YouSaid · the spoken record

Castro

THE RECORD WRITES THIS SPEAKER AS CASTRO

lines on the record: 78
first: 1947-09-24
most recent: 1950-09-24
sittings or episodes: 4
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

“The General Assembly had, without doubt, the right to determine whether the Security Council’s action was legally valid or not, for such a recommendation was tantamount to declining to decide on the admission of a new Member. If the applicant State was peace-loving, if it met the conditions specified in Article A, paragraph 1, of the Charter, the United Nations had the right to accede to that country’s request and to invite its representatives to come to the Assembly. If that were not done, the United Nations would be acting against its own aim, which was to establish a universal peace organization.”
1948-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 3 (1948)
“Was the right of deciding upon the admission of new Members, a right which belonged to the General Assembly in accordance with the provisions of Article 18 of the Charter, to lose all significance for the mere reason that the Security Council could not recommend an admission because of the negative vote of two of its members, one of whom only had the power of veto? Such a conclusion did not seem to be legally valid. If it were, it would mean that peace- loving nations were to be denied the right to be admitted to membership in the Organization, which would constitute a violation of the provisions of Article A of the Charter.”
1948-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 3 (1948)
“The international organization would then lose its prestige and lack the universal authority which the Charter should give it. The delegation of El Salvador would vote in favour of any measure leading to the admission of all peace-loving nations to the Organisation. Article A, paragraph 1, of the Charter explicitly accorded them the right to be admitted. The veto of a great Power had prevented the Security Council from recommending that the General Assembly should admit those nations. Article A, paragraph 1, of the Charter authorized the admission of Portugal, Transjordan and the other above-mentioned countries.”
1948-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 3 (1948)
“Castro noted that the first two countries had been neutral during the Second World War, an argument which one of the members of the Security Council had used to oppose their admission. But the small nations could not be refused admission merely on account of the fact that they had remained neutral. The two countries in question had had an absolute right to preserve their neutrality and it was absurd to say that a nation which remained neutral and did not want to take part in a conflict thereby became an enemy of peace. Portugal and Ireland should be admitted as Members of the United Nations if the latter wished to become — and that was the desire of all — a legal community of States. Otherwise it would be an alliance of nations and not a peaceful association of all nations.”
1948-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 3 (1948)
“None of those solutions had been adopted and it was to be feared that the conflict in Palestine would last for a long time. The failures of the moment were resounding. In spite of those obstacles, however, the lessons of the past should help to avoid new mistakes if there were still unquestioned faith in the United Nations — the organ whose duty it was to maintain peace in the world. Admission of new Members was another question of capital importance for the very existence of the United Nations. Several States which had met the requirements of Article A, paragraph 1, of the Charter, had submitted their requests for admission. Mentioning especially Portugal, Ireland, Transjordan, Italy and Austria, Mr.”
1948-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 3 (1948)
“Palestine, like any other nation, should be able to determine its fate in accordance with the principle laid down in Article 1, paragraph 2, of the United Nations Charter. The delegation of El Salvador had proposed that the General Assembly should appoint a conciliation committee consisting of representatives of the contending parties in Palestine. That committee was to have been charged with finding the means of reaching a compromise acceptable to both parties. There was only one alternative possible for the United Nations in conformity with the principle of self-determination; a plebiscite permitting the people of Palestine to organize their political life in accordance with the will of the majority, or else a decision by the General Assembly of the United Nations acting as a body of conciliation.”
1948-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 3 (1948)
“Palestine continued to be a theatre of military operations where the peace of the world was jeopardized. The Security Council was studying that serious situation. Events had shown that the General Assembly should have studied that problem carefully instead of trying to find a rapid and perhaps hasty solution which had merely led to a worsening of the conflict of interests in that part of the Middle East, the cradle of Christianity. The delegation of El Salvador had proposed that all means of peaceful settlement at the disposal of the United Nations should be used to draw the two peoples together and reconcile their divergent interests; it had asked that the General Assembly should act with great caution and with absolute respect for the right of self-determination of peoples.”
1948-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 3 (1948)
“To that end, it was necessary to renew the Christian spirit and the spirit of brotherhood of nations. Humanity thus needed a real spiritual renaissance in order to heal its wounds and ease its suffering. Among the extremely complex problems on the agenda were several left over from previous sessions. Greece was in a better situation than in the previous year, but its internal security required neighbouring and other States to respect its sovereignty. Korea had recently formed a national organization in the southern part of the country, but efforts of the United Nations to restore the political unity of the country had remained fruitless in the industrial regions of the north, into which the Temporary Commission, specially created by the General Assembly of the United Nations, had been unable to penetrate.”
1948-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 3 (1948)
“Otherwise the work of the General Assembly would only increase the pessimism and despair of many peoples, especially those who had suffered most in the Second World War and had seen their fate improving only very slowly during the post-war period. To bring humanity its lost security through efficient international co-operation, to ensure the peace and well-being of the world, seemed a goal beyond the reach of man, and yet it was possible to attain it if Governments would apply themselves to it in a sincere desire for mutual understanding and with unceasing good faith. In many parts of the world surpluses of production were being wasted while in other parts people were starving; an understanding between Governments would do much to make poverty disappear.”
