1. Madam President, allow me to congratulate you
most cordially on behalf of the Mexican Government and
delegation. The General Assembly has wisely entrusted the
direction of its work to an experienced diplomatist who
knows the potentialities and limitations of the United
Nations through and through, a woman representing a
country whose history and very name recall the centuries-old
struggle for freedom. Our choice shows that within the
United Nations, respect for human rights is already an
everyday reality.
2. I should like at the same time to pay a heartfelt tribute
to the memory of Mr. Emilio Arenales, whose premature
death was a loss mourned not only by his own country, the
Republic of Guatemala, but by all Latin. America and
especially Mexico. To the very end he discharged the heavy
duties of the presidency of the General Assembly’s last
session, which we had entrusted to Sim, not only with
ability but also with exemplary devotion and enthusiasm.
3. The United Nations, which will soon be celebrating its
twenty-fifth anniversary, is the international political
organization which has had the longest continuous life, and the
only one which we may reasonably hope will succeed in
bringing together all mankind. Our President and the
Secretary-General have rightly referred to the very grave
questions facing us at this moment; but we should be
encouraged by one thing: no one has even thought that the
United Nations should disappear. The fact is that the
United Nations is more—much more—than these solemn
meetings of the General Assembly, or the meetings of the
Security Council, or the meetings of its many component
specialized agencies and regional bodies. It was created by a
generation which had learnt that wars could no longer
replace policy or diplomacy, and is a setting for many
opportunities, much the most important of which are the
sessions of the General Assembly, where the representatives
of 126 countries—enormous, large, middle-sized, small and
minute—meet to consider, to discuss and often to negotiate
on the innumerable questions raised by the coexistence of
peoples.
4. The agenda for this session, as for all the sessions that
have gone before, reflects better than any other document
the present fears and hopes of mankind; for the next three
months the most experienced diplomats of these 126
countries will be dealing with those hopes and fears and
with the problems they entail. As far as Mexico is
concerned, I will confine myself in this statement to a few
subjects that seem to me of primary importance and
appropriate to this general debate.
5. It is hardly necessary to say that the first subject is
peace. Our first duty is that we should all go on
co-operating, each to the measure of his ability and his
responsibility, to lift the menace which, though fortunately
much remoter today than it was a few years ago, still casts a
shadow over our planet: a major confrontation, inevitably
nuclear, between the super-Powers.
6. This leads me to speak of disarmament. About the
middle of last year, disarmament negotiations seemed to
have taken a promising turn. The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation
of Nuclear Weapons [resolution 2373 (XXII)]
was opened for signature. This treaty aimed not only at
limiting the number of States to possess nuclear weapons,
but also by its article VI, proposed by Mexico, obliged the
Powers which now suffer the sad privilege of possessing
them to begin negotiations on nuclear disarmament in the
near future. Almost at the same time the United States and
Soviet Governments announced their agreement to discuss
the limitation and reduction of nuclear-weapon launching
systems.
7. Unfortunately, more than a year later these intentions
have not yet been translated into facts. Those conversations
have not begun; and, partly in consequence, negotiation on
the other aspects of nuclear disarmament is virtually at a
standstill, This situation may explain why, in the fifteen
months during which the non-proliferation Treaty has been
open for signature, only eighteen States have ratified it.
The delay in opening negotiations on nuclear disarmament may
endanger the very existence of the Treaty. I say this as the
representative of a country which has already ratified it.
8. Of course we understand the grave problems and
difficulties faced by the nuclear Powers in agreeing on
measures of disarmament which might vitally affect their
security; we recognize as a hard, inescapable reality that no
measure which might upset the balance that seems at
present to exist would be practicable.
9. In line with this way of thinking, Mexico expressed its
view on the urgent need for the two chief nuclear Powers to
start negotiations as soon as possible for the ultimate
abolition of systems for launching nuclear weapons, and
pointed out the grave risk of missing an historic opportunity
which might never recur. We also proposed that the
General Assembly should address an urgent appeal to both
parties to start negotiations for a moratorium, which could
be renewable, on all testing and deployment of new
launching systems for offensive and defensive nuclear
weapons not yet operational. Allow me from this rostrum
to stress how overwhelmingly important it is that the
General Assembly, the most fully representative body of
the world community, should urge a halt to such tests
before it is too late.
