Nicaragua, 1982

236 Sir, I should like first of all to

congratulate you and the noble country you

represent on the occasion of your well-deserved

election as President of this thirty-seventh

session of the General Assembly. We are certain

that, given your diplomatic skill, wisdom and

even-handedness, you will provide excellent

leadership for the work before us. Also, we wish

to congratulate Mr. Kittani for the skill and

tact with which he presided over the tasks of the

sessions of the General Assembly held throughout

this particularly difficult year. We extend

special recognition to the Secretary-General for

his outstanding efforts in the short, yet

troubled, period in which he has held his post.

237. In this general discussion, it is

customary to review the most important

developments on the international scene. Year

after year, we deplore—almost ritualistically—new

and old problems that threaten international

peace and security. But this year, a new and

exceedingly grave threat has aggravated the

situation. I refer specifically to the threat to

world peace and security represented by the

fatalistic resignation by ever-growing numbers of

people and, in particular, by Governments, in the

face of genocide, hunger and misery, and even in

the face of the possibility of a nuclear

holocaust.

238. Confronted with the most tense and

fragile international situation since 1945, at

this session the General Assembly is called upon

to reflect most profoundly. The persistence of

old sources of tension and the emergence of new

ones, in addition to symptoms that the current

structures for maintaining stability are becoming

worn out, lead us to the inescapable conclusion

that the pre-conditions for peace do not exist.

Indeed, there can be no peace if the vast

majority of the inhabitants of this planet are

without bread, education, decent housing,

security and political rights. There can be no

peace without justice. There can be no peace

while certain countries cling to outmoded systems

of domination and dependence and stubbornly

endeavour to prevent third world countries at all

costs from adopting measures they consider

imperative and necessary to overcome

underdevelopment and want in the exercise of

their right to self-determination and

independence. Peace is impossible, so long as the

powerful maintain their arrogant stance of

demanding that developing countries act in

accordance with imperial interests and in

detriment to the interests of their own peoples.

239. How can there be peace when 40 per cent

of the third world population is denied the right

to read and write? How can there be peace when

the vast majority of mankind is struggling to

overcome hunger and misery t while a tiny

minority invests enormous resources in weapons to

be used against those demanding justice?

240. How can we not acknowledge that we are

facing the most serious economic crisis since the

great depression of the 1930s, with world per

capita income not making the slightest advance

since 1981 and with the prospect of a decline in

1982? How can there be peace while countries and

entire continents are fighting not simply for

economic growth but for mere survival? Our

countries are calling for a new economic order

wherein the developed countries do not correct

their own problems of stagnation, inflation and

unemployment at the expense of the developing

world.

241. In this setting Latin America has felt

the need to lay the groundwork for a strategy for

independence and security. At the eighth regular

meeting of the Council of the Latin American

Economic System, held this past August in

Caracas, our countries reasserted the sovereign

right of all nations to adopt their own path in

the economic, social and political fields in

peace and free from pressure, aggression and

external threats.

242. In Managua, the seventeenth Regional

Conference for Latin America of FAO also urged

the creation of security machinery in terms of

foodstuffs in order to decrease the vulnerability

of Latin American and Caribbean nations with

regard to one or several industrialized

countries. And, in Toronto, on the occasion of

the Joint Meeting of the International Monetary

Fund and the World Bank, our country, on behalf

of Latin America, the Philippines and Spain,

voiced its opposition to intervention by certain

institutions in the system of economic

organization of countries in need of assistance.

Warning was given of the dangers involved in the

setting of more and more conditions, in the

rising cost of credit and in the threat contained

in the questioning of the very importance of

international co-operation.

243. With regard to international

co-operation, we wish to go on record as voicing

concern at the tendency of some developed

countries not to abide by the commitments that

they have undertaken vis-a-vis UNDP, thus making

the progress of important projects already under

way much more difficult.

244. Just as indicative of the current

indifference to mankind's vital interests is the

impudence of those that try to hide the

consequences of nuclear conflict. Illogically,

they try to make us believe that such a conflict

could be confined to a given geographical area.

It has reached the point where the world's most

formidable military Power is proclaiming that

there are issues more important than peace and

that force is a legitimate instrument in

attaining its objectives of domination and

political hegemony.

245. This reckless policy of the current

United States Administration has made its own

citizens and the peoples of the world contemplate

the danger of a nuclear confrontation. In this

context, it should not surprise us that the

anti-nuclear movement has attained such massive

and broad dimensions—even in the United States

itself—although this outcry, as has unfortunately

become the rule, is not reflected in decisions of

Governments, as evidenced by the paltry results

of the recent second special session devoted to

disarmament.

