UN General Assembly
1990

The idea of a totally democratic and therefore peaceful Latin America was once thought to be an empty illusion. There were too many odds against it. There was that theory, for instance, long ago proven bankrupt but still persistent, that democracy is an invention that suits only the developed West. And there was that super-Power policy, now happily, amended, to encourage military dictators because it is easier to deal abroad with one man than with a messy democratic regime. The dream of a successful settlement in Cambodia and therefore of peace in South-East Asia was until only a month ago thought to be impossible. It seemed useless to try to unravel the intricate ideological and historical intertwining in that unhappy land, or to find a graceful exit for the intervening Powers. Those Powers had fostered surrogates, and those surrogates had found their own domestic differences aggravated by policies designed in distant foreign capitals.