Mr. President, it is a pleasure for me to congratulate you on your election as the presiding officer of this Assembly. We are convinced by your record of outstanding service in the political and judicial offices you have held that you will carry out the duties of the high office of President of the General Assembly with your customary intelligence and discretion. We cherish the hope that under your expert guidance the present session will prove to be a great success.
50. It is also a pleasure for me to extend the warmest of welcomes to the representatives of the four new independent States recently admitted to the United Nations: Rwanda, Burundi, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago. The last two are countries of the American continent which are close to Venezuela both geographically and historically. Simón Bolivar lived in Jamaica, and it was there that he wrote one of his most extraordinary documents, "Letter from Jamaica". It was Trinidad which gave a brotherly welcome to the first political exiles from my country, the heralds of our independence. These and other things which have united us in the past and unite us in the present explain the special sympathy with which Venezuela has welcomed the independence of these two new States.
51. In attending this General Assembly of the United Nations we are naturally concerned over the difficult problems of our times. We cannot ignore the fact that the world is passing through one of its most serious crises which we must try to solve in ways dictated by reason, law and historical experience. It is fortunate indeed that we can meet here, with our different points of view to be sure, with more or less conflicting interests, but, there can be no doubt, with the purpose of saving the world from one of those relapses which have so far proved ineffective as a solution to its most serious problems.
52. No people wants war, nor does any statesman who loyally interprets the feelings of his people. But the mind of peoples has been, and is being, poisoned by the preaching and practice of doctrines which seek to build a new world on the ruins of liberty, as if man were eager to return to primitive times. There cannot be the slightest doubt that throughout history man has been struggling towards liberty. Nations which have no powerful army and which use no language other than that of principle firmly maintain that the problems plaguing this world in crisis can be solved by peaceful means. Long before Europe, we in America proscribed wars of aggression and declared recourse to war a real crime. In keeping with the ideal of peace — which is the very basis of our world Organization — the Charter of the United Nations tells us "to practice tolerance" and "to live together in peace". That is an ideal which cannot be achieved overnight. The history of mankind has been different, but its long and dramatic past has given rise to the conviction that war is not a solution, that it is always better to negotiate than to fight. It is in order to negotiate that we who constitute the United Nations have come together here. If only the great Powers, too, might be guided in their deliberations here by that spirit of understanding and faith in principles. If only those great Powers might forget that they possessed the most destructive weapons hitherto know, and might, like the small Powers, the unarmed Powers, rely on a surer and more human arsenal in their international disputes: on international law and the procedures laid down in our Charter, which are the only civilized means of solving any kind of problem between the States Members of our Organization.
53. Mankind has had a spectacular history. In Europe, the cradle of our Western civilization, the two greatest wars of all times broke out within a period of barely twenty years. Even now it could not be said that we are living in peace. Some call our present situation cold war; others, bellicose peace. Both expressions aptly show the ferment of our times.
54. In primitive times warfare was more or less man's natural state. The law of the strongest prevailed. He who had nothing with which to defend himself perished. To redress the balance, weapons appeared, weapons of stone, then of metal. Much later came firearms. Firearms had a terrifying impact, and no doubt people believed that weapons of such destruction would not be used for fighting and that peace would reign among men. The romantic socialists of the middle nineteenth century welcomed the appearance of the railway as a vehicle of friendship. The peoples, they said, would become better acquainted, would fraternize, by using such facilities for exchanges of visits. Things did not turnout in that way. We have seen how railways have been used to transport troops and to invade neighbouring countries as quickly as possible. And in the First and Second World Wars the most powerful weapons, huge guns, submarines, battleships, aircraft, all were put to use as soon as they appeared. The most powerful conventional weapons went into action. Nevertheless, man still retained control over the destructive means he used. Today, with the appearance of nuclear weapons and radiation, he has lost that control, and this change, this loss of control over his means of destruction, is what makes us less pessimistic as regards the possibility of a new war.
55. While weapons have changed — there has been quite an evolution between the invention of gunpowder and the atomic bomb — the fact unfortunately remains that man has changed very little and the saying Homo homini lupus still seems to be all too true. The root of everything that has happened and will happen in the world is buried in the heart of man, which is therefore the measure of all things. Our efforts must be directed at knowing each other better, at understanding each other, at negotiating always, at using every possible means to reach understanding and when all of them seem exhausted, to begin anew, bravely and resolutely, until peace is enthroned in the hearts of men and of peoples.
