YouSaid · the spoken record

Costa du Rels

THE RECORD WRITES THIS SPEAKER AS COSTA DU RELS

lines on the record: 45
first: 1946-09-24
most recent: 1951-09-24
sittings or episodes: 3
sources: un-general-debate

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“A country which has poured out the fruits of its genius, which has convinced, persuaded, and, even better, charmed; a country whose ideas have formed distant nations still in the stage of France’s own turbulent youth; a country whose capital is not a city, but a sun ; a country which has made the Champs Elysees the meeting place of the world ; a country which at will manipulates masculine thought as easily as feminine styles of hair and dress ; where the Louvre is Beauty, the Etoile Grandeur and Chaillot Peace and Fraternity — that country has taken upon itself a secular and redoubtable responsibility. That responsibility France is fulfilling still in offering us its wonderful and abounding hospitality. And then there is Paris, the only city in the world which one can take to one’s heart without it bursting.”
1951-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 6 (1951)
“In these critical days when civilization is being washed by a tidal wave, and the Mediterranean culture to which my friend the Brazilian representative swore eternal faith — and I join with him — is threatened, the gathering of the United Nations in France seems symbolic. 28. Joseph de Maistre, who lived in a period almost as topsy-turvy as our own, wrote in 1814: “France has been granted an undisputed mission to raise man to his highest function”. France is still fulfilling that mission. It is gratifying that we are here to bear witness to that.”
1951-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 6 (1951)
“Some delegations have praised me for it, others have blamed me, yet others still hold it against me. That is really too much honour for a mere representative of a small South American country. I must, however, remind you that in ratifying by a two-thirds majority at its fifth session in New York the draft resolution submitted by the delegations of Bolivia, Colombia and Peru [A/1593], the Assembly set aside budgetary considerations and based itself on political and moral grounds alone. 27. Europe is the sick continent. Marshal Tito’s recent appeal is confirmation enough of that. It was therefore timely and wise for the United Nations to come and sit beside its sick-bed.”
1951-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 6 (1951)
“Not only the Bolivian Government and employers, but also the whole Bolivian working class, are calling the Assembly’s attention, through me, to the serious problem caused by the artificial lowering of the price of a primary strategic raw material and by the unfair price imposed for it. At present purchases and sales have come to an end. I hope, however, that I shall be able in the near future to inform the Assembly that a reasonable solution, has been found in the spirit of friendly co-operation which is laid upon countries of goodwill by the Charter, and to which my Government remains deeply attached. 26. In conclusion, may I be permitted to express my satisfaction at the fact that the Assembly is holding its sixth session in Paris. It seems that I am in some small degree responsible for this.”
1951-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 6 (1951)
“I must bring it to the Assembly’s attention. 25. The price of tin, the basis of the Bolivian economy, has for some months been subjected to the unilateral criterion of a purchaser against whom my country is defenceless. An attempt is being made to force upon it, by the methods used by the strong against the weak, a price which bears no relation to equity or to the spirit of co-operation. Whereas the manufactured goods sold to us, and the other non-ferrous metals, have risen in price by from 40 to 60 per cent, the price offered to us for tin is, within a few cents, that of 1945. If a fair and reasonable solution is not found by direct negotiation, there is a danger of a far-reaching economic and social crisis.”
1951-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 6 (1951)
“The worker must find happiness not only in a fair wage but in healthy living conditions and in an atmosphere of relaxed confidence, in which he and his employer can live side by side and work for the common weal. 23. All in all, it is a great honour and a great satisfaction to present to you today the example of a small country, economically weak but potentially wealthy, asking the strong to make it in the future what they are today. The example of the United States of America in the past shows that this is possible. 24. Unfortunately, there is a shadow over this profession of faith which I cannot conceal. Bolivia which, in no mercenary spirit, placed all its resources of strategic materials at the disposal of the allied countries fighting for freedom, is today facing a very serious problem, both economic and moral.”
1951-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 6 (1951)
“Under this agreement a team of international experts in various branches and of various nationalities will completely recast our much too obsolete administrative services in accordance with a pre-established plan. They are to discover means to set our currency on a sound basis and to plan the exploration, exploitation and distribution of our resources within the limits set by our Constitution and laws. 21. I should like to draw the Assembly’s attention and sympathy to this heartening aspect of international collaboration, to this over-all experiment in planned technical assistance. It is the first large-scale activity undertaken by the United Nations in the complex and varied life of a country desperately trying to work out its destiny. 22. Labour must be accompanied by bodily, mental and social health.”
