YouSaid · the spoken record

Zinsou

THE RECORD WRITES THIS SPEAKER AS ZINSOU

lines on the record: 52
first: 1963-09-24
most recent: 1966-09-24
sittings or episodes: 2
sources: un-general-debate

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Dahomey will do its modest part and apply all its faith and energy to achieve this end.”
1966-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 21 (1966)
“But neither are we resigned to being imposed upon by cliques or to suffering discrimination as regards employment in these bodies and the working facilities at our disposal. I am saying this solemnly from this rostrum because I wish to leave no doubt regarding our determination in this respect. 130. I should like to conclude my statement by paying a well-deserved tribute to the Secretary-General, U Thant, and by warmly welcoming the new independent State of Guyana to our midst. We believe that the best way to thank the former and welcome the latter is for us to act so that everyone can still, believe in the United Nations, its mission and its effectiveness; to vow that, come what may, we shall not disappoint all those who have their eyes fixed on us; to make peace, law and justice triumph; to make true international solidarity prevail.”
1966-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 21 (1966)
“It cannot be maintained half fortunate, half miserable, half confident, half despairing, half enslaved — to the ancient enemies of man — half free, in a liberation of resources undreamt of until today. No craft, no crew can travel safely with such vast contradictions On the resolution of such contradictions depends the survival of all mankind." 129. The success of the United Nations also depends on the smooth operation of the Secretariat and the various specialized agencies. It is time for both to reflect the Organization's universality and to stop being the stage for displaying the hegemony of certain groups, linguistic or otherwise. We French-speaking peoples have neither an inferiority complex nor, even less, a superiority complex. We ask for no privilege or favour.”
1966-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 21 (1966)
“It may not be long before we seriously examine the idea and methods of a genuine international tax system, a sort of "cosmic tax", that would reflect the modern world's recent awareness of its undeniable community of interests. 128. One of the most intelligent figures the United Nations has known, the late Adlai Stevenson, last year expressed this basic fellow-feeling in a striking metaphor which is part of his moral legacy and which I should like to quote: "All men travel together, passengers on a little spaceship, dependent on its vulnerable reserve of air and soil; all committed for safety to its security and peace; preserved from annihilation only by the care, the work, the love given to this frame craft.”
1966-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 21 (1966)
“More active participation by these countries is essential for the accelerated development of the third world. The very existence of highly developed and highly industrialized countries is in itself a handicap for those which are not developed, a handicap which the former generally did not face at the start of their economic and industrial growth. This drawback can be overcome only if the developed countries take their responsibilities more to heart and increase their aid to the developing countries. 127. The percentage of aid in relation to the developed countries' national income, set as a target of the United Nations Development Decade, is the minimum which the developed countries should reach very rapidly. This would be a first stage until a more detailed programme is set up.”
1966-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 21 (1966)
“The demands and terms which these institutions often attach to their loans make it difficult for the less fortunate countries to obtain them, and it is precisely these countries which need them most. Such practices have the tragic result of widening even further the gap between the various stages of development, a gap which others are doing their utmost to close. A serious reform of these institutions' regulations and, particularly, their practices, is imperative if they are to meet present needs more effectively, for these needs no longer resemble those to which these institutions were accustomed when they were first set up. 126. I explained earlier how assistance from the developed countries had decreased in inverse ratio to the increase in their national income.”
1966-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 21 (1966)
“We hope that these bodies and agencies will increase their valuable contribution to the development of the third world. The recent establishment of the United Nations Industrial Development Organization [resolution 2089 (XX)] reflects this concern in that UNIDO will be equipped with facilities for promoting industrialization effectively in the developing countries. 124. We might have expected the organs granting financial aid for development to show more understand _ng than they have so far towards the poorest countries. The popular saying that people lend only to the rich is borne out — as we know only too well — when an appeal is made for strictly private funds. But this policy is hardly to be expected from institutions whose major concern should be to further development. 125.”
1966-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 21 (1966)
“We feel that the faithful application of these principles is of the utmost importance. We want the second conference, planned for 1967, to be a negotiating conference which will lay down a number of specific measures that can be implemented immediately and effectively. Such measures would enhance the value of our countries' products and would thus have a decisive impact on development. 123. But such development can be achieved only if foreign aid is stepped up. Indeed, and I quote from the same statement by the Secretary-General: "In an impressive number of instances, the main limitations are not domestic but rather the insufficiency of external resources" [ibid.]. We expect this foreign aid from international bodies and the specialized agencies and also from the developed countries.”
