Philippines

In his now historic address to the General Assembly on 8 December 1953, President Dwight D. Eisenhower prefaced his proposal for an international pool of atomic energy for peaceful purposes with a heart-warming tribute to the United Nations. He said [470th meeting, paras. 80 and 51]: “At the same time that I appreciate the distinction of addressing you, I have a sense of exhilaration as I look upon this Assembly. Never before in history has so much hope for so many people been gathered together in a single organization. Your deliberations and decisions during these sombre years have already realized part of those hopes. “But the great tests and the great accomplishments still lie ahead. And in the-confident expectation of those accomplishments, I would use the office which, for the time being, I hold, to assure you that the Government of the United States will remain steadfast in its support of this body. This we shall do in the conviction that you will provide a great share of the wisdom, of the courage and of the faith which can bring to this world lasting peace for all nations, and happiness and well-being for all men.” 80. President Eisenhower said that a year ago. To make this speech he flew to New York directly from Bermuda where he had been in conference with Prime Minister Churchill of the United Kingdom and the then Prime Minister of France Mr. Laniel, about the grave issues of war and peace. The event thus possessed all the elements of high drama. First, the Bermuda Conference was held within the framework of the old classical diplomacy wherein the heads of the three great Powers of the western world met together in secret in an attempt to maintain peace by strengthening the free-world coalition against a potential enemy. Secondly, President Eisenhower, as head of the most powerful nation in the world, spoke on a matter truly of life and death for all humanity. And thirdly, the General Assembly of the United Nations was deliberately chosen as the platform from which the historic message would be given to the world. 81. What President Eisenhower told the General Assembly has been heard around the world. His bold proposal on atomic energy has become the number one item of world statesmanship. Four days ago, before this Assembly, [475th meeting], the United States Secretary of State, Mr. Dulles, proposed an agenda item which will enable the United States to report on its efforts to explore and develop the vast possibilities for the peaceful uses of atomic energy. 82. In connexion with this new agenda item, which I consider to be the most important matter before us at this ninth session of the General Assembly, the Philippine delegation notes with gratification that the Soviet Union has offered to reopen the suspended negotiations on President Eisenhower’s atoms-for-peace plan. But I warn that in these negotiations we should not get caught in any hidden booby-traps, and we must beware of diplomatic “stalling”. Let us go ahead and not stop, look and listen every time we hear a siren song from the other side of the Iron Curtain. Reserving our right to discuss this question in more detail when it is taken up in committee, I simply would like at this juncture to express the hope that Secretary Dulles’ proposal embracing four steps — (a) an international agency for peaceful development of atomic energy; (b) a scientific conference under the auspices of the United Nations; (c) a reactor training school; (d) participation of foreign experts in cancer work in United States hospitals — is a world plan, not a national plan, and that there is no idea here of by-passing the United Nations. We must bolster the waning prestige of our World Organization by making the proposed international agency a United Nations instrument from the very beginning. 83. But to convince the world that the United States means to carry it out, we should deal less with generalities and more with specific details. In other words, the United States must be ready to tell the General Assembly, among other things, how much nuclear material it is ready to contribute and what funds it is willing to allot to finance the international pool. 84. A fellow human being, an innocent Asian fisherman, died a few days ago as a result of atom tests, and the world welcomes America’s determination “to change the emphasis on the atom from war to peace”. But that event of December 1953, when President Eisenhower for the first time presented his plan of a world pool for peaceful development of atomic energy, is significant for another reason: it dramatically points up the degree to which the United Nations has been sadly left behind in the furious pace of scientific progress in the modern world. It was appropriate that President Eisenhower should have chosen to submit his fateful proposal on atomic energy to the United Nations. But the United Nations lacks the authority to act promptly and effectively on the Eisenhower proposal. Suddenly we realize that no political instrument exists today which could cope with so great a need. Somewhat sadly, we realize that the United Nations has become a vessel too frail to be the repository of humanity’s hopes and fears in the atomic age. 85. Nine years ago I had the honour to represent the Philippines during the San Francisco Conference which gave birth to the United Nations. As the representative of a country that had suffered grievous loss of life and destruction, of property during the war, I gave earnest support to every proposal which was intended to enable the United Nations to cope with the menace of future war. After two months of strenuous effort the Conference completed the Charter of the United Nations, the first words of which proclaim the determination of the peoples of the United Nations “to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind”. 