1951-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 6 (1951)
“Let us understand one another! Let us help one another! 19. The great Powers duty is not only to defend peace by arms, but to defend it also by setting up such living standards as will promote order and justice. Thus while the world resounds with the noise of arms being forged an bombs being tested, my Government has asked the United Nations to send a mission of inquiry to make a general survey of all its material and intellectual resources. 20. The Keenleyside mission, to which I cannot pay enough of a tribute, has completed its investigation and an agreement between Bolivia and the United Nations has just been signed on the basis of its report.”
1951-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 6 (1951)
“But, alas, to judge by what we hear, it seems that peace is the exclusive prerogative of certain States, as each boasts that it alone has its secret. Yet, by a tragic irony, this secret is not the secret of peace, but that of war. To defend peace you must have a firm grasp on death. 17. Are we the playthings of some strange spell or are we all men who have gone mad? Can we not lay aside our grievances, our pride, our secret interests? Can we not do without our sarcastic remarks? Can we go on living in a world in perpetual mourning, in a world in which great words, the heritage of our forebears, words such as honour love, pity, gratitude, kindness, have lost their meaning? 18. And though the voice of a small country like mine may be too weak to be heard, allow me none the less to repeat over and over again: Let us love one another!”
1951-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 6 (1951)
“Lies, the human rights, to state which alone does honour to the spirit of man, but which the totalitarian Moloch daily devours as they take on a certain consistency and assume some form I A lie, too, this right to life, sacrificed daily to the criminal exercise of state sovereignty! 15. So we have come to a wall. We must choose: either we have retreat, the Charter torn to shreds by admitted violence and aggression or by Machiavellian sapping of the principles which are the basis of our liberties, our dignity and our moral health; or we have reasoned collaboration, withdrawal of pride, partial waiving of that sovereignty which is of disservice to many causes, the patient search for a peace that shall not be the peace of one or of the other, but just peace. 10.”
1951-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 6 (1951)
“So, I ask you and I ask myself whether it was for that that mankind endured such untold agonies for so many years? Was it for that that women shed torrents of tears? Was it for that that we gave the lives of our children, lives which we had worked upon as upon a masterpiece so that they could be finer and more useful than our own? Shall all who died have to repeat that terrible sentence which Rudyard Kipling wrote on the tomb of a soldier of the previous war: “Passer-by, go tell the living that they lied to us”? Lies, then, the words spoken by the false shepherds to lull the good faith of defenceless people!”
1951-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 6 (1951)
“A few of us still here — I see them in this hall — attended the 1932 Disarmament Conference at Geneva. That conference, called by the League of Nations, comprised Member and non-member States, just like the conference Mr. Vyshinsky is proposing now. I do not want to annoy the augurs, but you all know what became of that Disarmament Conference. When it was of no further use to Hitler in obtaining acceptance of his views, the famous Gleichberechtigung, Germany left the Disarmament Conference and the League of Nations. Seven years later, the same Germany and the Soviet Union, champion of peace, signed the agreements of August 1939 and together plunged the world into a hell from which it has not yet entirely emerged, into which, there is every reason to believe, an effort is being made to plunge it again. 14.”
1951-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 6 (1951)
“But, as he knows that even the crudest irony is not really a political position, he put forward certain counter-proposals, I will deal only with one of them: that for a disarmament conference of Member and non-member States of the United Nations to be held in June 1952 [A/1944]. 12. What does this mean? Does the Soviet Union no longer regard the United Nations as a valid organization? Does it think that all negotiations to ensure peace should be concluded outside the Organization? After weakening this Organization by an attitude which is the negation of international collaboration, after exhausting its advantages and propaganda resources, the Soviet Union considers the United Nations no longer suited to its interests and designs and intends to do without it. 13.”
1951-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 6 (1951)
“It was a psychological error to take the comradeship of war and victory and the momentary coincidence of interests for a permanent guarantee of friendship and mutual confidence. 10. The ancients recommended mortals pursuing happiness to mark each day with a white stone. We see, alas as we glance backwards, that the whole road since 1945 is paved with black stones. 11. Hardly a week ago the USSR representative in this very Assembly replied to the Western Powers’ proposals for disarmament, which might obviously have been a useful basis for discussion, with sarcastic remarks in doubtful taste.”
