Mr. SANTA CRUZ began by saying that the greatest concern of the General Assembly was to see whether the United Nations still enjoyed the faith and confidence of all the nations. Referring to the Secretary-General’s annual report, he said that it could be gathered from that document that the life of the Organization had not reached the pace foreseen in San Francisco, and that its results did not fulfil the hopes born on that occasion, although the year which had passed since the preceding session of the General Assembly had been, in the words of the Secretary-General, on the whole, a year of progress towards a more peaceful world.
76. What San Francisco had promised the world was a change of outlook, a change which originated in the sorrow and suffering of millions of human beings. With due regard for the sovereignty of nations and for the free self-determination of peoples, a feeling of international responsibility for the safeguarding of world peace and security had been fostered. Moreover, a causal connexion between the progressive improvement of the standards of living of human beings and the gradual elimination of the deep-rooted causes of conflict had been explicitly recognized.
77. If the Assembly analyzed the world situation, keeping in mind such principles, it would have to admit that those fundamental ideas which inspired the United Nations were making headway among the nations against great difficulties. Such international feeling was evident in the stages which had led to the formation of the Council of Europe — a step taken by the western European countries to pool their resources, coordinate their plans and achieve their goal of political unity. That was a striking event of modern times. After repeated efforts towards unification in the course of its history, Europe was seeking unity on a democratic basis, respecting forms of government and ideological and religious tendencies. That was one of the finest experiments in the history of the West and an invaluable lesson for the rest of the world.
78. Referring to the execution of the agreements to the New Delhi Conference, Mr. Santa Cruz stated that the new countries of Asia were proving to the world that in history, which determined universal destinies, more than one continent counted, and that the countries of Asia were capable of influencing the structure of the world of the future. As the Secretary-General’s report stated, those same principles, applied by the United Nations, had won for the United Nations a great victory, namely, peace in the Middle East.
79. He went on to speak of the Kashmir dispute and the ideas expressed at the beginning of the debate by the representative of India (222nd meeting), and said that the reiterated assurances that India was determined .to find a peaceful solution were important guarantees for those who hoped that nothing would separate nations which were to share a noble and historic destiny.
80. The Assembly had to contrast those successes in the political field, and the partial solution of the Berlin conflict, with new and extremely serious situations which proved that in other respects the spirit of San Francisco had been disregarded and even deliberately violated.
81. Part of the territory of China was occupied by military forces engaged in a movement of expansion which ran counter to all the principles of the United Nations. Part of that nation, comprising millions of human beings, would therefore remain isolated from any idea of international co-operation. The leaders of that movement, the invaders, were boasting at that very moment of putting into action a policy of defiance and hatred. Upon reading the statements of Mao Tze-tung, one was conscious of a great defeat of the principles of the Charter. The danger which hovered over all Asia could not be ignored if world peace was still regarded as one and indivisible. The participation of the USSR in those events, which had been denounced by the representative of China (223rd meeting), showed the tragic seriousness of the situation.
82. Nor could the General Assembly ignore the existence of a. new element of conflict, the effects of which could not be foreseen. A nation, a Member of the United Nations, was being subjected to economic, political and ideological aggression on the part of a great Power and a group of its satellites solely because it had not complied with orders detrimental to its own interests. While the Charter adopted in San Francisco promised a world of peaceful collaboration among nations, the Soviet Union was promoting a red crusade intended to subjugate to its will the external and internal affairs of a sovereign state, Yugoslavia. What should really alarm the United Nations, however, was the will to bridge that ideological schism by violence, and the hatefully imperialistic nature of such an attitude, an attitude which recalled that of Nazism and was thus a flagrant threat to the peace.
83. Mr. Santa Cruz said that the peace offer made the previous day (226th meeting) by the USSR representative was profoundly ironic. The Soviet Union spoke of peace at the very moment when Moscow was calling for aggression against Yugoslavia and the formation of a Government subservient to its wishes, and at the very moment when it was concluding its work in China.
84. The leader of the Chilean delegation described the Marshall Plan as a typical and effective example of a sense of collective responsibility. Referring to the financial problems besetting the United Kingdom, which kept the democratic nations in a state of uneasiness, he said that everything which weakened and jeopardized the stability of the United Kingdom weakened and jeopardized the peace, because that country was one of the most solid and respected guarantees of democratic co-operation in the world.
85. The case of the United Kingdom once again emphasized the contradictions in the reconstruction of areas directly affected by the war and in the economic development of backward regions in a world which only recently had begun to speak and to understand the language of international co-operation. The under-developed countries had recently suffered the impact of international economic disorder; they had seen their national resources seriously depleted and their low standard, of living reduced even further, because of the drop in the price of certain basic products.
