UN General Assembly
1950

22. The question of the de facto recognition of governments has been and remains a very controversial topic in the regional group of Latin-American States. Some believe in the effectiveness of collective action in preserving democracy and uphold the principle that governments must be based on the express will of the people; others believe that the right of peoples to govern themselves as they wish or as they can should remain untouched and free from outside supervision. I do not intend here to go into this controversial subject which has been exhaustively discussed; it would, however, be impossible for me not to refer to a new phenomenon: the effective, dangerous and widespread strategy of fomenting internal revolutions as a tactical means of achieving the transformation of the world, a new phenomenon which concerns each and every one of us and deserves to be discussed with the help of documentary evidence and in the light of the facts. This is not the right time to make that study and I shall refer merely to the merits of the case.