86. The Charter of the United Nations was completed on 26 June 1945. Twenty days later, on 16 July, the United States set off the world’s first atomic explosion. In another twenty days, on 6 August, more than one month after the signing of the Charter, the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. In retrospect, these dates are significant. The final blueprint of the United Nations was completed shortly before the world was aware that atomic power had become a reality. The eloquent words with which the Charter opens, affirming mankind’s determination “to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war”, therefore referred to the only kind of warfare which men had known until then. It was murderous and destructive warfare which made no distinction between combatants and non-combatants, but it was nevertheless warfare which was waged with conventional weapons of finite potency. It was total war, and it was right that those who founded the United Nations in San Francisco should have established as the primordial aim of the Organization the prevention of similar wars in the future. 87. Meanwhile, the world has moved from the menace of total war with conventional weapons towards the menace of absolute war with bacterial, atomic and hydrogen weapons. The United Nations probably has the means to intervene effectively and in time to prevent or halt a war fought with conventional weapons. But it has not the means to do so in the case of war fought with absolute weapons. The reason is simple: the United Nations was not built to the scale of the atomic age in which we now live. Another way of putting this idea is to say that, in the short space of nine years, the Charter of the United Nations has become dangerously obsolete to the degree that under its existing provisions the Organization is powerless to act effectively to forestall universal catastrophe. 88. The most convincing proof of this statement is the confirmed impotence of the Security Council. This is the organ, as we all know, which has primary responsibility for maintaining or restoring international peace and security. I shall not take away from this organ the credit which rightly belongs to it for settling or helping to settle disputes between nations and for preventing or stopping a number of threats to the peace, breaches of the peace and acts of aggression. But in the only instance among these, namely the communist aggression in Korea, which involved large-scale fighting and which had the actual potentiality of leading to a third world war, the Security Council was saved from total impotence only by the narrowest of accidents, that is, by the providential absence of the Soviet Union from the meeting which ordained military sanctions against the communist aggressors. Moreover, Korea happened to be a theatre of war which the Soviet Union did not consider to be important enough to require its actual participation and all-out effort. 89. Under the Charter, the Security Council is responsible for organizing readily available armed forces from Member States for the purpose of maintaining international peace and security. In the past eight years nothing concrete has come out of its efforts in this field. It was left to the General Assembly, under the “Uniting for Peace” resolution [377 (V)] to formulate plans in advance for the organization of collective measures against future acts of aggression. 90. Furthermore, the Security Council is primarily responsible for formulating plans for the establishment of a system for the regulation of armaments. The records dealing with this matter form the most dreary chapters in the history of the United Nations. In eight years of study and discussion nothing has been accomplished. The armaments race has proceeded without interruption and at a faster pace than at any other peacetime period in the history of the world. Today, having wasted eight years in a fruitless search for an acceptable formula for the regulation of armaments including atomic weapons, we have the sinister spectacle, to use the words of President Eisenhower, of two atomic collossi, the United States and the Soviet Union, malevolently eyeing each other across a trembling world. 91. The great weakness of the Security Council, of course, is that while it has all the attributes of authority, it lacks the actual instruments of power necessary to make that authority real. There is another weakness of the Security Council to which I wish to draw the attention of the Assembly. It is the anomaly that Asia is not represented among the non-permanent members of the Security Council and it is an injustice to the people of Asia who have achieved independence since the drafting of our Charter. 92. Article 23 of the Charter provides that the Security Council shall consist of eleven members, five of whom are permanent — and the time has come to eliminate permanent members also from the Security Council. This Article then states: “The General Assembly shall elect six other Members of the United Nations to be non-permanent members of the Security Council, due regard being specially paid, in the first instance to the contribution of Members of the United Nations to the maintenance of international peace and security and to the other purposes of the Organization, and also to equitable geographic distribution.” 93. In San Francisco, the great Powers arrived at an understanding according to which Latin America was awarded two non-permanent seats and Western Europe, Eastern Europe, the Middle East and the British Commonwealth, one seat each. No place was reserved for Asia. Indeed Asia at that time, in the eyes of the representatives in San Francisco, did not exist as a separate geopolitical entity. 94. Times have changed and a new Asia has risen, but this misunderstanding remains unchanged. Today we, the peoples of Asia, are disenfranchised in the Security Council and only those of us who belong to another so-called geographic unit, namely the British Commonwealth, can be elected to the Security Council. Neither Indonesia, nor Burma, nor Thailand, nor my own country have the right to be represented in this organ of the United Nations which, according to the Charter, has the primary responsibility for the maintenance of peace. 