97. May I join other speakers in extending to you, Mr. President, our warmest and most sincere congratulations on your election by acclamation to preside over this Assembly. Your elevation to the General Assembly's highest office is a tribute to your personal qualifications and also to the country which you represent so brilliantly. My’ delegation also regards your election as a well-deserved and unstinted tribute to the peoples of Africa and particularly to the new sovereign States which, with their wealth of human and physical resources, are taking over the role and the responsibility in this community of nations which are unquestionably theirs by right. Together we shall establish, on a basis of law and justice, rules that will ensure the peaceful and fruitful coexistence on an equal footing of all nations, however different their origins, their stages of development and their ideological, political and economic systems.
98. Every session of the Assembly has before it a number of problems of the highest importance calling for attention and vigilance on its part. Some of these problems are a legacy from past sessions because, despite the efforts made, it has not been possible to come up with mutually satisfactory formulas for practical and effective solutions. For example, some items such as disarmament, appear on our agenda year after year; the recurrence of this item is an indication of the sterility of our efforts in this direction. I shall refer to some of these problems in more detail at a later stage.
99. In addition, each Assembly considers problems of another kind, problems which by their nature necessitate decisions that cannot be postponed. In this area, the Assembly over which you are presiding is one of the most difficult.
100. Although it is true that we have before us the promising prospects opened up by the discussions of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, that are on the threshold of the International Co-operation Year when, by our own unanimous decision, we shall celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the founding of our Organization and that we are in the middle of the United Nations Development Decade, the grave crisis through which the United Nations is now passing nevertheless casts a dark shadow over a whole encouraging picture.
101. The nature and gravity of this crisis are such that its consequences may eventually paralyse the Organization or diminish its ability to launch, organize and carry out operations to preserve international peace and security. In these circumstances our primary and imperative duty is to seek appropriate solutions, without hesitation or delay.
102. The crisis seemed at first to be a strictly financial one. Although we realized how serious it was, we still hoped that before it became acute consultations would lead to generally acceptable solutions.
103. Unfortunately, time has not brought forth the hoped-for solution. On the contrary, the original problem has been complicated even more by the addition of new facts. To give an example, one question which is closely linked with it is that of the powers of the General Assembly and the special powers of the Security Council under the Charter. In this connexion, my delegation feels that the General Assembly is not only entitled but in duty bound to exercise these powers, and this opinion is based on both legal and practical considerations.
104. Incidentally, as the withdrawal of the United Nations Force in the Congo was completed in the middle of this year and it was the Congo operation which precipitated the present crisis, it is fitting that we should judge it as a whole in the light of the results obtained and the cost involved. My delegation concurs with the Secretary-General's objective and convincing analysis and assessment contained in chapter VI of the Introduction to his report on the work of the Organization.
105. I must say quite frankly that my country and my Government are seriously concerned over the possible consequences of the present crisis, because we fear that they may in the future affect the proven effectiveness of the United Nations for maintaining international peace and security.
106. My country has loyally accepted its obligations under the Charter; we respect the Charter and we abide by it. Being fully aware of our duties as a Member of this great Organization, we shape our national and our international conduct, according to the Purposes and Principles proclaimed in the Charter, the result of our conduct on the national plane is that we can affirm with deep and sincere satisfaction that Paraguay has never been involved in any national or international conflict or dispute which has required the attention of this Assembly. On the other hand — and because of our devotion to these same Purposes and Principles — we have warmly and vigorously supported all the causes expressing the ideals and aspirations of the new continent and the philosophy of the Christian and democratic world to which we belong by conviction and by law, and all the other enterprises which reflect the aspirations of the developing peoples. We have supported with equal enthusiasm, every sound proposal which has been discussed in this forum. Therefore the name of my country has never appeared in the records of meetings of United Nations bodies except as the sponsor or co-sponsor of draft resolutions relating to situations in which it did not have and does not now have any special interest.
107. Because of our loyalty to this tradition, of which we are proud, we believe that our opinion is both sincere and impartial. We have always acted in the Organization to serve the collective interest based on justice and law. We have given proof of this 5 both in the General Assembly and in the exercise of the high functions with which we have often been honoured by the United Nations.
108. In this spirit, we accept the heavy financial burdens which peace-keeping operations entail, even though we know that we may sometimes be confronted with temporary economic difficulties owing to our need to give priority to our people in using our available resources. We nevertheless consider that the principle of collective responsibility must always be respected and safeguarded in situations which might lead to a breach of international peace.
