Mr. FERNANDEZ stated that Chile was linked to France not only by traditions of friendship but by the even stronger bonds created by admiration for France’s steadfast adherence to freedom and democracy. France was the heart of Christian civilization. The perils which threatened civilization therefore threatened in the first place French democracy. France, however, as it had always done in the past, would face and overcome the difficulties through which it was passing.
France was the centre of a new mode of international co-operation. Despite the serious damage suffered during the war, France’s economy was reviving under impetus from generous and sympathetic aid by those who shared its desire for peace, and were trying to meet its most pressing needs. That was a fine example of international co-operation which justified hopes for a better world.
International insecurity was disturbing the internal situation in all countries. The atmosphere of insecurity and fear made it impossible to begin many schemes essential for social and economic progress.
The United Nations had created at San Francisco a mechanism to maintain peace, but peace must exist before it could be maintained. The war had unfortunately not yet ended. The peace treaties which should have concluded the war had not yet been signed. That was the main obstacle to the effective work of the United Nations. Consequently, forces hostile to democracy were able to draw their strength from the existence of widespread lack of confidence, scepticism and suspicion. Those who had stubbornly hindered moral disarmament and the establishment of a just and lasting peace were responsible for the general feeling of insecurity.
In recent months, countries previously free had been absorbed politically and economically and had been brought under the dictatorship of certain ideological minorities. Frontiers in Europe and Asia had been overrun. Such events had caused rising concern among the friends of democracy.
Chile was a young country. It was, however, the melting pot of many races and nationalities who had emigrated thither fleeing from political or religious persecution and seeking freedom. Chile was a country which welcomed full inspection by international opinion. There was no curtain of any kind to prevent other countries from observing what went on within its boundaries and drawing their conclusions. As a consistent defender of human rights, Chile had denounced in the Security Council the intervention of a foreign Power in the internal affairs of a neighbouring country (S/69 6). He believed that the action of a disciplined Communist minority, acting as sworn ally to a great Power which had imperialist plans, had wiped out the democratic way of life in Czechoslovakia, a country whose people had shown during their brief existence as a republic the loftiest moral and spiritual values.
The smaller nations should be most careful to see that such developments did not become the standard practice in their relations with stronger and more developed countries.
Chile had requested the Security Council to investigate the origin of the events in Czechoslovakia. It had done so in a spirit of loyal cooperation with the institution created at San Francisco, in order to help strengthen it.
Certain countries had learned by bitter experience that concessions and appeasement merely made war inevitable, once an aggressive country had obtained by territorial expansion the material force and the new frontiers which would permit an advance with impunity against fresh victims.
That was why Chile had asked the Security Council to investigate what had happened in Czechoslovakia. The Chilean denunciation had been accepted by a clear majority of the members of the Council. But once again the privilege granted to the five great Powers by the smaller countries at San Francisco had been brought into play in order to hush up the facts and elude the appropriate sanctions.
The Chilean delegation at the San Francisco Conference had objected to the veto formula because it believed that it violated the principle of equality before the law of all States, a principle which Chile had always respected in international relations.
Chile had attempted at San Francisco to reduce the scope of that method of voting to its narrowest possible limits. Chile had supported an amendment submitted and defended by Mr. Evatt, now President of the General Assembly. When that amendment had been rejected, Chile had abstained from voting in favour of the unanimity rule. When the unanimity rule had been written into the Charter by tacit or express consent of the countries in conference at San Francisco, Chile had subscribed to it, relying upon the promises made by the five great Powers that it would be used only in cases in which it appeared absolutely indispensable.
But the excessive and unjustified use of the veto was detrimental to the spirit which moved the nations to accept it at San Francisco. It produced stagnation and paralysed the work of the United Nations, creating at the same time in public opinion the feeling that the work of the United Nations was sterile.
Representatives could verify the fact that an arbitrary and excessive use had been made of the privilege given to the great Powers. A simple examination of a statistical table on the number of times that the veto had been used would lead the representatives to the irrevocable conviction that one of the five great Powers had exceeded the trust which had been placed in it.
For that reason, the Chilean delegation would support any formula which, while restricting the use of the veto, would permit the United Nations to act speedily and effectively in view of the serious problems facing the world at present. With that goal in mind, the Chilean delegation would take into account especially the very complete report on the veto prepared by the Interim Committee (A/578).