1948-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 3 (1948)
“Mr. CASTRO thanked the French people and Government for the manner in which the United Nations had been received on French soil and expressed the gratitude of his Government and country. He then paid tribute to the memory of Count Bernadotte, whose death had caused everyone deep grief. The present session of the Assembly was important; it was taking place in the midst of a world crisis. In their anguish, the peoples of the world, nevertheless, hoped that the Assembly’s work would help to re-establish international co-operation and good-will, and lead to better understanding between the Members of the United Nations, in particular between those which, because of their greater material strength, were usually called the great Powers.”
1948-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 3 (1948)
“Before bringing my remarks to a close, behalf of the delegation of El Salvador, I pledge our full co-operation in the work of the present session of the General Assembly, which we hope will constitute a definite step towards the achievement of the aims of peace and international justice which are contemplated in our Charter.”
1947-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 2 (1947)
“Unless this is done, all references to essential human rights in the Charter of the United Nations are of no avail, except in so far as they express an ideal which is still to be attained. The delegation of El Salvador will continue to make most earnest efforts towards obtaining the following improvements of our Charter: 1. Elimination of the veto power; 2. Increase of the powers of the General Assembly; 3. Compulsory jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice in the final settlement of international disputes. We hope that many other delegations have these same purposes in mind, and that in the course of time they will be fully accomplished.”
1947-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 2 (1947)
“We must therefore have a healthy reaction that may kindle again hopes that are vanishing. We must give definite proof that the United Nations will became the agency for peace and international justice which our countries had in mind when the Charter was signed. In some fields of endeavour we should come to the realization that we must travel a long way before expecting the United Nations to achieve full maturity; To cite an example: our Charter refers to the protection of essential human rights, but no instrumentality has been established for this purpose. It will be absolutely necessary to refer this matter to our International Court of Justice by means of a treaty which should provide for its compulsory jurisdiction.”
1947-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 2 (1947)
“It is only natural that those smaller nations which were, in the majority, the bitter enemies of the rule of unanimity of the five great Powers at the time of the San Francisco Conference, should now expect the five permanent members of the Security Council to find a way to confine the use of the veto power within reasonable bounds. If this is not done, the only alternative will be the complete paralysation of the United Nations for any useful purpose — in other words, its total failure. I have suited that the United Nations Organization was born in a much less optimistic atmosphere than the former League of Nations. To this I must add that most of our peoples now have less optimism concerning the happy outcome of our work than they had at the time of the San Francisco Conference.”
1947-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 2 (1947)
“That is why the majority of the Members of the United Nations fail to understand why peace-loving States, such as Ireland, Portugal and Transjordan, which have applied for admission as Members of our international Organization, have been rejected in spite of the fact that they fulfil, in a most conspicuous manner, all the conditions required for new Members of the United Nations, conditions which are so clearly and specifically enumerated in Article 4 of our Charter. The only explanation for this failure of our Organization is again the veto power.”
1947-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 2 (1947)
“In Article 4 of our Charter which refers to the admission of new Members, we stated that there were only three requites for admission: first, that the applicant should be a peace-loving State; secondly, that the applicant should accept the obligations stated in the Charter for Member Nations, and thirdly, that it should be capable and ready, in the judgment of our Organization, to fulfil its duties as a Member.”
1947-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 2 (1947)
“We realized that, in the course of time, even such nations as were bur enemies had to be admitted as Members of our international Organization, if peace was to be firm and stable. As for our allies, we did not explore their history with a critical eye in order to ascertain their political aims as a requisite to admitting them to the United Nations. It was enough that they contributed to the final victory. There was no doubt that our purpose was to give our Organization a world-wide scope so as to invest it with a world- wide authority.”
1947-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 2 (1947)
“If we act in any other manner, the United Nations will cease to be the agency for peace and justice which we all intended to establish when we met at San Francisco in 1945. In pursuance of the interests of peace, we must realize not only that the Second World War has come to an end, but also that it is our most sacred duty, as representatives of peace-loving nations, to refrain from stirring up hatred between countries which are Members of the United Nations and those which are not When we signed the Charter of our Organization at San Francisco, we did not mean to establish an alliance of nations in order to continue the strife, but rather to organize for peace. We trusted that victory was in store for us and wanted to be ready for the peace to come.”
1947-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 2 (1947)
“It would be incongruous, to say the least, for the United Nations, or perhaps more particularly for the great Powers which have recognized leadership in our Organization, to enforce peace in one comer of the world and to provoke dissension and strife in another No great nation can ever hope to have its policies properly understood by other States unless they are consistent in their meaning and in the application of the principles upon which they are founded. The same may be said of the United Nations. I express the hope, therefore, that whatever mistakes we may have made in the past, the principle of non-intervention in the internal affairs of States will henceforth be respected by our international Organization and that no undue interference in the internal affairs of any sovereign nation may ever be consummated.”