109. In our view, therefore, the measures adopted in the case of the Congo operation and the establishment of the Emergency Force were ineluctibly predetermined by that principle and by our Organization's obligation to meet its responsibilities. Any difference between our views and those of other Member States has been solely in connexion with the scales of assessment to be applied to meet the cost of those operations, scales which we feel must be different from those for the regular budget.
110. Therefore, if the Assembly is obliged to decide between the diametrically opposed position of its Members, our opinion will be given without hesitation and will be determined by our official position, which is based on the considerations I have just outlined and is in line with the legal tradition in which Latin America takes pride. However, since we are aware of the possible consequences of such a decision, we would be the last to want the Assembly to be forced to take it, unless all hope of arriving at a satisfactory formula has been ruled out. Whatever the majority decision may be, if there is a confrontation it would be our Organization as a whole and its ability to act that would suffer, and its present infinite potentialities would be restricted, perhaps for all time.
111. Time presses, but it is not yet too late. Let us preserve our Organization. Despite its imperfections, which we know and recognize, it is still the best instrument for channelling and meeting the common needs of nations and the best known forum for the expression of constructive ideas. At the same time, however we must realize that the sacrifice of principles is too high a price to pay for its preservation. This is the essential condition which governs our thinking with regard to satisfactory solutions.
112. The Member States, our Organization and the specialized agencies are preparing to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the founding of the United Nations. The observances planned are designed to emphasize how much has been done in the two decades since then and to emphasize and diversify the forms of international co-operation in an increasingly inter-dependent world. This world-wide celebration would have no meaning if we were not first to give it real and las ting significance by overcoming our present crisis and ensuring that the United Nations will emerge — and here I quote the words written by the Secretary-General in 1962 — "stronger than before as a force for peace".
113. We are still seeking the paths which will lead to disarmament and to the realization of one of the greatest aspirations of our times, the conversion to peaceful uses of the resources released by disarmament. Success still evades us, but steps have been taken in the right direction; however, we must admit that they have not been taken by all, nor have they been sufficiently effective to bring peace to a world terrified by the power of modern weapons.
114. When, one year ago, we rightly rejoiced at the signature of a Treaty banning nuclear weapon tests in the atmosphere, in outer space and under water, we nourished the hope that additional agreement would soon follow. That hope has not been realized.
115. Nevertheless, for the time being and in view of the high-level conversations which are under way between the representatives of the two major Powers, we prefer to await results in the hope that they will be positive and will help to improve present prospects, not only in the field of disarmament, but also in other fields within the competence of the United Nations where disagreements between two Powers often have very negative repercussions.
116. In the meantime, I feel in duty bound to express sincere appreciation to the eight non-aligned members of the Eighteen-Nation Committee on Disarmament for their persistent and praiseworthy efforts to find conciliation formulas.
117. The history of the United Nations is short if reckoned in years but long in terms of effective and lasting achievements. The important measures adopted to fulfil the Purposes and Principles laid down in the Charter are already part of the universal heritage and history of mankind.
118. The role played by the United Nations in liberating peoples formally subject to foreign domination and the firm action it has taken to eradicate the last vestiges of colonialism which still regrettably persist are encouraging and shining examples of the traditions of our Organization. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the United Nations Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination are further proof that the United Nations is truly reflecting the philosophy and thinking of our time.
119. In recent years the United Nations has played an increasing role in the economic and social field and its many different and complex sectors. One indication of the order of importance that these problems have for Member States, because of their close and indissoluble link with development, is the parallel in the importance of the Second Committee and in its weight in the General Assembly. A review of the items on which the Committee must decide and make recommendations to the plenary meetings at the present session clearly shows the importance of that body.
120. My country has no hesitation in affirming this, as it is one of the so-called "developing" countries. Whatever the term used to describe them, it is a fact that the developing countries are always agriculturalprimary producing countries. The expression "developed" countries, on the other hand, is used, except in a very few cases, for countries with a preponderantly industrial economy. This is not the first time that my delegation has expressed these ideas; we have done so repeatedly in this Assembly. But we shall never stop emphasizing the dramatic reality of the enormous gap between the two groups of countries, and above all, between the peoples1 levels of living in the one and in the other.