1966-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 21 (1966)
“And while, as the survey indicates, much remains to be done, and only the first halting steps having been taken in many areas, there is good reason to believe that the developing countries will succeed in improving still further the mobilization of their internal resources for development during the second half of this Decade." But these efforts to increase their resources are thwarted in part by the meagre earnings the developing countries derive from the sale of their products on the world market in comparison with the cost of the capital goods they have to import. 122. This explains the importance we attach to the work undertaken by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development to reform the structure of international trade. The first Conference, held in 1964, defined the principles which should govern world trade.”
1966-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 21 (1966)
“Moreover, the Secretary-General noted a few months' ago in a statement to the Economic and Social Council: "The current World Economic Survey, 1905, for its part, rebuts the arguments of those who have contended that the developing countries have done little in the last five years to mobilize their domestic resources. It shows that in the first half of the United Nations Development Decade, despite disappointments and failures, the developing countries did succeed over a broad front in increasing their own contribution to their development.”
1966-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 21 (1966)
“To ensure this development and to remedy the alarming situation mentioned earlier, we see three possible solutions: a sustained effort by the developing countries themselves; a far-reaching reform of the structure of world trade; and a substantial increase in foreign aid. As to the effort of the developing countries, the first to be interested in their own economic and social growth, no one in good faith can doubt the great sacrifices they are making for their development. 120. Dahomey has undertaken a rigorous austerity programme and has implemented a plan to increase its domestic production considerably. 121.”
1966-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 21 (1966)
“Resolution 1711 (XVI), which recommended that aid should be increased to 1 per cent of this national income, was therefore by no means an ambitious measure. But what has happened to this modest goal, now that the United Nations Development Decade has reached the half-way mark? Far from increasing within the modest limits that had been suggested, the amount of aid to developing countries has not even remained stationary, since it was barely 0.69 per cent in 1965. 118. The world cannot remain indifferent in the face of these factors inhibiting the development of the less fortunate countries. His Holiness Pope Paul VI who, exactly one year ago, honoured the United Nations with his presence, recently made a statement as brief as it is significant: "Development is peace." 119.”
1966-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 21 (1966)
“In world trade we are witnessing a fall in the prices of primary commodities, which the developing countries produce, whereas the cost of manufactured goods, which the developed countries produce, is rising. The developing countries' share of world exports, which was only one third in 1950, fell to barely one fifth in 1962. 117. In addition to this, there is what I just called the Slackening off in foreign aid. In recent years, the national income of the developed countries has continued to grow at a rising pace. In contrast to that increase, the amount spent on foreign aid has steadily decreased. In 1961, when the idea of the United Nations Development Decade was introduced, aid to developing countries amounted to 0.83 per cent of the gross national income of the developed countries.”
1966-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 21 (1966)
“But this peace will be only illusory and short-lived if in another area, no less important and perhaps more fundamental — the economic and social area — the present alarming discrepancies persist. 116. Even more than the existence of these discrepancies, the most upsetting feature of our time is the way in which these discrepancies are growing rapidly and dangerously worse. The phenomenon is so widespread that it has become almost a cliche to say that the rich countries are growing richer, while the poor are growing poorer. Two factors are helping to speed on this catastrophic development: first, the steady deterioration in the terms of trade as between the developed and the developing countries, and second, a marked slacking off in foreign aid.”
1966-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 21 (1966)
“We in Dahomey also believe that serving the peace requires respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries, renunciation of the threat or use of force, and the settlement of disputes between countries through negotiation. That is the groundwork on which the international community can build a peaceful life in accordance with the United Nations Charter and the Charter of the Organization of African Unity. Dahomey fervently hopes that these principles will be applied universally, and most of all in areas of tension in Africa, the Far East and the Middle East. 115. In order to maintain peace, it is of course most important that we find rapid solutions to the world's burning political problems. I have pointed out some of these difficulties and outlined several solutions.”
