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1962-09-24

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1970-09-24

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un-general-debate

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1. “The wishes of the various United Nations bodies, and the resolutions adopted by them under the vigorous urging of the Committee on Apartheid, have remained dead letters. 174. About six years ago, the Prime Minister of the Republic of South Africa initiated the hypocritical policy of the bantustans, which are nothing more than reservations separated from the areas occupied by individuals of the superior race, the two races being allowed neither to see nor to communicate with each other. 175. That, according to Pretoria, is a progressive liberalization of the system, a step towards a certain degree of autonomy granted to the blacks, towards the setting up of a sort of commonwealth in which the Republic of South Africa would be the nerve centre and the various black reserves satellite republics.”

   1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)

2. “South Africa’s policy of apartheid, a system of out-and-out racial segregation enforced upon 12 million blacks by a white minority of scarcely 3.5 million, imposes upon its victims restrictions that would have been inconceivable even in the slave societies of the past: they are forbidden to move about freely within their borders or to go beyond them, they are forbidden to go about after a certain hour, they are required to live in places appointed by the white authorities, their right to education is limited and they are completely segregated from the dominant group, which uses the black man only for the labour which it finds repugnant. 172. The system displays a proud prosperity and reference is constantly made to a rich South Africa, when its wealth is the fruit of the most shameful exploitation of man by man. 173.”

   1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)

3. “He deserves full credit for having brought the four great Powers, permanent members of the Security Council, together on the Middle East problem. After having enjoined the four great Powers, in an appeal on 12 September, to intensify their efforts to restore peace, the secretary-General made arrangements for a working dinner on 20 September for the four Foreign Ministers present in New York. May it produce good results! 170. Another irritating problem that has for a good many years defeated all United Nations efforts is that of the apartheid policy of South Africa, to which have been added the problems of South West Africa and of the Rhodesia of the rebel Ian Smith. 171.”

   1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)

4. “The armed forces of the United Arab Republic, having been put to a severe test when the first blow was struck, with their air force destroyed on the ground, have been carefully built up again and trained by qualified experts, while Israel, with the delivery of new combat aircraft, has regained all its striking power. Newspaper headlines stress the will to battle of the adversaries. “Israeli jets”, says a newspaper of 13 September, “launched a devastating raid along the Gulf of Suez at Ras Zafarana and at Ras Ghareb”; “Fire and the holy war“, says another paper; “One with the nation, the Israeli army exerts a decisive influence“, states a widely read monthly publication. All this adds fuel to the fire. 169. I could not fail to applaud once again this year the noble efforts of the Secretary-General to restore peace in the Middle East.”

   1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)

5. “The struggle has already produced too many innocent victims and has offered to the eyes of the civilized world such a display of calamities and horrors that any kind of peaceful solution, however lame, has become desirable. 167. The war in the Middle East, following Israel’s victory after six days of fighting, has degenerated into a war of attrition carried out against the victor by the coalition of Arab countries, and into a disguised holy war following the unfortunate burning of the Al Aqsa Mosque. 168. But here, too, the Powers concerned are watching jealously over the maintenance of the balance of power.”

   1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)

6. “The second operation ordered by President Nixon was also interpreted as a demonstration of the will for peace of the great American nation. 165. But, to be objective, it must be recognized that the Paris talks have made very little progress, North Viet-Nam and its ally, the National Liberation Front, having declared their determination to continue the struggle until the departure of the allied troops and the elimination of what they call the puppet government of President Thieu. If, therefore, the latter manages to hold out, with the help, of course, of advisers and the supply of the necessary arms, the action threatens to go on for some time to come. 166. It is to be hoped, however, that the Viet-Nam phase of the war will be of short duration and will end in a compromise.”

   1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)

7. “To satisfy national public opinion, the United States Executive first, under the Democratic administration, ended the bombing of North Viet-Nam; then under the present Republican administration, it effected the withdrawal of a number of United States units, more and more of which are to be withdrawn as the forces of President Thieu become able to take over the responsibilities of the war. 163. The first operation, carried out with consummate skill or, shall we say, diplomacy, with olive branch held out and the desire of the American people for peace well in evidence, aroused a real wave of enthusiasm throughout the world. Thousands of messages of encouragement were sent to President Johnson, among them that of President Duvalier, which I had the honour of reading from this rostrum last year [1679th meeting]. 164.”

   1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)

8. “If we wish to trace back the basic causes of the crises in the Middle East, in Biafra and in Viet-Nam, and of the events in Czechoslovakia, we could analyse them as follows, against a horizon on which it is impossible to say whether the spectre of nuclear war, of an apocalyptic destruction of our civilization, looms near or far. 161. With regard to Viet-Nam, we are advancing stealthily towards what has been called, in a happy euphemism, the Viet-Namization of the war, in other words, confrontation of the dominant Powers through third parties. 162.”

