YouSaid · the spoken record

Usher

THE RECORD WRITES THIS SPEAKER AS USHER

lines on the record: 146
first: 1966-09-24
most recent: 1974-09-24
sittings or episodes: 5
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

“World public opinion was roused to indignation and took a collective decision: economic sanctions decreed by the Security Council. Six years have gone by; the sanctions have failed. The reason for them, which was a casus belli yesterday, no longer seems to be so important in the minds of people. During that time, with an almost total disregard for public opinion, Great Britain and the Rhodesian regime resumed their negotiations like members of a family. Rhodesia would make concessions, promises rather, and taking these promises on faith, independence, is to be granted it in the most legal way in the world and the game will be played out. Some decolonizations were not properly carried out and already create problems for the world or will create them in the future.”
1971-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 26 (1971)
“To address this Assembly is not only to manifest faith in the United Nations; it is also to contribute to the attainment of its humanitarian projections towards the objectives the Organization has assigned itself, that is to say, to preserve future generations from the scourge of war. My country does so because we feel co-responsible for this noble mission. Thus we shall endeavor to express ourselves in accordance with the laws of maturity for a positive co-operation, all the more so since, while war or violence may be a domestic necessity for certain regimes, a national industry for others, the Ivory Coast can tind no cause or explanation for this phenomenon which would enable us to rationalize it or to integrate it in an intelligible system. 84* Almost six years ago Mr. Ian Smith proclaimed the illegal independence of Rhodesia.”
1971-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 26 (1971)
“82. Mr. President, I am happy to address you on behalf of my country, the Republic of the Ivory Coast, extending to you my warmest congratulations on your election to the Presidency of the twenty-sixth session of the General Assembly. We are bound to recognize that our work will be carried out in a sombre atmosphere because of the imminent departure of our Secretary-General, U Thant. Nevertheless, the delegation of the Ivory Coast believes that, more than ever before, our Organization needs a man of his stature and his philosophy who, more than once, has saved the United Nations during acute crises. We therefore express the hope of seeing the Secretary-General although we understand the reasons which inspired his decision- consent to continue his task in the interest of mankind. 83.”
1971-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 26 (1971)
“But I am convinced that the United Nations will answer our appeal and not disappear in the face of this horrible war which is devastating Biafra, however ill-advised the intervention of the great Powers.”
1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)
“One of our illustrious and eminent colleagues, who devoted his whole life to supporting the United Nations and fell in that struggle, the late Professor Belaunde, said with characteristic humour: “The United Nations is a body in which something is for ever disappearing: when two small Powers quarrel, the quarrel disappears; when a great Power and a small Power are in conflict, the small Power disappears; when two great Powers quarrel, or when two small Powers have a dispute in which the great Powers are involved, the United Nations disappears.” It was that venerable old gentleman’s way of pointing out to the impetuous young diplomats which we were at the time the imperfections of our Organization and its paralysis by the great Powers’ veto. 114.”
1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)
“We believe in the principle of collective security, of international brotherhood; and our attitude can be explained only by our desire to help the United Nations as best we can to fulfil our common pledge to save future generations, on all continents and in all countries, from the scourge of general or local war. 112. To conclude, I repeat again that the silence of some influential Members about the tragedy in western Africa makes me anxious. 113.”
1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)
“Therefore an equalization system on a world scale must be found to stabilize prices. 110. But we must admit that our peoples will benefit fully from economic well-being only so far as we can set up in our countries stable and democratic governments. And our governments will only be. stable when we learn to abolish seesaw politics and to keep away from the bipolarity dividing the world into two blocs. Only by doing so can we avoid the familiar theory of limited sovereignty which is invoked to shore up some sort of ideological system. 111. We in the Republic of the Ivory Coast believe in the future of the United Nations.”
1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)
“Yet we are witnessing a very disquieting phenomenon, the widening of the gap between the wealthy and the poor countries. It is widening because what the economists call the terms of trade have deteriorated, so that the countries producing primary commodities are becoming poorer while the developed countries, no matter what their economic system, are becoming scandalously richer. The failure of the World Trade Conference in New Delhi was deeply and bitterly felt in our countries. If this situation grows worse and no compensatory machinery is devised, it is likely to cause such trouble in the world that peace will become precarious. Experts have proved that the loss of earning power resulting from that situation cannot be offset by the paltry subsidies doled out to our countries.”
