68. First of all, Mr. President, permit me to add my delegation’s congratulations to the many which you have received in connexion with your election.
69. Speaking as I do on behalf of a weak country, I realize the limitations which this imposes, even though contemporary history shows that words are acquiring an Influence that does not depend on the possession of huge stocks of fearful weapons. The weaker countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America — and even the European countries which are trying to consolidate themselves in the no man's land between East and West — have nothing to pit against the great masses and accumulations of power but their sense of human dignity, their sympathy for the simple, basic aspirations of man and their observance of the rules of law. It is the existence of these values which makes it impossible to classify nations solely by reference to the size of their population or the volume of their trade. On what can the weaker nations rely for their defence but on the intangible weapons provided by international law, on the responsibility which power imposes on the great nations and on solidarity and understanding among themselves?
70. However, the problem of establishing a system of international law is affected not only by the growing disparity between the great and small countries, which has been widening the political and cultural gap between them, but also by the trend of relationships and associations among the weaker countries. Those who hope or expect to see the power relationships among the great nations transformed into a true system of international law — one with its own organs and with rules which are inviolable and not subject to the overriding influence of the strongest — do not base their hopes on the possibility of the great Powers 'developing not only the material basis of power but the corresponding moral and political capacity to wield that power for the benefit of mankind. They base their hopes rather on the fact that only the rational limitation of power — the increasing exercise of self-control- can guarantee the survival of the great Powers. The era of the Pax Romana and that of empires based on absolute rule by a single great Power have passed into history. We are living in an age in which the great Powers cannot Increase their strength by means of war and can gain peace only by accepting their vast responsibility and effectively limiting their own sovereignty. The view which my country expressed in 1944, as the Second World War neared its end, is more than ever applicable today: "Power exacts its price. Power exacts its penalty."
71. We have arrived at a stage in human history at which the security of the weaker countries depends on the insecurity engendered by the great nations' armaments; on their own capacity to unite in defence of right, and on a rapid rise in the living standards and level of knowledge of their backward peoples. The accumulation of atomic power no longer affords any nation a sense of security: for the weak, the wide distribution of nuclear weapons provides the best and perhaps the only defence against them. For what is at stake for the great Powers is no longer merely a vast number of human beings or the fate of subjugated countries, but their own fate and their own existence. Realization of this simple and quite irrefutable fact is resulting if not in a new conception of international security, then at least in a policy of security and an inescapable trend towards the increasingly responsible use of power.
72. This trend in the International policy of the great Powers at the present stage in history is serving to further and reinforce the efforts of the weaker countries or, to be more accurate, of the weak, underdeveloped areas of the world. The weaker countries justly maintain that a better life can be achieved only as the, result of a policy of assistance directed by the great Powers — a policy which would cover financial and technical aid and would ensure stable export markets and an equitable relationship between purchase and sales prices. While the great Powers' programme of assistance to the under-developed countries — which is a logical result of the unequal distribution of power and economic resources in the world — is capable of being expanded and improved so as to achieve a better balance between the interests of the donor and those of the recipient nations, this approach will prove inadequate and somewhat ill-timed, unless the weaker countries themselves, as a basic prerequisite for any international efforts to promote higher levels of living, tackle the urgent task of their own integration and the problem of their mutual relations. While the more highly industrialized nations of Europe are joining forces in a common market and pooling their capital resources and experience in order to establish an iron and steel community, the countries of Latin America believe that they can cling to the luxury of some competition with one another and yet succeed in setting up a common market, a regional fund to finance industrialization, or a regional association of food and raw-materials producers.
73. Although there has been some improvement in the system of inter-American law, the countries of Latin America, living Side by side, are hedged about by customs barriers and other institutions which isolate them from one another; in other words, while the machinery of diplomatic solidarity is being strengthened and the political need for Latin-American unity is becoming clearer than ever, the economies of these neighbouring countries are moving further apart and competition among them is becoming more Intense.
