YouSaid · the spoken record
CASTRO
- lines on the record
- 272
- first
- 1960-09-24
- most recent
- 1979-09-24
- 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
“We expressed our grave concern over the negligible progress that had been made in the negotiations for the implementation of the Declaration and Programme of Action on the Establishment of a New International Economic Order. We pointed out that this was due to the lack of political will on the part of most of the developed countries, and we specifically censured the dilatory, diversionary and divisive tactics adopted by those countries. The failure of the fifth session of UNCTAD highlighted that very situation. 61. We confirmed that the unequal exchange in inter-national economic relations, defined as an essential characteristic of the system, had become, if possible, even more unequal.”
1979-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 34 (1979)
“Let us further point out—and this is something to which we will return later and which has also been set down in the Havana Declaration—that this crisis is also a result of the persisting inequality in international economic relations—so that by eliminating that inequality, as we propose to do, we will contribute to reducing and eliminating the crisis itself. 58. What are the main guidelines formulated in Havana by the representatives of the movement of non-aligned countries? 59. We condemned the persistent channelling of human and material resources into an arms race, which is unproductive, wasteful and dangerous to mankind, and we demanded that a substantial part of the resources now devoted to arms, particularly by the major Powers, be used for economic and social development. 60.”
1979-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 34 (1979)
“Let us state, however, that the Heads of State or Government consider that the crisis of the international economic system is not a cyclical phenomenon but a symptom of the underlying structural maladjustments and basic imbalance and that that imbalance has been aggravated by the refusal of the developed market-economy countries to control their external imbalances, their high inflationary levels and unemployment. The inflation has been engendered in precisely those developed countries that now refuse to implement the only measures that might eliminate it.”
1979-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 34 (1979)
“Development will bring solutions to the problem of poverty and also, through education and culture, will in turn help our countries to attain rational and adequate rates of growth. 55. A recent report put out by the World Bank paints an even blacker picture. It says that by the year 2000 some 600 million people on this earth may still be submerged in absolute poverty. 56. The state of agricultural and industrial backwardness from which the developing countries have still not managed to emerge is, as the Sixth Conference pointed out, undoubtedly a result of unjust and unequal international relations, but, as the Havana Final Declaration also pointed out, to this is now added the prolonged world economic crisis as an aggravating factor. 57. I shall not dwell too long on this aspect.”
1979-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 34 (1979)
“The result of all this—as was noted by the Heads of State or Government in Havana—is that the gap between the developed and the developing countries not only persists but has also substantially increased. The latter's relative share in the world output decreased considerably during the last two decades, a fact which has still more disastrous effects on such problems as malnutrition, illiteracy and poor sanitation and health services. 54. Some would like to solve the tragic problem of mankind by adopting drastic measures to reduce the population. They remember that wars and epidemics helped to reduce populations in other eras; they wish to go even further, they want to blame under-development on the population explosion. However, the population explosion is not the cause but the result of underdevelopment.”
1979-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 34 (1979)
“Developed market-economy countries today absorb more than 85 per cent of the world's manufactured goods, including those whose industrial production requires the highest technology. They also control more than 83 per cent of all industrial exports. Twenty-six per cent of those exports go to the developing countries, whose markets they monopolize. The most serious aspect of this dependent structure is that our imports— that is, consumer items as well as capital goods—are all manufactured according to the demands, requirements and technology of the most developed industrial countries and the patterns of consumer societies, which are thus introduced through the chinks of our trade, contaminating our own societies and thus adding a new element to the already permanent structural crisis. 53.”
1979-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 34 (1979)
“It may be said that there is some industrial expansion, but it does not take place at the required rate or in the key industries of industrial economy. This was pointed out at the Havana Conference. The world redistribution of industry, the so-called industrial redeployment, should not consist of a new confirmation of the deep economic inequalities that emerged in the colonial era of the nineteenth century. At that time, we were sentenced and condemned to be producers of raw materials and cheap agricultural products. Now, an effort is being made to use our countries' abundant labour and starvation wages to transfer the less technologically developed and less productively viable industries to us: We categorically reject this. 52.”
1979-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 34 (1979)
“In 1975 the Second General Conference of UN- IDO proposed to the developing countries that we be responsible for 25 per cent of the world's manufacturing output by the year 2000,3 but the progress made since that time has been so insignificant that, if the measures proposed by the Sixth Conference are not implemented and if a crash programme is not put into effect to modify the economic policies of most of the developed countries, that target will be another failure and we shall never meet it. We now account for less than 9 per cent of the world's manufacturing output. 50. Our dependency is once again expressed in the fact that the countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America import 26.1 per cent of the manufactured goods that enter into the world trade current and export only 6.3 per cent. 51.”
