to all the items on our agenda, and if I could I should risk repeating what previous speakers have said here. But I wish to say a few words on one matter which has hardly been discussed but which I think is fundamental for this Assembly. It is the problem of man, or rather of the individual. Peace is indivisible, and there can be no lasting peace in the world unless all individuals can be at peace with themselves. The human personality is the pivot of the universal system.
16. There would be no point in organizing the law of nations or their coexistence if nations continued to have subjects but not citizens. The word “citizen” is not merely a convenient phrase; it postulates the enjoyment of rights and freedoms unknown in most of the world. Nor can any State be a genuine democracy if its internal domestic peace is imposed by force or fear. We therefore hope sympathetically for the liberation of countries with autocratic or totalitarian régimes kept in power by a system of repression that stifles freedom, or by a social system that insults justice.
17. The people’s misery undermines domestic order just as the misery of States undermines international order. That is why we are convinced that universal order cannot be strengthened without democratic States.
18. I have to point out that, as the name indicates, human rights belong not to the community nor to the State but to the individual. States owe a duty to ensure respect for human rights and must discharge it, just as they have duties towards each other for ethical reasons. The individual must also be given moral and material international protection. Self-determination for peoples is very good, but self-determination for the individual is better. He must be helped to strengthen his freedom; and, as Uruguay has already proposed, he should have access to international courts. If under recent international penal law judges are to be empowered to punish an individual, it would seem more logical that judges should also protect and safeguard his interests. Human rights are still in danger twenty years since the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights [General Assembly resolution 217(III)], which was proclaimed as “a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations...”.
19. Let us serve this ideal, which is a mainstay of coexistence!
20. The United Nations must redouble its efforts in that service. Perhaps the Commission on Human Rights should have the status of a Council and report directly to the General Assembly.
21. There can be no peace anywhere without justice, and in a country there can be no peace without social justice. Justice is endangered by lack not only of rights but also of equal economic opportunity. States must therefore develop in accordance with their people’s needs. A government has no right to demand or to receive aid that is not to be devoted to its citizens’ well-being without discrimination of any kind. Special emphasis must be laid on this need so as to speed economic, social and industrial work for the development of all nations.
22. In the world today we cannot allow hunger to persist, or the protein deficiency that is retarding irreparably the physical and mental development of more than 300 million children. Just as it is a common duty to distribute the new resources of the sea and of nuclear energy among all mankind, so it is a common duty to abolish these terrible evils. The greatest battle of all, in comparison with which all others are insignificant, is mankind’s battle against the shameful suffering in the world today — against the suffering of people who are not free, of people who lack education, health, housing, clothing, and hope. This is the great challenge, and we owe it to ourselves, as men and as leaders, to take it up.
23. The task before us is enormous and urgent. For my part, I pray that God will enlighten us in our work.
24. I would conclude by quoting one of the “thoughts” of Pascal which in a way sums up my whole speech. God grant that soon in this world “Justice will be forceful and force will be just”.