Mexico, 1969

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!