El Salvador, 1969

102. Madam President, it is with real satisfaction that I

take the floor in the general debate under your Presidency,

for you represent a friendly country, Liberia, and you

have been elected to your office by the international

community after years of devoted and effective work in the

United Nations. Your personal and intellectual abilities

have earned you the respect of all the States which have

concerted their activities through the United Nations and

you have upheld the tradition of Liberia as a standard-bearer

in this continuous search for new methods of

international co-operation and the reaffirmation of civilized

principles and rules of community life.

103. It is barely a year since we welcomed Mr. Emilio

Arenales, the Foreign Minister of Guatemala, as President

of the twenty-third session of the General Assembly. We

never thought then that his untimely death would plunge

this Assembly into mourning. We wish to place on record

once again our admiration for his outstanding accomplishments

in inter-American and world political affairs.

104. This year the General Assembly has a fairly heavy

agenda and will probably have difficulty in completing its

consideration in the period of barely three months that is

available. Some of the items have been included year after

year and the relevant arguments have been exhausted and

positions have crystallized; nothing will come of considering

them, for they no longer rouse any passion, since

charges and counter-charges have been repeated so often

that even the opposing parties are no longer moved by

them.

105. Other items, though of long standing, are of great

current interest and warrant the Assembly’s full attention,

such as the problem of the Middle East. Others are new and

affect the future of the Organization, which, in political

matters, is apparently developing into a forum for the

expression of opinion with little practical effect, while in

technological, scientific, social and legal matters, it is

moving into fields of potential benefit to all countries. This

development is to no one’s credit or discredit, for it is due

to the forces at work in recent years and primarily to the

way in which the Charter was conceived, its key provision

being the presumed agreement of five great Powers. Its

machinery, however, operates in such a way that agreement

among five great States is required for decisions in

important political matters to be effective, the effectiveness

of decisions depending on whether or not they meet this

requirement of agreement. We do not wish to discuss at this

point whether this structure is appropriate or inappropriate

for fulfilling the purposes of the Charter, but simply to

re-emphasize a decisive aspect of the Organization’s internal

machinery which accounts for its difficulties in every major

political issue.

106. United Nations activities with regard to outer space,

natural resources and in particular the exploration, exploitation

and use of the sea-bed and its natural resources for

peaceful purposes and for the benefit of mankind will place

the United Nations in the forefront of the promotion of

new broad programmes of international co-operation. The

representative of El Salvador served as Chairman of the

Legal Sub-Committee of the Committee on the Peaceful

Uses of the Sea-Bed and the Ocean Floor beyond the Limits

of National Jurisdiction, and El Salvador has done and is

prepared to do its utmost to ensure that the United Nations

establishes a régime for the sea-bed which truly reflects the

unanimously agreed aim, namely, that the resources of this

great reserve shall be used for peaceful purposes and for the

benefit of mankind. Formulation of the legal principles of

the regime for the sea-bed calls for an unlimited capacity

for negotiation and a genuine desire to reconcile interests.

This is a delicate matter and must be tackled with great

care, because if the technology of exploitation continues to

progress and the international community delays too long

in establishing the regime for this area, it may find itself

faced with many accomplished facts which will engender

interests likely to oppose a general agreement on the subject.

107. The year 1969 saw a significant advance in international

law with the culmination of eighteen years of work

by the International Law Commission in the negotiation

and signing of the Convention on the Law of Treaties at

Vienna. This Convention reflects the antagonistic and

competitive forces in the contemporary international community,

but it has succeeded in codifying general practice

and has achieved some important legal advances, since it has

opened up new and valuable paths in certain directions. At

the Vienna Conference El Salvador maintained that it was

essential to adopt a convention which provided for effective

means of ensuring compliance with international obligations

and preventing their evasion, because international

organizations move so slowly that they intervene only when

problems have become acute and beyond control, and they

are so heavily influenced by a militant policy that States

can cold-bloodedly calculate that a large measure of

non-compliance will have no consequences.

108. The international community must realize that the

prospect of violence increases in proportion to the lack of

rapid means for settling disputes and, as in earlier times,

when there is no place for reason, recourse is had to

blackmail, propaganda that distorts facts and figures and

the flouting of solemnly convenanted obligations. Such

practices are no longer consistent with what appears to be

the prevailing trend in contemporary society. The United

Nations and the regional systems cannot, without serious

risk, continue to be completely lax in the matter of

compliance with legally constituted obligations and of

respect for and protection of fundamental human rights.