246. Just a few months ago Latin America

suffered colonialist military aggression by an

extra-continental Power, which threatens the

territorial integrity and sovereignty of a sister

nation. We refer, of course, to the British

invasion of the Malvinas Islands, the true origin

of which can be found in the United Kingdom's

stubborn attempt to perpetuate an anachronistic

colonial situation on our continent. The

aggression against the Republic of Argentina was

possible only thanks to the military, economic

and political support that the United States

supplied to the aggressor nation—support which

astonished Latin Americans, support that unmasked

the United States conception of the reciprocal

defence treaties and the true motives that led

the United States to sign them.

247. In numerous General Assembly resolutions

and resolutions of other United Nations bodies it

has been said in clear-cut terms that the

Malvinas issue is a colonial one that must be

resolved. Twenty Latin American foreign ministers

requested that this situation be discussed at

this session of the Assembly, because they wanted

to make it absolutely clear that the cause of the

Malvinas Islands is also the cause of Latin

America, and that a resumption of negotiations

leading to a peaceful resolution of the conflict

on the basis of United Nations resolutions is

imperative.

248. The principle of solidarity compels us to

unite with our African brothers and sisters in

the defence of Namibia's right to independence.

We reject all the manoeuvres aimed at creating a

puppet Government in Namibia. We demand full

implementation of Security Council resolution 435

(1978) and the recognition of SWAPO as the sole

legitimate representative of the heroic people of

Namibia. We denounce the campaign launched by the

Reagan Administration to deprive Angola of its

inalienable right of self-defence and to the

assistance it needs to repel South Africa's

attacks. We are certain that neither this policy

of Mack-mail nor the stationing of thousands of

racist troops along Angola's frontier, nor the

attempts to destabilize the front-line States,

especially Mozambique, nor the use of mercenaries

to overthrow Governments, as happened in

Seychelles, can weaken the clear determination of

those peoples to defend their sovereignty and to

ensure sovereignty for Namibia.

249. We condemn the aggressive policy of the

racist regime of South Africa against

neighbouring States, a policy which is the

logical outgrowth of its own criminal apartheid

system. We reaffirm what our non-aligned movement

has stated on numerous occasions, namely, that

there can be no peace, stability and security in

southern Africa until the oppressive and illegal

apartheid regime is totally eradicated. We are as

one in solidarity with the labour leaders

imprisoned and condemned to death by the

diabolical racist regime, in flagrant violation

of the most elementary human rights. The United

Nations must step up its campaign to prevent them

from being executed and to win their release.

250. The entire world has witnessed the brutal

aggression of which the Republic of Lebanon has

been the victim, and in which atrocities

comparable only to the "final solution" policy

pursued by the Nazi regime were committed. It is

appropriate to recall, in such circumstances,

that Hitler's Germany started that catastrophe

with its policy of territorial expansionism,

which was followed by the mass extermination of

human beings, and that one of its principal

victims was the Jewish people itself. Today, to

the world's consternation, the leaders of those

who survived genocide and the concentration camps

are to be found promoting acts of genocide and

building concentration camps with the objective

of exterminating the heroic Palestinian people.

25l. The horrors which have occurred in the

Palestinian refugee camps, the indiscriminate

massacring of the civilian population of Beirut

and the denial of people's most elementary legal

rights led the Government Junta of National

Reconstruction of Nicaragua to break the only

remaining link we still had with Israel, that is,

the fiction of diplomatic relations, all genuine

ties having been severed upon the triumph of our

Revolution. It was the least Nicaragua could do

to express its categorical repudiation and total

non-recognition of the Zionist regime and at the

same time its militant support for the

Palestinian combatants and their sole legitimate

representative, the PLO, and the long-suffering

people of Lebanon.

252. We feel it necessary to denounce,

moreover, the open complicity of a great Power in

the barbarism unleashed by the Zionist forces in

Lebanon. That Power gave the Zionist regime its

full political, military and economic support,

thus ensuring that the crimes committed would go

unpunished and, which is even more shameful,

systematically blocked the Security Council's

efforts to restore peace, proclaiming that it

alone was capable of controlling the monster

which it had itself encouraged and which it had

always defended.