1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)
“It is all very well for Africa to boil with rage over this question, but that it should remain indifferent to this vast slaughter which has already claimed two million victims, that it should stand aside from the chain of human brotherhood which is leading members of charitable organizations and men from other continents to risk their lives to save innocent African women and children — this is something that we simply fail to understand. 108. Therefore, as a protest against this attitude, which is a disgrace to African humanism, the Ivory Coast has decided to abstain on any resolution dealing with this question until this shameful fratricidal war is ended. 109. The peace that I have defined in my statement requires an improvement in the living level of populations.”
1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)
“No matter what happens, the Ivory Coast continues to consider the United Kingdom responsible and hopes that it will find an adequate solution whereby to lead Rhodesia towards independence with majority rule. 107. That is the Ivory Coast’s position on the problems of apartheid and decolonization. However, although this situation is a matter for serious concern, it is not nearly so horrible as that prevailing in western Africa as a result of the conflict between Nigeria and Biafra.”
1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)
“But, as one position after another has been abandoned, the last example being the recall of the British Governor the day after the comedy of the referendum on the so-called Rhodesian Republic, the fait accompli has now been consecrated and legalized. It is easy to take the next step and to say that the United Kingdom can do nothing since it no longer has any relations with Rhodesia: the representatives of the British Government have almost said as much from this rostrum. And let us note in passing that the remarkably peaceful attitude adopted by the United Kingdom during the Rhodesian tragedy, which is not nearly over, is in very strange contrast with the activist, or even bellicose, attitude it has adopted elsewhere. 106.”
1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)
“Rhodesia is one of the mistakes made by the United Kingdom, that champion of Nigerian unity, which divided Ireland and the Indian Union, and is about to transform the Rock of Gibraltar into a mini-state. From the time of the dissolution of the East African Federation to the creation of the Rhodesian State, the United Nations by many resolutions has vainly striven to persuade the administering Power not to hand over the armed forces to the white minority government of Rhodesia, not to concede the 1961 Constitution and not give up the legal powers which the United Kingdom held by virtue of earlier constitutions and through which it could prevent the adoption or promulgation of discriminatory laws.”
1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)
“Those threats, therefore, must be replaced by a realistic policy likely to help that minority to grow. Thus the United Nations could convene a world conference on apartheid, not in order to utter platonic condemnations but to bring together scientists, theologians of all religions, politicians, businessmen and workers from all over the world, including both communities of South Africa. Its work would demonstrate and expose the fallacy of the scientific and biblical arguments put forward in support of apartheid, would seek the true and deep-seated causes of this scourge, and would suggest remedies. 105. Some great Powers have made mistakes whose consequences will be with us for a long time.”
1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)
“However, we must try to convince those whites of South Africa that their fear is not justified, that the decision to live in Africa implies the acceptance of a mixture of races and civilizations, giving birth to a composite civilization and manifesting the progress of mankind, and that if, unfortunately, apartheid were to stay, the accumulated hatred would impel Africa on the road to vengeance. A war of attrition, like that raging in other parts of the world, would then become established in Africa, to the prejudice of the economic progress which is indispensable for the well-being of all peoples living on our continent. 104. Happily, not all the whites in South Africa are racists. There is a minority, but one that is gagged. Threats from the outside can only add to the difficulties of this élite.”
1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)
“Although assimilation originates in an idealistic and praiseworthy spirit, Portugal must face the obvious; in the context of present-day Africa, there is no other acceptable road than that of self-determination. We are ready to help Portugal, which has become a prisoner of its own system, but on condition that it categorically proclaims its acceptance of the process of leading its territories to independence. 102. Apartheid also seems to us a consequence of the “great fear“. Its advocates are trying to reserve part of the territory of South Africa exclusively for the white race, and endeavour to justify their attitude by so-called scientific or biblical principles proclaiming racial superiority. 103.”
1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)
“Nearly twenty-five years ago, our Charter solemnly proclaimed the equality of all men; but in southern Africa a State Member of the United Nations, which subscribed to that Charter, is writing racial discrimination into its law. We must keep a constant watch on this state of affairs, for it is weakening our Organization. 101. As to the Portuguese colonies, the legal fiction to which Portugal clings in order to retain these colonies is largely obsolete. The events which have shaken Africa since the Second World War are deeply rooted in that nationalism which broke up the great empires of Europe and Asia. These are “novas ideas”, as the Old Man of Cabinda said. Guns will be of no avail; these ideas will bring the independence of Africa to completion and free it for ever from colonial domination.”