   1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)

9. “The grave political crises that might hurl mankind into the abyss are the logical consequence of the division of the world into the wealthy and the underprivileged countries and of the lack of international co-operation. They also stem from the manifest desire of the dominant Powers to monopolize the sources of raw materials that guarantee material and intellectual well-being, whether they be sources of energy like the petroleum deposits of the Middle East, distant plantations of so-called allies, or mines that provide them with strategic metals such as nickel, ciromium, aluminium, manganese and copper, to say nothing of uranium—some of them essential to the steel industry and the successful operation of steel foundries, others for the manufacture of deterrent weapons. 160.”

   1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)

10. “With the historic obligation of mutual assistance that was sealed with the blood shed by my ancestors on the plains of Savannah for the conquest of the freedom and independence of the United States of North America, I have, in all sincerity, sought the establishment, on such foundations, of a firm, frank, loyal and brotherly friendship; I have sought the establishment of a broad, genuine and effective co-operation with a view to assisting the Haitian nation, the Haitian people and my Government to be ready to participate in the destinies of the United States of North America in particular and of the continent in general.” 159.”

    1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)

11. “Nevertheless, despite vacillation and lack of understanding, Haiti continues to solicit the attention of its great neighbour, the leader, the United States of North America, for the safeguard of its own security, which is linked with that of the entire Latin American sub-continent and of all other Caribbean countries.”

    1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)

12. ““I have expressed the view that it is, desirable to recognize and appreciate the burdens carried by a great Power and the nature of the difficulties it encounters when it assumes the responsibilities of leadership. That is why I have always sought the attentive and enlightened understanding of the Heads of Government of your country, or of its high officials, without, let us say quite frankly, the desired success. The leader of the world’s first black republic was not understood. He himself has known only lack of understanding and vacillation on the part of our great neighbour, vacillation and lack of understanding which go back to the first Pan-American Conference at Panama in 1826 and up to the various conferences at Punta del Este.”

    1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)

13. “In it he stated: “We should like to express the hope that the United States of North America, which we have always recognized as the leader of the Western Hemisphere, will remember that we have stood by it ever since the memorable battle of Savannah, ever since the magnificent dialogue between Toussaint Louverture and John Quincy Adams, right up to the days of the present President for Life of the Republic who, always desirous of pursuing the dialogue, pointed out again and again to many American friends and American Ambassadors the danger that the disappearance of General Fulgencio Batista would represent....But the leader of the world’s first black republic was not heeded. “The United States of North America has assumed the leadership of the continent.”

    1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)

14. “In Haiti he was received with that cordiality, that sense of hospitality, that respect for the foreigner that are characteristic of our race, which “nourishes no hatred in the heart against anyone”. 158. Dr. Francois Duvalier, President for Life of the Republic of Haiti, handed him a memorandum for the President of the United States, in which he vigorously stressed the urgent need for close co-operation in all sectors and the responsibilities of the leader of the Latin American countries towards those countries.”

    1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)

15. “Rockefeller, the Governor of the State of New York, on a tour of the Latin American countries for a complete review, in all sectors, of United States policy vis-a-vis its Latin American partners. 156. The choice of the Presidential emissary was a happy one. It was thought that Mr. Nelson A. Rockefeller, who belongs to the liberal wing of the Republican Party and was for some time at the State Department in charge of United States relations with Latin America, could count on many friendships in the countries he was to visit, and he had in addition a large number of business contacts. 157. In his visits to the various Latin American countries he met with varying receptions.”

    1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)

16. “These same reasons explain the moving appeals of the Heads of State of the developing countries, who are alarmed to see that the development of the economy of countries with meagre resources has proved difficult and that the gap between the economies of the affluent and the poor countries continues to grow, so that the rich countries daily become richer and the poor countries poorer. 154. We, the developing countries of Latin America, have heard, in the inter-American system, the successive promises of Operation Pan-America, proposed by Brazil, the Bogota Charter, the first meeting at Punta del Este and, finally, the Alliance of Progress. 155. The results have been so disappointing that the present United States President, Mr. Richard M. Nixon, felt it necessary to send Mr. Nelson A.”

    1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)

17. ““The advanced industrial societies that have the potential to become post-industrial include: Western Europe, the Soviet Union, Israel, East Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Australia and New Zealand. “The following nations will become consumer societies: Mexico, Argentina, Venezuela, Chile, Colombia, South Korea, Malaysia, Formosa, and the other countries of Europe. “The rest of the world—China, India, most of South America, the Arab countries and Black Africa—will not even have reached the industrial stage.“ 152. Thus is announced cold-bloodedly to the countries of the third world their long-term condemnation to certain poverty as a result of some irreversible determinism. 153.”

    1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)

18. ““It must be clearly noted”, he said at that time, “that the flow of capital towards the third world has not increased in a period of exceptionally rapid growth, and we can imagine what it will be if we are to enter a period of less rapid growth”—a period that, despite optimistic conclusions, the above-mentioned facts might well usher in. 151. Basing himself on a study by the Hudson Institute, Mr. Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber, in his book The American Challenge, which is not without some attempt at sensationalism, stated that within some thirty years, subject to “unforeseen changes“ (perhaps a simple stylistic precaution), the classification of nations would be as follows: “The post-industrial societies will be, in this order: the United States, Japan, Canada, Sweden. That is all.”

