The United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) was the first international organization established by the newly created United Nations. It's primary purpose was to deal with the refugee problem (and other issues) created by the Nazi invasion of Europe. It's mandate: to assist and resettle displaced victims of war.
The UNRRA was inaugurated by President Franklin D. Roosevelt at the White House in Washington on November 9, 1943 and began it's committee work in Atlantic City, New Jersey from November 10 to December 1, 1943. Herbert H. Lehman, advisor to President Roosevelt on war relief and rehabilitation was appointed Director-General.
With forty four nations participating in this historic endeavor, Dr. Gustavo Gutiérrez headed the Cuban delegation. He was also chosen to preside over the " Sub-Committee on "Political Assistance to Displaced Populations" due perhaps to his extensive experience and writings on international law. The following year he would publish a 589 page tome entitled La Carta Magna de la Comunidad de las Naciones where he would analyze this difficult problem related to displaced populations and from which the Cuban delegation would draw it's draft for the creation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in San Francisco in 1945. Please see blog title "Magna Carta for the Community of Nations, 1945" for December, 2008 and "Universal Declaration of Human Rights" for December, 2010, respectively.
Gutiérrez tells us that it was the Sub-Committee he presided over that was presented with the most complicated task and adds, " for it had the most amount of sessions, eight in all, none of which lasted less than three hours each and some even lasted over six hours. The fact that I was honored with the presidency allowed me to familiarize myself with the problem of uprooted populations." He states that the Belgian delegate petitioned the other delegates to unanimously accord Dr. Gutiérrez a congratulatory note for the success that Gutiérrez showed in conducting the deliberations. Gutiérrez adds that, " it would be unjust to accept this congratulation without expressing that the success was possible due to the great competency of the Relator of the Sub-Committee, Sir. George Rendel, member of the English delegation as well as the Secretary of the Sub-Committee, Mr. George L. Warren, the United States delegate..."
At one point Gustavo Gutiérrez found himself in a curious predicament. As President of the Sub-Committee his position was not sanctioned to vote and a vote was being cast whether to allow displaced populations to return immediately to their home countries or whether to wait until the occupying German populations were removed first from the occupied towns and cities. The delegates that represented the occupied nations wanted immediate action. The delegates from the non-occupied nations preferred a slower paced approach providing the occupying German populations time to move back to their original German towns and cities.
This Sub-Committee was thus responsible, among other things, for creating a plan that would begin returning more than 20 million people back to their home countries. The British delegate, Sir. George Rendel proposed not to move the displaced populations to their home countries until the Allied authorities, the UNRRA and the military governments had taken appropriate measures in evacuating the German "colonizers" back to Germany. The Yugoslavian delegate, Sr. Foticht, stood up and gave an impassioned speech warning that waiting was a dangerous proposition, that the Nazis were incurring horrible suffering upon the uprooted populations and added, "Gentlemen, I understand that we can not elaborate on a plan of revenge; I understand that we can not commit the same errors and atrocities as these Nazi-fascists, but Gentlemen, we can not be such humanitarians towards the enemy nor forget the things that have occurred...Are we going to tell these displaced populations to wait down there in Greece, or where ever, where they have hardly food to eat or a place to sleep, to just wait until the Aryan colonizers are calmly and comfortably transferred by the United Nations back to German soil?" This caused a split right down the middle between the six occupied and six non-occupied country delegates with the American states abstaining.
Just then Dr. Gutierrez recommended to break for lunch and vote upon returning. But then the United States delegate proposed an option that would put Dr. Gutiérrez at the heart of the impasse. She proposed that the Dr. Gutiérrez temporarily abandon his position as President and step down momentarily, take his place as delegate from his home country of Cuba and cast the deciding vote. Gutiérrez states, "This was not within the rules of the conference and it also placed an enormous responsibility upon me, the delegate from Cuba. We thought it best to place the decision upon the Assembly and began discussing the American proposal...But the Assembly unanimously agreed that the President act as delegate and vote without abandoning the Presidency. The Cuban delegate agreed to cast the deciding vote under the condition that he be able to draft an amendment stipulating that since it was not possible to repeat the Nazi methods and that the problem was a delicate one, that the displaced populations should be returned immediately to their homes and that a "special session" should be called to resolve the problem concerning the "Aryan colonizers." The voting was repeated. Gutiérrez cast the deciding vote and the occupied nations triumphed.
