It is certainly no accident that the sixth regular session of the General Assembly is being held in Paris. On the contrary, it is significant that, whenever the most representative organ of the United Nations contemplates the possibility of holding its meetings away from the headquarters of the Organization, eyes turn to the capital of France — France the great centre of human freedom and fraternity, whose soul perfectly reflects the spirit of the principles embodied in our Charter. We are sure that this atmosphere will not be without influence on the Assembly’s work.
2. Every year Greece steps on to this rostrum with increasing satisfaction at having placed its confidence in the United Nations.
3. Our Organization has two main aims: the security of peoples in freedom and independence on the one hand, and their progress and well-being on the other. And everyone knows that in the last analysis these two aims rest on the same fundamental principle, that of human solidarity.
4. If we look back on the Organization’s activity in the second of these fields, it must be acknowledged that the work done during the first six years of its existence has justified the hopes the peoples placed in it. This is certainly only a beginning, but it is a happy beginning, which allows us to hope for ever greater results.
5. The setting up of specialized agencies such as the World Health Organization, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund and the International Refugee Organization, and the affiliation to the United Nations of such specialized agencies as the International Labour Organisation, the Food and Agriculture Organization, the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the International Monetary Fund, which were already in existence, are so many initiatives on which many peoples have had reason to congratulate themselves. For the value of this work should not be measured only by the direct material profit the peoples derive from it. The pooling of the great capital of science, technique and experience is in itself a valuable contribution to the attempt to improve the living conditions of so many sorely tried peoples.
6. What is more, through the inquiries they make so skilfully through their comparative studies and through thorough examination of the conditions peculiar to each people and each country, these agencies bring out the needs of each people and diagnose their ills, and that is already the beginning of a cure.
7. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the convention condemning the crime of genocide, the ever-expanding programme of technical assistance granted across frontiers and above passions, the repatriation of refugees, the aid to unhappy children, the struggle against epidemics, in short, all those activities which are aimed at freeing mankind from hunger, want and fear, are a remarkable achievement on the credit side of our Organization. I am happy to take this opportunity to remind you that a large part of the honour for this goes to Mr. Trygve Lie and his distinguished colleagues.
8. It is almost four years since a powerful and generous nation, rightly alarmed by the distress of nations less favoured by nature and more tried by the calamities of war, took upon itself to finance their rehabilitation. For almost four years we have witnessed the moving sight of homes being rebuilt, cities being reconstructed, economies being reborn. At an astonishing pace whole populations are being restored to health, while others are literally brought to life again. This phenomenon, on such a scale, is undoubtedly unique in the history of nations. It would not perhaps be too bold to ascribe the origin of this gesture in part to the Charter and to the principle of human solidarity which the Charter has laid down as the basis of our society. That is to say that the world does not profit from the formal provisions of the Charter alone. The Charter is just as effective through the morality it has established and the atmosphere it has created.
9. While this is the balance-sheet in the social field, we must honestly say that in the matter of the security, freedom and independence of the peoples, the picture is far from reassuring. No doubt some of the anomalies which we note are due to the shortcomings of the Charter, and last year, thanks to a happy initiative on the part of the United States of America, the work of filling these gaps was resolutely begun. It is our hope that this effort will be continued and extended to other points of the Charter which also call for improvement.
10. Let me cite one instance in which Greece is particularly interested. In the Chapter on the International Trusteeship System, which deals with backward peoples, the Administering Powers are given the task of leading those peoples towards complete independence. In another article, Article 73, which also deals with a category of peoples under foreign administration, this objective of complete emancipation is not expressly mentioned, although the intention of the Charter must be the same in both cases. It could not indeed be maintained that territories whose lot is governed by Article 73 — and the millennial civilization of some of them antedates any European civilization — have been deprived by the Charter of the right to determine their future, a right stipulated in favour of the Trust Territories, which in some cases are scarcely emerging from a primitive state.
11. There is in this instance a discrimination which is not consonant with the spirit of the Charter and it should be remedied either by an official interpretation of the Charter, or through a practice to be adopted motu proprio by the Administering Powers. But other alarming symptoms darken the picture the world offers at this time in the matter of the security, freedom and independence of the nations.
12. Six years after the end of the war, a great country like Germany is still split into two zones, separated by bulkheads as water-tight as they are artificial.
