30011952. Text of the Speech Made by Mr. Santa Cruz (Chile) in the Security Council Meeting No 571 held on 30 January 1952
Text of the Speech Made by Mr. Santa Cruz (Chile) in the Security Council Meeting No 571 held on 30 January 1952
This is the first opportunity the Chilean delegation has had in the United Nations to intervene in the dispute between India and Pakistan over Kashmir. I should therefore like to indicate briefly the spirit in which my country and its Government propose to participate in the efforts to settle this dispute.
In our opinion the entry of Pakistan and India into contemporary international life as fully independent and sovereign nations is one of the outstanding historical events of recent times. It marks a particularly significant stage in the renaissance which the Far and middle eastern countries are accomplishing with ever-increasing speed. India and Pakistan have needed but little time to take a decisive part in international affairs. We have all been witnesses of the growing influence exercised by their ideas and views in the various organs and activities of the United Nation.
By reason of their size, their large populations, their great natural resources, their geographical situation, their links and relationships of all kinds with the East and their relations with and experience of the peoples of the West, India and Pakistan are called upon to play an ever more important and decisive part in international life. One of them closely linked with the Middle East and the other with the various countries of the Far East, they can and are bound to become major factors in directing the stormy and irresistible movement for national independence and freedom of these vast area along lines which are consistent with the principles of international peace and friendship and the peaceful settlement of disputes, lines which do not run counter to but rather promote that growth of internationalism which is essential in a world that has now become so highly interdependent. With their experience, India and Pakistan will be able to guide this head long upsurge of hundreds of millions of human beings towards peaceful cooperation, and at the same time help to persuade those who, from a distant geographical political and ideological standpoint, have hitherto refused to comprehend the power, justice, and inevitability of the quickened process of evolution, and even revolution, of these historic times.
India and Pakistan are also needed to guide by their example and assistance the inescapable task of economic and social development in the East, and to assist in the difficult process of adapting to the inevitable technical revolution of the West a society based principally on great spiritual values and fettered by an age old backward economy.
We also believe that India and Pakistan, in the interests. of their 400 million inhabitants and of the international community as a whole, must devote all their material and moral resources to the consolidation of their promising but young political institutions and to the strengthening and modernization of their economic and social structure in order to raise their inadequate standards of living. The gigantic national and international task I have outlined calls imperiously for a state of peace. These countries cannot, as I see it, afford the luxury of diverting the economic resources which are urgently required to increase agricultural production and to build factories and industries to the maintenance of armies which may one day wage a war that will have all the characteristics of a fratricidal conflict. They cannot and they must not waste the spiritual energy needed for domestic progress and the great part which together they might play in strengthening world peace.
In short, we believe that apart from the obligation of every government to its own people and to the community of nations to do all that can be done to maintain peace, that obligation is one which these countries cannot possibility evade. It follows that in our view the chief responsibility, and above all the chief possibility of a solution of Kashmir, still rests with the Governments of India and Pakistan.
The Security Council, in successive resolutions accepted by the parties concerned, has laid the foundation, in accordance with the principles of the Charter, on which such a settlement should be based, namely, the democratic method of a free and impartial plebiscite carried out under the auspices of the United Nations. It rests with the Governments of India and Pakistan to see that the necessary atmosphere is created for the success of that process. For this, it is essential that there should be mutual good faith and above all, the determination to make certain sacrifices which will entail in particular the running of what they believe to be certain risks, since most unfortunately they are still parted by fears and suspicions that can be easily understood. I repeat that in my delegation's opinion it is the imperative duty of Governments of India and Pakistan to proceed along those lines.
We also believe that the United Nations should continue to do everything possible to assist in the conclusion of a settlement. We have read with great interest and attention the reports of Mr. Graham. First, we should like to make it clear that in spite of the accusation made against him by the representative of the Soviet Union at the last meeting, we agree with other delegations in believing that Mr. Graham deserves the full confidence of the United Nations. The stage already traversed towards agreement, the progress in clarifying the points of disagreement mentioned, and the spirit of true understanding of the problem which Mr. Graham has shown in his reports and in his statements to the Council, give firm ground for hoping that the United Nations will make an important contribution to the final settlement of these disputes.
The last part of Mr. Graham's speech at our 570th meeting gave, I think, a clear picture of the very correct attitude he has taken in the difficult task entrusted to him by the Security Council.
Therefore, unless the parties concerned express disagreement with the action taken by the United Nations Representative, our delegation is ready to support the continuation of his work for a reasonable period. Mr. Graham has succeeded in isolating and limiting the points of dispute. Like other speakers who have preceded me, I believe that the new conciliation efforts can concentrate on seeking a settlement of these points of difference.
For our part, we offer India and Pakistan our social cooperation in the Security Council in any action which they feel is likely to help in composing their differences. The countries of Latin America, by reason of their political and spiritual tradition, their racial composition, the similarity of their racial composition, the similarity of their economic and social problems, their identical conception of human dignity, all of which have so often found common expression in the United Nations, are well qualified to understand the special characteristics of the Asian peoples and their problems.
As a country, we are entirely disinterested in this matter and our attitude towards it is based solely on our preoccupation for the future of peoples whose progress we fervently desire, and on our concern for the maintenance of international peace.
Lastly, we should like to express our appreciation-and we believe the Indian representative will share our sentiments for the wisdom and sense of responsibility shown by the representative of Pakistan in resisting the attempts which we have witnessed here recently to transfer this quite specific and local Kashmir dispute to the controversial and almost impassable ground of the great international political dispute to which the USSR is one of the parties.
This is one more demonstration of the fact that nowadays. there are no local disputes. Every dispute, past or future, will be made use of in the cold war and the struggle for strategic positions. Any one of these disputes may be the starting point of the great conflagration which we all desire to avoid. Therein lies another, and a decisive, reason why the Governments of India and Pakistan should spare no effort or sacrifice to their reach a solution satisfactory to all and conducive to peace.