The international community and the regional communities

will have no moral authority whatever to complain in

specific cases unless they ensure the performance of

international obligations and the safeguarding of human

rights — the declared foundations of peaceful coexistence

and international co-operation.

109. Despite claims to the contrary in official statements,

the protection of human rights has not received the

substantive and resolute support of a solid majority of

national policies, and it must be borne in mind that it is the

conjunction of national policies that makes up the policy of

the international organizations. The protection of human

rights is still embryonic and contains a large element of

romantic intent, with a plentiful admixture of hypocrisy

and political expediency wrapped in the tinsel of fine

phrases. Unless the international community and the

inter-American community ensure respect for human rights,

solemnly proclaimed and guaranteed in specific cases, they

will devalue their political capital for the maintenance of

international peace and security. Article 1, paragraph 1, of

the Charter of the United Nations uses the following words:

“... to bring about by peaceful means, and in conformity

with the principles of justice and international law,

adjustment or settlement of international disputes or

situations which might lead to a breach of the peace.“

Peace must be established and achieved as the result of a

definite policy of equitable coexistence. Anything else is

the mere language of international courtesy speeches which

toy with the convictions and rights of the people and

ultimately achieve nothing, because reality is not created by

talking, still less by thinking about it.

110. A definition of aggression is urgently needed, and

here the work done by the Special Committee set up by the

General Assembly under resolution 2330 (XXII) of 18

December 1967 is most important. The Committee’s

records show the deep differences which divide the international

community on this subject, but the conclusion

nevertheless can be drawn that, according to the dominant

view, aggression assumes the most varied forms and consists

both of armed aggression and aggression of other types

which may inflict irreparable economic and moral damage.

One form of aggression is the commission of acts of overt

hostility against the nationals of a particular country solely

by reason of their nationality. Such aggression is armed

aggression when the agents of the authorities or crowds

incited or tolerated by those authorities resort to violence

for the purposes of physical destruction or the creation of

an atmosphere of terror that drives the group subjected to

it to mass flight from territory where it had settled. Armed

incursion into a territory prompted by this form of

aggression and reasonably restricted to putting an end to

the aggression constitutes an exercise of the right of

self-defence that cannot be declined, waived or negotiated.

111. The principle of national sovereignty is not absolute

and cannot be used as a pretext for establishing enclaves in

which excesses against the nationals of a particular country

are a matter of daily occurrence. A State is entitled to

defend its nationals residing abroad, and any attack on

these nationals by reason of their nationality is an attack

on the rights of the State to which those nationals belong

and aggression against it.

112. International principles and rules of law are inter-

dependent and dovetail and interlock; their co-ordination is

the key to a flexible and harmonious international order

propitious to peace and co-operation. The principle of

national sovereignty does not preclude the performance

— and the demand for performance, if need be — of the

obligations of sovereign States, one of which is respect for

resident aliens.

113. Another case should be recalled in connexion with

aggression, a case famous in the annals of the League of

Nations, in which it was contended that frontier incidents

cannot be regarded as aggression. This contention has not

been generally accepted, and it needs elaboration and

qualification if it is to serve its purpose and to be correctly

applied. Occasional incidents, regrettable actions by frontier

guards do not constitute aggression, but they become

armed aggression when, owing to their frequency and scope

and the manifest absence of any desire to prevent them on

the part of the central authority, they are the expression of

an unlawful and deliberate harassment of a neighbour.

114. The definition of aggression will be a factor making

for security in international relations, and it will not only

make it easier for the competent organs of the United

Nations to determine in each case whether a breach of the

peace exists, but will also help to guide the conduct of the

regional organizations and of each State individually. As an

intelligence sharpened in the search for means of harassing

other States will find means of committing direct or

indirect aggression, this definition must be broad enough,

must be adapted to contemporary experience and must

make it clear that no territory may be a hortus conclusus in

which, on the pretext of sovereignty, the rights of other

States are breached and the fundamental rights of individuals

are violated. Rights are not absolute nor do they

exist in a void; all of them are interdependent, interlock

and make up a harmonious whole. A definition of the

concept of direct and indirect aggression followed by an

illustrative but not exhaustive list of the commonest cases

will provide valuable support for the accomplishment of the

purposes of the United Nations and the regional organizations.