1951-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 6 (1951)
“Thus the secular arm, once demanded so warmly, so movingly by Aristide Briand, to whose memory I must pay a tribute of respect, would become in the hands of the strong a method of bringing the weak and the small to heel. 8. Plow far we have come from the juridical and philosophic digressions of Dumbarton Oaks! How far from the idylls of Yalta and Potsdam! The tragic ambiguity of the morrow of victory is obvious to all and bids fair to change the present and future of the United Nations from top to bottom! 9. But errors come home to roost! It was a juridical error to base the whole system set up by the Charter on a politically impracticable compromise. It was a psychological error to make such a compromise between nations with fundamentally different cultures, interests and ideologies.”
1951-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 6 (1951)
“Yet Article 42 of the Charter gave the Security Council — an unexpected innovation — the basic means of enforcing its decisions, a United Nations armed force. 6. You are all acquainted with the conclusions that emerged from the long discussions of the Military Staff Committee, although it was composed of the most brilliant officers of the last war. You all know that these discussions were sabotaged by the USSR representative, by his time-wasting speeches and, subsequently, by his systematic absence. And what was the conclusion? It was painful, it was disappointing. The armed forces of the United Nations were not to be larger than those of any one of the great Powers. 7.”
1951-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 6 (1951)
“As the mortar binds all the stones of a building, so that agreement — or I should rather say that compromise — binds together all the Articles of the Charter and forms its frame. Yet never, I repeat never, since 1946 has this agreement among the great Powers amounted to anything but profound disagreement, and never has the structure of the Charter been so severely shaken. 4. It would be otiose again to mention that the Security Council, despite all the powers with which it is invested, has failed in its task. The immoderate, the excessive use of the veto, falling like a bludgeon, has paralysed it. Semiconscious as a result, it has been able to concern itself only with minor matters and, unfortunately, like a wheel with a sprung axle, to spin in the void. 5.”
1951-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 6 (1951)
“The sixth session of the General Assembly is meeting, it would seem, in an atmosphere of hope. The fifth, the fourth, the third sessions, and even the second, also met in an atmosphere of hope. Why? Because hope is the easy, conventional mask concealing the cruellest realities. 2. These realities are very different from those the founders of the Organization at San Francisco held shining before our eyes on the morrow of the cruellest catastrophe the world has known. By putting in our hands a Charter inspired by the highest ideals, but already conceived in ambiguity, they made us promises which have not been kept. By giving us a Charter inspired by the highest ideals, but based upon the permanent agreement of the great Powers, they made us promises which have not been kept. 3.”
1951-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 6 (1951)
“Faced with that fear, an attempt must be made to rally the nations by an appeal to their courage in facing their responsibilities rather than to appeal to their fear of them. A form of suicidal mania had led to war in 1989. It might be said that fear of war had led to war. The men of 1948, with their mind’s eye fixed upon the proud but grievous loss of their kin, should destroy that war psychosis. The spectre of the inevitability of war should be laid by resolution and co-operation.”
1948-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 3 (1948)
“In any case, he had received definite instructions from his Government to propose immediately that the General Assembly admit Spain, as well as Italy, to the specialized agencies of the United Nations and suspend the measures recommended in the Assembly resolution 89 (I) of 12 December 1946. He asked the General Assembly to consider those suggestions, for the time for denunciation and measures of exclusion had passed. Formerly, political considerations had been predominant. The dominating argument should now be the need for peace; peace above all. The terrible realities of war, which was the main topic of conversation in the humblest homes, everywhere loomed like a thundercloud over the world.”
1948-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 3 (1948)
“He was aware that the Security Council had declared repeatedly that Spain was not a danger to world peace and security. Yet one of the most frequent arguments heard in the First Committee had been that Spain was in fact a threat to world peace. But everyone would agree that Spain was not a threat to world peace. That threat, judging from what had been said in the Assembly, appeared to come from another quarter. During the discussions at the congress of the Universal Postal Union in 1947, Mr. Costa du Reis had had the opportunity of opposing the view, dictated by political prejudice on the part of most delegations, that certain nations should be excluded from the United Nations specialized agencies. If necessary, he would repeat all the legal arguments he had used at that congress before the First Committee.”
1948-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 3 (1948)
“With regard to Spain, Bolivia was linked to that country by bonds of blood, language and faith; his country once again deplored the fact that Spain was not a Member of the United Nations. Despite the feelings of Bolivia in the matter, the Bolivian delegation had voted for the General Assembly resolution 39 (I) passed at Lake Success in 1946, which recommended that certain steps should be taken against Spain. Bolivia had fully implemented that resolution. Two years had passed since that resolution had been adopted, and Mr. Costa du Reis asked whether the measures contained in it had been effective. Had they not rather acted as an irritant? Had they not proved inappropriate? Under present world conditions, it might be asked whether they should be continued.”
