A year ago, when the fourth session of the General Assembly met, there was an atmosphere of optimism and determination to accomplish the work before us. The President of that session, General Romulo, expressed the hope that the fourth Assembly might become known as the “Peace Assembly”. Now, twelve months later, that spirit of optimism has given way to a spirit of acute concern, if not fear, at the dangers which threaten the peace of the world. It was this which lead the United States Secretary of State to say the other day [279th meeting] that a feeling of anxiety pervaded our hopes and our work. “Why is it”, he asked, “that we have been unable to achieve peace and security through the United Nations in these five years?”
2. We are filled with anxiety, then, concerning the surprises which the future may hold in store; fears that the United Nations may be called upon to face events even more serious than those of the present time, and that such problems may greatly exceed its powers and capacity. As the Foreign Secretary of the United Kingdom so aptly remarked the other day, the United Nations has no assurance that, now that the spectre of war has loomed up, it may not manifest itself elsewhere. Indeed, the danger exists everywhere, in Europe, in Africa, in the Pacific islands and in other parts of the globe.
3. Is there any reason to be surprised at this? Some speakers have tried, with varying degrees of clarity, to determine the responsibility for this state of affairs. For my part I shall confine myself to drawing the attention of other members to the rather more general aspects of these problems. We are told that we are, if not participants in a cold war, at least spectators of it This expression, “cold war”, was in current use barely a few months after the end of the Second World War. This means that the problems raised by that frightful war have not yet been solved, and that, while some of the conditions which caused it no longer exist to disturb us, they were replaced in the course of the war by other and even more serious problems.
4. Thus, wittingly or unwittingly, we have gone directly from the Second World War to the cold war without enjoying a period of peace.
5. When we recall that the era of the Napoleonic wars, which lasted for twenty-three years, came to an end with the treaties of Paris and Vienna, concluded within the short period of two years, and that the Treaty of Versailles followed the First World War after an interval of a few months, we have every reason to wonder at the existing situation, for although five years have passed since the Second World War, the principal enemy States have not yet signed peace treaties, and we are, in fact, in a permanent state of war.
6. We should recall that five years after the First World War began the period of the Geneva Protocol and the Locarno Treaties; Germany entered the League of Nations, although the League was an infinitely weaker organization than the United Nations. Today, five years after the Second World War, not only have no peace treaties been concluded with Germany and Japan, but we are faced with the most serious threat to world peace.
7. Can it be wondered, then, that the United Nations, which was set up to serve the cause of peace, and to maintain that peace, should be accused of failure? Surely the Organization should be based on a firm structure of peace treaties. Is the United Nations not, so to speak, in the position of a train unable to move or go forward for want of a track?
8. In these circumstances, is it surprising that the United Nations should now be confronted with the difficult question of Korea, and that the question of Formosa should be included in our agenda, when the disposal of those two territories should have been settled by peace treaties which still do not exist five years after the armistice? No wonder, then, that the Members of the United Nations are in constant fear that a new crisis may break out in Europe, Asia, or Africa, over territories and peoples whose fate is still to be determined.
9. Most of the problems with which the General Assembly is now confronted have arisen out of the fact that no peace treaties have been concluded; that applies particularly to the question of the former Italian colonies in Africa. Apart from Italy’s renunciation of them, disposal of these former colonies is not in any way provided for in the Treaty of Peace concluded with Italy in 1946. As we all know, the disposal of these colonies was to be determined by the four great Powers or in the event of their failure to agree, by the General Assembly.
10. With the exception of certain frontier adjustments claimed by Egypt, our very great friend in Africa, Ethiopia, is the only Member of the United Nations which has territorial claims to be settled under this peace treaty. Certain problems resulting from the war which were not solved by the Peace Conference thus have to be settled. Owing to the failure to achieve the settlement of these problems, and in spite of the peace treaty of 1946, which incidentally did not cover all the issues, it has been impossible hitherto to re-establish relations of friendship and trust between former enemies; and the accumulation of bitterness caused by seventy-five years of injustice has still not been removed and had resulted in the recent disturbances in the southern regions of Ethiopia.
11. In this case, therefore, the United Nations is not called upon to carry out one of its routine functions, namely, to see to it that the provisions for the peaceful settlement of international disputes are observed, but rather to fulfil a function and a responsibility of a more fundamental kind, namely, to lay the very foundations of peaceful relations. Therein lie the function and responsibility of the General Assembly, to which the twenty-one countries which took part in the Paris Peace Conference referred the question for settlement. It was a novel and unprecedented step to make the General Assembly itself responsible for settling the consequences of a war and of half a century of aggression, misery and bitterness.
12.. Why, then, was it decided, under the terms of article 23 of the Peace Treaty with Italy, to call upon the General Assembly to settle this question? There are only two possible reasons for the decision to appeal to the Assembly in the event of the failure of negotiations between the four great Powers responsible for settling the question.
13. The first of these reasons was certainly that if the great Powers failed to agree, the matter should be placed before the smaller States, which, having no interests at stake, would be more capable of reaching an objective and impartial decision based on justice and equity.
14. The other reason for referring the question to the General Assembly, and at the same time, for designating that organ in preference to the Security Council, was the desire to prevent any failure to reach a solution due to the existence of the veto in the Security Council.
15. Such, at all events, are the only reasons which can justify referring the matter to the fifty-nine States members of the Assembly, whose disinterestedness and sense of equity are the only guarantees that a just decision will be reached in this matter.
16. But it is clear, in our opinion, that the very reasons for referring the issue of the colonies to the General Assembly have already lost their validity. If the intention was to avoid political bargaining, there was no point in referring the matter to the Assembly, for the very simple reason that none of the great Powers or any of the other States which took part in the Paris Peace Conference are seeking to engage in political bargaining. As far as they are concerned, there is no obstacle in the way of a solution. On the contrary, they openly seek a settlement in favour of Ethiopia.
