Mr. FERNANDEZ said that the United Nations was meeting for the third time in a regular session of the General Assembly to discuss questions of peace, security and the welfare of mankind.
The representative of Brazil greeted the United Nations, and particularly France, which had welcomed the Members so graciously. Brazilians were bound to France by the ties of an unbreakable friendship, as well as by a culture which had borrowed the best features in the French spirit of universality.
The present Assembly was not and should not be a clearing house in which international disputes were settled by compensation, nor a tribunal competent to pronounce sentence, but rather a family council with power to make recommendations, or a forum in which each could plead his own cause before world opinion, and in which everyone should ceaselessly plead the cause of justice, freedom and equity.
Brazil assisted in the accomplishment of that task through its fidelity to the ideals and principles incorporated in the Charter of the United Nations. Brazil had accepted them, together with the responsibilities which derived from them, all the more easily because it had always made them the golden rule of its conduct in international relations. History bore witness that even in the most difficult and dangerous times, Brazil had risen to the obligations imposed by such a rule.
There was there an active faith in law and justice, not merely an attitude of mind. The proof thereof lay in the fact that Brazil had joined the Powers fighting for liberty in the two great wars of the century, and when, the wars over, the victorious Powers had tried to organize an international community to ensure security in peace and the welfare of mankind, Brazil had co-operated with them without reserve. In that spirit Brazil had worked with the League of Nations in earlier days and was now working as a Member of the United Nations.
On the threshold of the fourth year in the life of the Organization the Brazilian delegation paid tribute to the work done in the social field, which had been achieved in the partial or complete settlement of certain conflicts, and to the success recorded in the Secretary-General’s annual report. At the same time, however, the Brazilian delegation was bound to note that, founded as it was upon the principle of power and granting pre-eminence to certain States in return for their promise to guarantee security, the United Nations had so far failed to fulfil that obligation because of the continued disagreement of those privileged States.
In the opinion of the Brazilian delegation, the Assembly should do everything in its power to eradicate the causes of that disunity, or at least not to aggravate it by taking decisions which, while unlikely to be implemented, might cause the United Nations to go back instead of forward on the path of that universality at which it should aim.
Nevertheless, it was clear that the Assembly’s power to compose the existing divergencies was very limited, since the source of those divergencies lay primarily in the unattainable peace with Germany. If that problem could not be brought up by the United Nations, must it remain the sole concern of the four great Powers, while those same Powers admitted their inability to draft the clauses of an acceptable treaty?
The other belligerents were concerned to see that particular peace being indefinitely postponed, to the great detriment of Europe, of the world and of Germany itself, and with harm to the rights they had derived from the common victory and to their interest in the re-establishment of normal relations with Germany.
Moreover, and above all, there existed a threat to the peace of the world, a neglect of solemn promises, a flagrant denial of the principles on which the new order instituted by the Charter of San Francisco was based. It was high time for the responsible Governments to change their methods and to have recourse, if not to nonexistent arbitrators, at least to some wise mediators.
The representative of Brazil refrained from prejudging any of the questions on the agenda; his delegation would decide on them in the light of the reports made by the Committees to whom those questions had been referred. Mr. Fernandez confined himself to the statement that his delegation would judge these problems in accordance with the traditions of his country; that was, with moderation, equity and justice it would co-operate loyally to the full extent of its power so that the Assembly might remain faithful to its great duty and to the hopes of mankind.
He welcomed the appearance of human rights among the principles to be internationally protected, as a great step forward which would do honour to the present generation. In his great and generous speech at the 189th plenary meeting Mr. Marshall had spoken of the calvary of individual liberty in certain parts of the world which claimed to be civilized, and had pointed out that those Members of the United Nations who sincerely tried to live in accordance with the Charter were in fact the States who desired to protect and uphold the dignity and integrity of the individual. Mr. Fernandez concluded by hoping that the wishes Mr. Marshall had expressed might be fulfilled.