UN General Assembly
1973

120. From the very dawn of our independent life, Chile has been careful to preserve, both in reality and in our fundamental Constitution, the basic human rights of the individual and respect for the common good. In the case of the Unidad Popular candidate, the majority parties insisted that these guarantees must be more precisely confirmed, even in specific matters, through the supplementary Statute to which I referred earlier. As a result of this requirement on the part of the parliamentary majority, the National Congress unanimously, and with the favourable vote of the candidate himself, approved constitutional reforms intended primarily to reaffirm the independence of the armed forces and respect for their professional function. This stood in the way of the creation of military groups outside the Constitution and the law. The reforms would also reaffirm the freedom of the information media, the political rights of citizens and the gains achieved by the workers in organized labour and ensure the participation of professionals, technicians, employees and workers in the process of economic development.