1979-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 34 (1979)
“The developing countries' agricultural export revenues are still unstable and insufficient to meet their import needs in food, fertilizers and other items required to raise their own production. The per capita food production in Africa in 1977 was 11 per cent below that of 10 years earlier. 48. If backwardness in agriculture is perpetuated, the process of industrialization has also not advanced. And it cannot advance because, as far as most developing countries are concerned, industrialization is considered a threat by the developed countries. 49.”
1979-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 34 (1979)
“As a result of this, the developing countries' food imports, which right now constitute a factor aggravating their unfavourable balance of payments, will soon—according to FAO figures—reach unmanageable proportions. In the face of this, official commitments of foreign aid to agriculture in the developing countries are falling off. 47. This panorama cannot be prettied up. Certain official documents sometimes reflect circumstantial increases in the agricultural production of some areas of the under-developed world or stress the cyclical price increases registered by some agricultural items, but these are cases of transitory advances and of short-lived advantages.”
1979-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 34 (1979)
“..progress is still disappointingly slow in relation to the long-term development goals contained in the International Development Strategy, in the Declaration and the Programme of Action on the establishment of the New International Economic Order and in the resolution of the World Food Conference and in several subsequent conferences." 46. We are still far from having achieved the modest 4 per cent per annum average increase in the developing countries' food and agricultural production which was proposed 10 years ago in order to solve some of the most pressing problems of world hunger and approach consumption levels that are still low.”
1979-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 34 (1979)
“I do not have to show or prove here how profoundly unjust and incompatible with the development of the under-developed countries the existing international economic system is, The figures are already so well known that it is unnecessary for us to repeat them here. There are discussions on whether there are only 400 million undernourished people in the world or whether the figure has once again risen to 450 million, as certain, international documents state; but 400 million hungry men and women already constitute too heavy an accusation. 44. What nobody doubts is that all the hopes that have been raised in the developing countries appear to have been dashed and extinguished at this close of the Second United Nations Development Decade. 45. The Director-General of FAO has acknowledged that: ".”
1979-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 34 (1979)
“Furthermore they went on to emphasize: "...the historic mission that the Movement of Non- Aligned Countries should play in the struggle to attain the economic and political independence of all developing countries and peoples, to exercise their full and permanent sovereignty and control over their natural and all other resources and economic activities, and to promote a fundamental restructuring of the world economy through the establishment of the New International Economic Order" in order to conclude that: "...the struggle to eliminate the injustice of the existing international economic system and to establish the New International Economic Order is an integral part of the people's struggle for political, economic, cultural and social liberation." 43.”
1979-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 34 (1979)
“They therefore reiterated that the existing international economic system runs against the basic interests of the developing countries, is profoundly unjust and incompatible with the development of the non-aligned and other developing countries, nor does it contribute to the elimination of the economic and social evils that afflict these countries...".”
1979-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 34 (1979)
“History teaches us that when a people, freeing itself from a colonial or neo-colonial system, obtains its independence, that is at one and the same time the last act in a lengthy struggle and the first one in a new and arduous battle, for the independence, sovereignty and freedom of our peoples, who are apparently free, are constantly threatened by foreign control over our natural resources, financial impositions by official international bodies and by the precarious situation of our economies, all of which reduce the fullness of our sovereignty. 42. For this reason, at the very beginning of their analysis of the world economic problems, the Heads of State or Government: "...once again solemnly emphasized the paramount importance of consolidating political independence by economic emancipation.”
1979-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 34 (1979)
“We deeply appreciate the universal acclaim given to the non-aligned movement's recent denunciation in Havana of the hostile acts, pressure and threats against Cuba by the United States, declaring them to be a flagrant violation of the Charter of the United Nations and of the principles of international law. They are also a threat to world peace. Once again we reply to our brothers, assuring the international community that Cuba will remain true to the principles of international solidarity. 41.”