56. This desire for understanding, to which I have just referred, seems to be absent, and in every corner of the world we find the deepest anxiety, fully justified because of the impression that we are witnessing the final deterioration of an international situation which has never been so heavily laden with dangers for mankind. It is painful to have to realize that the fine words and the promises of peace are losing their noble meaning and force and arc giving ground before what might better be regarded as preparations for war. For example, there is no inkling of success in the disarmament talks and no apparent hope for the prohibition of atomic weapons and the discontinuance of nuclear tests as part of the disarmament process. In that regard, as the representative of a Government that wants peace, I should like to record our profound disappointment over the renewal of atomic weapons tests and our eagerness to see a final agreement on disarmament. We believe that a strong effort must be made for the immediate attainment of, at least, the cessation of nuclear tests under international supervision.
57. So far as our continent is concerned, we, the people of America, have built by a process that has taken sixty years a political structure founded on democratic solidarity. The attainment of that solidarity and of the lofty aims towards which it is directed calls for the organization of Member States on the basis of the effective exercise of representative democracy. This principle is laid down in article V of the Charter of the Organization of American States and is unquestionably of a binding character. That this principle has been successfully enshrined as the standard of political life is explained by the fact that the feeling most deeply rooted in our American peoples is a sense of liberty.
58. We believe that if there is world peace, the democratic form of government will be established in our America. We Venezuelans are convinced that a system of public freedoms will enable us to carry out the most progressive economic and social reforms. In other words, we can practice a dynamic democracy aimed at achieving social justice. In this regard it is worth noting, by way of example, what has so far been done in Venezuela in the matter of agrarian reform. Up to now 56,284 families have been settled and 1,620,000 hectares have been distributed to the peasants.
59. It should be emphasized that in order to achieve its objectives of social justice and economic betterment, the agrarian reform is not limited simply to giving land to the man who works it. The State is also providing him with education for his children, sanitary conditions, loans and technical assistance.
60. With particular reference to the work being done by our world Organization, we agree with the Secretary-General that a dynamic, rather than a static approach, is required. In this time of profound and rapid changes in every sphere of international life, no other interpretation concerning what are the proper functions of the United Nations is conceivable. It should be the mission of our Organization to play an active part in promoting co-operation and understanding rather than maintaining the present precarious status quo, which was recently described from this very rostrum as a balance of terror.
61. One of the main problems which continue to disturb all nations is that of Berlin. We believe that the so-called problem of Berlin must be considered within the framework of the reunification of Germany and must be solved through appropriate negotiations among the interested parties, carried out in keeping with the applicable treaties. The present situation cannot be resolved unilaterally, and any desire to seek such a solution will only help to increase international tensions and the risks of a world conflagration.
62. There can be no doubt that important steps have recently been taken in our Organization as regards the speeding up of independence for the Non-Self-Governing Territories. Venezuela, true to its inflexible anti-colonialist position, has played an active part in those efforts and has co-operated, most significantly by its work in the Committee of Seventeen, in the common endeavour to speed the demise of colonialism.
63. Of very special importance to Venezuela is the item which was included in the agenda of this session of the General Assembly at the request of my country and which is entitled: "Question of boundaries between Venezuela and the territory of British Guiana". On this I can give the following information.
64. For a good part of the past century, there were long and sometimes bitter disputes between Venezuela and Great Britain with regard to the boundaries of their respective territories in Guiana. On becoming an independent republic, we had inherited from Spain all the territory which up to 1810 formed the Capitanía General de Venezuela. In Guiana this territory was adjacent to the Dutch settlements of the Essequibo. By the Treaty of London of 13 August 1814 the Netherlands ceded approximately 20,000 square miles of this Dutch colony to Great Britain. The ceded territories bear the names of Essequibo, Demerara and Berbice. At the expense of Venezuela and contrary to all legality, the British colony began to expand, and rich areas of our land were incorporated by a powerful Great Britain during the period of Victorian imperialism at such a pace that by the middle of the last century the 20,000 square miles had grown to 60,000 and, by the end of the century, had turned into a claim of an area of 109,000 square miles. There was no holding back Great Britain in its ambitions, and the territory which it desired would have stretched to the very mouth of the Orinoco, one of the great rivers of South America and the most important in Venezuela.
65. Our repeated protests to Great Britain over the occupation of our territory received no response, and Venezuela, weak though it was but sustained by a deep feeling of national dignity, broke off diplomatic relations with the British Government.
