130. It is a true pleasure for the delegation of El Salvador to pay a tribute to the great Asian nation so worthily represented here by Mrs. Pandit, and to her personally for her well-deserved election to the presidency of the eighth session of the General Assembly, and to draw special attention to the significant fact that this election, falling to an illustrious woman, represents yet another affirmation of the high purposes and principles of the United Nations, in that it is a positive expression of that equality of rights between men and women which the founders of the Organization wrote into the Preamble and various provisions of the Charter.
131. In spite of the vicissitudes of this Organization, the tremendous obstacles which it has met at every step and, above all, in spite of international tension, which seemed to be appreciably lessening last spring but which in these last weeks we have seen reappearing and increasing, the fact is that the peoples of the world have not lost their faith and hope in the power of those principles which were proclaimed by the United States and the United Kingdom in the Atlantic Charter on 14 August 1941, and accepted later by a number of countries, in the Declaration by the United Nations signed in Washington on 1 January 1942, a document which someone aptly called the birth-certificate of the United Nations, and subsequently in successive instruments of accession.
132. It must be frankly admitted that neither the Dumbarton Oaks proposals, nor the Yalta Agreement, nor even the text of the United Nations Charter, approved and signed in San Francisco on 26 June 1945, completely corresponded to the promising spirit of the principles and objectives set forth in the Atlantic Charter and ratified in the Washington Declaration.
133. Yet the peoples have nonetheless continued to hope that the United Nations will be successful in its efforts, whether those efforts are directed towards the maintenance of international peace and security, or towards the development of friendly relations among nations, international co-operation in matters of an economic, social, cultural or humanitarian character, or co-operation in promoting and encouraging respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms.
134. Anyone who considers, impartially, without prejudice and in a truly objective spirit, the work undertaken and carried out up to the present by the United Nations and the various specialized agencies, is forced to the conclusion that it has been in the economic, social, cultural and humanitarian fields that the greatest and best results have been achieved, while in the whole field of politics and matters directly connected with politics progress has been slow and difficult on account of the frequently insuperable obstacles which the Organization meets in its path.
135. Everyone knows that the Security Council is practically paralysed as a result of the immoderate and arbitrary use of the veto by one of the great Powers. As for the Trusteeship Council, its composition as laid down by the Charter does not allow it to carry out such useful work for the inhabitants of the Trust Territories as would be desirable. The Economic and Social Council and the specialized agencies do not labour under the same disadvantage and are therefore able to act more freely. Fortunately, the improvement of economic conditions in various countries, the raising of the standard of living and the improvement in the health conditions and cultural development of their inhabitants, form a basis for the maintenance of peace; everything achieved in these fields must increase the chances for the peaceful coexistence of all States, large, medium or small.
136. My delegation wishes to express its especial appreciation of the Expanded Programme of Technical Assistance, and its enthusiastic support of the ideas developed by Mr. Hammarskjold, the Secretary-General, in the introduction to his annual report on the Work of the Organization [A/2404], to the effect that the United Nations programme of technical assistance is assuming more and more the aspect of a truly co-operative enterprise of mutual aid in the sharing of skills in which nations from all parts of the world and in every stage of economic and social development have something to contribute as well as to receive.
137. In order not to make this speech too long, we shall limit ourselves to a few political questions, selecting from the agenda of the eighth session those items which in our opinion are most general in scope or most closely connected with the work of the United Nations.
138. Thanks to the Armistice Agreement, the armed struggle in Korea has finally ended; as some representatives have said, however, and as is quite obvious, the final conclusion of the conflict depends on the results of the political conference provided for in paragraph 60 of the Armistice Agreement. Together with all the peoples of the free world, El Salvador enthusiastically greeted the signing of the armistice, in which it sees a promise of peace. The case of Korea is a sad one, but, like all evils, it contains a lesson by which we can and must profit.
139. The two imperialist systems of our century, the two modern forms of universal domination, nazi-fascism and communism, though they have so many points of resemblance, are in many respects different. They differ chiefly in their methods. We no longer witness invasions like those of Ethiopia, Albania, Austria and Czechoslovakia, carried out by the regular forces of an imperialist Power. Nowadays we see a Power of that sort, which pledged itself to evacuate the territories which it occupied as a result of the Second World War, setting up and imposing on them regimes which are pompously called popular and democratic. Nowadays we see that When new territories are to be occupied, the populations of peoples’ democratic republics are mobilized and thrown into an invasion, after which it is said, for example, that North Korea has been attacked by South Korea, and that the North Korean troops and “Chinese people’s volunteers” are heroically maintaining a defensive struggle.