1979-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 34 (1979)
“I confess that these considerations on Latin America would alone have justified the Cuban people's efforts and the concern of the hundreds of thousands of men and women of our country who were determined to enable Cuba worthily to welcome the fraternal nations of the movement of non-aligned countries at the Havana Conference, but for Cuba there was much more than this—there was something which, on behalf of our people, we would like to thank this Assembly for in this forum of the United Nations. In Havana the Cuban people's right to choose their political and social system was supported, as was their claim to the territory occupied by the naval base of Guantanamo, and furthermore the unjust blockade, with which the United States Government continues its efforts to isolate the Cuban revolution, seeking to destroy it, was condemned. 40.”
1979-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 34 (1979)
“The Heads of State or Government also stressed something new in Latin American relations, something that sets an example to other regions of the world, namely the way in which the Governments of Panama, Costa Rica and Mexico, as well as the member countries of the sub regional Andean Pact, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela, acted in unison and solidarity to achieve a just solution to the Nicaraguan problem, as well as Cuba's traditional solidarity with the cause of that people. 39.”
1979-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 34 (1979)
“No more appropriate tribute than this could be paid to the Latin American traditions of freedom and to the heroic people of Puerto Rico who in these last few days have just celebrated another anniversary of the "Cry of Lares", which expressed their indomitable will for freedom over a century ago. 38. When referring to the Latin American reality, the Heads of State or Government, who had already analysed the significance of the liberating process in Iran, could not fail to refer to the revolutionary upheaval in Grenada and the remarkable victory of the people of Nicaragua and their vanguard, the Sandinist National Liberation Front, and emphasize the enormous historic significance of that event for the peoples of Latin America and of the world.”
1979-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 34 (1979)
“Despite all the pressures, threats and flattery that were brought to bear, and despite the obstinacy of the United States Government in demanding that the issue of Puerto Rico be considered an internal problem of the United States, the Heads of State or Government reiterated their solidarity with the struggle of the Puerto Rican people and their inalienable right to self- determination, independence and territorial integrity, and called upon the Government of the United States of America to refrain from any political or repressive manoeuvres tending to perpetuate the colonial status of that country. 37.”
1979-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 34 (1979)
“It welcomed the fact that as of 1 October the Panama Canal Treaties between the Republic of Panama and the United States would come into force; it gave its full support to those Treaties and it called for their full observance in letter and spirit; furthermore it called on all the States of the world to accede to the Protocol of the Treaty Concerning the Permanent Neutrality of the Panama Canal. 36.”
1979-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 34 (1979)
“The experience lived through in other areas led the Heads of State or Government to reject and condemn any attempt to create a so-called' 'security force" in the Caribbean, a neo-colonial mechanism incompatible with the sovereignty, peace and security of the countries there. 35. In seeking the restoration of the Malvinas Islands to the Argentine Republic and in reaffirming its support for the inalienable rights of the people of Belize to self-determination, independence and territorial integrity, the Conference once again corroborated what its Declaration had defined as the very "quintessence of the policy of non-alignment".”
1979-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 34 (1979)
“The participants in the Conference were forced to point out that in that area of struggle, remnants of colonialism, neo-colonialism and national oppression still remain; thus the Conference spoke out in favour of the eradication of colonialism in all its forms and manifestations; it condemned the presence of foreign military bases in Latin America and the Caribbean, such as those in Cuba and Puerto Rico, and again demanded that the Government of the United States and the other colonial Powers restore to those countries that part of their territories occupied by those bases against the will of the peoples concerned. 34.”
1979-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 34 (1979)
“The fact that the Sixth Conference was held in a Latin American country allowed the Heads of State or Government meeting there to recall that the peoples of that region started their efforts to obtain independence at the very beginning of the nineteenth century. They also did not forget, as it is said in the Declaration, that "Latin America is one of the regions of the world that historically has greatly suffered from the aggression of United States and European imperialism, colonialism and neo-colonialism" 33.”
1979-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 34 (1979)
“If we were to do so, we would be unable to touch upon what we consider to be one of the most fundamental aspects of that Conference, namely, its economic projection, the clamour of the developing countries, who have had enough of backwardness and of the suffering it engenders. Cuba, as the host country, will present to all members of the international community copies of the Conference's Final Declaration and additional resolutions. But, before informing this Assembly of how the non-aligned countries view the world economic situation, which demands they make and which hopes they nurture, perhaps I will be allowed to take a few minutes more to inform you of what the Final Declaration's approach was concerning Latin American issues of the moment. 32.”