95. Important groups of citizens in Asia, veterans who have helped to create the United Nations and those who have fought under our blue flag in Korea, have called upon the United Nations to revise the understanding o. misunderstanding of San Francisco. This call of Asian veterans has been endorsed by 18 million ex-servicemen representing twenty-five countries, including my own, united in the World Veterans Federation. In associating myself with my former comrades-in-arms, I feel that I do not only speak in the name of the people of the Philippines but also in the name of all peoples of Asia. We want the United Nations to give us our rightful place in so important a body as the Security Council. 96. It is significant that President Eisenhower chose to speak before the General Assembly. This body, in which all the sixty Member States are represented, has been variously called an international debating society, the forum of humanity, and the town meeting of the world. It is weak where the Security Council is strong, at least on paper. It has none of the outward attributes of authority, but it has power over the hearts and minds of men out of all proportion to the actual authority it wields. Far from being a Parliament of Man, it has authority only to make recommendations without being able to venture upon coercive sanctions. 97. I have said of the United Nations in general that it has become a vessel too frail to serve as the repository of the hopes and fears of humanity in the atomic age. Lacking something better, we have, at least in the General Assembly, a repository of the good sense and good conscience of humanity. 98. It used to be said that while the United Nations has not achieved much success in the political and security field — and disarmament is one of its more awesome failures — it has done much useful work in the economic, social, cultural, humanitarian, trusteeship and legal fields. During the past seven years, this has been largely true. Despite the cold war, the United Nations has accomplished tasks of international cooperation which, against the background of previous history, are nothing short of prodigious. The problems of world economic and social development, particularly the effort to raise standards of living, the promotion of human rights and fundamental freedoms, the march of the Trust and Non-Self-Governing Territories towards eventual freedom, the continued development of international law — all these have been faced and measurable progress has been made in their solution, in the very shadow of the cold war. We have the programme of technical assistance and we have the useful work continually being done by the specialized agencies in the fields of agriculture, industry, science, education, health, finance, trade, transportation, etc. 99. All this is true. But today, there seems to be a general feeling that the possibilities of United Nations action even in these non-political spheres have become pretty nearly exhausted. We have come to a point of diminishing returns. There is growing reluctance on the part of the developed countries to assist the underdeveloped countries in their programmes of economic development. An example is what has happened to Point Four; another, the freezing of the Expanded Program of Technical Assistance; and yet another the virtual pigeon-holing of the project for the establishment of the special United Nations fund for economic development. 100. In another field, there is growing resistance of the more advanced countries to any other action designed to promote respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms throughout the world. The reasons they give are strange indeed: they either say that they do not wish to risk lowering their own standards by signing conventions or covenants concerning these matters with the less developed countries, or they say — as they do on questions like those of Tunisia, Morocco, and of the race conflict in South Africa — that the United Nations is forbidden by the domestic-jurisdiction clause of the Charter from interfering in these matters. In the field of trusteeship and Non-Self-Governing Territories we have come to a point where we are not only at a standstill, but where the Trusteeship System and the principles underlying Chapter XI of the Charter are “withering on the vine”. 101. It is difficult to escape the feeling that on all sides there is a concerted and deliberate campaign to arrest progress in these non-political fields under the auspices of the United Nations. 102. One generous way of explaining this is to say that since so much progress has been achieved in these fields during the past seven years, we ought prudently to settle down and consolidate the gains that have been made. I am afraid, however, that the real reason is two-fold: first, that further progress in these fields must now await the conclusion of the cold war and the establishment of genuine international co-operation among the great Powers; and, secondly, that the United Nations has exhausted the limits of its possibilities of action under the Charter as it exists. 103. We are back to where we started. We realize that there is something naive and unreal in trying to promote higher standards of living, human rights and fundamental freedoms, and the rule of law in a world where men are condemned to live in constant fear of universal death. We are compelled to admit that under the present Charter the United Nations is incapable of performing the service that it should perform for the peoples of the world in this atomic age; and it is the most important and urgent single element of that service to save humanity from the menace of atomic destruction. 