121. Whereas the agricultural countries are trying desperately to finance their low levels of living through their exports of primary commodities, the industrialized countries include in the price of their manufactured products the financial implication of their high levels of living, their industrial profits, social insurance and all sorts of taxes. The end result is that the agricultural peoples are the ones who suffer from the imbalance in world trade. Another result is that while the prices of raw materials tend to remain stationary, the cost of manufactured products is continually rising. In this connexion, I should like to repeat something I said once before in this forum.
122. The result of the steady decline in the price of raw materials and the steady rise in the price of manufactured goods — I said — has been and will continue to be a widening of the gap between the developed and the under-developed countries; and although political colonialism is on its last legs, the economic colonialism applied to countries with an agricultural economy will remain unless the present conditions for the production and export of agricultural commodities are radically changed. I also said that the outstanding event of 1964 might be the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development for which the developing countries had long been pressing with remarkable unanimity.
123. These predictions have come true. I do not propose to review all the conclusions and recommendations of the Conference that met in Geneva from March to June or to re-emphasize the long and difficult path which led up to it, but I will say that the results achieved in those few months were beyond our expectations and they have revived our hope that in an international atmosphere of greater understanding, generosity and fairness, the time when we shall become developed countries is fast approaching.
124. We now have to act in the Assembly with promptitude and without hesitation; it is our imperative duty to adopt without delay or disagreement the measures called for by the recommendations of the Geneva Conference as they are presented to us in that remarkable document, its Final Act. Let us — as the Conference asked — give our Organization new and broader functions in these spheres which are so close to the hearts of the developing peoples and, above all, let us give the United Nations a new dimension which may give it a scope that we cannot yet foresee.
125. The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development has also drawn attention to an event of exceptional importance. I refer to the consolidation of the grouping in which the developing countries first began to band themselves in this Assembly in 1963. Overcoming our differences, which result from the diversity of our degrees of development and from certain special characteristics of our particular problems and local interests, we have joined together to defend our common aspirations and real interests. Although individually weak, together we form a force to be reckoned with and one that is called upon to play a dominant role in the fields of international trade and development. The continued strength of the new force represented by the Group of 75 — or Group of 77 as it is now known — will depend on the extent to which it maintains the solid cohesion it has thus far displayed. Let us not forget, therefore, our obligation to strengthen that cohesion. Our reward will be in proportion to the extent to which we do strengthen it. Upon our attitude in this matter depends the possibility of bringing closer for our waiting peoples the day when they will have access to those levels of living hitherto reserved for the industrialized nations of the northern hemisphere, levels to which they are entitled and should in justice achieve.
126. Still on the subject of the Conference on Trade and Development, I cannot fail in my capacity as representative of a land-locked country, to make specific. mention of one of the Conference's results; namely, the recommendations on the problems of the transit trade of land-locked countries and the principles relating thereto, which were adopted without a single negative vote being cast.
127. The Conference — as you are aware — recommended that the United Nations should convene in the middle of 1965 a conference of plenipotentiaries to consider and adopt a convention relating to the transit trade of land-locked countries. The Assembly must heed that recommendation and take the necessary decisions. Meanwhile, an ad hoc committee of twenty-four members has recently completed the preparation of the draft convention which will serve as a basis for the work of the conference of plenipotentiaries, together with a report presenting the different views expressed by the members of the Committee during its deliberations.
128. Today, my country enjoys partial access to the sea and to transit facilities through adjoining maritime States under various bilateral agreements which it has concluded with those States. Examples of this friendly co-operation are the agreements concluded with Argentina, and particularly those known as the Act of Buenos Aires and Supplementary Act of Asuncion, and the agreement concluded with Brazil.
129. Notwithstanding this, we wish to remind you that, within the more general problem of transit as a whole, the right of access to the sea, to its infinite riches, and to international markets, and the exercise of the right of transit which is its undeniable corollary, are matters of vital importance for the expansion of international trade and the protection of the most legitimate and fundamental interests of land-locked countries.
130. It is therefore our desire that the various principles and norms already established in practice and in international law, which govern such rights should attain complete universality, and that every new principle or new norm which represents an advance on earlier principles or norms and is now tribunals and to prevent or correct, as the case may be, any abnormal situation embodied in a bilateral agreement should be reproduced or confirmed in the text of multilateral conventions. We are confident that in this era of solidarity the 1963 conference of plenipotentiaries, by adopting a convention that does justice to the aspirations of the land-locked States, will add further lustre to the international Co-operation Year.