10. We feel that the problem of underground nuclear tests
is not quite the same today as when the Moscow Treaty was
signed in 1963. There has been such an advance in the
techniques of long-distance detection and identification of
underground explosions and seismic phenomena that an
agreement to prohibit them would no longer have to
depend on complicated systems of international inspection.
The studies and proposals by Sweden, Japan and Canada
show that it might not be impossible to overcome the
problem of on-site inspection which has always held up
agreement. True, it is still theoretically possible that the
one observation may be confused with the other below a
certain magnitude; but international relations must be
based on actual possibilities, not on absolute data. Perfection
does not belong to the world of politics. The risk of
detection would be so great that it is hardly conceivable
that either party would take the foolhardy decision to
violate the treaty. We therefore believe that the time has
come for the Disarmament Committee to intensify its
efforts to reach an agreement to prohibit underground
nuclear testing, which today is the major incentive in the
nuclear race.
11. There is a well-justified world-wide outcry against
chemical and biological weapons. The provisions of the
Geneva Protocol of 1925, which only prohibits their use,
are not enough. A treaty prohibiting their production and
stockpiling should be drafted as soon as possible. At the
same time it seems urgent that those States which have not
yet done so should accede to the Geneva Protocol. In
regard to the scope of that Protocol, we are in favour of its
widest possible interpretation.
12. The Government of the United Kingdom submitted a
draft convention banning the production, stockpiling and
use of biological but not of chemical weapons. Two points
in that draft treaty seem to us both valuable and useful: its
ingenious system of control in the form of a “complaints
procedure” to deal with suspicious events, similar to that
already adopted in the Treaty of Tlatelolco, and secondly
its application both to production and to stockpiling.
Mexico hopes that in the coming year the Disarmament
Committee will complete the preparation of a draft treaty
to prohibit the manufacture, stockpiling and use of both
these types of weapon.
13. We think that the prevention of an armaments race-on
the sea-bed is another item on the agenda of the Disarmament
Committee for which the time is already ripe for the
conclusion of a treaty. The present negotiations in the
Committee itself should therefore lead to the transmission
to this Assembly of a draft which will enable the Members
of the United Nations to state their views on this matter,
which in differing degree is important to all. Whatever the
content of the draft might be it seems to us essential that it
should faithfully reflect the general feeling already expressed
in the General Assembly’s debates that the exploration,
use and exploitation of the sea-bed and ocean floor
should be reserved exclusively for peaceful purposes.
14. My country’s capital has recently witnessed an event
which we are sure will be significant in the history of
international efforts to achieve peace and disarmament.
From 2 to 9 September there took place in Mexico City the
first meeting of the General Conference of the Agency for
the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America, the
culmination of nearly five years’ effort pursued jointly by
the Latin American countries. The Agency’s object is to
supervise the observance of the Treaty of Tlatelolco and
compliance with its two fundamental aims: to ensure the
total exclusion of nuclear weapons from the territories to
which it applies; and to promote equitably the peaceful use
of the atom in the region. At the inaugural session we had
the honour of having with us U Thant, who said something
for which we are deeply grateful: “In a world that too
often seems dark and foreboding, the Treaty of Tlatelolco
will shine as a beacon light.”
15. The first of the objectives we are pursuing is itself
twofold: to relieve the countries of Latin America which
are present on future parties to the Treaty of the risk that
they might become targets of nuclear attacks; and to
prevent their resources—so scanty compared with the
region’s tremendous needs—from being squandered on the
manufacture of nuclear weapons.
16. It should be stressed that the Treaty of Tlatelolco,
which created the Agency for the Prohibition of Nuclear
Weapons in Latin America, was conceived to protect a
whole sub-continent, with an area of more than 20 million
square kilometres and a population of some 260 million
human beings. It is equally worth pointing out that what
has already been achieved is truly impressive, for the
territories of the fourteen members of OPANAL—the
Agency’s Spanish acronym—where the régime of total
exclusion of nuclear weapons is fully in force cover more
than 5.5 million square kilometres and have a population of
about 100 million.
17. Besides the military denuclearization of Latin
America, the Treaty aims at encouraging the use of nuclear
energy for peaceful purposes, to speed up the economic and
social development of the Latin-American nations. We
therefore hope that OPANAL will foster that international
co-operation which will give the Latin-American countries
fuller access to nuclear technology, especially to those
aspects most in keeping with their needs.