1948-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 3 (1948)
“For political reasons, which did not call for further explanation, that great Latin country would not be permitted to take the seat due to it in the conclave of nations, unless the Assembly acceded to the somewhat subtle, but courageous and correct, arguments advanced by the representative of Argentina, who had pleaded that the Charter should be interpreted in the broadest, most liberal, most chivalrous manner in order to allow Italy, a great Latin nation, to enter the United Nations. Mr. Costa du Rels might, under given circumstances, share the view of the head of the Belgian delegation that it might be possible to ask the International Court of Justice for an advisory opinion. But it was no longer possible to bar a great nation such as Italy from the United Nations for petty reasons repugnant to all good reason.”
1948-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 3 (1948)
“Schuman, the head of the French delegation, who had said at the 146th plenary meeting that the United Nations must be universal or cease to exist. That was why he regretted to note that the group of Latin countries, which had done so much for civilization for so long, had become weaker within the United Nations. The absence of Italy and Spain was therefore the more to be deplored. Italy was waiting in the lobby.”
1948-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 3 (1948)
“» The Bolivian representative said that while he did not claim that the wishes of Paul Valéry had been fulfilled, it was nevertheless true that since that time all the peoples of Latin America had made an effort to reach a higher degree of understanding and co-operation within the framework of the Charter and regional agreements, upon which depended their security and their future prosperity. The Bogota Conference had been both a test and a proof. Out of Bogota had emerged union, tested as in a furnace, in defence of an ideal continuously under threat. The Latin origin of the American countries was the mainspring of their hopes and confidence in their future high destinies. He therefore fully associated himself with Mr.”
1948-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 3 (1948)
“He wondered if some day, on looking back, it was not found that the experience of the small Powers consisted only of the sum total of their disappointments. However, Bolivia’s faith remained undiminished. He recalled that, in 1942, despite the wall of silence and steel which Germany had set up between France and the rest of the world, he had the honour of receiving a letter from a great French thinker, who had since died, in which he said: «Our unhappy Europe is almost destroyed. You, the peoples of Latin America, must gather the torch which is falling from its hands.”
1948-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 3 (1948)
“Bolivia had accepted that task, which was neither agreeable nor easy, and had carried it out with complete objectivity within the framework of the instructions given by the Assembly. The Bolivian delegation had accepted that mandate because it considered that international cooperation was not merely gathering ephemeral honours at assemblies or protecting petty interests. International co-operation had the grandeur of being of use to humanity and the servitude of being often misunderstood. Men such as Count Bernadotte had carried that concept of serving to the point of heroism. His sacrifice as well as that of Colonel Sérot did great honour to mankind. Mr. Costa du Reis went on to say that the results of work done in the United Nations were not always very encouraging.”
1948-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 3 (1948)
“The Bolivian delegation had proposed that the permanent delegations in New York should be granted legal diplomatic status, as in the case of the diplomatic corps accredited to Washington. In addition the Bolivian delegation would also shortly submit a draft resolution requesting the Social Commission of the Economic and Social Council to establish a commission which would study the problem of backward races in Latin America. Turning to the question of Palestine, Mr. Costa du Reis said that his country had been elected a member of the United Nations Palestine Commission whose task it was to implement the General Assembly resolution 181 (II) of 29 November 1947 concerning Palestine.”
1948-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 3 (1948)
“The Bolivian delegation had co-operated with that Committee from the very beginning, fully realizing that it was necessary to have such an organ to consider carefully the important problems arising between one session of the General Assembly and the next. Furthermore, the work of the Interim Committee had been carried out in an atmosphere of courtesy and calm, which had been helpful in the reaching of wise decisions. Its conclusions had been voted unanimously in the majority of cases, signifying that opposing points of view had been brought together by reasonable compromise, which was the basis for a true spirit of international co-operation, Reaching a compromise was the only way to solve the difficulties arising in the work of the various organs of the United Nations.”
1948-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 3 (1948)
“For instance, resolutions and recommendation of the General Assembly, voted legally, in accordance with the rules, adopted by a two-thirds or a simple majority, were declared null and void when they were contrary to the interests of a given nation. Such insistence on negation was either an indication of weakness or a clever manoeuvre to use the United Nations to protect selfish interests. If that were international collaboration, the only possible conclusion was that it was a sinister farce. Faced with the failure of the Security Council, the Bolivian Government had accepted with sympathy from the very first moment the concept of a « Little Assembly» or Interim Committee.”