1966-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 21 (1966)
“Otherwise, despite the fine resolutions we adopt here, South Africa and Portugal will continue to exchange knowing, contented smiles, 200,000 Rhodesian whites will continue to defy and hold 119 nations in check, and peoples of goodwill will continue to doubt, for they have good reason to do so. 113. In addition to the impotence we have just discussed, our own International Court recently delivered a scandalous and wicked judgement under the guise of legal and fallacious reasoning which, in order to safeguard what it erroneously claims to be the letter of the law, has violated v.s spirit. It is a serious matter that such an institution should have failed in its duty, and it is urgent that we correct the situation. 114.”
1966-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 21 (1966)
“Until it has been solved, the hot war — the cause of tears and bloodshed — which is leading to the apocalypse, will rage on in one area or another between Members of this Organization; States which subscribed to the Charter and are present here will continue daily to flout with cynicism and impunity the principles that form the very foundation of our Organization; the United Nations will merely be the shield behind which the great Powers can do whatever they like. 112. Let us speak frankly: we must know and state clearly what we want to do, and we must do it. We must revise the Charter, define unequivocally what is within and not within the purview of the United Nations and provide the Organization with the means to force compliance with the decisions reached, if necessary.”
1966-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 21 (1966)
“Whether or not China belongs to the United Nations, it is a member of the human community. If proposals for peace are reasonable, fair and honestly and sincerely accepted by all, we cannot imagine how China alone can ignore them. In any case, it is time for the community of nations to unite with determination and without compromise against all those — great or small, of the East or West — who refuse now or in the future to accept the law and to help set the machinery of peace in motion. 111. The second question is the means which the Organization has or should have at its disposal to impose on everyone the decisions reached here. This is a major problem and we fully understand the real difficulties it entails. But until it has been solved, our main task will remain undone.”
1966-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 21 (1966)
“This is even truer today, judging from the unsettling news coming from that vast country. But just as we do not want others to impose philosophical or ideological choices or a certain way of life upon us, we do not wish to force others to think as we do, feel as we do, or react as we do. Coexistence is impossible without tolerance. And it is unfortunate that the People's Republic of China shows so little of the latter. 109. We think that if Peking China wishes its seat in the United Nations, it should be admitted, provided that its admission would not result in the eviction of nationalist China. For if we do not have the right to impose on the Peking Chinese an ideology which they do not want, we also do not have the right to impose on the nationalists a regime they formally repudiate. 110.”
1966-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 21 (1966)
“107. Some will object that taking a decision here is not enough for that to happen immediately; some of the parties involved belong to this Organization and others do not. How can we obligate those who do not? And how can we force those who are Members but refuse to comply? 108. The first question raises the problem of the admission of the People's Republic of China to membership in the United Nations, an issue we do not wish to evade. My Government believes that it is neither realistic, reasonable nor wise to ignore a nation of 700 million inhabitants and the Government which undoubtedly rules that nation. Probably there are much more than differences — sometimes a real gulf — between mainland China's ethics and philosophical and ideological concepts and our own.”
1966-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 21 (1966)
“My Government specifically suggests that, under the supervision of a permanent impartial international commission, it should be decided: firstly, that all bombing of Viet-Nam should cease immediately; secondly, that all the belligerents should accept a general cease-fire within two weeks from the effective and definitive cessation of bombings; thirdly, that three months after the cease-fire, all foreign troops on both sides should be withdrawn; fourthly, that after that three-month period, and once the foreign forces have been withdrawn and the situation has returned to what is called for under the Geneva Agreements, a new conference should be held — bringing together all parties involved, including representatives of the Viet-Cong — to determine the procedure whereby the Viet-Namese people, still under international supervision, is to determine its own future, on the understanding that everyone will have agreed beforehand to accept the outcome of this free consultation; fifthly, that by one year from today, this entire programme should be carried out and, whatever decision the Viet-Namese people may reach, the international community should begin immediately to help the country to rebuild, dress its wounds and live again.”
1966-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 21 (1966)
“Both sides would have us believe that Viet-Nam is being transformed into a land of scorched earth strewn with countless corpses for the benefit of the country and its people. It is time to put an end to all this. And since everyone professes to want peace, let us stop talking about it and work to achieve it. 105. My Government believes that we must, without further delay, force both sides to act, that we must test their sincerity and good faith. The United Nations should tell everyone directly or indirectly involved in the Viet-Namese affair: enough talk, show us by your deeds that you really want peace. 106.”