1947-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 2 (1947)
“We feel that this principle, as embodied in paragraph 7 of Article 2 of the Charter of the United Nations, is a guarantee of the freedom and independence of the smaller nations which we have not surrendered to our international Organization, or to any foreign State. I have said that peace cannot prevail without justice; therefore, the principle to which I refershould not only be applied to the States that are Members of the United Nations, but to all States exception. The Christian principle of “do unto others what you would have others do unto you” should be strictly applied.”
1947-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 2 (1947)
“This is a most emphatic acceptance of the principle of non-intervention which was first recognized by twenty-one American Republics in the Convention on the Rights and Duties of the States, signed at Montevideo in December 1933. At San Francisco the delegations of the same American Republics were intent upon retaining the same principle in our Charter; it is obvious to me that my delegation — and I assume that this is true of all other delegations — would not have signed the Charter unless its text contained a most praise recognition of the principle of non-intervention in the internal affairs of States.”
1947-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 2 (1947)
“The delegation of El Salvador, and I assume that the same attitude will prevail on the part of the delegations of the other smaller countries, shall always stand in readiness to help in coping with the difficult situations that have arisen as the result of the immoderate use of the veto power. I feel that it is our duty never to forget that the United Nations was conceived as an agency intended to work for peace and international order, and by no means as an agency that might undertake the ominous task of spreading ill-will and of interfering with the free exercise of sovereignty, in its internal affairs by any State, whether or not it is a Member of our Organization, A guarantee against such an eventuality was written into the Charter in Article 2, paragraph 7.”
1947-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 2 (1947)
“The fact that seventeen of them abstained from voting against that specific provision was due only to the realization that unless this previous commitment of three of the great Powers was adopted, no Charter of the United Nations could be signed at San Francisco. Our respective delegations simply stepped aside and, in this manner, made the Charter possible. But it must be recognized, on the other hand, that the great Powers, of their own volition, assumed the responsibility for making their rule of unanimity work for peace and international justice throughout the world.”
1947-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 2 (1947)
“Trivial or superficial changes may be introduced, and successfully adopted; but with regard to important matters about which the great Powers are most frequently in disagreement, the hope for any improvement Of the Charter is simply a vain one. It must be recognized, to the credit of a large number of the smaller nations, that they foresaw and did their best to prevent most of the difficulties that the United Nations is facing at the present time. At least nineteen nations fought incessantly at the San Francisco Conference against the rule of unanimity of the five great Powers, commonly known as the veto power.”
1947-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 2 (1947)
“Our voice was hushed and faded away before the prospect of not having any Charter at all for the United Nations, even though for such an important matter we insisted that the right of veto should be waived. It is true that a hew general conference of the Members of the United Nations may be convened by a favourable two-thirds vote of the General Assembly and by a favourable vote of any seven members of the Security Council. We find that provision in Article 109, paragraph 1, of the Charter; but, if we read a little further, we find, in paragraph 2 of that Article, that any modification of the Charter, adopted by the conference, will never take effect if any one of the five great We realize, therefore, that all hope of ever improving the Charter has been lost for any practical purpose.”
1947-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 2 (1947)
“We have avoided calling the new international organization a “League of Nations”, and we have moved from Geneva, Switzerland, to the city of New York in the United States of America. But we must realize that moving across the street is not by itself any assurance of success. One of our greatest handicaps in solving the serious problems that we are facing today in the United Nations is the fact that everything was done at the San Francisco Conference in 1945 to make it practically impossible to amend the Charter. Indeed, any one of the five great Powers, by exercising the veto, may prevent such a move. The voice of the smaller nations, some forty-five in number, was raised in favour of making it feasible to improve a Charter which, from its inception, had many conspicuous defects.”
1947-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 2 (1947)
“The whole purpose of the United Nations is simply this: to make it impossible for the nest world war to take place. We have come here to continue our efforts toward accomplishing this purpose. Our peoples are most insistent upon it, and they will not tolerate any failure that may be due to negligence in the fulfilment of our duties. Let me bring to this Assembly this reflection: the League of Nations was the first attempt made by the world to set up an international organization to ensure peace based on justice. It did not fail because of defects in its charter, but because of the failure of the most powerful nations to support it. We have to recognize the fact that the world was much more optimistic at the time the League of Nations was established than it is now.”
1947-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 2 (1947)
“The General Assembly of the United Nations has begun the work of its second session. This is a most solemn occasion and it gives to all of us, as the specially appointed representatives of the Member nations, a most propitious opportunity to appraise the work that has been done, that is to say, our achievements and our failures. The international organization which we know by the name of the United Nations is the second attempt made by the nations of the world to create an agency efficient and powerful enough to ensure peace and justice to all mankind. I speak of peace and justice and not of one or the other because they are twin sisters. I cannot conceive of peace — that is to say international order — without justice. Peace alone, supported by the force of arms, is at best only a truce between two wars.”
1947-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 2 (1947)