253. Those events demonstrate clearly that the

problem of the Middle East can be resolved only

by recognizing the inalienable rights of the

Palestinian people, including the right to

self-determination, to return to their homeland

and to set up their own State. The international

community must step up its efforts to prevent the

policy of force and occupation practised by

Israel from prevailing in that area of the world,

a policy which could have the fatal corollary of

the physical extermination of the Palestinian

people. Equally evident is the fact that the

Middle East crisis will be capable of solution

only when the United States abandons its policy

of protecting those guilty of crime, terrorism

and genocide and stops thwarting United Nations

efforts, in particular those of the

Secretary-General and the Security Council, to

carry out the mandate set forth in the Charter.

254. Speaking as a member of the non-aligned

movement and as a revolutionary nation, we wish

to voice our solidarity with all the countries

and peoples fighting to win or to preserve their

independence: with the people of Cyprus, seeking

to exercise their right to defend the sovereignty

and territorial integrity of the nation; with

Grenada and the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, defending

their sovereignty against imperialism; with the

sister Republic of Cuba demanding the return of

illegally occupied Guantanamo —and we condemn in

the strongest possible terms the blockade and

constant threats against that country. We join

the brother people and Government of Panama in

their just demand that the Torrijos-Carter

treaties be implemented.

255. We rejoice with the people of Bolivia

over their nation's return to legality and

democracy. We extend our solidarity to the people

of Puerto Rico and support their right to

independence and self-determination in accordance

with General Assembly resolution 1514 (XV),

recalling the fact that the problem facing the

Puerto Rican people but that it is, rather, a

matter that concerns Latin America, to which

Puerto Rico is an undeniable part. We support the

Korean people's just struggle for the peaceful

and democratic reunification of their nation free

from foreign intervention.

256. Nicaragua reaffirms its support of the

appeal issued by the non-aligned movement with

regard to Western Sahara for the parties

concerned to enter into negotiations immediately

in order to reach a just and lasting

solution—that conflict in keeping with the

provisions of resolution 1514 (XV) and the

principles of our movement, with the decisions

adopted by the OAU and with the principles of the

Charter.

257. We welcome the efforts made by the States

of South-East Asia to begin a dialogue leading to

the re-establishment of peace and stability in

that region. We welcome as well the positions and

appeals with regard to South-West Asia adopted by

the non-aligned movement at the Conference of

Ministers for Foreign Affairs of Non-Aligned

Countries at New Delhi.

258. The worsening of the international

situation cannot be separated from the grave

crisis affecting the Organization. That is why we

welcome the frankness with which the

Secretary-General in his report on the work of

the Organization acknowledges that the United

Nations is being ignored by some countries, and

we support the recommendations he makes aimed at

strengthening the Organization and, in

particular, at strengthening the authority of the

Security Council to prevent conflicts and

revitalize the system of international security.

In this connection, it is worth stressing that

the use of the veto to thwart the condemnation of

terror, aggression and genocide must no longer be

tolerated, so that being in Washington's good

graces is not interpreted as a green light to

violate the fundamental principles of the Charter

and the most basic norms of law.

259. It should be a matter of profound concern

to the international community that a permanent

member of the Security Council tends to turn

increasingly to the veto in detriment to the just

proposals for peace advanced, with a lofty sense

of responsibility, by Governments in the most

troubled regions of the world. In specific terms,

we wish to refer to the Reagan Administration's

decision to veto the draft resolution regarding

Central America submitted by Panama and Guyana on

2 April of this year, a draft resolution that

confined itself simply to reaffirming the

illegality of the use of force or the threat of

force in relations between States and that called

for dialogue between all parties concerned.

260. Nicaragua believes there is no

justification whatsoever for the Reagan

Administration's attitude towards our country and

the Central American region. We deem it absurd to

portray us as a threat to the United States for

having chosen, in the exercise of our sovereign

rights, an independent political path within the

framework of the most scrupulous non-alignment.

It is even more absurd to try to blame Nicaragua

for all the problems Central American countries

are enduring, problems whose origins and true

causes can be found solely and exclusively in the

constant postponement of appropriate solutions.

This is a situation the peoples of Central

America seem unwilling to go on tolerating

indefinitely, despite the fact that the United

States continues to oppose any changes that might

result in greater independence for the States of

Central America.

261. We have stressed—and we do so here once

again—that the Nicaraguan Government genuinely

desires an understanding with the United States

that would make it possible substantially to

improve the relations between our two States on

the basis of mutual respect, non-intervention in

internal affairs and, above all, on the basis of

sovereign equality, independence and

self-determination—principles that constitute the

foundation of peace and stability in the world

and that are found throughout the Charter.

262. Guided by our unshakeable devotion to

peace, we have presented to the Reagan

Administration a number of different approaches

for initiating dialogue, reiterating time and

again our invitation to hold high-level meetings

between representatives of our States in the hope

of avoiding the putting into effect of the

threats of the use offence against Nicaragua.

