75. First of all, Mr. President, I wish to congratulate you on behalf of the delegation of Bolivia on your election to the high office of President of the General Assembly. I am sure that, with your personal and professional qualities and your experience of the political problems of our time, you will conduct our deliberations in a firm, unruffled and enlightened manner. I should also like to place on record our gratitude to Mr. Pazhwak of Afghanistan, who presided over the debates of the General Assembly with great wisdom throughout a particularly difficult year.
76. It was a very sound move on the part of the General Assembly at its twenty-first session to reelect U Thant for another term as Secretary-General of the United Nations. The wisdom of his decisions and the absence of bias in his conduct of affairs has invariably helped not only to ensure that everything possible was done to solve difficult problems, but also to keep alive our confidence in the possibilities of achieving international peace and co-operation.
77. It is not necessary, nor is it possible, to refer in this statement to every single item on the agenda. The views and the influence of a small country on many of the important problems with which the United Nations has been concerned in the course of this year would have no effect on the march of events and would be largely a waste of time. I shall therefore just touch on some of those items as being of special significance for the peace and well-being of the peoples of the world, and especially for the small countries.
78. This past year has seen an increase in international tension and a deplorable intensification of warlike events. The Viet-Nam war is growing to alarming proportions, and the prospects of a solution appear to be remote, since there is no slackening either in the infiltration from the north which provokes the trouble or in the military measures on the part of the allies of South Viet-Nam to stop it.
79. With regard to the problem of South West Africa, Bolivia greatly regrets that the resolutions adopted by the General Assembly, which sought to apply to the case of that Territory both the precepts of the Charter and the immanent principles which require the elimination of all forms of discrimination and colonialism, have not yet been translated into specific progress towards bringing the gifts of freedom and self-determination to the people of the Territory.
80. The outbreak of war in the Middle East was a violent corollary to the state of belligerency which has prevailed in that area for the past twenty years. The right of the State of Israel to sovereign existence is indisputable, and it was the failure of other States to accept that historical fact which sowed the seeds of conflict. It is held as a moral precept in Latin America — and the historical experience of Bolivia particularly well bears it out — that conquest bestows no rights, and that any acquisition of territory by force of arms is null and void. My delegation firmly upholds that precept, while recognizing that, in the case of the crisis I am referring to, it was and still is essential to offset the withdrawal of troops against the ending of the state of belligerency in order to avoid a recurrence of the conflict. That was the stand taken by Latin America in the course of the debate at the emergency special session, and Bolivia adheres inflexibly to that view.
81. I will do no more than add my voice to those of other Latin American representatives in saying that, in our opinion, the worst threat to peace would appear to lie in the growing gap between the industrialized countries and the developing nations. There can be no doubt that in the last few years the share of the developing countries in world trade has diminished rather than increased. This means that, while wealth is increasingly concentrated in a few highly developed countries, poverty is intensifying and spreading in larger and larger sections of the world's population.
82. No stable or lasting peace can be built on that basis, whatever military or political procedures are resorted to, since the hard social and economic facts I have mentioned are liable to frustrate any such action. In other words there is, in our view, an ineluctable correlation between poverty and violence, or, conversely, between peace and development. The interdependence of nations, which becomes closer every day, does not allow any country to act in a self-sufficient manner; its well-being and indeed its very existence may be threatened by the increasing inequality of which we are all aware but do nothing to alter.
83. Clearly the small countries, however much they may wish to help to solve these serious problems, cannot do much; hence the main responsibility falls jointly on the highly industrialized countries. The creation of conditions in which peaceful coexistence based on social progress and economic well-being for all peoples will be possible depends more than ever on their magnanimity.
84. Bolivia is a member of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and a member of its Committee on Commodities. As such it cannot but express the hope that the Second Session of that Conference will achieve more success than has been achieved so far.
85. We should like to see practical measures taken to correct the situation 1 have described and to obtain wider agreement on the principles which must govern world trade relations and trade policies conducive to development. We want stable prices and markets, so that we can forecast our earnings and consequently our national investment possibilities. For us, every cent of reduction in the price of a pound of the tin we sell means a fall of about half a million dollars in our revenue. If the developed countries dump on the world market non-commercial stocks of primary commodities such as tin, they are seriously jeopardizing our foreign exchange earnings. That is why we repeat our hope that this dumping will finally cease.