140. Fortunately, the attitude of international organizations has also changed. The Assembly and Council of the League of Nations remained passive in the face of the acts of conquest which took place between 1936 and 1939, but the Security Council and General Assembly of the United Nations acted effectively and promtly in the case of Korea. This case may not, however, be the only one and, furthermore, it is not yet completely disposed of.
141. The chief lesson to be learnt from the Korean tragedy is that the United Nations must remain constantly on the alert and must continually increase its power and authority to meet the eventualities with which the imperialist policy may confront it. The immediate need is to find a solution for the Korean problem, and that task has been entrusted to the political conference.
142. The Communists, who tried at all costs to avoid agreement on the armistice by persisting in the argument that prisoners of war should be forcibly repatriated, are now trying to obstruct the convening of the conference. To that end, they are arbitrarily interpreting paragraph 60 of the Armistice Agreement to support their view that the conference should not be composed of representatives “of a higher level of both sides,” as the text of the agreement says, but that it should be a round-table conference, in which not only representatives of both sides but also representatives of other countries regarded as neutral should take part.
143. We live in a world full of incongruities, paradoxes and contradictions. The very people who proposed that paragraph 60 should be included — the North Koreans and Chinese now wish to transform the bilateral conference contemplated in that paragraph into a multilateral, or what is commonly known as a roundtable conference. At first sight the matter is not of major importance, first because it has already been agreed by the General Assembly [resolution 711 B (VII)] that the Soviet Union shall take part in the conference “provided the other side desires it”, a phrase which is to be interpreted as meaning that the Soviet Union will naturally have to take part on the communist side, and, secondly, because the four other countries which would have to be invited in accordance with the wishes of communist China and North Korea are States in whose reliability and good faith the United Nations has complete confidence. We all know, however, that the inclusion of India, Indonesia, Burma and Pakistan, or of some of those countries, might cause serious difficulties and lead to the failure of the conference.
144. This matter was discussed at length in the First Committee during the seventh session, and my delegation considers that it would be wiser to leave the point to be considered by the political conference itself, as was suggested a few days ago by the representative of the United States; that proposal is the more reasonable inasmuch as if the Asian States referred to were invited as “neutrals”, they would naturally play the part of mediators and would not, strictly speaking, be parties to the conference, nor could they be bound by the decisions or agreements it might reach.
145. Mr. Nehru, the Prime Minister of India, appeared before the Parliament of his country last August and stated that India had no special interest in attending the political conference and that it would participate only in the main parties concerned wished it to cooperate in the settlement of the Korean question. He appeared again before that legislative body to assert, as a reproach to the Latin-American States which did not agree to its participation in the conference, that those States had opposed the wishes of almost all the countries of Asia and Europe with regard to a matter which was of particular interest to the Asian peoples.
146. As Latin Americans we feel obliged to say a few words about this. Political circumstances have transformed the Korean incident into a world problem. _When, on 25 June 1950, the Security Council hurriedly convened [473rd meeting] to take note of the reports on the armed attack launched against the Republic of Korea by North Korea, the Council consisted of the five great Powers and Cuba, Ecuador, Egypt, India, Norway and Yugoslavia, although the Soviet Union absented itself from the Council’s meetings. All the representatives took part in the discussion, with the exception of the Indian representative, who was present, however, since he appears to have voted on the draft resolution whereby the Council called for the immediate cessation of hostilities and appealed to North Korea to withdraw its armed forces to the 38th parallel forthwith.
147. Two days later [474th meeting], before the new reports of the United Nations Commission on Korea, of which El Salvador was a member, had been submitted, the Council had to study a new draft resolution. Under that draft, the Council took note of the fact that the North Korean authorities had neither ceased hostilities nor withdrawn their armed forces to the 38th parallel; furthermore, it took note of the appeal addressed by the Republic of Korea to the United Nations that effective measures should immediately be adopted to ensure peace and security, and it recommended that Member States should provide the. Republic of Korea with whatever assistance might be necessary to repel the armed attack and to re-establish peace and security in that area. The Indian representative did not participate in the discussion or in the vote on that draft resolution, because he had no specific instructions from his Government, but some days later a communication was received in which the Indian Government expressed its approval of the resolution of 27 June.
148. In one form or another, the Latin-American States have taken part and continue to take part in the Korean problem as they are fully entitled and competent to do. One of them even sent troops to be placed at the disposal of the United Nations Unified Command.