1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)
“At last, after twenty years of war, twenty years in which Viet-Nam has been divided and torn asunder, twenty years during which economic development has been sacrificed to war needs, negotiations have begun. Better late than never. It is never too late to do good; therefore the Ivory Coast welcomes the Paris conference on Viet-Nam and expresses the wish that the parties will continue the dialogue with patience and determination and in good faith. May their efforts be crowned with success, so that peace may return for ever to Viet-Nam. 100. We shall soon be celebrating the tenth anniversary of the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples [resolution 1514 (XV)]. Yet African territories remain under the domination of an out-dated colonialism.”
1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)
“In a joint declaration dated 20 September 1969 the great Powers declare that all the States of the region have the right to exist; yet they continue to give them arms to destroy each other. It is high time that the great Powers responsible for the situation in the Middle East increased their efforts to lead the parties towards a search for a peaceful solution; military means having proved useless, dialogue becomes a necessity. It may assume various forms, taking place either face to face or through intermediaries, so long as the participants act in good faith. The Ivory Coast affirms its belief in a negotiated settlement based on the declaration of the great Powers and on the implementation of Security Council resolution 242 (1967) dated 22 November 1967. 99.”
1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)
“We are therefore deeply convinced of the pressing need for a person of incontrovertible spiritual authority, such as yourself, Madam President, or the Secretary-General, to address an urgent appeal to the parties to cease hostilities immediately and start negotiations to find a just and fair solution acceptable to all. 96. As for the Middle East, it is drifting into a war of attrition with disquieting aspects. The Governments responsible are no longer in control of the situation, which has been taken over by the Palestinians themselves. War operations are extending beyond the Middle East, in the air and on the ground, and are arousing deep apprehension among innocent peoples far removed from the scene of the conflict. 97. His Holiness Pope Paul VI sees in this situation portents of a generalized conflict. 98.”
1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)
“History teaches us that the Swiss Confederation, which has similarities with our young countries, composed as they are of conglomerations of tribes with different languages and religions, was in 1848 likewise torn asunder by quarrels and conflicts born of its own diversity of language and religion. It has become what it is today only because some cantons and other countries not involved in the disputes offered, either on their own initiative or upon request, their mediation and good offices and proposed a compromise peace to the parties at variance. 94. This war must cease, in the interest of Nigeria, of Africa, and of the world. Let us unite in exerting pressure on the great Powers turned arms merchants to cease transforming this part of Africa into a suppurating focus for their ideological struggle and conflicts of interest. 95.”
1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)
“Contrary to the view of some of our friends, who believe in curing evil with evil, we firmly believe that the war is adding to that insecurity, fear, terror and tribal hatred, and that it is only further deepening the gap between the two communities. 92. The principle which induces some countries to ignore this tragedy, on the pretext that it is simply a matter for Africans, is unacceptable. This tragedy, by its scope and the number of its victims, extends beyond its African setting and threatens international peace and security. 93. The United Nations is in duty bound to concern itself actively, alongside the regional organizations, with anything likely to endanger peace or human rights, as it did in Cyprus, the Dominican Republic and the Congo.”
1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)
“Children, whom the Ivory Coast and some other countries, in a praiseworthy humane and charitable effort, are trying to keep alive, come to us in such a state of malnutrition that, despite the most modern treatment we can provide, they will remain indelibly marked, handicapped and weakened at a time when Africa needs healthy and vigorous men. 90. It is inconceivable that the prolongation of such a war, the accumulation of so much misery, can have any other result than to kill out in these men, these widows, these disabled, any will, any design, even any idea of wanting or being able to live in harmony within a united Nigeria. 91. Biafra was born from the disintegration of Nigeria after a succession of seizures of power which created a climate of insecurity, fear, terror and tribal hatred.”
1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)
“This war is being waged in an undeveloped country where the medical infrastructure and the network of food distribution are insufficient, where the quality of building materials in the villages is rudimentary, where bomb shelters do not exist. 88. Yet, because of the intervention of some great Powers and with their connivance, this war is being waged with the most modern and sophisticated weapons; British and Russian bombs are being dropped by Ilyushin planes on defenceless villages. All these factors have made it the most devastating, murderous and inhuman war that the modern world has known; two million dead in two years, in such a small area. 89. Death is caused there by weapons, disease and hunger, without distinction of age.”