17. In this connexion, I would recall that at the Peace Conference, Brazil, a country friendly to Ethiopia, was among the nations directly concerned and signatories to the treaty. Do India and the Union of South Africa, which are not agreed on certain of the questions before the General Assembly but which played a particularly important part in the liberation of the former African colonies, disagree concerning the general terms of the settlement of the Eritrean question? Can it be said that Norway, which took part in the Paris Conference but, desiring to preserve complete objectivity, did not ask to participate in the discussion of the question there, is among the countries opposed to finding a just solution for that territory? Moreover, Egypt, the European countries, indeed all the States represented at the Paris Conference including the three great Powers most closely concerned with the problem, are agreed upon a solution.
18. Yet in statements made at the General Assembly on the evening of 17 May 1949, open reference was made to political bargaining. The justice of the Ethiopian claims were frankly recognized by an overwhelming majority, but at the same time it was stated that, for reasons of political expediency, they could not be satisfied.
19. When we are told that the decision to refer these questions to the General Assembly was made because the members of the Assembly would have a keener sense of justice, we wonder what the people of Somaliland think of such justice? And what do the people of Eritrea, whose deepest aspirations have not yet been satisfied, think of it?
20. Although it was not the right moment to discuss the substance of the question, the representative of Guatemala spoke fervently the other day [280th meeting] from this rostrum in praise of a solution recommended by two of the five members, or by a minority, of the United Nations Commission for Eritrea. The solution he advocated is contrary to the welfare of the inhabitants, contrary to the wishes of the vast majority of the population, which wants union with Ethiopia, and contrary to the interests of Ethiopia, whose interests the representative of Guatemala took upon himself to interpret. Is that justice?
21. So we have fled from a non-existent danger, only to meet it precisely where we might have expected to be able to avoid it, that is, in a forum where the question ought to be discussed with complete objectivity. It must, then, be concluded that the declared reason — the desire to avoid political bargaining — is no justification for referring this matter of territorial settlement to the General Assembly.
22. Moreover, the second reason, the reason why the matter was referred to the General Assembly rather than to the Security Council — the desire to avoid a veto by a single Power — has likewise proved illusory. If the General Assembly has not escaped the danger of becoming a centre of political bargaining which, four times within three years, has prevented any solution of the problem, the responsibility for this is now clearly established.
23. If a single State, whether or not it is a Member of the United Nations, can in practice defer or prevent the solution of a problem, are we not in the same position as we were in the Security Council, where the right of veto exists, and are we not faced with the very danger which we wished to avoid ?
24. Consequently the arguments which were invoked to justify reference of the question to the General Assembly have, by reason of the actual course of events, unfortunately been proved to be without foundation.
25. Much has been said in praise of the idea of regionalism and of the need to leave the responsibility for settling their own affairs to the States of the same continent or the same region. There is no doubt that, far from constituting an obstacle to a decision, the States of the African continent are actively seeking to satisfy the desires of the peoples and the just claims of Ethiopia. Ask them, ask Egypt, ask the Union of South Africa, ask Liberia. Neither the African States nor the twenty-one States that shed their blood and expended their resources for the liberation of the territories concerned and then drew up the peace treaty are impeding this decision.
26. It is therefore doubtful whether in the case of the other peace treaties which have still to be drafted the settlement of certain questions should be referred to the General Assembly, as was the case for the treaty of 1946. It may well be asked once again whether it was right to refer the matter to the General Assembly, which, with its Interim Committee, has already failed four times to meet its responsibilities because of purely political considerations.
27. Meanwhile, threats to the peace continue to develop in Africa, while territorial claims are directly and openly made against my country in the very region where the war broke out in 1935. In the circumstances, I feel that I am entitled to ask the members of this Assembly how much longer we must wait to obtain justice from the General Assembly.
28. Ought we still to be patient? Patient, after ten years of waiting, after four postponements of the problem by the General Assembly itself, patient in face of grave threats to our national security? Shall we be told that we must display a spirit of moderation and conciliation? My country, faced with a threat to its national security, is the only country which at the present time gives evidence of a spirit of conciliation. Everyone knows that we have carried this spirit of conciliation to the limit.
29. That is why I ask you how much longer we must wait to obtain justice from the General Assembly. Is that body determined to find just solutions for the problems which it has the duty to solve, and that without hesitation and in all sincerity? Last year, when the fourth session of the General Assembly began its work, I found it necessary to call attention to the fact that the same questions which had appeared on tire agenda of the third session of the Assembly had remained unchanged on the fourth session’s agenda. Today we observe exactly the same phenomenon: the same problems again come unsolved before the General Assembly. Moreover, the Interim Committee, despite the advantage of working under the direction of an eminent Chairman, has made no progress whatever with its programme of work for this year.
30. These are the reflections which the work of the General Assembly during the past three years arouse in us. It is high time to face problems squarely and to tackle the questions which have been held over from the first four sessions of the General Assembly. As was very well stated the other day [279th meeting] by the United States Secretary of State: “This session of the General Assembly is a session of decision. Before us lies opportunity for action which can save the hope of peace, of security, of well-being and of justice for generations to come. Before us also lies opportunity for drift, for irresolution, for effort feebly made. In this direction is disaster ... If [the United Nations] does not move forward it will move back.”
31. If there should be further failures on the part of the General Assembly, we should be justified in asking whether there was not profound truth in the shrewd words of the great British stateman who, a century ago, with reference to the Concert of Europe — the United Nations of that period, if I may say so — said the following: “Each nation for itself and God for us all”.
32. The time has come to face the problems on the agenda squarely and, for the first time in the history of the United Nations, to find a solution for each and all of them.