86. Nevertheless, it was necessary to record the progress achieved in international co-operation for the economic development of under-developed areas. Mr. Santa Cruz referred in that connexion to point four of the programme of the President of the United States; to the plans for technical assistance which had been drafted as a result of that programme; and to the activities of the International Bank and the Export-Import Bank of the United States. Such action indicated that government leaders had become aware that international economic co-operation was a collective obligation deriving from the Charter itself and from the realities of the economic situation,
87. In order to avoid betrayal of the spirit of the United Nations Charter, one of the indispensable conditions was to demand a kind of economic development aimed at obtaining a better standard of living for those peoples. Referring in particular to the African continent, Mr. Santa Cruz said that plans were being discussed to invest large amounts of capital there in order to utilize that continent’s natural resources. Such a programme merited praise, on the condition that it was carried out with the due regard for human and universal factors which must characterize any plans for development.
88. The head of the Chilean delegation then mentioned the work of mediation accomplished by the United Nations in Palestine, Kashmir and Indonesia. Other attempts which the Organization bad made to intervene had been paralysed by the abuse of the privilege of the veto, or had proved ineffective simply because of the persistent refusal of some countries to carry out the resolutions of the General Assembly. That had happened in the case of Korea and Greece, and as in the case of the recommendation contained in resolution 285 (III) of 25 April 1949 to the effect that the Soviet Union should permit Soviet women married to foreigners to leave the country.
89. The struggle for peace could not be confined to the defence of the structure which had been designed to maintain it; it should also be extended to safeguard and propagate the idea which had given it birth.
90. Referring to the former Italian colonies, Mr. Santa Cruz expressed the hope that the fate of those territories would be settled in the course of that session. Libya, Eritrea and former Italian Somaliland were still awaiting a solution which would give them a definitive status. The Chilean delegation did not want the future of those colonies to be linked to that of some Non-Self-Governing Territories where, in spite of the efforts of the Trusteeship Council, the standard of living of the population was incompatible with any concept of justice and humanity.
91. There were even some nations which refused to co-operate with the United Nations and which boasted of having established discriminatory regimes on the African continent.
92. The activities of the regional commissions and of some of the functional commissions of the Economic and Social Council deserved special mention that year. The preparation of the programme of technical assistance was one of the most important steps ever taken by the United Nations. Technical assistance would be eminently useful and, in addition, would create the proper atmosphere for a new international concept which, if applied to finance and to all other forms of co-operation, would put to the test the effectiveness of the United Nations and the spirit of its Charter. President Truman’s announcement that the United States Government, by financial and technical assistance, would make a major contribution to the execution of the programme, was in harmony with the new sense of international solidarity and co-operation.
93. The programme of technical assistance took into consideration the need for adequate co-ordination of all organs called upon to participate in its execution, and the Chilean delegation hoped that the General Assembly would approve that programme at its current session.
94. Chile shared the concern expressed by the Brazilian delegation (222nd meeting) at the increasing number of organs set up by the United Nations, and at the excessive costs which the existing structure of international life was forcing on the nations. Chile was prepared to support any proposal aimed at ensuring efficient co-ordination of the work of the United Nations and its specialized agencies and elimination of superfluous activities. The specialized agencies should, in their own interests, collaborate in that task. The Chilean delegation was in favour of reducing some administrative expenditures.
95. Chile realized that peace was an international responsibility and that war was indivisible; hence Chile associated itself with all the stipulations of the Charter adopted in San Francisco.
96. Great efforts, have being made to spread the democratic idea in all Latin-American countries. The difficulties were tremendous for manifold reasons. Although certain facts might make it difficult to form a true idea of the spiritual and ideological conditions in that part of the hemisphere, it must be recognized that faith in democracy had become much stronger.
97. Mr. Santa Cruz recalled the recent statement (222nd meeting) of Mr. Dean Acheson, United States Secretary of State, to the effect that the United States always deplored the action of any group in substituting its judgment for that of the electorate, and that it especially deplored the overthrow by force of a freely elected Government. The same was true of the countries of Latin America, which rejected all forms of totalitarianism and, in their different ways, were all moving towards the democratic system as the only permanent form of government. That had been shown by the victory of the Government and people of, Bolivia over a fascist uprising, a victory that filled all democratic Governments and peoples of Latin America with joy.
98. The American nations are making tremendous efforts to diversify their economies and industrialize their production, and protect themselves from the international economic dislocation. Much remained to be done in Latin America, and the United Nations would have the opportunity to assist in that effort through the programme of technical assistance. The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the International Monetary Fund had understood the peculiar situation in that part of the American continent, and a more progressive spirit was guiding their decisions. The great economic centres of the world which had obtained so much from Latin America had the historic opportunity to co-operate in the creation of wealth, in compensation for the riches extracted in the past. The Chilean delegation believed that such a sense of responsibility towards economically weak nations, a direct and authentic product of the spirit of the Charter, would prevail in those who were directing world economy.