1979-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 34 (1979)
“The Sixth Conference also analysed other issues of regional and world interest such as those touching on European security and co-operation, the problem of the Mediterranean and the tensions that still exist there and that now have been increased as a result of Israel's aggressive policy and the support given it by certain imperialist Powers. The Conference also studied the situation in Cyprus, an island still partially occupied by foreign troops, and Korea, which is still divided despite the Korean people's desire for the peaceful reunification of their homeland. This led the non-aligned countries to reaffirm and broaden resolutions of solidarity aimed at fulfilling the aspirations of both peoples. 31. It would be impossible to refer to all the political decisions of the Sixth Conference.”
1979-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 34 (1979)
“The Declaration adopted eight years ago by the General Assembly proclaiming the Indian Ocean a zone of peace has not been fulfilled. The military presence in the region has not been reduced; it is growing. Military bases have reached as far as South Africa and are also serving as a means for surveillance of the African liberation movements. The talks between the United States and the Soviet Union are still suspended despite the recent agreements between the two countries to discuss their resumption. All this led to the Sixth Conference's invitation to all States concerned to work effectively to fulfil the objectives of the Declaration of the Indian Ocean as a Zone of Peace. 30.”
1979-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 34 (1979)
“The same voices that were raised to denounce the Camp David agreements and the Egyptian-Israeli Treaty eulogized and praised Gamal Abdel Nasser, a founder of the movement and one of those who upheld the fighting traditions of the Arab nation. No one ignores and no one will ever be unaware of Egypt's historic role in Arab culture and development or its merit as a founding nation and a driving force in the movement of non-aligned countries. 28. The Conference also gave its attention to the problems of South-East Asia. The growing conflicts and tensions that have been created in the region are a threat to peace that must be avoided. 29. Similar concern was expressed by the Sixth Conference of Heads of State or Government regarding the situation in the Indian Ocean.”
1979-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 34 (1979)
“When the Heads of State or Government arrived at the consensus which condemned the Camp David agreements and the Egyptian-Israeli Treaty of March 1979, their formulations had been preceded by long hours of detailed study and fruitful exchanges which allowed the Conference to consider those treaties not only as a complete abandonment of the cause of the Arab countries, but also as an act of complicity with the continuing occupation of Arab territories. The terms are hard, but they are true and just. It is not the Egyptian people who have been subjected to the judgement of the organs of the movement of non-aligned nations. The Egyptian people command the respect of each and every one of our countries, and enjoy the solidarity of all our peoples.”
1979-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 34 (1979)
“Can anyone be surprised that the Conference, for reasons that stemmed not from any political prejudice, but rather from an objective analysis of the facts, felt called upon to note that the United States policy, in aligning itself with Israel and in supporting it and working to obtain partial solutions that are favourable to Zionist aims and to guarantee the fruits of Israeli aggression at the expense of the Palestinian Arab people and the entire Arab nation, played a major role in preventing the establishment of a just and comprehensive peace in the region? 26. The facts, and only the facts, led the Conference to condemn the policy and manoeuvres of the United States in that region. 27.”
1979-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 34 (1979)
“As I stated in my inaugural address to the Sixth Conference. We are not fanatics. The revolutionary movement has always learned to hate racial discrimination and pogroms of any kind. From the bottom of our heart, we repudiated the merciless persecution and genocide that the Nazis once visited on the Jews, but there's nothing in recent history that parallels it more closely than the dispossession, persecution and genocide that imperialism and Zionism are currently practising against the Palestinian people. Pushed off their land, expelled from their own country, scattered throughout the world, persecuted and murdered, the heroic Palestinians are a vivid example of sacrifice and patriotism, living symbols of the most terrible crime of our era." 25.”
1979-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 34 (1979)
“The basis for a just peace in the region starts with the total and unconditional withdrawal by Israel from all the occupied Arab territories and provides for the return to the Palestinian people of all their occupied territories and the restoration of their inalienable national rights, including their right to return to their homeland, to self-determination and to the establishment of an independent State in Palestine, in accordance with General Assembly resolution 3236 (XXIX). This implies that all measures taken by Israel in the occupied Palestinian and other Arab territories, such as the establishment of colonies or settlements in Palestinian and other Arab territories—whose immediate dismantlement is a prerequisite for the solution of the problem—are all illegal, null and void. 24.”
1979-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 34 (1979)
“On the one hand, the Conference reaffirmed that Israel's determination to continue its policy of aggression, expansionism and colonial settlement in the occupied territories, with the support of the United States, constitutes a serious threat to world peace and security. The Conference also examined the problem from the point of view of the rights of the Arab peoples and the Palestinian question. 22. For the non-aligned countries, the Palestinian question is the very crux of the problem of the Middle East. Both questions form an integral whole and neither can be settled separately. 23.”