104. President Eisenhower, in his speech already referred to, justly credited the United Nations with realizing part of those hopes which had been pinned on it by the peoples of the world. But, in his own words, that “the great share of the wisdom, of the courage and of the faith which can bring to this world lasting peace for all nations,” [470th meeting, para. 81] is yet to be provided. In other words, the question remains whether the good sense and good conscience of humanity will be asserted effectively and in time to forestall a war of annihilation with atomic and hydrogen weapons. Since our margin of safety is so narrow, we must ask ourselves whether we should be content with the United Nations as it is, knowing that it was tailored to the needs and uses of a pre-atomic age, and whether we should accept the terrible risk which attends the widening gap between our on- rushing atomic science and the inertia of our political know-how. 105. The answer is not easy For, throughout history, men have sought to retain the forms and institutions of their daily life long after these have been outmoded by the ideas and precepts of advancing science. In the past, however, there was always a sufficient margin of safety which afforded men enough time to adjust themselves to the new conditions. Except for sudden revolutionary short-cuts often necessitated by a massive accumulation of intolerable evils, it has nearly always been possible to remodel the old forms and institutions for the more spacious requirements of the new ideas and principles. 106. The question, I repeat, is whether in this atomic age we are permitted the time to do this. It is a serious question, but one which should not lead to panicky solutions. 107. We must reject, to start with, the notion that the United Nations should be scrapped. I think that, faced with the possibility of universal disaster, sensible people everywhere are inclined to feel somewhat more comfortable and secure with the United Nations than without it. If it gave us nothing more than this sense of added comfort and security, the United Nations would be worth having. 108. However, a sense of security is not enough. The danger which mankind faces is both real and immediate, and it must be met simultaneously on two levels. First, we must endeavour to make the United Nations function to the utmost of its possibilities under the Charter, using its undoubted moral influence to help prevent impending disaster. Secondly, we must boldly explore ways of so strengthening the United Nations that it may have, before it is too late, the power to prevent universal catastrophe. 109. In other words, it is not enough to say that the United Nations is better than nothing. We shall find before long that the United Nations is not good enough unless it is the best that human ingenuity can fashion, unless it is able to provide that “great share of the wisdom, of the courage and of the faith which can bring to this world lasting peace for all nations.” To cope with the atomic revolution, we need a political revolution of at least equal imagination and magnitude. 110. In accordance with Article 109 of the United Nations Charter the tenth regular session of the General Assembly, which will be held next year, will discuss a proposal to call a conference to review the Charter. If such a conference is held — and let us all hope that it will be held — it is, however, generally doubted whether any major amendments to the Charter will be approved. Since amendments are subject to the veto of the permanent members of the Security Council, it is naturally assumed that amendments purporting to strengthen the United Nations at the expense of the great-Power veto and of the principle of the sovereignty of states will have little, if any, chance of adoption. 111. Nevertheless, necessity is still the mother of invention. Our need is for peace, no longer as a mere convenience but as the indispensable condition of human survival. This thought will not sink in easily, for men’s minds have been inured to situations of measurable and surmountable danger. But the irrevocable finality of the danger we face will inevitably moderate the prevailing pessimism and compel all Member States, especially the great Powers, to be more receptive to proposals for the revision of the Charter of the United Nations, no matter how radical they may seem. 112. In considering amendments, the yardstick should not be what seems to be possible in the context of the present international situation, but rather what is necessary to enable mankind to avoid atomic destruction. Accordingly, any and all proposals should merit careful consideration which would make it possible for the United Nations to cope with this imminent danger. Such proposals would certainly include: the restriction of the scope of domestic jurisdiction and of the concept of the sovereignty of states, the limitation or abolition of the veto, the establishment of a system of weighted representation of Member States, the abolition if permanent seats in the Security Council, and the placing in the hands of the United Nations of the means to enforce decisions involving international peace and security, particularly as regards the regulation of armaments, control of atomic energy and prohibition of atomic weapons. 