In 1944 Gustavo Gutiérrez published a 107 page work entitled El Problema de los Refugiados, Editorial Lex, 1944 (The Problem of Refugees) based on his contribution as delegate from Cuba and President of the above mentioned Sub-Committee. The Vice-President was Andres Frihagen (Norway); the Potent was Sir. George Rendel (United Kingdom); the Secretary was George L. Warren (USA). In this blog we are only including the introduction to this work given by Dr. David Avram, a Rumanian international lawyer and founding member of the Society of Philosophy of Law. Below you will find the speech he gave before introducing Dr. Gutiérrez. Apparently, El Problema de los Refugiados is based on not only the findings and conclusions of those 10 days of committee work in Atlantic City, but also as a result of a post conference presentation given by Gutiérrez in Havana before a group of European immigrant organizations. These groups were Austria Libre, Unión Belga de Cuba, Unión Checoslovaca de Cuba, Comité Francia Libre, Asociación Democrática de Refugiados Hebreos, Unión de Refugiados Hebreos, Asociación Pro-Hungría Libre y Democrática, Asociación Polaca de Cuba, Amigos de Yugoslavia.
Below is my feeble English translation of the speech that Dr. David Avram gave in Havana after the UNRRA conference in Atlantic City. The original Spanish is included above and and at the end of this English translation. If you speak Spanish I encourage you to read the original Spanish.
Sir Ministers, Authorities, Ladies and Gentlemen:
"I have the honor and satisfaction of greeting you on behalf of the nine associations which have organized this act, and of the Hungarian Federation which enthusiastically came to us yesterday requesting to become one of the organizing associations, a request we were happy to accept..."
"I have been asked to introduce Dr. Gustavo Gutiérrez and I should say some brief words about this evenings' speaker. I'm speaking now to those present who have not concerned themselves with the problems of International Law for they know the achievements of Dr. Gutiérrez quite well. It is not possible to present a biography here of Dr. Gutiérrez because his success as university professor, within his legal profession and at the level of national politics, is so varied and so profound that I would have to dedicate long hours to this task. Yet this is not necessary because what interests us especially now is his work as an internationalist.
We know that one month ago an international organization was specifically created of great interest to us that deals with our problems: the UNRRA, and we also know that the Sub-Committee which was specifically dedicated to our problems, the problems of uprooted populations, was presided over by Dr. Gustavo Gutiérrez. This fact is of extraordinary transcendency to each one of us. Thus, I am sure that some, skeptical Europeans that you are, may question who is Dr. Gustavo Gutiérrez? Who is this Cuban who has taken on the weight of our fate? Who is this man who has concerned himself with our future and has more to share this evening?
The fact is that this is not about a simple curiosity but rather a natural anxiety because we all know that organizations do not exist based on the content of their regulations and laws but rather the personality of the men that inspire and apply them. There are good laws that produce nothing good because they lack men to apply them and there are mediocre laws that produce magnificent results because the men that apply them are good. (The above in bold letters was taken from a previous speech given by GG) So, who is Gustavo Gutiérrez?
Ladies and gentlemen, tonight's speaker is a distinguished Cuban figure: former Minister of Justice, former President of the House of Representatives, former President of the Cuban Maritime Committee, Organizer and Secretary of the Economic Commission on War, and has carried out many other important functions, however alien to the actual interests of displaced peoples. It, thus, may be important to look back in time and add that at the age of 21 he began his professional career in the courts of law and shortly afterwards, as a natural consequence, moved into the world of politics. This is to say, the fight for just causes in the community. At the same time, at the age of 22, he was named Assistant Professor of International Law at the University of Havana and months later, obtained through competitive exam the position of Assistant Chair.
Since that moment he crafted a career with multiple successes in both the professional and political arenas, about which I will not presently elaborate. I do insist that during this quarter of a century Dr. Gustavo Gutiérrez has not, even during one week, abandoned the problems of international law. He has written more than 40 works related to this topic. I will not bother you in reading the titles but we must mention that in 1914 he wrote, "The Destruction of Poland;" (La Destrucción de Polonia) in 1915, "The Emancipation of Greece" (La Emancipación de Grecia) and in more recent years, "The Racial Discrimination before the Constituent Convention" (La Discriminación Racial Ante La Convención Constituyente) and "The Politics of the Good Neighbor" (La Politica del Buen Vecino). He collaborated in the creation of the Constitution of 1940 and created the Electoral Code of 1943 (El Codigo Electoral), both of which are currently in force. He has published a study regarding The New Democratic World Order (El Nuevo Orden Mundial Democratico) and many others of equally great scientific value.