74. This means that the development of policy is lagging far behind that of ideas and that our practice belies our theoretical assertion regarding our common destiny. We shall not be able to achieve this common destiny so long as our markets are watertight compartments, our frontiers are barriers which obstruct the free flow of persons, capital and goods, and each country buries itself in its own domestic problems as though in a sealed vault. I must say in all candour that the Latin-American countries have made little or no progress in this task of transforming insular provincialism into integrated regionalism, that is, into a type of association which is designed to co-ordinate their financial and material resources and expand the volume of their economic activity. This regionalism should aim not at excluding certain nations or making them subordinate to others, but at providing a practical basis for a new sense of solidarity and at paving the way for the new kind of Latin-American community, which has been our ideal ever since the stormy era of our wars of independence.
75. It was at that juncture in history that we achieved a perfect fusion of idea and reality — the idea of solidarity and the reality of the association of the Indo-Hispanic peoples of America in a common destiny. For more than a century, Latin-America has been expounding the doctrine of integrated regionalism and continental nationalism. It is therefore surprising that the forces of isolation have prevailed over the need for interpretation, a static, regressive policy over a dynamic policy of joining together to work and make common cause against the world's problems. If the peoples of this hemisphere had achieved the maturity required to make Latin-American nationalism an economic and political reality, their foreign economies would not be so conspicuously vulnerable and so completely dependent on foreign financial and commodity markets, nor would their industries be on so small and limited a scale.
76. But although this idea of Latin-American solidarity was the first of its kind in modern history, the Latin-American countries are now lagging behind the backward countries of Asia and Africa: African and Arab nationalism has taken the lead in pointing out avenues for action; it is seeking to resolve by joint effort the problems which the small countries can no longer resolve individually and separately. The prerequisite for effective co-operation between the weaker countries and the great Powers — for genuine co-operation rather than an unstable relationship based on dependence — is that the weaker countries should unite together and merge their economies and their national frontiers.
77. It is this thesis — which has so long a history and yet has been so little applied in practice — that my country wishes to put forward here in the United Nations. My country, which is one of the poorest in Latin America and is land-locked, has had the courage to carry through far-reaching revolutionary changes in order to complete the work begun in the wars of independence and to make the organs of Government fully democratic. Bolivia believes that the problem of its tin, its tungsten, its basic minerals and its oil must be attacked not only on a national basis but also in conformity with its sense of geographical solidarity and of involvement in the destiny of the Latin-American countries. American geographical solidarity must be based on the principle that all the peoples which share in our common destiny have common spiritual frontiers.
78. At the present time, my country is faced by Soviet economic aggression, which aims at the gradual destruction of the world tin market. The fearful prospect of armed aggression with modern weapons of war tends to. overshadow the fact that economic aggression also breaches the innermost defences of the country attacked and spreads ruin and intolerable misery in its midst. The Soviet Union's aim in dumping huge quantities of tin on the world markets can only have been to demoralize the peoples which live by the export of that mineral and to capitalize on the resulting discontent and social unrest.
79. My country has effected far-reaching political, economic and social changes. The people is free, and the country is sovereign. No form of oligarchy exists. If the Soviet Union's conduct was consistent with its own propaganda, it would respect this country which has made such efforts to emancipate its people and regain its dignity. The reason for the present Soviet attitude is that our revolution was accomplished without foreign tutelage and without invoking any doctrine alien to the Christian tradition of its supporters. The fact is that my people is today the victim of an economic war unleashed by distant enemies which have selected Bolivia as the latest target of their many-sided worldwide offensive. I appeal to the free countries to ponder this grave situation which has arisen.
80. I wish to point out that Bolivia has carried out a revolution designed not only .to guarantee Its people the right of self-government, but also to co-ordinate its economy with the economies of the entire region and to give new meaning to its nationalist policy. Bolivia's revolutionary nationalism is expressed and confirmed in the conventions on economic and highway co-ordination which it has signed with all its neighbours. Under these conventions, Bolivia's oil, minerals and coffee are to contribute towards improving conditions in those of its sister nations which lack these vital elements for their development. This is only an isolated effort, however; Bolivia wishes to see it transformed into a common aspiration and translated forthwith into a policy of gradual integration.