115. In studying the definition of aggression, we must

bear in mind that the purpose of Article 51 of the Charter

of the United Nations is not to recognize the right of

self-defence, but to clarify decisions on collective self-

defence. The right of self-defence is inherent in the human

person and in the State, and its existence does not depend

on its recognition in an international instrument. Collective

self-defence needs to be proclaimed and recognized, but not

the individual self-defence of the State, which arises from

the mere fact of its existence. It is absurd to contend that

the aggressor must have discharged its defensive potential

against another State or that there is an obligation to fold

one’s arms before a deliberate assault on fundamental rights.

116. The technological and economic gap between

industrial countries and the countries which are

called developing — an obvious euphemism — is widening yearly

and no international policy so far has been able to

narrow it. The First United Nations Development Decade

and the regional and bilateral programmes, though meritorious,

have not been able to prevent the gap from growing.

Recent studies show that the gap is widening at the rate of

5 per cent yearly, and consequently in fourteen years the

distance between the two groups of countries will have

doubled. The developing countries’ economic and social

progress should not be discounted, but, even so, the

distance between the two groups of countries will have

doubled by 1984. This is the sober and objective prospect

that emerges from the analyses of recent years and from the

trends in world development. With this prospect before us,

we may well ask whether it may not be necessary to rethink.

all the relevant programmes from the ground up, because

the imbalance between the regions, with its attendant train

of tension, is increasing rather than diminishing. In planning

the Second United Nations Development Decade, which

will be one of the items on the agenda at its twenty-fourth

session, the General Assembly will have to evaluate the

successes and failures of the course so far followed and to

set itself the goal of narrowing the development gap

between the two major groups of countries.

117. Among the most recently tested instruments for

development are the integration programmes, which in

recent years have had care, study and commendation

lavished on them and have opened a way to be exploited by

technology through large-scale production, wider markets

and large geographical areas. Integration is making headway

in several regions. Central America is making an effort to

integrate, and the events of 1969 will make it possible to

reassess and redirect this process and to give it the

appropriate means of fulfilling its purpose, the means at

present available being of doubtful efficacy.

118. In contrast with European integration, Central

American integration has placed the emphasis on goods,

and the human element has been neglected. The underlying

assumption was that economic resources would spontaneously

generate conditions conducive to peaceful co-existence

and produce the necessary legal and political

institutions. Political factors were disregarded, at this stage

at least. The powers of the integration bodies are derived

from unanimous agreement among the Governments concerned

and these bodies have no rapid and effective means

of preventing arbitrary actions and distortions of the

process. The system is completely oriented towards the

Governments, because it has no organs vested with powers

of their own or any capacity to overrule members which

dissent from majority decisions.

119. To restrict the integration programme to goods and

some investment in the infrastructure is reasonable enough

as a first step, but disastrous if this first step becomes an

end in itself. The Central American Bank for Economic

Integration acts as a channel for external resources,

together with some local resources, but there are no

investment programmes using funds wholly derived from

the area on a Central American scale.

120. The economy also generates competition, and if

there are no channels for the speedy settlement of disputes

and if the area integrated is too small for a system of

internal compensation to operate, crises must inevitably

occur; and if there are no organs vested with sufficient

powers to bring the recalcitrant to heel, retaliation is the

only form of defence. Integration cannot be timorous and

hesitating, nor can it be governed by the obsolete spirit of

economic nationalism; it must be bold and total, though

carried through in stages.

121. Central American integration exemplifies a process

which has been much lauded, outside the area more than

within it. As a result of the self-satisfaction engendered by

this applause, criticisms of its weaknesses and forecasts of

crises have fallen on deaf ears. It is, however, a mirror in

which other similar processes should be viewed, and it

should be examined objectively and reconsidered, replanned

and reorganized in order to give it consistency,

depth and effectiveness.