1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)
“Having made this choice, we shall appeal to your indulgence, your tolerance and your understanding — since you are all aware of the need for coexistence in diversity — to hear us state the position of the Ivory. Coast on the various problems dividing the world. 86. The Ivory Coast is guided at all times by humane principles, which are the constant factors in its diplomacy. Acting thus, we seek neither to please nor to offend, but to do all in our power to contribute to the preservation of an orderly peace. 87. A war is raging in the west of Africa. It is entering its third year. In it, one ethnic group faces others. It has already caused almost two million deaths.”
1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)
“Although, paradoxically, the two resulting wars freed colonial peoples and released nationalism, we still think that peace remains the most important objective for the future development of peoples. It must, however, be a peace that is not only an absence of war but also a constant construction of a harmonious society in which all men, being equal and having a higher standard of living, will feel the need to settle all their disputes by peaceful means. 85. Such a peace has to be worked for; it requires a special type of behaviour and attitudes, forbearance, tolerance — a whole set of conditions which may not fit a partner’s temporary interests. But the Ivory Coast has chosen them as the substance of its internal and foreign policy and, on that basis, has vowed to explore tirelessly every path which might lead to such a peace.”
1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)
“83. Permit me to take this opportunity to pay to you, Madam President, the respectful tribute which is your due, and to offer you the congratulations of the Government of the Ivory Coast on your election to the honourable position of President of our General Assembly. The Ivory Coast, which has the most fraternal and close relations with Liberia, is proud of this trust placed in you, which redounds to the honour of all African women and the whole of Africa. We desire that you may discharge this heavy task with great success and that your maternal love may lead you to place all your experience at the service of the world in general and of Africa in particular, so that we Africans may never stray from the road of brotherhood among men and the path to peace. 84. Twice, in 1914 and 1939, the peace of the world has collapsed.”
1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)
“We cannot therefore leave this rostrum without paying a special tribute to him, by expressing our warm and sincere congratulations on the courage, energy and wisdom he has always demonstrated in the conduct of international affairs. On behalf of my Government and my President, it is my pleasant duty to reaffirm the complete confidence of the Ivory Coast in the Secretary-General. 20. It is our hope that the Secretary-General's courageous report for this twenty-first session [A/ 6301] will be deeply pondered, for the good of all mankind, by all States Members — and non-members — of the United Nations.”
1966-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 21 (1966)
“We hope, therefore, that the costs of maintaining and equipping the Force will be adequately and regularly met, now and in the future, by all concerned — particularly the wealthier States. 18. The Ivory Coast is happy to see that, despite the growing problems facing our Organization, independent countries continue to join the United Nations. My country, which was honoured to be Guyana’s guest on the occasion of its proclamation of independence, takes great pleasure in congratulating that friendly country and in welcoming it to the United Nations. 19. During the two years in which the Ivory Coast has been a member of the Security Council, we have been able to appreciate the difficulties which confront the Secretary-General in the discharge of the noble task entrusted to him.”
1966-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 21 (1966)
“That is possible because the world, fortunately, is governed not by force buy by public opinion. We must therefore strengthen our Organization, which calms tempers, limits risks, and is the embodiment of our moral aspirations and the universal conscience. 17. In a world which is unfortunately a prey to dangerous and unpredictable upheavals, we have done well to entrust the United Nations with the mission of maintaining peace wherever it has been threated. The creation of an Emergency Force has thus been fully justified. My delegation takes this opportunity to pay tribute to the United Nations Emergency Force for the effective work it has done and is still doing, within the limits of its still too modest means; work, above all, which it has done in a spirit of noble impartiality.”
1966-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 21 (1966)
“I have intentionally omitted to mention the question of disarmament because when we analyse the causes of the arms race we realize that they lie essentially in distrust, a distrust which increases day after day, suggesting that the policies adopted by the various parties are intended only as diversionary or delaying tactics. There are some things which depend upon us and others which do not. If disarmament depended on the will of the Ivory Coast, I would say that we are in favour of total, general, complete disarmament. However, the duty incumbent on us is to create an atmosphere of fraternal understanding, and conditions which will allow the present temporary respite to become permanent and will render the accumulated armaments useless for want of work. 16.”
1966-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 21 (1966)
“Portugal, for its part, persists in applying in Angola, Mozambique and so-called Portuguese Guinea a policy of "assimilation" which no longer has any place in an independent Africa. We beseech Portugal to adopt a realistic policy based on self-determination, such as France carried out in Africa and plans to carry out for a second time in Djibouti. 14. With regard to Rhodesia, we have up to now placed our trust in the United Kingdom. The United Kingdom must now live up to that trust by refusing to allow the 200,000 rebel Whites of Southern Rhodesia any more time, time which they would use to organize themselves more effectively and arrogantly persist in their defiance of the civilized world. Without further delay, the United Nations must intervene under Chapter VII of the Charter. 15.”