66. The United States of America became alarmed by the British expansion in Venezuela, and President Cleveland exercised his influence with a view to obtaining Great Britain's agreement to the request by Venezuela that the boundaries question should be submitted to arbitration. In 1897, the representatives of Venezuela and Great Britain signed at Washington an arbitration agreement creating an arbitral tribunal for the purpose of determining the dividing line between Venezuela and the colony of British Guiana. Under that agreement an arbitral tribunal was created consisting of five judges: two Britons, two from the United States of America and, as President, the Russian professor, Frederic de Martens. The rules by which the case was to be studied and decided were laid down, as is customary, in the arbitration agreement. However, when the award was made, no attention whatever was paid to those rules, the sole source of authority which the arbitrators had for making an award in the case submitted to them. The arbitral award, which failed to state the grounds on which it was made, gave Great Britain 45,000 of the 50,000 square miles in dispute.
67. A famous former President of the United States and a man of exemplary public and private conduct, Mr. Benjamin Harrison, was our legal counsel in the proceedings. We know that Harrison, animated by his sense of justice, devoted himself to a thorough and passionate examination of Venezuela's case. He defended our high interests with all the zeal that would have been shown by a good son of Venezuela. Harrison's colleague in these delicate tasks was a New York attorney, Mr. Severo Mallet-Prevost, who could never reconcile himself to the idea of the larceny done to Venezuela and who, in a memorandum published shortly after his death, tore a hole in the curtain of mystery which for years concealed what had happened in a very private room of the Quai d'Orsay, in Paris, at noon on 3 October 1899. That was when the so-called arbitral award was made. Mallet-Prevost states: "When all the speeches had been concluded in the month of August or early September the court adjourned so as to allow the arbitrators to confer and render their decision. Several days passed while we anxiously waited, but one afternoon I received a message from Justice Brewer [one of the United States judges] saying that he and Chief Justice Fuller [the other United States judge] would like to speak with me and asking me to meet them at once at their hotel. I immediately went there. "When I was shown into the apartment where the two American arbitrators were waiting for me, Justice Brewer arose and said quite excitedly: 'Mallet-Prevost, it is useless any longer to keep up this farce pretending that we are judges and that you are counsel. The Chief and I have decided to disclose to you confidentially just what has passed. Martens [the Chairman of the Arbitration Tribunal] has been to see us. He informs us that Russell and Collins [the two British judges] are ready to decide in favour of the Schomburgk Line which, starting from Point Barima on the coast, would give Great Britain the control of the main mouth of the Orinoco; that if we insist on starting the line on the coast at the Moruca River he will side with the British and approve the Schomburgk Line as the true boundary. 'However', he added that, 'he, Martens, is anxious to have a unanimous decision; and if we will agree to accept the line which he proposes he will secure the acquiescence of Lord Russell and Lord Collins and so make the decision unanimous.' What Martens then proposed was that the line on the coast should start at some distance south-east of Point Barima so as to give Venezuela control of the Orinoco mouth; and that the line should connect with the Schomburgk Line at some distance in the interior leaving to Venezuela the control of the Orinoco mouth and some 5,000 square miles of territory around that mouth. "That is what Martens has proposed. 'The Chief and I are of the opinion that the boundary on the coast should start at the Moruca River. The question for us to decide is as to whether we shall agree to Martens' proposal or whether we shall file dissenting opinions. Under these circumstances the Chief and I have decided that we must consult you, and I now state to you that we are prepared to follow whichever of the two courses you wish us to do.' From what Justice Brewer had just said, and from the change which we had all noticed in Lord Collins, I became convinced and still believe [continues Mallet-Prevost] that during Martens' visit to England a deal had been concluded between Russia and Great Britain to decide the case along the lines suggested by Martens and that pressure to that end had in some way been exerted on Collins to follow that course, I naturally felt that the responsibility which I was asked to shoulder was greater than I could alone bear. I so stated to the two arbitrators and I asked for permission to consult General Harrison. This they gave and I immediately went to General Harrison’s apartment to confer on the subject with. him. "After disclosing to General Harrison what had just passed he rose in indignation and paring the floor described the action of Great Britain and Russia in terms which it is needless for me to repeat. His first reaction was to ask Fuller and Brewer to file dissenting opinions, but, after cooling down and considering the matter from a practical standpoint, he said; 'Mallet-Prevost, if it should ever be known that we hail it in our power to save for Venezuela the mouth of the Orinoco and failed to do so we should never be forgiven. What Martens proposes is iniquitous, but I see nothing for Fuller and Brewer to do but to agree.' "I concurred with General Harrison and so advised Chief Justice Fuller and Justice Brewer. The decision which was accordingly rendered was unanimous but while it gave to Venezuela the most important strategic point at issue it was unjust to Venezuela and deprived her of very extensive and important territory to which, in my opinion. Great Britain had not the shadow of a right.”