263. Unfortunately, the response of the United

States Government to date has been to attempt to

impose upon us its rigid East-West outlook, a

combination of economic pressures, accusations

and threats culminating in the financing of

covert destabilizing activities and the open use

of its territory for the training of

counter-revolutionary forces and for the

preparation of actions of a criminal nature

against Nicaragua. The financial and

organizational assistance the Reagan

Administration is lending the enemies of our

people has led to an increase in terrorist acts

and armed assaults on our national territory and

to a substantial increase in the weaponry,

personnel and organization provided to the

counter-revolutionary forces. Those forces have

been supplied with sophisticated means of warfare

used solely by professional armies—such as those

found in the wake of the evidenced blowing up and

sabotaging of two strategic bridges near the

border with Honduras and as evidenced by the use

of armed aircraft in attempts to destroy our only

oil refinery and the fuel stores located at the

port of Corinto on the Pacific coast. To round

out this distressing picture, we cannot avoid

mentioning the presence of United States warships

in our territorial waters, the overflights of spy

planes and the holding of joint military

manoeuvres with the Honduran army near our

borders.

264. Guided by our firm determination to

consolidate peace in our region, our Government

has taken part in and promoted the search for

solutions which would permit an understanding

among the Central American countries, to which we

are united by bonds so strong that no foreign

Power, no matter how powerful it may be, could

ever permanently impair them.

265. In this regard I should like to recall

the far-reaching importance which the meeting of

foreign ministers, held in San Jose, Costa Rica,

on 14 and 15 March 1980, had for Central American

unity. As the Declaration adopted at the meeting

puts it, it was motivated by the conviction that

direct and frank dialogue between the countries

of the Central American isthmus was the best way

to review the regional situation in the

political, economic and social fields, as the

most appropriate means of adopting positions to

benefit the peoples of Central America. The first

point in the 1980 San Jose Declaration affirms

that the peaceful and harmonious coexistence of

the States in the region requires respect for the

different political systems, for the right to

self-determination and the right to resolve

internal affairs in accordance with each nation's

historical development.

266. Another important agreement adopted at

that meeting was the inclusion of the sister

republic of Panama as an integral part of Central

America, along with the institutionalization of

the meetings of the Foreign Ministers of the

area, which are to be held regularly three times

a year.

267. More recently, during my visit to

Tegucigalpa in April of this year the Honduran

Minister for External Relations, Edgardo Paz

Barnica, informed me that he would immediately

call a meeting of the foreign ministers of the

region—an initiative which Nicaragua welcomed

without delay or reservations. I committed myself

to attending, and to supporting the inclusion in

the agenda of that meeting of the six points

contained in a peace proposal which the Foreign

Minister of Honduras said he wanted to submit for

consideration to the foreign ministers of

Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua,

Costa Rica and Panama.

268. Surprisingly, six months after our

conversation —in other words, in this month of

October—bypassing the still-valid agreements of

the Declaration of Central American Foreign

Ministers of 1980, another meeting of Foreign

Ministers was called, also in Costa Rica,

promoted by the United States, from which certain

Central American States were excluded. This

exclusion violated the agreements adopted

previously by the region's Foreign Ministers,

hence this meeting can be regarded only as an

unimportant and marginal event in terms of its

content, and as going against our peoples'

genuine interests of peace, stability and

development.

269. Central America, for the reasons we have

already outlined, finds itself in the midst of

great political upheavals, exacerbated by grave

economic problems. Nevertheless, as pointed out

in the joint letter sent by the Presidents of

Mexico and Venezuela to the Co-ordinator of the

Nicaraguan Government Junta of National

Reconstruction, Daniel Ortega Saavedra, and to

the President of Honduras, Roberto Suazo Cordoba,

it is undeniable that the most critical situation

facing the region the most serious problem, is

the dangerous deterioration of relations between

Honduras and Nicaragua, which could result in a

conflict of unforeseeable proportions.