1966-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 21 (1966)
“A situation imposed by force cannot last forever. 12. The South West Africa issue is an international scandal. South-West Africa is the only Mandated Territory of the League of Nations whose future is uncertain, because South Africa wishes to annex it and is being abetted by many other States in its efforts to do so. South Africa's bad faith in this matter is obvious; its intention to annex South West Africa is clear, and the Ivory Coast condemned the Judgment delivered by the International Court of Justice on 18 July 1966 because it was politically rather than juridically motivated. South Africa has violated its Mandate, and the United Nations must seriously consider revoking that Mandate. 13.”
1966-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 21 (1966)
“Another cause of war, and not the least significant one, lies in the trend towards domination, for domination stifles freedom and engenders revolt, as witness the unrest brewing in the Portuguese colonies, the resistance to Pretoria's inhuman policy of apartheid, and the hostility stirred up by South Africa's seizure of South-West Africa. These policies, all based on violence, are to be condemned. The whites of South Africa have been unable to rise above their selfish privileges of the moment to build the South Africa of the future. Our policy in the Ivory Coast consists in calling upon our friends throughout the world to join with us in persuading the Whites of South Africa to refrain from accumulating hatreds which will overwhelm them when, in a few years’ time, the balance of strength has changed.”
1966-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 21 (1966)
“Only the People's Republic of China refuses to join in that effort; it wages insidious and often clamorous warfare against everyone — communist, capitalist and non-aligned nations alike — by promoting subversion everywhere, in African and other countries, in the name of some sort of international revolution. 10. Our position on the question of the People's Republic of China therefore remains unchanged. We hope that nation will realize that its intransigence is causing much turmoil throughout the world and is seriously Injuring the small African States, which need an atmosphere of peace and fraternity if they are to overcome their lag in development. 11.”
1966-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 21 (1966)
“In a letter to Marshal Stalin dated 29 April 1945, Winston Churchill wrote: "There is not much comfort in looking into a future where you and the countries you dominate, plus the Communist Parties in many other States, are all drawn up on one side, and those who rally to the English-speaking nations and their associates or dominions are on the other. It is quite obvious that their quarrel would tear the world to pieces and that all of us, leading men on either side who had anything to do with that, would be shamed before history." Of course, we are still suffering the effects of this crisis, but we should find comfort in the thought that it is not an insoluble one. Eastern and Western Powers are making commendable efforts to overcome it and inaugurate a more positive policy of peaceful coexistence, the coexistence of the two regimes.”
1966-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 21 (1966)
“We in the Ivory Coast believe In the virtue of negotiation and self-determination, and we are convinced that they remain the only answers to the distressing problems of countries arbitrarily divided by ideological conflicts imposed from outside, We are referring to Indo-China, Korea, and, above all, Germany, a nation which will not tolerate permanent division and which is a potential hotbed of war, inasmuch as the reaction to this division will inevitably be the awakening of an insurgent national consciousness. 9.”
1966-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 21 (1966)
“While they were deemed unacceptable by others, the stake involved in this war is so great that we must not be discouraged, and the United States should make a solemn gesture by halting its bombings and air attacks. At the same time, we should encourage the convening of the Geneva Conference with a view to the initiation of negotiations for a return to the 1952 and 1954 agreements, and induce the belligerents to agree to a supervised suspension of hostilities until the Conference has come to a reasonable conclusion. It is the duty of each of us, according to our relations with the United States, the People's Republic of China, North Viet-Nam, South Viet-Nam and the Viet-Cong, to persuade these parties to agree to negotiation — within the context of the Geneva Conference and with no preconditions — as the only means to save the peace, 8.”
1966-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 21 (1966)
“While there is still time, the Ivory Coast wishes to join its voice to those of the other small countries, which urgently need peace, in an appeal to the conscience of mankind. We beg the belligerent parties, those who support them and those who are able to influence them to work together to restore peace to Viet-Nam. That can be accomplished by putting an end to subversive activities in South Viet-Nam, by stopping bombings, intervention and infiltration, by a supervised cessation of hostilities and by returning to the Geneva Conference to solve the problem of unification on the basis of the sacred principle of negotiation and self-determination. 7. Proposals for negotiations have been submitted from this rostrum by the United States.”