1948-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 3 (1948)
“The United Nations had been established on the principle of power but it must also be said that an implacable fate seemed to pursue it. No sooner had victory been achieved and the enemy defeated than the Allies, who had been united against a common foe, had separated and broken their unity. The victors had to shoulder a heavy responsibility. Never before had the word «Now, translated endlessly into every language, resounded so often in international deliberations. The veto, a double-edged sword forged by the Anglo-Saxons and unadvisedly unsheathed at Dumbarton Oaks and at San Francisco, was, by repeated blows, weakening the foundations of the Organization. It was not alone in the Security Council that the right of veto was exercised.” Unfortunately, it was used outside the Council as well.”
1948-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 3 (1948)
“Nevertheless, it was to be hoped that French genius, so strongly evident in the admirable city of Paris which offered free men the very image of their ideal, could reduce the confusion which was so evident in the discussions among the nations. When passions were ruling, it was important to heed the dictates of wisdom, common sense, equity and courtesy. Gould the Assembly succeed in creating such an atmosphere of understanding, of serenity and courtesy so that the peoples of the world might find wise solutions for their problems? It had become commonplace to repeat that the United Nations, based on the principle of power, could not survive without full and absolute agreement among the permanent members of the Security Council.”
1948-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 3 (1948)
“Mr. COSTA du RELS stated that the third session of the General Assembly of the United Nations had opened in an atmosphere of anxiety and uneasiness. Optimistic words had been spoken from the rostrum, but there had also been bitter and disappointing words, to the point where the representative of one of the great Powers that had done so much for the cause of peace and for thirty years had devoted itself to the task of averting catastrophes, had stated that his country was forced to interrupt its reconstruction in order to turn its energies to that gloomy industry: the manufacture of war material. By a strange irony, the spirit of the men responsible for world destiny seemed to be in contradiction with the admirable capital of France where, for five centuries, everything had been based on the strictest rules of logic and reason.”
1948-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 3 (1948)
“I have found them, on the contrary, to be charming, clear-sighted people, who wish to be understood and to understand others. Understanding is our great problem. Mutual understanding between us all for the common good, that is what we must seek. And why should we not understand each other? Have we not all, to a greater or lesser extent, directly or indirectly, shed the same blood and the same tears, and suffered the same misfortunes? Have we not all carried on a struggle for liberty without which this meeting could never have taken place? I will end these brief remarks on a note of confidence, in the hope that all nations, large, medium or small, will apply themselves to the common task of dragging the muddy chariot of peace out of the mire into which it has sunk.”
1946-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 1 (1946)
“I am glad to note, however, that since 23 October 1946, the day on which this General Assembly opened, the heavy atmosphere created by the quarrels in the Security Council, which was becoming an “Insecurity Council”, has been replaced by a much lighter one. The air we breathe is more invigorating. The Assembly is becoming, so to speak, a supplementary lung for a body afflicted by the veto with a sort of infantile paralysis, which it would be wise to relieve. It was therefore necessary to speak openly. I am happy to have done so after my colleagues had addressed you with similar frankness. Although I am a veteran of international conferences, I am a newcomer to this milieu. Certain representatives of the great Powers had been described to me as incorrigible bogies.”
1946-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 1 (1946)
“I understand very well that the veto right was suggested by the three great Powers in compensation for the sacrifices they made for the common victory; but what I do not understand is the manner in which it has been abused; I do not understand this lavish use of a privilege which has been so criticized from this platform. In saying this, I am merely drawing conclusions from the speeches we have heard here. I hope, therefore, that, sooner or later, we shall be able to reach a better understanding on this exercise of the right of veto, which, we must confess, conflicts somewhat with our democratic conception of co-operation between large, medium and small States. As you see, I have spoken with some frankness.”
1946-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 1 (1946)
“For rights and fears run parallel, and our rights are limited only by the respect they inspire in others.” After seventeen years, and with my heart still heavy with disappointment at our failure, I could repeat from this platform the very same words I uttered at that time before an assembly at which were gathered together the builders of a world which has since collapsed. I might do so with all the more justification because the new Organization is based on a Charter which can be applied to one’s neighbours but not to oneself, if it hampers or displeases. The right of veto must therefore be, if not amended, at least applied differently. This is a question to be decided by the large, medium and small States.”