122. El Salvador supports integration, but it does not

applaud the process in its present state, which permits

capricious management, the practice of bargaining, the

representation of private interests by Governments and

arbitrary action in restraint of trade. What El Salvador

desires and proposes to the parties concerned is a genuine

integration which would provide the opportunity to plan a

sound economy and which would not be managed in the

old parochial spirit. Integration calls for uniform labour,

social, monetary, economic and financial policies. Either it

is a total process or it is just one more of those inflated

fairytales to amuse the grown-up children of the technological

age. It must be carried through in sections and stages

and at a certain pace, but when the stages are unduly

protracted, when they become an end in themselves and

lose their significance as links in a long process, when there

is no authority to enforce decisions and retaliation therefore

becomes the ordinary method of bringing people to

reason, and when there are no rapid means of preventing

arbitrary action, the integration process is definitely suffering

from a chronic disease. Worse than the disease itself is

the lack of concern for the patient’s recovery.

123. Examples about to prove what I have just said. The

most recent — but not the only — example of the arbitrary

violation of the Central American treaties and inter-American

agreements is the Honduran decree closing the

Pan American Highway to the passage of Salvadorian goods

and vehicles bound for Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama.

This is the Pan American Highway, planned many decades

ago aS a continental undertaking and financed by a

co-operative effort. The closing of this highway is yet

another abuse of sovereignty and constitutes deliberate

aggression. Here you have an example how the Central

American Common Market operates, despite the existing

legal instruments.

124. This is, I repeat, the Pan American Highway, which

was conceived and planned to serve all the countries on the

continent and was in fact financed internationally. One of

its links cannot legitimately be cut to a country’s detriment.

Early in this century the American countries planned

a Pan American railway, which was later replaced by the

Pan American Highway. The construction of the Highway

was the subject of a Convention? signed at Buenos Aires on

23 December 1936.

125. Article 1 of the Convention on the Regulation of

Inter-American Automotive Traffic, in force among all the

Central American countries, recognizes “that each State has

exclusive jurisdiction over the use of its own highways, but

agrees to the international use as specified in this Convention”;

article 4 lays down that “the Contracting States shall

not allow customs measures to be put into effect that will

hinder international travel“; and article 7 states that

“... Evidence of compliance with the conditions of this

Convention shall entitle motor vehicles and motor vehicle

operators to circulate on the highways of any of the

Contracting States”.

126. Moreover, article XV of the General Treaty of

Central American Economic Integration states that ”each

of the Contracting States shall maintain full freedom of

transit through its territory for goods proceeding to or from

any of the other signatory States, as well as for the vehicles

transporting the said goods”.

127. The Charter of the Organization of American States

states categorically that “no State may use or encourage the

use of coercive measures of an economic or political

character in order to force the sovereign will of another

State and obtain from it advantages of any kind.” The

economic aggression by Honduras flagrantly violates this

provision of that Charter and therefore calls for immediate

collective action by the American States. This aggression is,

in accordance with article 5 (f) of the same Charter, an act

of aggression against all the other American States.

128. In conformity with existing inter-American instruments,

the Organization of American States adopted

resolutions to the effect that El Salvador and Honduras

must revert in toto to the situation prior to the conflict of

June and July 1969. This reversion to the status quo ante

entails the maintenance of free transit through the territory

of the two countries. The return to the previous situation

and to normal thus decreed by the Organization of

American States is not compatible with the Honduran

contention that no contractual obligation of any sort exists

between the two countries. This return to normal is not

compatible with the economic aggression involved in the

closing of the Pan American Highway to Salvadorian

vehicles, goods and nations, nor is it compatible with the

measures of pacification adopted by the Organization of

American States, because it violates them and renders them

null and void. Other Central American integration agreements

provide for road vehicle traffic, such as the Regional

Agreement for the Temporary Importation of Road Vehicles,

signed at San Salvador on 8 November 1956 and the

Central American Agreement on Road Traffic of 10 June

1968.

129. The Declaration of the Presidents of America at

Punta del Este on 14 April 1967 refers to the need to

eliminate or reduce to a minimum restrictions on international

travel.

130. Economic aggression, though mainly taking the form

of the closing of the Pan American Highway, is also evident

in the freezing of ail Salvadorian bank accounts and in the

pressure which the Honduran authorities and national

banks have brought to bear on Salvadorian undertakings to

sell their interests on terms so onerous as to be tantamount

to confiscation.