113. There are those who will say, this is “world government” and dismiss such proposals as utopian and impractical. But in the present context of human affairs, any revision of the United Nations Charter will be less than practical unless it attempts wisely and courageously to bridge the gap between what is possible and what is necessary. This can be done only by a bold new approach, a. desperate frontal assault, if you will, upon the problem of international organization, undeterred by the limitations of past or present experience. Do we discount the inertia which induces the human mind to seek the line of least resistance and to devise partial or makeshift remedies for recognized evils? By no means. However, while the force of custom is indeed powerful, it is not more so than the instinct of survival. Therefore, in this matter, we must not only think in terms of the improbable but also attempt the seemingly impossible. For the alternative is to let the world drift willy-nilly towards disaster, borne on the ancient tides of power politics and war. 114. I am aware that there are those who would choose this dread alternative. Their attitude has taken the form of an aggressive attack against the United Nations, not because it needs to be improved and strengthened, but because they would destroy it utterly and let every nation withdraw into the hard shell of its sovereignty like a turtle. The reference to the turtle is a deliberate one. It emphasizes the fact that it is impossible, in this age of the jet plane, to return to the age of turtles. Mr. President, Gentlemen: it is much later than we think. When, in the afternoon of 30 September 1954 [484th meeting], the representative of the Soviet Union, Mr. Vyshinsky, appeared before the General Assembly, he must have noticed that almost all representatives from the sixty member States of the United Nations were in attendance. The advance notice that he was to speak that day had bestirred the Assembly into unusual activity. What, may I ask, must have been the cause of this unusual interest and anxiety over what he had to say? A war weary world, still bleeding from the wounds of the last global conflict and fearful of the fast-gathering clouds that hang over the surface of the earth, focused its rapt attention on the Soviet representative, hoping against hope that, against the background of so much political cynicism in the past, some words might drop from his lips which might blaze the way to the peace of mankind. 132. As he glided from one point to another, however, it became increasingly evident that he was following the old mould and the usual pattern of Soviet propaganda. Beyond his proposal for the solution of the problem of atomic and hydrogen weapons — the nature, extent and motive of which yet remain to be seen — he radiated no ray of hope, cut no new pathway to peace, and suggested no new method of approach or even a revised formula for solution of those problems upon which there have been long-standing deadlocks. On the other hand, he emitted fire and gall against the United Nations for its unwillingness to sanction a wrong and for its refusal to recognize the fruits of unlawful acts; he deplored its failure to meet effectively the problems of international peace and security attributable mainly to Russia’s own intransigence; and he denounced collective systems of self-defence dictated purely by the supreme requirement of self-preservation and brought about under the compulsion of relentless acts of subversion and aggressive incursions of predatory neighbours. The representative of the Soviet Union holds nothing but contempt for the efforts of the United Nations to maintain world peace and security. By its repeated failures, said the Soviet representative, the United Nations has been prejudicing its international authority. 133. I do not propose to make here a detailed review of the achievements of this world Organization in the domain of peace, human freedom and social progress, to all of which the Soviet Union is a witness and rarely, if ever, a participant or contributor. Through direct action, mediation, or the exertion of its moral influence, the United Nations avoided unlawful interference in the internal affairs of Iran in 1946; it eliminated what was called “the annoying presence” of British and French troops in Lebanon and Syria in the same year; it protected Greece from further Communist incursions in 1947; it brought armistice to Palestine and independence to Indonesia; it averted the spectacle of bloodshed in Kashmir; and it halted the forces of aggression in Korea. We owe it to the constitutional elasticity of the Charter, supplemented by wise statesmanship, that the United Nations was able to overcome its organic weakness, and through the “Uniting for Peace” resolution [377 (V)], it succeeded in utilizing and applying its collective forces to halt aggression in Korea. In addition, this Organization adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It is certainly consoling that in this atomic age, while man, in his evil genius, has sought to unleash those cosmic forces which threaten him with total extinction, he yet labours — while he lives — to clothe life with honour and dignity and surround it with conditions and circumstances essential to its fulfilment. Lastly, the United Nations has brought the promise of a more abundant life to millions of benighted people who have long languished in darkness and poverty before the birth of the international trusteeship system. He must be a confirmed cynic indeed who cannot find satisfaction in these substantial achievements of the United Nations during its brief existence of nine years. 134. The United Nations certainly has not lived up to all our hopes and expectations. But it is a human institution and, like all human institutions, it must proceed by a process of trial and error. On the other hand, if the United Nations had failed where it should have succeeded, if it was unable to deal effectively with breaches of the peace or threats to international security, it must be borne in mind that the behaviour of the Soviet Union in some of its principal organs lies at the root of such failures. It is, indeed, most painful that condemnation of the failings of the United Nations should have proceeded from a source mostly, if not wholly, responsible for them. 135. When the founding fathers of the United Nations devised the system of permanent membership with the right of veto for the five Powers in the Security Council, it was in the happy anticipation that these big Powers would act with unanimity in meeting every problem of breach of the peace or threat to international security. None ever suspected that the Soviet Union — which shared with the other four big Powers both the burdens and the glory of a common victory in the last World War — would, in the task of building thereafter the peace of the world, block almost every effort of its former allies in the solution of the security problems of mankind. The record of the Security Council discloses that, to proposed solutions to many a vital problem of peace, the Soviet Union has invariably applied its veto power. Indeed, it has used the veto no less than sixty times, thereby reducing that organ, which was entrusted with the primary responsibility of maintaining international peace and security, to almost complete paralysis. 