1979-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 34 (1979)
“Therefore, the Conference expressed its hope that the special committee established at the sixteenth ordinary session of the Assembly of Heads of State and Government of the OAU would provide a guarantee that the people of the Sahara would be allowed to exercise their right to self-determination and independence as soon as possible. 20. That same principle and that same position determined the resolutions on Mayotte and the Malagasy islands and the need for them to be reintegrated in the Comoros and Madagascar, respectively. 21. There can be no doubt that the problem of the Middle East has become one of the situations that give rise to the greatest concern and worry in the world today. The Sixth Conference examined it in its twofold dimension.”
1979-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 34 (1979)
“We repeat here that the position of the non-aligned movement is not one of antagonism towards any country. Nothing but the application of our principles and the agreements of the United Nations should be seen in our welcoming the conclusion of the agreement between the Islamic Republic of Mauritania and the Frente POLISARIO and the decision of the Republic of Mauritania to withdraw its forces from the territory of Western Sahara, as well as its deploring the extension of Morocco's armed incursion into the southern part of Western Sahara previously administered by Mauritania.”
1979-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 34 (1979)
“The Sixth Conference once again had to express its regret that General Assembly resolution 1514 (XV), concerning the granting of independence to colonial countries and peoples, has not been applied in Western Sahara. We should recall that the decisions of the non- aligned countries and the resolutions of the United Nations—more specifically General Assembly resolution 33/31—have all reaffirmed the inalienable right of the people of Western Sahara to self-determination and independence. Cuba feels a special responsibility with regard to this problem since it was a member of the United Nations Visiting Mission to Western Sahara, sent in 1975 to investigate the situation in the Territory, which enabled our representatives to verify the total desire of the Saharan people for self-determination and independence.”
1979-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 34 (1979)
“The attitude towards the decisions taken at the Meeting of Heads of Government of Commonwealth Countries at Lusaka last August to have the United Kingdom Government, as the administering Power for Southern Rhodesia, call a conference to discuss the problems of Zimbabwe, confirmed the fact that the non-aligned countries are not opposed to solutions that may be achieved without armed struggle, so long as they lead to the establishment of a real government representing the majority and the achievement of an independence that is satisfactory to the fighting peoples—and that this be done in accordance with the resolutions of such bodies as the OAU, the United Nations and our own movement of non-aligned countries. 19.”
1979-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 34 (1979)
“It is true that the Conference praised the people of Namibia and SWAPO, their sole and authentic representative, for having stepped up the armed struggle and advancing it, and it requested all- out, effective support for that form of combat. But that was due to the fact that the South African racists have slammed the door to any real negotiations, and the efforts to achieve negotiated solutions go no further than mere strategems and manoeuvres. 18.”
1979-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 34 (1979)
“More forcibly and urgently than ever, the Sixth Conference expressed the need not only to end the situation in which the right of the peoples of Zimbabwe and Namibia to independence is denied, but also to support the urgent requirement for the black men and women of South Africa to attain a status in which they are to be considered as equal, respected human beings and to guarantee conditions of respect and peace for all the countries of the region. 17. Continued support for the national liberation movements, the Patriotic Front and the South West Africa People's Organization [SWAPO] was a decision so unanimous that we could almost have foreseen it. And let us state this very clearly now: this is not a case of expressing a unilateral preference for solutions through armed struggle.”
1979-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 34 (1979)
“Therefore, when the Heads of State or Government approved the Final Declaration, which condemned by name a group of Western countries— headed by the United States—for their direct or indirect collaboration in the maintenance of South Africa's criminal policy and racist oppression and, on the other hand, recognized the role played by the non-aligned countries, the United Nations, the Organization of African Unity [OAU], the socialist countries and the Scandinavian countries and other democratic and progressive forces in supporting the struggle of the peoples of Africa, it did not involve even the slightest manifestation of ideological leanings; it was simply a true expression of the objective reality. To condemn South Africa without mentioning those who make its criminal policy possible would have been incomprehensible. 16.”
1979-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 34 (1979)
“The pressing need for Zimbabwe and Namibia to be completely liberated as soon as possible is not just one of the causes of the non-aligned countries or of the most progressive forces of our era; it is laid down in resolutions and agreements adopted by the international community through the United Nations. It implies duties that cannot be shirked and the violation of which must call for international denunciation. 15.”