18. The peoples and Governments that have striven so
hard for the success of this generous undertaking now hope
that the countries of the region that have not yet acceded
to the Treaty will do so, in order that what has been
achieved may be made still more effective, According to
best opinions we have been able to obtain, we have reason
to say that, on account of both the cost and the risks of
contamination which their use entails in the present state of
technology, a country which renounces the carrying out of
nuclear explosions for peaceful purposes with its own
resources will be sacrificing none of its true opportunities
for economic development; especially if we bear in mind
that the benefits to be derived from such explosions will be
available to it through an appropriate international body.
19. We States Parties to the Treaty of Tlatelolco also hope
that the nuclear Powers will heed the appeals of this
General Assembly and make their valuable contribution by
signing and ratifying Additional Protocol II, by which they
would undertake to respect the military denuclearization
status of Latin America.
20. One basic feature of our times, of special interest to
the middle-sized and smaller countries, is the apparent
tendency to dissociate local conflicts from direct confrontation
between the major Powers. This must reassure us as
human beings but at the same time oblige us to recognize
another fact: that relief of tension and an agreement
between the nuclear Powers on disarmament would not
necessarily mean that wars: would no longer break out
anywhere in the world. Since the chief function of the
United Nations, the very reason justifying its creation and
its continuing existence, is to defend peace, it is vital for us
to concern ourselves with the measures that the United
Nations itself or its regional bodies might be able to adopt
to divert the instinct for aggression that modern studies
have shown to. be inherent in the human species into
channels other than armed conflict. I would therefore
repeat a suggestion that I had the honour to submit to the
General Assembly in 1965: the possibility of initiating,
preferably in a regional context, serious efforts to examine
and ultimately to agree on measures of disarmament
between the non-nuclear Powers, most of which are
developing countries.
21. To refer only to the region of which Mexico is a part:
when the Heads of State of Latin America met at Punta del
Este in April 1967 they expressed their intention to limit
military expenditure in proportion to the real needs of
national security and in accordance wit each country's
constitutional rules, avoiding any such expenditure that was
not necessary for performance of the specific duties of the
armed forces and of any international agreements binding
governments—some of which, like Mexico, have no such
obligations.
22. One of the lessons we learned from the conflict, which
so distressed us, between the two sister Republics of El
Salvador and Honduras is the urgent need to recognize the
grave danger for peace, not of the world but of some of its
peoples, in the failure of the competent authorities of the
international community to make a greater effort to slow
down the arms race among medium-sized and small States.
23. Since international law is still barely in its infancy,
having with very few exceptions no central authority to
state it nor any effective machinery to enforce it, inevitably
on many of the world’s frontiers (though fortunately not
on Mexico’s, for obvious geopolitical reasons) there will be
a search for balance of power. Any realistic effort to slow
down arms races must start from this fact and not try to
ignore it. Thus, even in Latin America, a region with so
many historical affinities, it is essential to tackle this
problem, as our Presidents have already urged. The most
suitable way, in Mexico’s opinion, would be through
negotiated subregional agreements, covering specific situations
and not presuming to enact general solutions which,
however noble and generous their motives, are most
unlikely to work.
24. Another lesson of that distressing conflict, which we
Mexicans hope with all our hearts will never flare up again,
is the effectiveness of regional organizations when they can
act without being involved in the controversies which divide
the super-Powers, as indeed the Organization of American
States could when its one great-Power Member, the United
States, left the Latin Americans alone to look for formulas
of solution, while offering them its support within limits
which it quite frankly and clearly made known to us.
25. Lastly, without going into details for which this forum
would not be the proper place, I would say that the Central
American conflict highlights certain problems that affect
various other regions and in some are tending to grow
worse: overpopulation, archaic patterns of land tenure, the
need for more efficient machinery to safeguard human
rights, and one which we had hardly been aware of: the risk
that the economic integration of several countries, though
undoubtedly valuable in creating larger areas where industry
can develop on an adequate scale, may also create grave
tensions which paradoxically inflame nationalist feelings
even between States which are really part of one nation, as
the constitutions of many Central American countries
proclaim.
26. During the past year the organizations of the United
Nations family have been working very hard to prepare for
the Second United Nations Development Decade. It is
important for this international effort to be more successful
than the First, since it is steadily becoming more obvious
that economic and social development is indispensable for
the maintenance of world peace.
27. We are all aware of the great progress that has been
made over the years in clarifying the nature of the problems
of subdevelopment; and it is obvious that we have the
necessary technology but not sufficient resources, though
they are undoubtedly greater than those hitherto mobilized
for international co-operation. What marvels could not be
achieved if the $185,000 million which the world devoted
to military expenditure in 1968 were used to promote life
and not death?