86. We can add another reason for our concern in this matter. Bolivian tin purchased a few years ago at roughly a third of its present price — even taking into account the devaluation of the currency — brings those who sell it a considerable profit — at the expense of a small country. We do not believe that this is strictly a matter of economic gain, since such profits, which could mean so much to Bolivia, do not affect the economic position of the sellers either way. It seems to us that it is rather a case of insensibility and lack of interest in solving this problem.
87. Here I simply must point out our special concern with the work of the UNCTAD Committee on Tungsten, which might well be the germ of an agreement on that commodity. We should also like to see a similar committee or group set up to deal with antimony. In both cases we note that progress towards concluding international agreements on the commodities in question is made very difficult by the consistently unwilling attitude of the consumer countries, which are in fact the most highly industrialized.
88. Where organs of the kind mentioned do exist, as in the case of the International Tin Council, what happens is that the buffer stocks are financed exclusively by the contributions of the producer countries, while the consumers, who have so much influence on price determination and are interested in maintaining stable price levels, contribute nothing at all. That is just one more proof, however slight, of the validity of the general comments I have just made.
89. Inevitably, any discussion of these topics leads us to note the vast difference in scientific and technological progress between the industrialized and the developing nations. Without applied science and technology, even if there were a change in the structure of the terms of trade, there is little that the small countries can do. The paradox in this Is that, just like economic resources, the human resources trained in science and technology are also subject to a process of absorption by the developed countries. We train scientists, engineers and technicians at great cost to ourselves to serve our countries; but since we cannot offer them the advantages which are easily obtained in the great nations, ultimately we lose them to those nations. Then there is the proliferation of committees, commissions, working groups etc. established by the major international agencies and which become a Mecca for specialists from the developing countries. If the work of those who became international civil servants or employees of large corporations were at least of benefit to us, we would have no objection; but It seems to us that at times the developing countries lose first-class people in the field of science and technology who end up as well-paid bureaucrats in the corporations of the highly industrialized countries or In international organizations.
90. In contrast to the threatening atmosphere of world politics and the economic and technical disparities liable to give rise to new upheavals in the future, the outlook for Latin American regional policy is encouraging.
91. Latin America prohibited the use of nuclear weapons in a treaty signed in Mexico of 14 February 1967. In this connexion I must point out that, although we have no facilities in Bolivia for contributing to research into the uses of nuclear energy, we believe, together with other Latin American countries, that this prohibition should not be interpreted as ruling out research on the peaceful uses of this vast source of energy.
92. The Presidents of the Latin American countries who met at Punta del Este together with the President of the United States in April of this year signed a Declaration which forms the corner-stone of the process of economic integration of the continent. Within fifteen years beginning in 1970, it is expected that the 250 million Latin Americans will form a market capable of promoting the development of Industry, of creating a flourishing trade through the abolition of tariff barriers, and of establishing a common external tariff.
93. All this holds a promise of further development for the Latin American Free Trade Association, in the context of which it is proposed to establish an integrated sub-regional organization comprising the Andean and Pacific countries. Furthermore, the five nations including my own which form the great basin of the the Rio de la Plata are planning to study ways and means of putting in hand multinational infrastructure projects.
94. If I may remind you of my country's geographical position, Bolivia lies in the very centre of South America, with a territory that forms part of three great river basins of the continent. We are a nation of the Pacific and the Andes, and also of the Plata and the Amazon. However, at present most of our population gravitates towards the Pacific area, and it is across the Pacific that we obtain more than 90 per cent of our imports and ship almost all our exports. In this region we also possess natural resources such as petroleum, gas, minerals and water resources of great importance.
95. I mention these various factors because, taken all together, they might well constitute a basis for multinational projects which could even transform the physical characteristics of the region, turning desert coasts into productive farmlands through controlled irrigation, besides generating considerable quantities of hydroelectric power which, in turn, would be used to process many of the raw materials we now export without any processing. These possibilities are not a mere pipe-dream, for in other parts of the world projects of greater technical and economic complexity have been carried out.
96. Of course, it would first be necessary to spell out and solve political and diplomatic problems arising out of previous international events, and to overcome considerable difficulties of a geographical, economic and technical nature.
97. Among the political and diplomatic problems I would mention as the most important the fact that Bolivia is landlocked: this fact does not affect my country alone but has consequences for the whole continent. I wonder whether a programme could not be devised which would combine satisfaction of Bolivia's right to an outlet of its own to the sea with the multinational infrastructural development of some of the areas of the South Pacific coast countries. If that were possible, the political and diplomatic problems I have mentioned might be solved simultaneously for the benefit of all those concerned, while at the same time the great resources of this region would be used to joint advantage.