1979-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 34 (1979)
“It was indispensable that we should stress the fact that the colonialist and imperialist Powers were continuing their aggressive policies with the aim of perpetuating, regaining or extending their domination and exploitation of the African nations. 14. And that is precisely the dramatic situation in Africa. The non-aligned countries could not fail to condemn the attacks on Mozambique, on Zambia, on Angola, on Botswana; the threats against Lesotho; the destabilization efforts that are constantly being made in that area; and the role of the racist regimes of Rhodesia and South Africa.”
1979-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 34 (1979)
“If in spite of that approach, which was uncommitted and objective, our review of international events became an anathema hurled against the supporters of imperialism and colonialism, it merely reflects the essential reality of the world of today. 12. Thus, on starting the analysis of the situation in Africa and after having recognized the progress made in the African peoples' struggle for their emancipation, the Heads of State or Government stressed, as a fundamental problem of the region, the urgency of eliminating from the continent—and especially from southern Africa—all traces of colonialism, racism, racial discrimination and apartheid. 13.”
1979-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 34 (1979)
“Basing ourselves on the concept of the universality of peace and on the need to associate the search for peace, extended to all countries, with the struggle for national independence, with full sovereignty and with equality among States, we, the Heads of State or Government who met at the Sixth Conference of non- aligned countries in Havana, turned our attention to the most pressing problems in Africa, Asia, Latin America and other regions of the world. It is important to stress that we started from an independent position that was not linked or tied to policies that might stem from the contradictions between the great Powers.”
1979-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 34 (1979)
“Although negotiations between the great Powers constitute a decisive element in the process, the non- aligned countries once again reiterated that the endeavour to consolidate detente and to extend it to all parts of the world, and to avert the nuclear threat, the arms build-up and—in one word—war, was a task in which all the peoples of the world should participate and exercise their responsibilities. 11.”
1979-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 34 (1979)
“On the basis of that concern, the non-aligned countries—which have made of disarmament and de-nuclearization one of the permanent and most prominent objectives of their struggle and which took the initiative to convene the tenth special session of the General Assembly on disarmament—examined the results of the negotiations on strategic arms and the agreements reached as a result of the second round of Strategic Arms Limitation Talks [SALT]. They consider that those agreements constitute an important step in the negotiations between the two main nuclear Powers and could open up prospects for more comprehensive negotiations leading to general disarmament and the relaxation of international tensions. But those treaties, as far as the non-aligned countries are concerned, are only part of the progress towards peace.”
1979-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 34 (1979)
“The non-aligned countries have always attached great importance to the possibility of and the need for detente among the great Powers, and thus the Sixth Conference pointed with great concern to the fact that in the period that elapsed after the Fifth Conference held in Colombo in 1976, a certain stagnation took place in the process of detente, which has continued to be limited both in scope and geographically. 10.”
1979-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 34 (1979)
“That was why we resolved in Havana to reaffirm that: . .the quintessence of the policy of non- alignment, in accordance with its original principles and essential character, involved the struggle against imperialism, colonialism and neo-colonialism, apartheid and racism, including Zionism, and all forms of foreign aggression, occupation, domination, interference or hegemony, as well as against great- Power and bloc policies." Thus, it will be understood that the Final Declaration of Havana linked the struggle for peace with "political, moral and material support for the national liberation movements and joint efforts to eliminate colonial domination and racial discrimination" 9.”
1979-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 34 (1979)
“But at the same time, the Sixth Conference considered that these principles of peaceful coexistence also include the rights of peoples under alien and colonial domination to self- determination, independence, sovereignty; respect for the territorial integrity of States; and the right of every country to put an end to foreign occupation and to the acquisition of territory by force, and to select its own social, political and economic system. Only thus can peaceful coexistence be the foundation for all international relations. 8. This cannot be denied. When we analyse the structure of the world of today, we see that these rights of our peoples are as yet not guaranteed. The non- aligned countries know full well who are our historical enemies. We know whence come the threats and how to combat them.”
1979-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 34 (1979)
“Since its very inception, the movement of non- aligned countries has considered that the principles of peaceful coexistence should be the corner-stone of international relations, should constitute the basis for the strengthening of international peace and security, for the relaxation of tensions and for the expansion of that process to all regions of the world and to all aspects of international relations, and should be universally applied in relations among States.”
1979-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 34 (1979)