1966-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 21 (1966)
“Men of astounding achievements, who are about to land on the moon, have in five years been unable to reach agreement on disarmament. Who can believe that this is a sign of sincerity or the result of an insoluble problem? Apart from several newspaper columns, nobody pays any more attention to the work of the Eighteen-Nation Committee — or should we say seventeen — although it once had — and should continue to have — one of mankind's greatest hopes placed in it. 104. Let us ponder the gravity of this situation. Peace, we have said, is threatened. There are people for whom, for over twenty years, peace has been meaningless because they have known nothing but warfare, death and destruction of all kinds with neither truce nor lull.”
1966-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 21 (1966)
“Peace, always precarious, is still threatened to the extent that our eminent Secretary-General — because in his position he sees it better than anyone else — has expressed his alarm and has reached a grave decision. Everyone professes to share his anxiety and appeals to him to change his mind. But what meaning and value can this appeal have if everyone making it is not deeply and sincerely determined to act so that the danger thus perceived and denounced may be warded off, if everyone is not determined to create the conditions in which the Secretary-General's change of mind would not become a cover for hypocrisy or humburg? 103. For five years now, a duly appointed Committee [see resolution 1722 (XVI)] has been holding endless deliberations in a vain effort to bring about general disarmament.”
1966-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 21 (1966)
“Let us then try honestly, frankly and candidly to express our alarm, our anxiety, our faith and our hope. 101. The United Nations, like the League of Nations which preceded it, was born of the will of nations to spare the world the general holocausts which, twice in one generation, has nearly destroyed it. Our role is not to be an exclusive club indulging every autumn in a set ritual of resounding and pompous oratory, without changing anything in a world that is plunging headlong towards the abyss. It is rather to be a community devoted to safeguarding the peace, defending the right, building patiently and laboriously, no doubt — for nothing worthwhile is done without great effort — a more prosperous and more fraternal world. But what are the facts? 102.”
1966-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 21 (1966)
“Moreover, except for the four or five speeches of the great Powers — on which everything depends and which speak only to reaffirm that they refuse to give one inch or to relinquish any of their selfishness, their pretensions, or their world outlook which is closely linked up with their political, economic and strategic interests — who remembers or will remember what we obscure, lowly nations will, have said, since everyone knows that we are no threat to world peace, and therefore are of no interest to anyone? 100. And yet, since we have no privilege to defend, no leadership to safeguard, no ambition, no claims to any sort of hegemony, should not our voice ring louder and farther than that of the protagonists who are too involved to be objective and fair? We are not strong enough to scheme.”
1966-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 21 (1966)
“Not that we in Dahomey have not highly appreciated the Organization's great contribution to the cause of peace and decolonization; not that we have not realized everything that has been accomplished and all the catastrophes which have been avoided with its help during the past twenty years, but because we also know, unfortunately, that very little comes of the torrents of words which flow from this rostrum once the echo of our voices has died out. It would be somewhat stultifying, you will agree, for me to repeat the same things we have heard here for two decades and to make one of the 119 exactly identical speeches at the start of this twenty-first session.”
1966-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 21 (1966)
“98. Mr. President, I should like to convey to you the Dahomean delegation's warmest congratulations on your election as President of this session of the United Nations General Assembly. We hope that your efforts will help to make our work more effective and assist the Organization in fulfilling the ideals which inspired its establishment. 99. I have been wondering for a long time whether it is necessary or useful to take the floor during the general debate which opens each session, and even more so, during the session now in progress.”
1966-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 21 (1966)
“In our view the greatest people, the greatest State, will be, not the one that owns the most destructive bomb or the one that first lands on the moon, but the one that does most for understanding between men and nations, the one that works hardest for the happiness of mankind by driving back disease, ignorance, poverty and hunger. 22. Dahomey, my country, is for self-determination and freedom for all. It believes in human solidarity and brotherhood. It wishes to make its modest contribution, earnestly and in all conviction. May the United Nations prove fertile ground for our enthusiasm in all these matters, for we are among those —to echo a speech still ringing in our ears— who want to take their stand in the United Nations in order to raise the world to a just and lasting peace.”