270. The attitude adopted by the United States

Government, which must be denounced, has

decisively influenced powerful sectors of the

Honduran army, which are providing ample

assistance to the counterrevolutionary forces,

permitting the use of Honduran territory as a

base for military operations to attack towns and

posts along the Nicaraguan border, as well as the

supply of weapons, infrastructure, and logistical

support, tolerating the provocations and attacks

by soldiers of that country's army, and are even

going so far as to sign specific agreements with

the United States on the basis of which the

United States Government has increased its

military aid to Honduras, financing the

reconstruction of airports and military bases,

multiplying the number of its advisers, and

reserving the right to use these and other bases

and military infrastructure in Honduras. It is

obvious that this policy is giving rise to a

dangerous spiral of war in Central America. It

encourages the most aggressive sectors of

Honduras and other countries of the region, who

recklessly brag in public about their military

ability to defeat Nicaragua and openly call for

foreign intervention against our country,

271. These military preparations, which amount

to a prelude to the much-advertised assault on

Nicaragua, were recently denounced by the former

Commander of the Honduran Public Security Force,

Colonel Leonidas Torres Arias, and this week by

the Mayor of Puerto Lempira, Marcial Colemann,

who told news agencies that an unprecedented

invasion of Nicaragua was approaching and that

Puerto Lempira, his own city, would be the

organizational centre for the invasion. He

reported that the counter-revolutionaries there

were being supplied by a Hercules aircraft of the

United States Air Force. He also stated that

there was a warehouse in Puerto Lempira which was

full of weapons that local residents could see,

and that there was evidence of

counter-revolutionary camps from which a silent

invasion of our country had already begun.

272. Notwithstanding these irrefutable facts,

an elaborate diplomatic and propaganda campaign

is under way to defame Nicaragua and portray us

as a country opposed to all dialogue, when the

truth is that it is the people of Nicaragua who

are being attacked and it is Honduras that

systematically refuses to take part in a dialogue

at the highest level to find solutions to

bilateral problems. It is possible that this

reluctance stems from a recognition of the fact

that our problems with Honduras—a brother nation

with which we have close-knit ties—are really

problems with the United States, since the Reagan

Administration conscious of how absurd and

counter-productive a direct confrontation with

Nicaragua would be—the United States so big and

we so small—has chosen Honduras as the ideal

country from which to attack us with the foolish

aim of destabilizing us and overthrowing our

Government. It forgets that this objective is

impossible to attain in the light of our people's

monolithic unity and our determination to defend

and consolidate the achievements we have gained

at such a high cost.

273. From September of last year to September

of this year our country has endured

approximately 143 attacks from Honduras. We have

detected some 23 infiltrations of

counter-revolutionary military groups and units.

There have been 10 violations of and incidents in

our territorial waters. A11 of that has left a

painful toll of more than 150 Nicaraguans killed,

30 missing and incalculable material damage,

which forced our Government at one point to

evacuate the civilian population in the frontier

region, which had become a veritable

scorched-earth battlefield.

274. Within the framework of its many peace

initiatives, Nicaragua promoted the meeting

between the heads of State of Honduras and

Nicaragua, at the El Guasaule border post on 13

May we have repeatedly requested a meeting

between the army leaders of both States,

something agreed Co at El Guasaule; this past

April I travelled to Tegucigalpa to talk with the

Foreign Minister, Mr. Paz Barnica and present him

with a seven-point peace plan, later rejected by

Honduras down to the last detail; we worked for

the meeting between the chiefs of staff of the

respective armed forces, held this past May at

the La Fraternidad border post—as a result of the

agreements obtained at the La Fraternidad

meeting, the only meeting that has actually been

held was between the heads of the naval forces of

our countries in the port of Corinto.

275. The rapid deterioration of the situation

along the border and the systematic refusal of

Honduras to offer the viable solutions urgently

needed in accordance with the existing situation

led Nicaragua to make yet another effort and on 6

August we extended an invitation to the President

of Honduras to meet in Managua with the

Co-ordinator of the Government Junta of National

Reconstruction of Nicaragua. It was made known

unofficially that such a meeting would require a

prior meeting of Foreign Ministers. On 24 August

I sent an invitation to the Honduran Minister for

External Relations for us to meet in Managua in

early September, an invitation I renewed on 4

October, asking him to set the date. The Honduran

response to both invitations was that an

excessive work-load made any commitments

impossible now. Under these circumstances, the

Governments of Mexico and Venezuela launched

their very worthwhile peace initiative, which

Nicaragua immediately welcomed and which we were

most pleased to accept, but which Honduras has,

unfortunately, rejected on the grounds of having

matters of a higher priority to deal with at

present.

276. Fully aware of the delicate situation

existing in Central America, Nicaragua has

redoubled its efforts and will continue to do all

that is humanly possible in order to obtain a

peaceful settlement, through dialogue, of the

matter of the critical relations with the United

States and Honduras, as we have turned the

struggle for peace into the guiding principle of

all we do in the political realm. Nicaragua seeks

only to live in peace, to move forward with the

process of our material and spiritual

reconstruction within the most absolute respect

for the principles of the Charter and of

non-alignment.