98. In a programme of this type, which might be put forward as a "package deal", to use a fashionable expression, the United Nations, together with other regional organizations and the financial institutions of the public sector, could perform an extremely important task. So convinced I am of this that if what I have said is favourably received here, my delegation will revert to this matter with more specific detail in the appropriate Committee.
99. None of the ideas I have just put forward implies that Bolivia is withdrawing or renouncing its right to obtain, by any other means compatible with the peaceful coexistence of States, a remedy for the absence of an outlet to the sea from which Bolivia has suffered as a result of an unjust war.
100. Because of events occurring in Bolivia as a result of what have been called the "guerrillas", I feel I should offer some clarifications of the factors and policies involved. In doing so, I shall try to remember that the views I am now voicing will he judged by future generations within the general context of Latin American history.
101. During our War of Independence, the struggle of the patriots took the form of guerrilla warfare, precisely because it stemmed from the innermost feelings of the people and did not rely on any foreign help. In contrast, the criminal activities to which I am referring are started, organized and financed from abroad and have found no response in the hearts and minds of the people of my country.
102. Two propagandist arguments are being used as a pretext to justify these acts of violence. First, it is alleged that sectors of the population such as the peasants are being exploited within the country itself, and must be freed forthwith; and secondly, it is said that there is a need to combat United States imperialism.
103. There is in fact in Bolivia a considerable peasant population with social, economic and linguistic characteristics which have persisted since the time of the Incas and have left a vigorous imprint on all spheres of the national life. As a consequence of this, large-scale structural reforms had to be introduced, two of which were specifically intended to benefit the peasants, namely land reform which gave the ownership of the land to those working it and universal suffrage, which has given the peasant masses a predominant voice in democratic national affairs. The peasants have a bloc of deputies and senators more numerous than that of any other political or civic organization, and they also have a Minister of State in the Cabinet.
104. These are facts, not words, facts which explain why the peasants totally repudiate the so-called "guerrillas". It is simply childish, in the name of an ideological abstraction to ask the workers of the fields who now own their land to hand over their title of ownership to the State in exchange for some form of collective usufruct laid down by the would-be bureaucrats. This would amount to losing the right of ownership won for them by the Bolivian Revolution for the benefit of the former landowners or of a totalitarian Government.
105. Two conclusions follow inevitably from what I have said. First, there is no need for any action from outside to liberate the Bolivian peasants. Secondly, the so-called "guerrillas" were planned and organized from the outset with complete disregard for the national facts of life; that is the reason why their movement has no future and why their purpose is doomed to failure.
106. As regards relations with the United States and the question of American imperialism, we have no invasions, troop landings or territorial encroachments to report from that quarter, though we are not unaware that the treatment received by Bolivia and other Latin American countries in economic and political matters has often been unjust and prejudicial to our interests. However, we do concede that there have been quite considerable changes and transformations in these relations since the end of the Second World War.
107. Indeed, with the good neighbour policy, nonintervention and respect for the sovereignty of States has become institutionalized. Moreover, the system of strictly bilateral relations which the United States used to maintain with the Latin American nations as a way to divide and rule is yielding ground to the realization that it is in the interest of North America, as well as in our own interest, to co-operate actively in the process of integration, development and political co-ordination of our countries. This does not mean that there is no problem in our relations. There is much to be done. There is clearly a need for greater understanding on the part of American public opinion of the concerns, needs and goals of our peoples. But it cannot be denied that achievements such as the Alliance for Progress indicate a more promising outlook for the future.
108. If these observations correspond to the truth, there is no need for "guerrillas'' to solve the problems of our relations with the United States. Hence it can be said on this point, as on the previous one, that those acts of violence do not reflect the present-day situation as it is but would seem rather to be a belated reaction to the experiences of the past.
109. I need hardly add that the above-mentioned views are necessarily relative, because if United States policy were to revert to what it was in the past, or remained ossified in its present shape, there would be a need for representations and action which might prove that those who call themselves guerrilla fighters were in the right. But this is not the case now; the most that can be said of them is that they are pawns in the chess-game of world politics, serving the purposes of agitation, disorder, anarchy and propaganda.
110. Whatever the theoretical designs, the protagonists, the organization and the foreign financing of the process of violence with which we are confronted, we can state categorically that we Bolivians will never allow our motherland to be wrested from us and our fate to be decided by others. As President Barrientos has said, we will pursue the struggle which has been imposed on us from abroad. While always mindful of fundamental human rights, we shall stand firm in the defence of representative democracy which we have chosen as the basis of all our institutions.