131. The agenda of this Assembly includes a number of items already dealt with on previous occasions and on which our opinion has already been expressed and frequently repeated. However, my delegation will again have an opportunity to make known its position when these items are discussed individually. Among such items, for example, are those relating to the efforts to eliminate colonialism, which, however much we may regret it, still exists. Because of our convictions and our traditions our feelings are for the peoples who are striving to break their colonial bonds and become masters of their own national destiny.
132. There are, in addition, questions relating to racial discrimination, such as the item on the policies of apartheid of the Government of the Republic of South Africa. In our opinion, these policies, which are fundamentally wrong and imply a provoking disregard for universally proclaimed rights, must be proscribed. Those are but a few examples. I preferred to devote the greater part of my statement to the questions relating to the maintenance of international peace and those concerning developments, because we look mainly to the future.
133. Accordingly, I would like now, Mr. President, to examine if I may two inter-connected matters which have been submitted for the Assembly's consideration. One of them is mentioned in the Introduction to the Annual Report of the Secretary-General on the Work of the Organization. U Thant refers therein to the offers made by a number of Member States of military units on a standby basis, that is to say forces that would be available to the Organization whenever a justified need for them arose. He goes on to say that he has been in no position to do much about it in the absence of any authorizing action by an appropriate organ of the United Nations.
134. The second matter relates to the idea put forward by the Brazilian Minister for Foreign Affairs in his statement here on 3 December 1964 [1289th meeting]. This idea concerns the possibility of including in the Charter a new Chapter entitled "Peacekeeping Operations" the contents and other details of which — and, of course, the reasons for his proposal — were amply explained to the Assembly.
135. We see the future establishment of standby forces as an integral part of a larger scheme. We have previously said that if the behaviour of nations in the international community is like that of individuals in their rational communities, then we must recognize that peaceful coexistence at the international level must rest on three conventional supports, namely international law or internationally recognized principles, international tribunals or bodies to render justice among nations, and international forces to enforce the rulings of international
136. In the context of the ideas I have just touched upon, the Brazilian suggestion would signify a step forward. We are therefore prepared to examine more, closely the ideas which led to that suggestion, and in this we shall be guided by one unalterable purpose: the strengthening of the United Nations.
137. We see a need in the world today for a solidarity so strong that no country is able fully to enjoy the benefit, of material possessions or attain true happiness while there continue to be less developed countries and impoverished, suffering peoples. The developed countries must understand that international solidarity should have the force of dogma even for countries that are guided by self-interest and considerations connected with the preservation of their present living standards. On the basis of this concept of solidarity, we take the view that each State should set an example of national self-help for progress and of honest observance of the fundamental principles of love of peace and security and respect for human rights and freedoms.
138. I wish now briefly to outline the situation in Paraguay. In the political sphere, the responsibilities of government are shared by the major traditionally democratic parties. In the economic sphere, the national "self-help" effort has led us to unprecedented progress based on monetary stability and complete freedom in our international trade, which is unfettered by quota restrictions, licensing requirements and expropriation of foreign exchange, and also in our domestic production which is entirely free and enjoys, the protection afforded by even-handed justice for all.
139. In the social sphere, our domestic tranquillity is founded on the recognition of the right? of town and country workers to the fruits of their labours and on the application of the benefits of social security. Our agrarian policy is far-reaching, reforming and effective. It is being implemented without fanfares of publicity and without unjust confiscations and expropriations.
140. At the same time, we have been making exceptional progress in the cultural and educational spheres. As a brief indication of the great advance we have made in the space of a few years, I shall merely mention the objective and factual reports made by international organizations to the effect that my country is among those with the best-fed population and among those in Latin America which have the highest level of school registration and attendance. It is with this background of achievement, indicative of the efforts we have made, that we are participating in this Assembly.
141. I would like, at this point, to express to the United Nations, its various bodies and its specialized agencies, our appreciation of the quality and quantity of the technical assistance with which they are helping us in our great national effort constantly to improve our economic and social conditions. I hope that the very simplicity of these words will be taken as an indication of our deep sincerity.
142. With the utmost cordiality and respect I would address my closing words to the representatives of Malawi, Malta and Zambia, the three States which have just been admitted to membership of the United Nations. On behalf of my country, I salute these three States which are now masters of their own destinies. On behalf of my delegation, I welcome their representatives here present. On behalf of Paraguay, I welcome the three nations to this community of free, independent and sovereign nations.