81. A Latin-American common market — which is certainly the economic prerequisite for the systematic industrialization of the region — must be a target for today, not tomorrow. The same applies to the establishment of a regional investment fund to promote the creation of a Latin-American capital market and channel more funds into agricultural, industrial and service, enterprises, and also to the formation of regional co-operatives and associations of metal, fibre, coffee and oil producers. By establishing a proper relationship between the price, of exports and imports, integration along these lines will do more to promote market stability and fair prices than constant complaints and pleas at regional and international conferences. What is needed is for the weaker countries to begin practising solidarity at home instead of placing all their reliance on the adoption of a policy of co-operation and assistance by the great Powers.
82. It is also time that the Latin-American countries, by employing multilateral clearing arrangements, adopted a system of trade suited to their shortage of foreign exchange in gold and dollars. We have reached a point where bilateral clearing arrangements, such as those in force between Bolivia and Chile, Bolivia and Argentina, and Bolivia and Brazil, are too narrow and restricted. Hence the vital necessity of converting these bilateral arrangements into a broad, multilateral system, which will provide for the transfer of credit and debit balances and will greatly extend the ability of countries to purchase and pay for Latin-American goods. The staple products of the Latin-American economy must be used to build up and increase purchasing power within the Latin-American area.
83. The methods by which this purchasing power would be increased are very simple: application of the doctrine of solidarity which has been propounded since the Liberation of 1810, substitution of the principles of co-operation among nations for those of competition, and adoption of procedures for economic integration. What is required of us at this time is not a new regional or International philosophy but a new mode of behaviour; that is the purpose of the appeal voiced by my nation, which though small feels itself inspired and moved by a higher cause-that of Latin-American nationalism. It is our duty to learn the lesson taught by the nationalist movements which — regardless of what their political content may be — are uniting the Indians, the Indonesians, the Arabs and the Africans. I hope that this appeal may serve to focus world attention on Bolivia's problem with regard to tin and basic exports and on the gross inadequacy of the international loans and investments available to the backward countries at a time when the Soviet Union is conducting an offensive designed to undermine the world tin market.
84. Bolivia has had the same experience as those Latin-American nations which cannot hope to obtain in the foreign market the capital required for their industrialization and development not even an institution as sound as the Bolivian State Petroleum Organization, with its numerous oil concessions and plentiful fixed capital, has been able to obtain the dollars it needs in order to carry out large-scale extracting and refining operations and transform its output into a motive force for Bolivian agricultural, industrial and mining development. The institutions for the financing of economic development in the underdeveloped countries, which are attempting to combine investments by foreign Governments with those from private sources, are quite inadequate to the needs and aspirations of those countries and are doing little, towards ensuring that the rate of productivity increase keeps pace with the rate of natural population increase. However, it would be more constructive to help establish new institutions to promote investment, economic protection, integration and genuine co-operation rather than attempt to reorganize existing international agencies, since the latter already have a well-defined structure, policy and method of operation.
85. I am convinced that this is not only the best contribution that Latin America can make to its own overall development, but also the best contribution it can make to the cause of achieving international cooperation and a just peace in the world. I say this because what I have proposed will promote not only industrial development but also social and political progress, by removing the limitations caused by a purely local and parochial outlook.
86. The practical force of international law depends not only on relations among the great Powers but also on the extent to which the weak, backward countries of the world unite to form new economic and political groupings on a regional basis. Responsibility for world peace rests not only with the strong but also with the weak countries, to the extent that the latter cease to form ineffective groups of countries with no philosophy of their own and transform themselves into integrated associations playing an active part in the settlement of International Issues. That Is why Latin-American Integration is not only an internal problem of the Latin- American countries which are seeking a more suitable mode of national expression, but is also closely bound up with the need for a better by stem of peaceful international relations governed by law. To the extent that such new associations are developed and forged, an improvement in relations among the great Powers will be possible — since their vast burden of responsibility and their heavy reliance on their respective arms resources will have been reduced — and the world will be able to approach a new and realistic concept of a "world state based on law".
87. It is the opinion of Bolivia and of its revolutionary people and State — an opinion based on the tenets of the Bolivian revolution — that progress in this direction is the responsibility and the mission of the Latin-American nations and the weaker nations of Asia and Africa. It Is their mission not only as Latin Americans, Arabs, Indonesians or Africans but also as members of the human race who share its common destiny and are militant in the cause of its indivisible unity.