Mr. TSALDARIS stated that Greece had come to the fourth session of the General Assembly of the United Nations with the confidence which it had always placed in that body as an instrument of understanding and good will among peoples. The task facing the Assembly was a heavy one, and the Greek delegation would not fail to join in the common effort of studying and solving the international problems enumerated in the agenda. The Greek delegation believed, indeed, that the work to be accomplished by the fourth session of the General Assembly would strengthen the structure of international peace, which was the common concern of all.
105. Greece attached particular importance to the work of the United Nations in respect of the world’s economic and social problems. The economic development and the social progress of humanity and of each Member nation, in particular, were among the cornerstones of the United Nations and as such were given the utmost attention by the Greek Government. Greece was therefore eager to co-operate with fellow Members of the United Nations in the common effort to shape a new and universal policy capable of meeting the economic and social needs of mankind.
106. In addition, however, the Greek people faced other extremely grave problems. Without dwelling upon the price the Greek people had paid in defence of freedom and justice, Mr. Tsaldaris, speaking on behalf of the innumerable innocent victims of unjust aggression against his country, stated that those foreign attacks upon Greece must not be permitted to be launched again.
107. The delegation of Greece had listened with special attention to the references of preceding speakers to the threat to peace in the Balkans. It deeply appreciated and emphatically endorsed the insistence of the Member nations that the purposes and principles of the Charter and the recommendations of the Assembly must not be flouted with impunity. It agreed that the Assembly and the Members of the United Nations had an interest, an interest as direct as that of Greece, in seeing that armed attacks upon Members of the United Nations were stopped. It agreed that its northern neighbours should realize that their own self-interest demanded that they should support every effort to ensure respect for the independence of small as well as large nations.
108. The Balkan situation had entered upon a new phase. Within Greece, more and more of the people who had been lured into taking up arms against their Government had learned that they were being used as tools to destroy their country and endanger their own welfare. The virtual elimination of guerrilla bands from within its borders permitted Greece to go forward with carefully prepared plans of human rehabilitation and economic reconstruction. The success of Greece in defending its national integrity was a fact which was heartening to every other country marked out for subjugation to Cominform dictation.
109. The real source of the threat to the peace in the Balkans had been unmasked. The agents used in the attacks against Greece had fled to Albania and, to a lesser degree, Bulgaria. The forces that had been launched against Greece were once more physically under the control of the Cominform. What would it do? Would the Governments of those countries be permitted to fulfil their international obligation to disarm those forces or would they be instructed to use them further to attack Greece?
110. In that respect the political and military leadership in Greece continued to be faced with a dilemma that could be solved only with United Nations support.
111. When the guerrillas, under the cover of Albanian fire, had retreated into Albania, Greece, under international law, had had every right to pursue them. The Greek Government, mindful of the explosive situation existing in the Balkans and resolved to co-operate towards a peaceful solution of the problems of the Balkan peoples, had ordered its armies to stop at the borders.
112. The purpose of the Charter was to ensure that any threat to the security of any Member would be resisted by collective action under the authority of the Security Council. Unfortunately, abuse of the principle of great Power unanimity in that body had so far dashed the hopes of the authors of that basic document. Fortunately, Article 51 pointed the way towards collective defensive action until the Security Council could itself employ effective enforcement measures.
113. In other areas where peace had been threatened, Members of the United Nations had established means of ensuring collective action to support the pacific purposes of the Charter. Reference had been made before the General Assembly to the Treaty of Rio de Janeiro and the North Atlantic Treaty. If the efforts to make the Security Council effective continued to be frustrated, it was inevitable that similar conventions to ensure collective action in defence of the integrity of the Members of the United Nations would be developed. Eventually it was to be hoped that all such conventions would become unnecessary through self-imposed or agreed limitations on the use of the veto, which would enable the Security Council to exercise the responsibilities entrusted primarily to it under the Charter. In the meantime, Greece was confident that if peace in the Balkans were further jeopardized, means would be found, in accordance with the Charter, to support the efforts of the countries there defending their independence.
114. The facts were set forth clearly and succinctly in the reports of the United Nations Special Committee on the Balkans. The established facts demonstrated the hollowness of the protestations dictated by the Cominform. The Assembly was not unaware of the abuse being levelled at other Members of the United Nations, similar to the propaganda against Greece. The problem had never been only a Greek problem. It was, however, clearer than ever before that it concerned the rights of peoples everywhere, particularly in the Balkans, to continue to be loyal to their own God, their own country and their own ideals of human dignity and honour.
115. Greece sought no vengeance for the destruction and misery brought upon it. The people of Greece wanted peace, the return of their children, the rehabilitation of their fellow citizens, the chance to perform constructive work. The Greek army, while it remained along the border of Greece, was a defensive army which was there to help guarantee international peace. In the future, as in the past, Greece would maintain its policy of respecting the principle of pacific settlement of all disputes, as Members of the United Nations had agreed to do. Greece would defend itself when attacked, but Greece would not attack.
116. Mr. Tsaldaris stated that the Greek people and their Government wished to stress once more their desire to co-operate in every way in the work of the United Nations. Their confidence in their own will to survive, and in the support of the United Nations and the Members which upheld the principles of the Charter, had not been misplaced. The Government and people of Greece believed that the Assembly would take every measure it could to ensure effective collective action to prevent a continuance of their sufferings. They joined the vast majority of the peoples and Governments represented at the Assembly in recognizing the importance of maintaining and enhancing the moral prestige of the United Nations, and were convinced that the peoples of the countries whose rulers had flouted the recommendations of the Assembly would increasingly insist that their Governments should comply with the duties entailed by membership in the United Nations.
117. Provided united defensive action was taken and friendship offered to all who chose to live in friendship, the principles of freedom, justice and well being would be preserved and restored in the Balkans and fostered throughout the world.