136. Mr. Vyshinsky, speaking for his Government, decried the formation by the free countries of the world of regional arrangements for self-defence such as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the South-East Asia Collective Defence Treaty, signed in the capital of my country last month. Deliberately ignoring their expressed objective of self-defence, he denounced these regional arrangements as instrumentalities of aggression and, therefore, calculated to augment rather than diminish the existing world tension. I do not propose to speak on behalf of the European Defence Community more than to say that in the common danger that faces the free countries of Europe and the United States, these nations realized that in the pooling of their military and economic resources alone could they find reasonable assurance of security for their freedom, political independence and territory integrity. My Government is immediately concerned only with the new multilateral defence pact of which it is a signatory. 137. My country is weak, hut it is not blind to the danger to its national existence; it is small, but not resigned to its present impotence. For a number of years it was racked by Communist subversion, which broke into open defiance of the constituted Government in 1946. The effective use of military force alone, strengthened by a humane and courageous leadership, brought it under control. On the other hand, my country saw Communist China fast rising to its full panoply of power in the mainland of Asia and exerting its gravitational force on the surrounding regions. It saw and was astounded by the unexpected Communist aggression in South Korea and had in fact contributed its own limited resources and a part of the flower of its youth to the collective forces of the United Nations to suppress such aggression. It heard the disquieting plea by Thailand for a probing team to ascertain Communist incursions along its borders. It saw the grim sign in Indo-China and the danger signs, no less grim, in the other regions of South-East Asia. Even now, it watches with dread the ominous clouds that hang over its tiny island-neighbour of Quemoy, wondering what time or destiny holds for it in the few hundred miles of water that lie between. Still bleeding from Communist rebellion within, and sensing that it lies directly in the pathway of a relentless Communist expansion, my country has no other recourse than to seek union with countries similarly threatened. Weak and defenceless by itself, it must seek its salvation by forging ties of common defence with those whose freedom is menaced by a like peril. This is the justification of my Government for its participation in the South-East Asia defence pact recently concluded in my country, which has been the subject of vitriolic attacks by the Soviet Union representative and other representatives at the Assembly. Self-preservation is still the supreme law for nations as it is for individuals. 138. Objection has been voiced here by the representative of India to a statement in the Manila Treaty with respect to the treaty area extending beyond the actual boundaries of the participants in the treaty, upon the ground that, by fixing such' a treaty area, the members of the Manila Pact have in effect indirectly attempted to trespass on the territory of other States, and that, as a matter of fact, it goes beyond the clear implications of legitimate collective self-defence provided for in Article 51 of the Charter. 139. I cannot see any validity in this contention. The representative of India should know that, if the eight participants in the Manila Pact saw fit to fix a treaty area beyond the actual boundaries of its members, the only purpose was to provide a measure of the degree of imminence of the danger of any external acts of aggression which may be committed, so far as the actual members are concerned; and, whenever it has been determined by the members of the treaty that there is an external act of aggression against any area beyond, but clearly near, the actual boundaries of any of its members, they shall then be justified in engaging in mutual consultations with each other for the purposes of legitimate collective self-defence. That was and could have been the only intention of the eight signatories of the Manila Pact. 140. But collective self-defence was not the sole concern of my Government. No less overriding was our solicitude for the right of peoples to determine their own destiny. We believe that humanity cannot remain half slave and half free, and that all governments must rest on the consent of the governed. To the credit of the eight signatories of the Manila Pact, they solemnly declared: “. . . in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations, they uphold the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples, and . . . they will earnestly strive by every peaceful means to promote self-government and to secure the independence of all countries whose peoples desire it and are able to undertake its responsibilities”. 141. It is my view that, if the principle of self-determination had not been upheld by the participating States to the Manila Pact, my Government would seriously have hesitated to give it the seal of its approval. It is for this reason that we consider the Pacific Charter, not only as a companion piece, but also as an integral part, of the defence agreement. 