1963-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 18 (1963)
“This earth —our earth, man's earth— have you made it more humane and men more brotherly?" We await a reply to these questions. 21. One of our colleagues was speaking the other day of the two fountains which play at Geneva, one at the Palais des Nations, the other beside the Lake. Here, let us admit it, we give Niagara some competition. We African peoples are in favour of palaver and negotiation; we believe in the virtues of speech; but we believe even more in the virtues of action. And the time for action has come; hence the brevity of my statement, which I acknowledge to be contrary to the custom here. We have our work cut out and we are in a hurry. You have all the means and are entitled either to squander them or to hoard them.”
1963-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 18 (1963)
“I am not the first one here to say this: a single weapon from today's arsenals can do more damage by itself than all those used during the last war put together. Yet at the same time cancer, for instance, continues its ravages and scientists wait in vain for the wherewithal to carry on their research. 20. Achievements in space baffle the imagination and do only honour to the genius of man. However, I should like to put these questions to the great Powers, who will soon be flying away together, arm-in-arm, to the moon; "Are you sure you have done your whole duty on earth? Are all human beings eating their fill? Have all children access to a minimum of education? Have you taken care to allay the anxieties and distress of the peoples?”
1963-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 18 (1963)
“The Berlin wall will remain the absurd symbol of a divided people denied self-determination; the Israel-Arab dispute will remain the painful consequence of refusal to negotiate and refusal to show tolerance. In Laos, in Viet-Nam, in China, the world and peace will be kept in suspense, while men whose only crime is that they are not of the same colour as others, or that others, more fortunate, learned the art of conquest and enslavement before them, will continue to claim, at the cost of their lives, their rightful place at the common table; whereas if everyone really wanted peace and decided to create the conditions for it, one-hundredth of the sums now swallowed up in engines of destruction would be enough to change the meaning of life for many people and the face of the earth for all. 19.”
1963-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 18 (1963)
“I must confess that I hesitated to address this Assembly because, without denying the work undertaken by the United Nations since its foundation, without minimizing the decisive part it has played in the liberation of our young States, and without underestimating its noteworthy contribution to the maintenance of peace, we must admit that we have demonstrated our capacity for words more clearly than our capacity for action. As this autumn begins, what are we doing? Are we performing a rite? Are we the last of the conversational salons? You have been hearing the same statements for years, and they will be back again this year, over a hundred times, noble, eloquent and fine. But then what?”
1963-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 18 (1963)
“To keep the peace and to raise the level of living of all peoples: such are the primary objectives of the United Nations. It must be enabled to work for them effectively. 17. In the matter of assistance to under-developed countries, it is time to get away from bureaucracy, from the countless reports —interesting, as they unquestionably are— from the volumes of records of survey missions and all the rest of it, and get down to specific, practical reality. We must reduce, and drastically, the excessive length of time taken up by applications, studies and missions which in the majority of cases, alas, result only in documents for the archives or the library shelves. 18.”
1963-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 18 (1963)
“Those who founded the United Nations eighteen years ago did not foresee the present situation, where a third of the membership is made up of former colonized countries which are now independent and which must have their say in the conduct of world affairs. 15. We have worked out specific proposals for changes in the composition of the Security Council and certain specialized organs. We ask that our congeners should be more widely and more equitably associated with the administration and operation of all organs. Since everybody seems agreed on the justice of this position, we hope there will be no difficulty about acting on our proposals. A reformed United Nations, in which each and every country was more fairly represented, and in which certain working methods were encouraged, could not but do better service to our common ideal. 16.”
1963-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 18 (1963)
“Would you let a notorious bandit, a highwayman, go free and allow him, for instance, to sit in your country's Academy of Sciences, simply because he was also an undisputed scientific genius and because the Academy in question dealt only with purely scientific and technical problems? The problem is a complex one, we admit; we do not shut our eyes to that fact. It has been raised from this very rostrum in the last few days, and our task in the days to come will be to seek a straight answer to it. 14. What sort of United Nations do we want? This raises the pressing question of changes in our Organization.”