Chile was fully aware of the positive work done by the United Nations to prevent a new war from destroying the achievements of the present civilization. The action taken in Palestine, the mediation efforts in the conflict between India and Pakistan, the role played by the Organization as peacemaker in the Balkans, in Korea and in Indonesia, were all successes achieved by the United Nations.
Furthermore, the constant activity displayed by the United Nations in the economic and social fields gave real ground for optimism. The Chilean delegation considered that the work done during the past year by the Economic and Social Council deserved full recognition and appreciation on the part of the General Assembly. The Chilean delegation had always held the opinion that the task of creating the conditions necessary for the maintenance of peace surpassed in importance all the other tasks assigned to the United Nations by the Charter. The Economic and Social Council had carried out its duties in spite of the differences in principles arising out of divergent concepts of the problems with which it was faced. The President of the Economic and Social Council, Mr. Charles Malik, had already given a full account of the work achieved by that body. As other representatives had also raised the matter, he would only refer to those questions which were of particular importance or which were more directly connected with the views supported in the United Nations by the Chilean delegation.
The draft declaration on human rights which the Economic and Social Council had sent to the General Assembly was perhaps not perfect. Yet it could not be denied that the recognition of the individual’s fundamental right to life, liberty, and security, conformed to the ideas which had animated the authors of the Charter and the inspired advocate of the «four freedoms».
A great war had been fought with unequalled fury in defence of human dignity. But humanity was now asking itself whether those sacrifices had been made in vain, as it contemplated the mockery with which human dignity was treated in certain parts of the world. The people asked the United Nations to define the rights and principles which should govern the relations of the individual with the community and with the State.
It was the Chilean delegation’s concern for human rights and fundamental freedoms which had led it to bring before the General Assembly the numerous cases of women who, being married to foreigners, had been obliged to remain in their countries of origin (A/560). The United Nations should take the matter up as it went beyond the limits of the purely national sovereignty of a country, and impinged upon one of the most elementary rights of man: freedom of movement, the right to marry freely, and the right to emigrate.
The Economic and Social Council set up last February the Economic Commission for Latin America and gave new guidance to the Economic Commission for Europe and the Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East. In the opinion of the Chilean delegation those activities constituted the most practical and concrete achievement of the United Nations in the economic field. That achievement was a source of particular satisfaction to Chile because Chile had been the initiator and the untiring defender of the idea that the Economic and Social Council should orient its work specifically to the solution of the economic problems of under-developed regions of the world.
A special commission established by General Assembly resolution 120 (II) in 1947 had recommended the creation of an economic commission for the Middle East (E/AC.26/16, p. 27), which undoubtedly would be set up by February 1949. Thus the principles which Chile had ardently defended throughout the period of its service on the Economic and Social Council had definitely been adopted.
The representative of Chile expressed the view that the third session of the General Assembly of the United Nations would, be of positive benefit to humanity because it would contribute to the clearing up of the international situation. It would determine whether mankind could continue to place its faith and its hope in the procedure of the United Nations in order to achieve peace.
There were three alternatives for the immediate future: war, peace or the continuation of the prevailing false armistice. Mankind must know whether, in order to achieve the peace, it would again have to undergo the horrors and suffering of war, or if the benefits of peace could be realized through the noble and generous procedures established by the Charter.
An intolerable element serving to foster propaganda against democratic institutions was the indecision about ending the existing situation which destroyed all possible well-being because of the disturbing influence of one great Power. No matter how cruel it was, reality was preferable to the tortures of doubt.
In accordance with its traditions, its principles, its blood ties and its geographical situation, Chile endorsed the action of the sister republics of America and the nations representing Western Christian civilization.
At the present juncture, urgent action was required. The positive accomplishments of the United Nations in the economic and social field should be extended to the political field. Accomplishments in the economic field would be ineffective if the disturbances which divided the world into two antagonistic forces continued. The destiny of mankind depended on the decisions of the General Assembly. As President Roosevelt had said, contemporary statesmen had a «rendezvous with destiny». But the rendezvous would be brief.
The world was under the impression that time was running out. An armed conflict of proportions never before imagined threatened to engulf mankind in darkness. The fate of civilization depended on the immediate action of the General Assembly.
The responsible spokesmen of the nations assembled in Paris could not disregard the anguished voices of the millions of men who might, in the near future, become sacrificial victims through the blindness and inaction of their leaders.