All of this demonstrates that Dr. Gutiérrez is an expression of that brilliant American spirituality that believes in the existence and in the future of Law, who works with tenacity in obtaining practical results via the Law, only through this medium, and succeeding in his efforts.
This vigilant and dynamic action reminds me of the conduct that the Europeans adopted at times when they would encounter peers and fellow statesmen from Latin America during inquiry and research regarding certain problems associated to the Old Continent. I must confess publicly that not always have I considered such persons with all the consideration that they deserved. In some cases that European pride has been transformed into reckless arrogance, fruit of that false conviction that these Latin Americans had not sufficient knowledge regarding our problems and their pretended complexities. And that these topics and issues were better reserved for us Europeans. I wish to publicly state that this opinion and this attitude have essentially been incorrect. No, gentlemen. It is not true that the statesmen from Latin America and America in general do not understand the "true problems of Europe." But rather, the truth is that, in general, the statesmen from America understand them better than we have been able to understand. And the proof is clear; we are here and not the Americans in Europe. We have failed. They have not.
Gentlemen, tonight we have the satisfaction of presenting one of the brilliant representatives of this America that sincerely believes in International Law. In order to characterize the basic thinking of Dr. Gutiérrez, I would like to read from a report of his entitled, "The New Orientation of International Law," presented one year ago to the Cuban Society of International Law. These words were pronounced on the 27 th of April, 1943, at a time-seeminly odd-when the UNRRA was still in the phase of being created and nothing had been published regarding what was to soon unfold. Dr. Gutiérrez stated at that time, " It is indispensable to open the door to the idea that no one, not the individual nor the State, no matter how great or powerful it may be, is above the Law. The Law stands above everything. The strongest of nations are not above but, rather, below the Law."
It is the formulation of the faith of a hemisphere. Is this the case of an illusionist idealism? Easy it is, ladies and gentlemen, to smile as a result of this phrase but that smile could easily lead us to be mistaken. For Cuba this conviction is not illusionism but rather, an effective reality. When the War of Independence ended and Cuba saw itself free of Spanish control it found itself with limited sovereignty imposed by the United States. The Isle of Pines' status as well as that of Cuba became questionable as a consequence of the "Platt Amendment." What happened next, ladies and gentlemen, between Cuba and the United States? The Cuban "illusionists and idealists" began analyzing, fighting and arguing with the United States, the texts and the agreements in force, as well as, the principles of international law. It wasn't easy or short in duration. But they achieved complete success. Thirty years later, and as a result of judicial action, the Cubans achieved that the United States government recognize Cuba's sovereignty over the Isle of Pines, authorized by a majority in the U.S. Senate. It was an impressive achievement not only for Cuba, but rather, and above all, for the United States because, ladies and gentlemen, there are few Great Powers that know to resist the temptation of power as we saw with the United States in this and in other instances. We have here proof of the strength of American judicial ideas. Listen now to another concept by Dr. Gutiérrez:
"Now all nations can declare with exactness that no basic problem affecting an individual nation can be received with indifference by any other nation."
All of the work carried out by the UNRRA, all the conclusions reached at the gathering during one month in Atlantic City, as well as, the particular functions of the UNRRA, could not be better defined than with the words I have just quoted. The truth is that the problem of one is the problem of all. What became in March of 1943 the doctrine of an idealist was transformed into reality by the actions of other idealists in the month of November of the same year and is the same reality that brings us together and overshadows us tonight.
Ladies and gentlemen, these few words are sufficient to explain to each of you why Cuba designated Dr. Gustavo Gutiérrez as its delegate in the Council of the UNRRA and why the Council elected him President of the Sub-Committee in charge of the problems of displaces peoples. It is obvious that this comes not by chance but rather, as a natural consequence of the spiritual structure and the actions of our speaker. This means that while Dr. Gustavo Gutiérrez and men like him work to resolve the problems of displaced populations, our problems, we can and should wait, with faith, in the final result."
Dr. Gustavo Gutiérrez has the floor.
(Great applause)
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