131. Though Central American integration has neglected

the human element, some of its legal instruments, signed,

ratified and in force, deal with migration. I mention this

point because the myth has been created that the Central

American conflict in 1969 was due to the population

explosion. The Treaty of Economic Association between

the Republics of Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador

signed on 5 February 1960 and ratified by these three

Central American States, provides for the free movement of

persons between the Parties, for article II states that “the

nationals of each signatory State shall enjoy the right to

enter and leave the territory of the other contracting Parties

with no restrictions other than those established for

nationals of such Contracting Parties,” and, further on, that

“the nationals of any contracting Party shall enjoy national

treatment in the territory of the others”.

132. The General Treaty of Central American Economic

Integration, signed and ratified by five Central American

countries, leaves in force those parts of the Treaty of

Economic Association that are not subject to new regulations.

Within what seemed to be a clear-cut Central

American policy, specific bilateral agreements were concluded

to facilitate the application of the legal rule I have

mentioned, which is clear and binding and whose validity

and force do not, of course, depend on any regulations

which may subsequently be agreed upon to facilitate its

application. Moreover, in conformity with the region’s

policy, one of the decisions taken by the Central American

Presidents, meeting at San Salvador, was to accelerate the

stage-by-stage development of the capital market and to

take steps to facilitate the free movement of persons.

133. I am quoting this legal history and this background

to official regional policy to show that migratory movements

in Central America are not the result of a country’s

political misconduct towards its neighbours and that the

mass expulsions of Salvadorian nationals constitute a

violation of clear legal obligations, a flouting of solemnly

declared policies and, furthermore, a disregard of the duties

of States and of the fundamental human rights set out in

the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the

American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man. A

State may establish regulations to govern particular aspects

of migration, but it may not rescind acquired rights of

residence and property or impair the freedom, the right to

work and even the physical integrity of residents. An

undesirable alien may be expelled from a territory, but he

may not be deprived of his property; his house may not be

ransacked nor may he be beaten or killed. The rules of

international law do not allow of the mass treatment of

cases of migration, because injustice then becomes the rule

and engenders a policy of overt hostility to the State whose

nationals are being inhumanly treated and mistreated.

134. This year 1969 will go down in the history of

El Salvador as a bitter year, marked by very serious

problems which had not arisen in the more than a hundred

and fifty years since it became independent. There had

been civil strife and every sort of rivalry in Central America,

the expression, by means that were not always appropriate,

of a spirit of rivalry or dissent. But the events of 1969 are

marked by features which some observers have been unable

or unwilling to discern. If anyone had prophesied a year ago

what was going to happen, we would have been incredulous

because we sincerely believe in the depths of our heart that

systematic persecution on grounds of nationality alone

could never occur on American soil, which seemed to have

a special affinity for fundamental human rights.

135. When put to a substantive test, the system for the

protection of human rights has proved to have huge gaps,

and the means of enforcing it have been shown to be

defective. This is an experience which must be examined

objectively by participants, parties and observers, and the

examination must pave the way for reflexion and reform.

The past must be subjected to rigorous analysis; lessons

must be drawn from it and appropriate reforms devised.

The international community and the regional communities

are not yet sufficiently developed to accomplish their aims

speedily and fully; the facts speak for themselves only too

plainly in the Middle East, in Viet-Nam and in Central

America.

136. El Salvador has become an entirely different country

since July 1969; its outlook has changed and it is now no

longer prepared to sacrifice words and deeds on the altars

of many of the myths which have been invented to lull

consciences. Speaking as an observer, I must say that my

country had swallowed the tales of declarations of human

rights, brotherhood, solidarity and integration. The circumstances

experienced by the Salvadorian people were so

harsh and moved so rapidly to extremes that it had to

improvise the defence of its rights and did so in admirable

fashion, achieving its identity in a prodigious and single

surge of national unity. El Salvador has decided, in the

prevailing political and social circumstances, to maintain its

identity as a people and to revise its national and

international policy in order to adapt it to current realities.

137. El Salvador is fighting, has fought and will continue

to fight for the protection of its nationals’ fundamental

fights within and beyond its borders. A policy of renunciation

has never paid off in terms of peace and security,

because it is unfortunately misinterpreted; it is construed as

weakness and consequently encourages hostile acts. El

Salvador still hopes that the Organization of American

States will succeed in overcoming the problems of its

internal operation and will honour the solemn undertaking

signed and endorsed by the American Foreign Ministers in

the resolutions adopted on 30 July 1969.