1966-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 21 (1966)
“Houphouet-Boigny, President of the Republic of the Ivory Coast, has observed, "has never settled anything conclusively, and whoever loses a war today can hope to win it another time. Would it not therefore be infinitely preferable to live in peace with one another?" The Ivory Coast has never been in favour of war and never will be; but while condemning war we also condemn subversion, which leads to the most tragic of all conflicts, civil war. As far as Viet-Nam is concerned, my country hopes that foreign intervention will cease, whatever its nature or origin. This conflict remains limited for the moment, but it may spread into a general conflagration, for it bids fair to get out of control.”
1966-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 21 (1966)
“Military blocs — the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the South-East Asia Treaty Organization, the Warsaw Pact — have been forged, and the alliance upon which this Organization was founded has shivered. Nations once united like Germany, Korea, Indo-China, have been divided. The concept of negotiation from positions of strength has led to the arms race, the failure of the collective security system, and the paralysis of our Organization. All this has come about because the partisans of regimes have closed their eyes to the lofty purpose of the United Nations — the maintenance of peace — and calculate the advantage their neighbour might derive from every one of their actions. 6. "War", as Mr.”
1966-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 21 (1966)
“That was an element inherent in the Second World War; it results from every country's desire to extend its borders, develop its system of government, destroy everything not itself, and thereby create a revolutionary dynamism based on intolerance. During the Second World War, one of the Allied Powers in fact observed that that war was not like past wars: a country which occupied a territory imposed its own social system on it; every country imposed its system as far as its army could advance, and the situation could not have been otherwise. Unfortunately, that was no mere figure of speech. States have changed regimes overnight, others have experienced civil wars; mistakes and weaknesses have been systematically exploited, and every great Power has methodically woven its network of alliances.”
1966-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 21 (1966)
“That is why praise is due to the African States for the work they have done to establish customs unions, such as the West African Customs Union and the Customs and Economic Union for Central Africa, and to set up equalization funds to guarantee some of their primary commodities — for example, the sugar guarantee fund established by the States members of the Joint African and Malagasy Organization. We must also thank the Development Fund for Overseas Countries and Territories for the substantial assistance It is giving the countries associated with it, and the United Nations for the work it has done, despite its modest means, to help the African nations under the United Nations Development Programme. 5. The second cause of our problems arises from territorial claims and expansionist ambitions.”
1966-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 21 (1966)
“The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, despite the setbacks it has suffered through the selfishness of certain wealthy Powers, remains the instrument by which the deterioration in the terms of trade so detrimental to the centuries of the Third World can be brought to a stop through the establishment of a system for guaranteeing the prices of primary commodities, particularly agricultural products. This could be done, for example, by creating an equalization fund on an international scale. The fact that we lose more by price fluctuations — not to speak of their disturbing effects on our economic - development plans — than we receive in assistance from the developed States no longer needs proof.”
1966-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 21 (1966)
“Most of the under-developed countries, despite the efforts they have made with their own resources or with bilateral or multilateral assistance, continue to grow poor while the developed countries as a group continue to grow wealthy. And the magnitude of these problems greatly exceeds the efforts made thus far, although those efforts have not been negligible. The time has thus come to take stock of the ways and means of co-operation. 4.”
1966-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 21 (1966)
“Poverty holds nearly two thirds of the world's population in its grip, while the prosperous third lives in luxury and indulges in lavish expenditure with an almost shameless nonchalance. Territorial and expansionist ambitions give rise to military defence blocs. Lastly, subversion, itself caused by the division of the world into two ideological blocs, engenders distrust. And the end result is social unrest, famine, revolutions, coups d'etat, border disputes, infiltration, subversion, cold wars and the other wars, dignified with ordinal numbers like dynasties: the First World War, the Second World War; and on the horizon, ready to burst, the black clouds of the third and final world war. Never have international peace and security been threatened as they are today. 3.”
1966-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 21 (1966)
“1. Mr. President, I should like to address to you, on behalf of my delegation, my warm and sincere congratulations upon your election to the Presidency of the General Assembly at its twenty-first session. Anyone who, like myself, has had the privilege of working at your side for over five years knows that despite the clouds now darkening the horizon your wisdom, your energy and your fairness will guide our work at this session to a successful conclusion. 2. The storms which issue from this mass of clouds periodically jolt our Organization — temporarily, it is true, but with an intensity which in the opinion of some eminent observers may prove fatal to the United Nations, heir to the defunct League of Nations. The reason is that the causes of these convulsions are permanent: poverty, territorial and expansionist ambitions, and distrust.”
1966-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 21 (1966)