1963-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 18 (1963)
“We are told; "Let us keep our specialized and technical bodies free from political disputes. Let us not paralyse them with quarrels that do not concern them. Let us confine debate on certain subjects exclusively to the competent organs —the Security Council and the General Assembly— and let the specialized agencies get on with their practical work of co-operative assistance." Apart from the fact that our peoples do not want such assistance and co-operation from just anybody —for we are just as concerned with the hand that gives as with the manner of giving— the logic of this piece of advice is only skin-deep. For this is not merely a question of politics; it is also a question of principle and morality.”
1963-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 18 (1963)
“Without a shot being fired, Portugal —for we must call it by its name— would be obliged to take the action which others have taken so successfully and from which, quite unawares, it stands to gain a great deal. For that to happen, the freedom of man must not be outweighed by what some regard as their strategic and others as their economic interest. 12. What is true of Portugal is also true of South Africa, the realm of apartheid. As we know, there are yet other places where racial discrimination is practised and in abominable fashion. Wherever it is and whatever it comes from, we condemn it. But let us be fair to those who do not resign themselves to it, who ban it by law and fight day by day to abolish it, in contrast to South Africa, where the law, the State and the Government are its most determined champions. 13.”
1963-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 18 (1963)
“But can a clear conscience be bought at the cost of a betrayal? We shall not betray our brothers, who are waiting to enjoy their freedom as we do and to set themselves, in whatever way their free choice dictates, to the stirring task of building their country. 11. Shall we speak frankly? In this matter of decolonization, the so-called great Powers have a considerable responsibility. Nothing will make us believe that, if they really wanted, the process of decolonization would not be irresistibly speeded up. There is no State in the world today that could hold out for long, entirely alone, against a quarantine imposed by all the others.”
1963-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 18 (1963)
“Let no one be surprised that the people concerned refuse to knuckle under. 9. For our part, we cannot remain indifferent. Silence, inaction, from us would be nothing else but complicity, and we could not be accomplices of the colonialists, those fossils from bygone days. And since we love peace, since we want peace, and because there will be no real peace so long as an oppressed people remains anywhere on earth, because we feel ourselves to be in solidarity with all those who are still oppressed, we have decided to face the laggards of colonialism with a resolute front and firm action. 10. Please understand us and believe us: we should have preferred to harness our enthusiasm and resources, which our countries need so badly and so urgently, to tasks more agreeable and more beneficial to our peoples.”
1963-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 18 (1963)
“Most of the States which in the past colonized others have finally come to understand that it is in the nature of things for colonies one day to attain independence. They have helped in the process, or resigned themselves to it, and have succeeded more or less happily in decolonizing. Others, in contrast, who have learned nothing, diabolically persist in an error which threatens to destroy them, even though the whole trend of world history is before their eyes as a lesson. To proclaim, in 1963, that such-and-such a colony, thousands of kilometres away —an utterly foreign country where, what is more, a policy of complete assimilation and perfect equality among men has never been practised— to proclaim that that colony forms an integral part of the colonizing country is both nonsense and obscurantism.”
1963-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 18 (1963)
“From now on it will not be enough that no one is willing to incur these terrible responsibilities; it will also be necessary to show by deeds a sincere will to succeed; and all our peoples are watching you; certain propaganda tricks, certain stratagems do not deceive them. 8. But it is not only guns and bombs that threaten the peace of the world. Peace will not be secure so long as there are peoples, entitled like the rest to life and freedom, who are held in slavery, or even in a gilded subjection —if such there can be— which they do not want. An injustice to one is a threat to all; that has not changed, and we shall have no pause or respite until all those still held in colonial bondage against their will have regained their freedom.”
1963-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 18 (1963)
“There was no foolish optimism, no vain euphoria, only a reasoned hope; for peace is the first, the greatest, the common good of mankind. It is the business of all of us, great and small. It must be prepared for and won. It is indivisible. It does peace no service to parade it, every day or now and then, before the muzzles of the guns. Listening to you, gentlemen, with all the attention that your words and responsibilities deserve, and hearing the professions of faith that so often ring out from this rostrum, one might wonder why success is so hard to achieve, when everyone proclaims his desire for peace. For who still harbours thoughts of committing aggression? Who holds back from discussion, negotiation and arbitration? Who thinks to hold the world under the threat of terror, the blackmail of destruction? Who?”
