U.N's Enemy - Our Enemy
In our appraisal of the United Nations, of its structure and the field of action proper and appropriate to it, we must recognize the historically demonstrated fact that a wilful and deliberate violation by any member state of its obligations under the United Nations Charter weakens the United Nation's prestige and threatens its destruction. Let us speak frankly; he who acts deliberately and with calculation to the injury of the United Nations, to weaken it or to endanger its existence as an effective and energetic international institution, is the enemy of all of us. He robs the world of the last, best hope for peace, robs the small nations of that bulwark which the United Nations provides against oppression and he deprives them of the forum where their voice may be raised against injustice and oppression. It is, perhaps, no accident that the United Nations headquarters resembles a structre of glass. It is a fragile, not an indestructible, institution.
At the same time, we need not delude ourselves, that the performance of the United Nations has been, at all times and on an questions, that which we might have wished. The United Nations is man-conceived and man-run, and hence, by its nature and by the nature of man, imperfect. We must be constantly alert to improve and perfect its machinery, to minimize the risk that in time of crisis it will fail us, to assure that its decisions are founded on principle and not on bias and prejudice.
The most obvious defect which We observe in the United Nations today derives from the fact that this Organization, in 1961, remains the self-same entity which was created sixteen years ago at San Francisco. Its membership has more than doubled from 46 to 99 nations, but its structure remains the same, and no measures have been taken to assure that adequate representation in its constituent organs is guaranteed to the peoples who have since 1945, taken their places in this world body. We must not and we shall not be denied this right - for this is a right and not a privilege. The increased participation of the Non-Aligned Nations in the day-to-day activities of the United Nations is the best safeguard against the arbitrary abuse of its powers and functions by and for the benefit of a single group, and such a development would enhance immeasurably its effectiveness as a bulwark against aggression and a guarantor of the peace.
We must, too, observe that the United Nations can scarcely fulfil the role envisaged for it by its founders so long as hundreds of millions of people remain unrepresented there. We refer now not merely to those whose independence is yet to be attained but, as well, to those states, primary among which is the People's Republic of China, which have thus far been excluded from a seat in its councils. We can hardly speak with true sincerity of a universal meeting place or of an organization whose decisions will be binding upon the world community of nations when states which we, the Non-Aligned Countries, would wish to influence are not present to hear our words or to feel the weight of our opinions. We urge both the proponents and the opponents of the admission of such states to seek an acceptable formula whereby those to whom We refer may soon be counted among the members of the Organization.
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