13. Another country, Austria, vainly awaits the signature of a treaty which would bring it back to the family of nations as a territorial and economic unity.
14. Not even a beginning has been made with the application of some of the peace treaties signed in Paris in 1946. The countries which negotiated them and freely affixed their signatures, literally repudiated them the day after they were concluded. They practically elude any constructive contact with the other signatories of these international instruments and live in a kind of seclusion of which everyone now suspects the disquieting motives.
15. Is there any need for me again to recall that horrible crime which shocked the world and which everyone terms the shame of our century, that crime of which the equal is sought in vain even in the most obscure periods of primitive societies? Everyone knows of the shocking abduction of tens of thousands of children with the object of perverting their souls and making them matricides. This abominable crime, which in any morally sound society would have deserved the severest punishment, still goes on and still braves the outcry which it raised in the world conscience. Furthermore, the passage of time, perpetuating the crime, is likely to render it impossible of redress. These Greek children, torn four years ago from their parents and their country, have since grown up under the authority of their kidnappers. It may be that at this moment they are no longer Greek and no longer children. Their tender existence has served to forge unconscious instruments of hatred and subversion. Soon it will perhaps be too late to save of these children what still remains for saving.
16. As well as the children, three thousand persons, soldiers of all ranks, taken away as hostages by the guerillas in their retreat northwards, are perishing in exile and imprisonment. A General Assembly resolution [382 (V)] declaring this act contrary to all rules of law and demanding their immediate liberation has remained without the least response.
17. Finally, the spirit of aggression, that evil genius of our age, which we had believed for ever banished from the society of nations, has for some time past been making daring reappearances, and already has two victims, Greece and Korea. It seems also to be hatching evil designs elsewhere, threatening to convulse the world and forcing all peace-loving peoples to live a nightmare.
18. The sons of Greece, after having struggled for three years to free their homeland from the hordes of aggression, have already gone to join the United Nations forces and exorcize evil at the other end of the world.
19. I must, however, state that, although I mention such alarming occurrences here, it is assuredly not with the intention of suggesting the idea of failure by the Organization in the field of international security and of the free development of peoples. The prompt and decisive manner in which the United Nations has met the peril in Korea would of itself suffice to prove the contrary.
20. Moreover, in evoking the heroism and self-sacrifice with which our people has faced the threat which weighed so heavily upon its independence, we cannot forget the moral support which we have received from the United Nations and which has so largely contributed to our successful defence. My Government cannot insist too strongly on the services rendered to the cause of peace in our area by the United Nations Special Committee on the Balkans. This Commission, which the Organization had the happy inspiration to dispatch to the locality itself, has revealed itself as an organ of high authority. By its conscientious work, by the profound knowledge of the facts which it has acquired, and by the prompt and objective findings which it has been able to present, it has shed full light on a question which its authors had every reason to keep dark.
21. The constructive part played by the United Nations in the problems of Indonesia, Libya, Eritrea and Somaliland must also be recalled.
22. Nonetheless, in spite of this meritorious work, mankind lives to-day in anguish, and we should be closing our eyes to the evidence if we failed to admit it.
23. The reason for this situation is that the fundamental principle of the solidarity of peoples, to which I referred at the beginning of my address, has not yet reached among the Members of our Organization that universality which is essential for its triumph, and as soon as fear in matters of security invades the hearts of men, preoccupation with defence takes hold of their minds.
24. It is therefore not surprising if, in the present atmosphere, peace-loving peoples seek to organize their own defence and are reluctant to entrust any part of their security to the malice of the often treacherous turns of fortune. This likewise is not surprising, so long as the machinery provided under the Charter for the enforcement of its own provisions is not established, and so long as the much talked of agreement on disarmament keeps the ever-renewed distance of a fleeting mirage on the horizon.
25. Yet, peace-loving peoples are not content with this fate, however much confidence their own precautions may give them. What they ask of the Organization is final deliverance from the fear which forces them to remain constantly on their guard and to live, as it were, weapon, in hand, to the greatest detriment of their progress and wellbeing.
26. It is against this background that they will always welcome with the utmost relief any sincere initiative aiming at this result; they know full well that to achieve it, it would suffice for each one of us to make his contribution resolutely and without reserve.
27. The ideal to which all peace-loving peoples aspire is peace in security; none of them aspires to this more ardently than my own country, whose ordeal has been without equal in the history of our time.