138. El Salvador is prepared to abide by the rules of the

international community, but it is not prepared to pass

beneath the yoke nor to learn to bend the knee and beat

the breast to appease the policy of other States.

139. The problems of the Central American region have

remote and immediate causes. One of the remote causes

mentioned is under-development. Rather than a cause,

under-development is the background to certain phenomena.

Or rather, not under-development as such, but an

unbalanced process of development, which places some

countries at a temporary and relative advantage in which

others acquiesce. As meteorologists do, we must investigate

not only the climate but the microclimate, and then the

process of unbalanced development appears against the

background of under-development, forming an integral part of it.

140. We made our contribution to a policy for remedying

the process of unbalanced development in Central America,

having approved the protocol on preferential treatment for

Honduras to that end. Through that protocol El Salvador

showed that it is prepared to shoulder the burden of

solidarity by artificially creating competitive advantages for

one of its partners, Honduras. But El Salvador is not

prepared to broaden this preferential treatment, because it

would be unfair for it to have to bear the burden of the

development of a country with vast natural resources,

which will shortly be able to rise to El Salvador’s own level

of production and to compete on equal terms.

141. Technology, too, produces problems and sometimes

generates a violence which is no less than that in the

developing countries. There is no clear-cut relationship

between conflict and violence, on the one hand, and

under-development, on the other. The categories of development

and under-development were devised for the

purposes of the analysis, originally in economic and later in

more comprehensive terms, of a world thrown out of

balance by the simultaneous existence of a great absorptive

industrial belt and of a situation in which two-thirds of the

world’s population is reduced to producing raw materials

and gathering the crumbs of industry and the dregs of technology.

142. Attributing every evil to under-development is not at

present making the powerful countries more receptive to

the notion of a balanced world development. They will

probably become more receptive to this notion when they

realize that the development of the other parts of the world

will benefit everyone, including themselves.

143. We should distinguish between the remote and the

immediate causes of problems. From the political and legal

standpoint, immediate causes are of direct importance; the

other causes should also be dealt with, and should not be

left solely to the schools, the professors and the trained

speculative scientists, because all the social sciences are

notoriously immature and what they tell us contains a great

deal of the speculative with an unknown admixture of

reality. If we immerse ourselves in the study of the chain of

causation, we may discover what happened in the original

molecule or the original nebula. Some will claim to tell us

by means of electronic computers what concatenation of

causes brought us together here and why we say what we

say, but such speculations tend to remove problems from

their true context and perspective.

144. Such study is useful as a guide to political action, but

it must be preceded by conduct consistent with existing

obligations and with the civilized rules of community living.

The fact that causes may be of one kind or another, remote

or not so remote or interrelated to a greater or lesser

degree, does not exempt any State from its obligation to

fulfil the agreements it has entered into and to comply with

the rules governing the international community. The

remote causes of events too must be dealt with, but this

cannot usefully be done so long as a policy of deliberately

and intentionally harassing or even destroying other States

is being pursued.

145. An exaggerated optimism has gained circulation

about the efficacy of the pacification measures adopted by

the Organization of American States during the outburst of

violence which began on 15 June 1969. The Organization

adopted a great many measures of pacification based on

existing treaties, but it has not so far been able to ensure

their complete implementation. It is not a matter of being

optimistic or pessimistic, but realistic; we must draw up a

cool and objective balance of the results of the pacification

activities and determine at what points they have met with

resistance, so that we may adopt additional measures as

urgently as necessary in conformity with earlier treaties and

resolutions of the Organization. 1 assert emphatically and

categorically that El Salvador has complied with every one

of the pacification measures, but that the other party,

Honduras, has not responded in the same way and,

accordingly, a lack of balance has occurred which is putting

the prestige and efficacy of the Organization of American

States to the test. What is more, Honduras is again

escalating the dispute by means of economic aggression in

the form of the closing of the Pan American Highway and

confiscatory measures against Salvadorian businesses legally

established in its territory.

146. The case is under consideration by the Organization

of American States. Advantage was taken of the presence of

the American Foreign Ministers in New York to hold

informal conversations, which are continuing, but since,

during these conversations, it has not proved possible to

reach any agreement at all likely to lead to the early

cessation of the economic aggression to which my country

is being subjected, I have requested on behalf of my

Government that the consultative organ of the Organization

of American States should be convened so that we can

submit to it the relevant complaints with the urgency which

the situation dictates.