1946-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 1 (1946)
“This establishes a kind of hierarchy, which was accepted at San Francisco. But it is for the great nations by their actions to make us forget it. True greatness does not take advantage of those who are weaker. All international co-operation should be based on the legal equality of rights. And here I should like, if you will forgive me, to quote once more from the speech I made before the League of Nations: “We should indeed like, to believe in the ideal of peace which you propose, but we hope that this peace organization will prove to be more than a mere mirage, designed to lure us on and to dazzle us.”
1946-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 1 (1946)
“However, it seems to me that at Dumbarton Oaks the very essence of this principle was somewhat changed. My distinguished friend and colleague, Mr. Alberto Ulloa, the chief representative of Peru, in the memorable speech which he made from this platform reminded us of the Congress of Vienna and the Holy Alliance, which were the outcome of the Napoleonic wars. The outcome of the most terrible of wars, from which we are now emerging, was on the other hand, Dumbarton Oaks. But the five great Powers, which are, of course, heterogeneous, agreed at Dumbarton Oaks to maintain peace on the basis of a Charter, that is to say, of a law whereby the sum total of duties is counterbalanced by the sum total of rights. A larger number of rights corresponds to a larger number of greater duties.”
1946-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 1 (1946)
“On that occasion I said: “We have come here now, impelled by the conviction that a man-made, and hence artificial and defective, though perfectible institution cannot live or renew its vitality unless harmony exists between its component parts; and in order that this union may bear fruit, we must have either unanimity or a degree of culture, that is, of international understanding sufficient to enable the minority to accept, not the injunctions, but the reasoning of the majority.” Thus, even at that time I unwittingly raised the vital problem of co-operation between large, medium and small States. In accordance with your conception of democracy, this co-operation can only be based on the equality of all States before the law. It is on this basis, therefore, that we have always co-operated in all international organizations.”
1946-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 1 (1946)
“I venture to emphasize this point, because the time has now come to repudiate from this platform the false and tendentious comments made by a certain section of the press on the rise to power of the Government which I have the honour to represent at this Assembly. As a veteran of international conferences like this one, I should like to recall the day, now long past — it was 4 September 1929 — when I mounted the platform of the League of Nations for the first time. It was in the old Salle de la Réformation at Geneva, a bare and somewhat sombre hall, and the League was preparing to move into far more luxurious premises which, unfortunately, did not bring it luck.”
1946-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 1 (1946)
“Arce, representative of Argentina: “But all this is exclusively our own history, and although we cannot deny anyone the right to pass judgment upon us, to applaud our wise actions and blame our mistakes, we do not and never shall allow foreign interference in any matters concerning the rights of our people to settle their own problems inside the boundaries of our own land.” The Bolivian Government, composed of judges and magistrates, professors and workers, upholds, as its fundamental principles, respect for human personality within the framework of the law, as well as the safeguarding of public liberties and the claims of social justice which are so essential in a country of workers and miners like our own.”
1946-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 1 (1946)
“This Government of judges and magistrates, professors and workers has announced that elections will be held on 5 January next. Thus, in one and half months’ time, the people of my country will be called upon freely to express their will by electing their constitutional government. At this point I should like to quote the opportune words spoken from this very platform by my distinguished friend and colleague, Mr.”
1946-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 1 (1946)
“She has continued to serve the ideal for which her husband died. I should now like to point out that the members of the Bolivian delegation to this Assembly were present neither at the Dumbarton Oaks Conference, nor at the San Francisco Conference, nor at that held in London. We are therefore a new team, consisting of new men. We represent a new Government, sprung from one of the most singular popular movements in history. It is the women, workers, and students who, thanks to their sacrifices, have been able to restore public liberties. This Government has recently declared that it intends to respect international conventions, private property and also all the capital invested in our country, attracted by the riches of our sub-soil, which has as yet been inadequately explored.”
1946-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 1 (1946)
“Coming to this platform where so many distinguished and eloquent speakers have preceded me, I have one difficulty and one advantage: the advantage is that there is hardly anything more to be said, while the difficulty lies in having to draw conclusions. I will therefore profit by this advantage to be brief, and by this difficulty to be frank. I should like first of all to thank the Government of the United States of America and the City of New York for the generous hospitality which they have extended to us. At the same time I wish, on behalf of my country, to pay a very respectful tribute to a certain lady in black, who was formerly the first lady of this country, and who is seated today at the table of the United States delegation. She has directed her grief into the most noble channel of all, that of duty.”
1946-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 1 (1946)