1963-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 18 (1963)
“To keep the stockpiles of atomic bombs of all kinds, to continue their manufacture and to go on testing them underground would make a mockery of the Moscow agreements if matters were allowed to rest there; for possession creates temptation and keeps anxiety, distrust and suspicion in being. So we are a long way from our true objective. The problem is not merely a matter of denuclearizing this or that area and leaving the terrifying means of destruction stockpiled somewhere else. Who, then, would be safe, and where should we go for shelter if one day the cataclysm came down? The objective is total and controlled disarmament, the destruction of all existing bombs and their delivery vehicles. In subscribing to the Moscow agreements my country's aim was to encourage progress towards this outcome, and to spare no effort in attaining it.”
1963-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 18 (1963)
“If the Moscow Treaty is not to prove, tomorrow, the most tragic illusion cherished by mankind in our time, it must be followed up by other agreements that go to the very heart of the problem and that lead to drastic measures. What the world has hailed in the Moscow agreements is a hope which must not be disappointed. Their importance, which is far from slight, lies in keeping the talks going and in catching up the participants in the machinery of peace. It lies also in the fact that, from now on, these agreements will reduce the dangerous pollution of the atmosphere and its eventual lethal consequences for the human race. But the real danger has not been eliminated and mankind is still threatened, for each of the great Powers has long had in its possession the means of bringing down final catastrophe upon the earth.”
1963-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 18 (1963)
“In the meantime, while we were organizing ourselves into a peaceful grouping for evolution and mutual assistance and thus creating one of the conditions for peace, the great Powers, on whom peace depends more than on us, were deciding to take a short step forward in the search for ways of achieving it. 7. The Moscow agreements have been hailed as a positive contribution and an event of great significance. The fact that my country was among the very first in Africa in deciding to associate itself with the Moscow Treaty proves that we fully grasp its significance and scope. However, we must not delude ourselves; as I said before, it is only a step, a short step.”
1963-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 18 (1963)
“Today our community of ideals and our community of destiny, as yesterday our common situation as colonized and dependent peoples, bid us join hands, gird our loins, struggle and work together so that African man, rehabilitated and himself again, may become more of a man every day and do his part —I venture to say, make his enriching contribution— towards building the new world, which would otherwise be incomplete. It is enough to see the universal enthusiasm which, in the countries concerned, has greeted the results of the Addis Ababa Conference to realize that those results meet the deep desires of our peoples. 5. The Dakar Conference proved that, whatever the difficulties of our undertaking, we shall be able to face any sacrifice, to make the necessary concessions, and to work in the spirit of Addis Ababa until our aims are achieved. 6.”
1963-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 18 (1963)
“When we went to Addis Ababa we never pretended that we were going there to work a miracle. There are still certain problems that may set us at odds with one another, certain legitimate interests that may yet clash. But what we can now be sure of is that, in all our States, an awareness has come into being that we all belong, not only to the world of men, but to the African under-developed world —in fact, to the under-developed world at large— and therefore that the problems confronting us are fundamentally the same problems even though, here and there, they take different forms and sometimes call for specialized solutions.”
1963-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 18 (1963)
“At one of the august places in African history, where millennia bear witness for us, on 26 May 1963, thirty-two States, freely and in full sovereignty, decided to co-ordinate their efforts in all important matters, to harmonize their policies, to develop their economies jointly, and, through active solidarity to achieve together their peaceful, dynamic and beneficial integration into the modern world. By this decision African unity turned from a myth into a reality. It had its own charter and organs of co-operation, and had chosen conciliation and arbitration in preference to conflicts, whether hot or cold. 4. Of course we do not claim that we have thus eliminated, at one stroke, all the differences, even divergencies, between us. We are only human like everyone else.”
1963-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 18 (1963)
“I do not mean that they were all hostile to the achievement of our unity; but when they gauged the difficulties of the task and recalled the futility, the failures and the pitfalls of similar undertakings and the time needed to achieve any recognizable results, they told themselves that Africa —a continent divided, if not set against itself, by colonialism— would be no exception to the rule. The world, inattentive or sceptical, has let itself be taken by surprise.”
1963-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 18 (1963)