147. The dispute between El Salvador and Honduras has

been raised in the plenary of the General Assembly through

statements by representatives who have expressed an

interest in its settlement. It might be submitted to the

decision-raking organs on the proposal of El Salvador, if

the Organization of American States proves unable to

ensure the survival of the country, which is being overtly

threatened by economic aggression, taking unjustified

advantage of purely geographical circumstances. The United

Nations is vested by its Charter and the inter-American

instruments with the higher and final competence for the

maintenance of international peace and security.

148. El Salvador will wage an unflagging struggle for the

guaranteeing of fundamental human rights. It will never

commit itself to a policy of abandoning its nationals abroad

or of waiving the rights inherent in it as a State. It neither

seeks nor desires any extreme or irreparable situations; it is

prepared to make use of any channels provided by the

international community, though these have not as yet

been indicated, and it hopes to contribute to a policy

calculated to establish conditions of peace and security, on

the understanding that the dissociation of peace from

justice, which has on occasions been the basis for international

compromises, runs completely counter to the

objective of a peaceful world, since justice is the essential

ingredient of a lasting peace.

149. Apart from any views that may be held on the

modern international community, geographical proximity is

a fact which imposes certain consequences and which must

be taken into consideration in establishing a coherent and

realistic policy. El Salvador recognizes geographical proximity

as a fact, but is not prepared to surrender to it rights

whose renunciation would jeopardize its very existence.

150. I have referred to treaties which are in force and

impose multilateral obligations established by law, treaties

which have not been denounced and for whose termination

in conformity with international law no grounds have

arisen. Honduras opened the dispute on 15 June 1969 with

a merciless mass persecution of Salvadorian residents

carried out by mobs and agents of the authorities, with the

connivance and condonation of the Honduran Government.

Since El Salvador has the right to defend its nationals

abroad, it considered that this right had been violated and

that, in the persons of its nationals, it was the victim of an

aggression which assumed the character of genocide. I

should like to know whether there are any States which can

conscientiously, seriously and responsibly affirm that they

would stand idly by and witness the mass persecution of

their nationals abroad solely by reason of their nationality.

El Salvador confined its actions strictly to halting this

aggression and the Organization of American States has

assumed a solemn undertaking to protect Salvadorians

resident in Honduras.

151. The international obligations of the two countries to

one another have not lapsed. El Salvador is fully entitled to

demand that the continuing aggression by Honduras should

cease and to denounce in this world forum that country’s

plans for the physical extermination of El Salvador and the

Salvadorians. Its policy of provocation and pressure is

accompanied not only by the infliction of unlimited

damage but also by something really sinister, which it is

cunning enough to conceal beneath the submissive and

humble manner it affects when it appears at inter-American

meetings.

152. The Organization of American States will have to

take cognizance of the most recent expression of this

continuing aggression—the arbitrary closing of the Pan

American Highway. El Salvador can plead the justice of its

claim before any international tribunal and express its

absolute repudiation of the Honduran contention that it is

not bound to El Salvador by any rule of international law, a

contention which is the legal basis for its policy of

aggression and its plan against El Salvador.

153. The year 1969 has brought about a radical change in

the life of El Salvador, a change which will necessarily be

reflected in all its domestic and international acts. In some

cases and in some relationships, it will mean a withdrawal, in

Others a search for new channels of communication,

commercial and diplomatic. The scrutiny of the past will

serve to open its eyes to reality, not to record debts for

future recovery.

154. El Salvador is no longer and never again will be what

it was in May 1969. It has suffered a profound upheaval, an

awakening to the realities of Central America, and a great

many myths have shattered in its hands. It had been

participating out of solidarity in a series of activities

because it had hoped that the reality was approaching the

splendour of the rhetoric. Now it has learned all too well

the meaning of such words as “solidarity”, “human rights”,

“brotherhood” and the like. It has affirmed its intention of

maintaining its identity, and for this it is stronger than ever,

thanks to the total unity of its people. It is prepared, then,

to face, in circumstances which may well become even

more adverse, the hazards of this contemporary international

society which still lacks maturity; but in settling its

disputes, it intends to make use of the means, incomplete

and often inadequate though they are, provided by the

inter-American regional system and the world system of the

United Nations.