28. What the Second United Nations Development Decade
will have to do more than anything else is to strengthen the
will towards international co-operation and a reassessment
of policies and objectives to constitute what has been called
a global development strategy.
29. The economic desire of the developing countries is still
essentially to obtain remunerative and stable prices for their
primary products, freer access to the domestic markets of
the developed countries, more financing on easier terms,
and greater opportunity to benefit from modern technology.
30. In a global development strategy there is much that
the industrialized countries can do to help the developing
countries to solve these tremendous problems. Apart from
maintaining their own economic growth in order to increase
imports from the developing countries, the industrial
nations would do well to check the protectionist trends
that have appeared in some of them and the proposals to
place restrictions both on the agricultural products which
are the chief exports of the poor countries and on their
manufactures and semi-manufactures. In this connexion I
should like to reiterate Mexico’s support for the early
implementation of the generalized non-reciprocal,
non-discriminatory system of preferences unanimously approved
in resolution 21 (II) at the New Delhi session of the
United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, if
possible by 1970 in accordance with the approved time-table.
31. With regard to financing for development purposes
—more than 80 per cent of which has to come from each
country’s own resources—I want to stress once again the
absolute necessity for the nations of the third world to
obtain foreign exchanges to import the capital goods and
industrial raw materials which they do not produce.
32. If the industrial countries allowed easier access for
exports from the developing countries, this would considerably
lessen the problem of external financing with which
they are faced. For even if our peoples save more, internal
savings do not generate foreign exchange if the product
cannot be sold abroad; in which case internal savings would
be immobilized in the form of accumulated stocks of
unsaleable products.
33. The forecasts of the trade deficit of the developing
countries during the Second Development Decade made by
United Nations experts—$30,000 million by 1980—clearly
show the gap between them and the industrial nations, and
the scale of the efforts that must be made to enable the
majority of mankind to enjoy a modest degree of well-being.
34. In these matters of international trade and finance and
for many other aspects of economic and social subdevelopment,
Members of the United Nations have already set
targets and worked out measures for execution during the
Second United Nations Development Decade. All these
goals are important, but some can perhaps be picked out as
having a better chance of being accepted and achieved; and
to these the concentrated efforts of the whole world might
be devoted.
35. Chapter IX of the Charter makes the United Nations a
great centre for promoting and encouraging international
co-operation for the purposes of development. The Economic
and Social Council was conceived as the body to
carry out this wise policy; but with the passage of time it
has lost this role. My Government believes that the time has
come to make the Economic and Social Council the major
organ of co-ordination, but of a type of co-ordination that
will not restrict the opportunities of the new bodies (such
as the United Nations Industrial Development Organization,
the United Nations Development Programme and the
United Nations Conference on Trade and Development) to
act for the benefit of all the nations of the third world. An
annual meeting at the highest level, of members of the
Council and of representatives of the specialized agencies,
which have recently been appointing spokesmen of distinctly
lower standing, might infuse new life into a Council on
which we still set our hopes.
36. Obviously an effective international strategy for development
has far-reaching political repercussions. Many
developing countries will have to carry out profound
institutional changes and necessary social reforms to create
a climate conducive to economic progress; and those
changes, I must repeat, depend above all on the national
policies adopted in each country to mobilize its own
economic and social forces. It is my country’s long-standing
conviction that foreign aid, however ample, can only play a
complementary role.
37. This Assembly meets in a year which history will
record as that in which men for the first time stepped on a
soil not of their planet. For this reason I should like above
everything to reiterate the hope expressed at the time by
the President of my country or behalf of all the Mexican
people that this exploit of man will redound to the benefit
of man and lead all the peoples of the earth to participate
in full awareness of their common destiny.
38. Furthermore, this achievement which fortune has
allotted to the people of the United States, together with
the parallel efforts of the Soviet people, will throw light on
a fact which though suspected has never before been fully
proved: the uniqueness of man and of life as we know it, if
not in the entire universe, at least in the solar system.
39. This privilege, which we men have done nothing to
gain, creates for us a grave responsibility: to know better,
to use better, to love better our earth, the sea upon it and
the air around it, so that those who come after us may go
on building for good and not for evil, on the prodigious
legacy of this contradictory century in which so many of
the best things and some of the worst of all time have come
about. May it be so!