149. The regional nature of the Korean conflict, which is now invoked in criticism of the conduct of some Latin-American countries with regard to the membership of the political conference, had not been referred to before, nor is it based on the existence of regional agreements or organizations especially called upon to take action in connexion with the conflict. It is well known that no provision of the Charter is opposed to the existence of regional agreements or organizations designed to deal with matters relating to international peace and security which may require regional action, provided that such agreements and organizations and their activities are consistent with the purposes and principles of the United Nations.
150. This explains the existence of the Organization of American States and an Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance. The Charter of the Organization of American States provides that all international conflicts arising among them shall be subject to the peaceful procedures specified in the Pact of Bogota before being submitted to the Security Council of the United Nations. According to the Treaty of Rio de Janeiro, any armed attack by any State against an American State shall be considered an attack against all the American States, and each of them must assist in countering the attack by exercising the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence which is recognized in Article 51 of the United Nations Charter. It is therefore difficult for a State of the American community to knock at the'' wrong door, so to speak, and to bring an international dispute or conflict before an organ of the United Nations, instead of referring it to the Council of the Organization of American States in Washington or adopting other measures also provided for in agreements concluded by some of the countries of the western hemisphere.
151. In the Korean conflict, as in the case of any other problem created by international communism, my Government has adopted an unswerving policy. My country has suffered grievously from evils caused by communism, and we cannot allow this experience to recur. We are fighting against the dissemination of extremist ideas within El Salvador itself, be they leftist or rightist, and we are prepared to assist to the utmost of our ability in any action designed to check the advance of international communism.
152. The Salvadorean delegation, together with the delegations of Costa Rica, Honduras and Nicaragua and some other members of the Latin-American group, has stressed the need to find a solution to the problem of the admission of new Members, believing that the real difficulty arises from the manner in which the relevant Article 27 of the Charter has so far been applied. We consider it to be of the utmost importance for the purposes of the United Nations that the numerous States which meet the requisite conditions and whose applications have been pending for a long time should be admitted to membership.
153. Admittedly no concrete conclusions were reached in the Special Committee established at the seventh session [resolution 620 (VII)], but the discussions of that committee and of the Interim Committee, as all the other discussions on the admission of the new Members, cast considerable light on the problem and should be put to use.
154. This is not the time to refer to our point of view and to recall the position of the Government of El Salvador. We only wish to place on record that it seems to us that a solution cannot be postponed. There is no need to refer to the advantages which the United Nations would derive from a substantial increase in its membership and from the co-operation of new elements desirous of participating in its work.
155. My delegation cordially supports the proposals of the Netherlands [A/2442] and Egypt [A/2466 and Add.1] for a preparatory study on the possible convening of a general conference of the Members of the United Nations with a view to revising the Charter, in accordance with Article 109, and for the establishment of a technical committee to study such revision on the basis of the proposals submitted by Member States. There is no doubt that both proposals are opportune and necessary, and we do not feel that the opposition of the Soviet Union to such preparatory work can doom them to failure.
156. Article 109, paragraph 3, of the Charter provides that the proposal to convene such a conference must appear on the agenda of the tenth annual session of the General Assembly, and that the conference shall be held if so decided by a majority of the General Assembly and by a vote of any seven members of the Security Council. The Charter, the instrument which established the United Nations, must be revised not only as regards the unanimity rule, or rather the right of veto, but also in regard to many other of its aspects.
157. Nothing is so useful as experience in improving, human institutions. The experience of several years of hazardous existence will enable the United Nations to make noteworthy progress in dealing with fundamental problems which were not foreseen at San Francisco or for which inadequate provision was made. The delegations of Egypt and the Netherlands have rendered the General Assembly a great service by proposing that the preparatory work for revising the Charter should be initiated immediately, for that would avoid improvisation on such a serious and important undertaking, which by its very nature demands extremely careful study.
158. The Argentine delegation also deserves our gratitude for its suggestion [A/2415 and Add.1] regarding the publication of documents on the drafting and implementation of the Charter. That initiative is certainly not directly connected with the problem of revision, but such material will help to increase our knowledge of the historical background of the Charter and of the ways in which it has been implemented; it will thus be of assistance in any possible revision.
159. The signing of the armistice in Korea was like a flash of light shining over the dark horizon of the world. Men of good will are joining their voices in thanks to the Creator for keeping the flame of hope alive in them.
160. May the United Nations succeed in preventing the striking and absurd tragedy of man’s using for his own destruction what he has achieved by his brilliant mind!