68. Mallet-Prevost’s account is of special importance. In the first place, it coincides with the view widely held from the very moment of the court's award, namely, that that award was the outcome of a political compromise rather than of the application of the rules of law to which the parties had agreed. Nor was this the only occasion on which Mallet-Prevost, a man of honour and discretion, referred to the matter. The injustice perpetrated on Venezuela made a permanent impression on him and left him with an unpleasant memory. Thanks to a careful inquiry recently made by my Government, we have been able to obtain evidence which corroborates Mallet-Prevost's testimony.
69. In due course we shall publish all this evidence. For the time being we shall confine ourselves to citing a few statements. In December 1899 Richard Olney, ex-Secretary of State of the United States, wrote the following, which I shall quote in its original English text: "Upon his return to New York Mr. Mallet-Prevost, Venezuela's junior counsel, was anxious to tell me how the thing went and why it went as it did. On one of my New York visits I asked him to dine — with the result that he consumed less food than time and that the feast was not so much a flow of solid or liquid refreshment as of intense wrath and bitterness of soul at the course and decision of the arbitral tribunal. I refrain from going into particulars because no doubt you have already heard them from some other source. The worst result to be feared, apparently, is not the loss of territory to Venezuela but the general discrediting of the cause of arbitration. According to my informant, both the Chief Justice and Brewer are down on arbitration as a mode of settling international disputes unless some new safeguarding of the rights of parties can be provided, Ex-Secretary John W. Foster, with whom I dined here the other day, said Fuller and Brewer had come home pretty sick of arbitration."
70. Ex-President Harrison, like Mallet-Prevost and others whom we shall quote in due course, also left on record his displeasure and indignation at the treatment meted out to Venezuela by the Arbitration Tribunal. In December 1899 Harrison made the following statement: "My experience in Paris last summer developed in my mind some very grave difficulties in the way of a satisfactory arbitration of international disputes, and more particularly of American questions. The European Governments decline absolutely to allow that any American State except the United States is competent to furnish an umpire or even one of several disinterested members of a court. The result is that the ultimate decision of every American question is in the hands of a European umpire. The diplomatic habits and purposes of the great European Governments are wholly out of line with ours. "The seizure and appropriation of the territories of weak nations is a practice to which all of them are committed, and our Central and South American States can hardly secure fair treatment. "In the Venezuelan case I thought the Tribunal was constituted upon a judicial, and not a representative, basis and I made the strongest appeal I ever addressed to a court for the determination of the questions before the Tribunal in a purely judicial spirit. It was an utter failure. "The British judges were almost as distinctly partisan as the British counsel. That there should be, upon such a tribunal, representatives is an anomaly and an outrage. "If the findings of arbitration tribunals are to be influenced by the votes and private arguments of the representatives of the two nations and their decisions are not to establish the right but to enforce compromises, then arbitration can never be an institution. It will remain as it has been — a mere expedient."
71. On 7 October 1899, four days after the arbitration award was made, Harrison had already spoken as follows: "The British judges were as always aggressive advocates rather than judges. Law is nothing to a British judge, it seems, when it is a matter of extending British dominion."
72. On another occasion, on 15 January 1900, Harrison said: "As to Lord Russell's advice that a judicial spirit be exercised in these matters, I have only to say that neither he nor his British associates practised that good doctrine. I could tell, but will not write, some incidents that would surprise you. I believe that it is possible for an American judge, and perhaps for judges of some other nations, to exercise that judicial spirit in international controversies; but I do not believe it is possible for an Englishman. "In controversies between individuals the English courts are conspicuously fair and independent, but when it comes to a question of extending the domain of Great Britain, and especially when gold-fields are involved, it is too much to hope. The decision in the Venezuelan case, as a compromise, gave to Venezuela the strategic points but robbed her of a great deal of territory which I do not question would have been given to her by an impartial judicial tribunal. The modern European idea is that there is nothing illegal or even immoral in the appropriation of territories of weaker states."
73. We are linked by good and cordial relations with Great Britain and our neighbours in British Guiana, whose political independence we look forward to celebrating with particular warmth. Because of these good relations we are able to make Great Britain and British Guiana the following proposal: that we should seat ourselves round a table like friends and discuss, with minds free of prejudice, the redress of the injustice perpetrated on Venezuela at a time of misfortune which our people cannot forget, with a view to finding a solution giving due weight to the legitimate interests of Venezuela and of the population of British Guiana.
74. May the spirit of understanding guide us all along the road to redress and justice.