142. It may be asked: How can a country reasonably complain when, by its dangerous activities, it has compelled other countries to seek safety in the consolidation of their resources for common defence? 143. It has been said that the plan for the so-called defence of South-East Asia is built on the notion of enlisting some Asian countries in a scheme to carry out armed intervention, and that it was aimed at hiding the special interests of the colonizers. who wish to dominate that area. The Soviet Union representative said [484th meeting, para. 90]: “It is ... a perfidious scheme to set one group of Asian peoples against another.” The accusation is none too complimentary to the South-East Asian signatories of the Treaty. It considers them willing pawns of the Western Powers in the promotion of their alleged colonial interests. The historic struggle for freedom of these Asian countries, and the firm stand they have always taken against the continuance of colonialism on any relevant issue before the United Nations, are adequate guarantees that they will not be privy to any scheme of colonial advancement by any Western Power. On the other hand, the accusation flies in the face of the contemporaneous history of the Western participants to the defence agreement. My Government knows of no colonial interest which the United States has to promote in Asia. On the contrary, after a successful experiment in democracy in my country, which theretofore had no parallel in history, the United States voluntarily withdrew its sovereignty. The United Kingdom has similarly granted independence to India, Pakistan, Burma, and Ceylon. By virtue of the Indo-China truce, France has agreed to the holding of elections throughout Viet-Nam, Cambodia and Laos to permit their peoples to set up a government of their choice which would be, of course, a faithful expression of their right to self-determination. If any signatory has other remaining colonial possessions in South-East Asia, it is the hope of my Government and the other signatories to the treaty that, in pursuance of the solemn declarations of the Pacific Charter, it will take such progressive steps as are necessary for the eventual emancipation of those subject areas. 144. True, some South-East Asian countries have not for the present seen fit to join the defence agreement. It is the hope of my Government that, in God’s appointed time, they will. They cherish identical freedoms with us. They recognize the existence of a common danger to those freedoms. Our differences lie only in the appraisal of the imminence of such danger and in the manner of combating it. We trust, however, that these differences will narrow with time, and it is in this confidence that the Manila Pact has left the door open to our other Asian neighbours. 145. Our attention has once again been called to the necessity for peaceful coexistence between the Soviet Union and the free countries of the world. We are again told that only by recognizing the reality and importance of peaceful coexistence among States of diverse social structures and political ideologies can we expect to normalize international relations and establish the peace of the world on an enduring basis. 146. On the face of it, the plea for peaceful coexistence made by the Soviet Union and the allied Communist countries is by no means unacceptable to the free world. The essence of democracy is freedom, which necessarily implies tolerance of opposing systems or of antagonistic political or economic thoughts. I am quite certain that there is no desire on the part of the democracies to impose their political or economic concepts and ways of life upon any unwilling people. 147. The unfolding pattern of international communism, however, has disclosed conclusively that peaceful coexistence has been foisted on us as a peace formula, not for the aims that the phrase implies, but as a weapon of subversion and the ultimate domination of the world. More accurately, peaceful coexistence is, to the Communists, a euphemism for cold war or a camouflage for incursions into free areas to undermine their political and economic structures. Fortunately, the Philippines, in common with a large number of the other free countries of the world, is keenly alive to the sinister implications of this deceptive formula for peace, and chooses to rest its security on firmer grounds. 148. There is, however, one comforting feature in the speech of the Soviet Union representative. I refer to the draft resolution which he proposed [A/2742 and Corr.1], entitled “Conclusion of an international convention (treaty) on the reduction of armaments and the prohibition of atomic, hydrogen and other weapons of mass destruction”, calling for the establishment of an international control system for the observance of the convention, on the basis of the proposal made on 11 June 1954 by France and the United Kingdom [DC/53, annex 9]. My Government does not propose to express its views on the merits of the draft resolution. All that it hopes to see is the day when weapons of mass destruction shall be completely eliminated from the armaments of States and when the new discoveries of man’s genius shall be made available, by common consent, for the advancement of his comfort and happiness. My Government wants to view the draft resolution as a happy indication that the Soviet Union has not utterly shut the door to the solution of an issue upon which hangs the fate of human civilization. We take it to mean that the Soviet Union shares with the free world the dreadful recognition that, with free use of atomic and hydrogen weapons, there is no more survival for the victor than for the vanquished in the total annihilation that will descend upon all. 149. Let me close with a friendly reminder that, in present as in past Soviet Union proposals, deeds — I say “deeds” — not words will be the ultimate test upon which the Soviet Union will be judged by an anxious world.