    1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)

19. “The demographic dynamism of the developing countries, reluctantly resigned to practise a family planning policy restricting the growth of available manpower—sometimes condemned through under-employment to expatriation but despite everything a possible factor of progress and source of foreign currency earnings—the policy of many States to decrease financial aid, either in order to ward off the danger of monetary crisis or to slow down an economic expansion that has become a real cause for concern for certain Governments, the difficulty of finding sources of international financing—all these are disquieting signs for the deprived countries of the third world. 150. Are not the conclusions put forward in 1966 by Mr. Philippe de Seynes, Under-Secretary for Economic and Social Affairs, still valid today?”

    1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)

20. “Let us hope that these facts, which show the other side of the picture, do not portend an economic crisis on a world scale like that of the 1930s, a recurrence of which according to the experts, would be quite impossible in view of the precautions taken and the new criteria adopted. 147. But leaving aside the results of the year June 1968-June 1969, which were quite brilliant in some respects, has the United Nations Development Decade achieved all the objectives it set itself? It may be doubted. 148. Here we are in the ninth year of the First Decade. Having nearly run the whole set course, can we really see on the horizon any glimmer of hope for a better future? 149. The reply must apparently be in the negative.”

    1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)

21. “Vigorous industrial expansion was also recorded in some of the developing countries of eastern Asia: China (Taiwan), Hong Kong, the Republic of Korea and, to a somewhat lesser degree, the Philippines, raising the region’s rate of growth in manufacturing production to 10 per cent, about three times as high as in.1967. A marked recovery was also registered in some countries—notably Argentina and Brazil. 145. The only shadows on this bright picture, in which no reference is made to the developing countries of low productivity in Africa and Latin America, are the constant disequilibrium in the reserve currency countries, the marked deterioration of balance in the European Economic Community and the relatively vulnerable external position of France, the United Kingdom and the United States. 146.”

    1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)

22. “105], the world economic and financial situation showed a distinct improvement during the year 16 June 1968 to 15 June 1969, indicating some progress over the previous year. The analysis of a number of indicators in the field of personal income, consumption and welfare and the extent to which, by means of investment and institutional adaptation, the productive capacity of the developing countries has improved were considered to be encouraging signs. 144. According to the same report [ibid., p. 106], industrial recovery in the Federal Republic of Germany and the continued rapid industrial growth in Japan helped to raise the rate of increase in world manufacturing (outside mainland China) to above 7.5 per cent, about 3.3 per cent higher than in the previous interval.”

    1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)

23. “We are almost at the end of the First United Nations Development Decade; the Preparatory Committee for the Second Development Decade has already drawn up the programme of work and calendar of meetings, in conformity with General Assembly resolution 2411 (XXIII), concerned essentially with defining the main elements of the international development strategy and with establishing an order of priority for the questions to be considered: the rate of growth, financial and economic assistance to developing countries, the world demographic situation and several other equally important points. 143. According to the annual report of the Secretary-General of the United Nations, His Excellency U Thant [see document A/7601, p.”

    1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)

24. “Emilio Arenales, a diplomat of rare quality, a brilliant orator with a diversity of talents, a man of uncommon courtesy, one of the most outstanding men of our Latin America, who presided with tact and authority over the work of the preceding session of the United Nations General Assembly and whom the merciless reaper took from his country and from us all in the fullness of his genius. 141. And to you, Madam President, I renew my wishes for a successful and fruitful leadership. 142.”

    1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)

25. “This is a happy symbol of the great brotherhood of man, of the advent, perhaps not far off, of an era in which all peoples, without distinction as to race or colour, will walk side by side towards the achievement of a better destiny, at one in the great civilization of the masses of the people, where general well-being will cease to be a vain delusion or a mere crumb of comfort for the underprivileged peoples of the third world. 140. Before concluding these words of congratulation, may I pay a heartfelt tribute to the memory of Mr.”

    1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)

26. “137. A little over a century and a half ago Haiti won its independence through the tears and blood of its sons, and almost a century and a half ago your ancestors, having left America in search of a new fatherland, founded the Republic of Liberia, where they succeeded in merging the newcomers and the tribes already there in a happy symbiosis. My country and yours were for a long time the rare regions of the world where the negro had the right to walk with his head held high. 138. Now you are presiding over the Assembly of the peoples of the world only a few years after another African, Alex Quaison-Sackey of Ghana, so presided. 139.”

    1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)

27. “134. Madam President, kindly accept, through me, the warmest congratulations of the Government of Dr. François Duvalier, President for Life of the Republic of Haiti, and of the brother people of Haiti on your unanimous election to the presidency of the General Assembly of the United Nations, one of the highest bodies in the world. 135. Liberia was one of the first countries of Black Africa to establish diplomatic relations with Haiti, through the exchange of ambassadors, and the visits to my country of your great President, Mr. William S. Tubman, and more recently of one of your Foreign Ministers and one of your Vice-Presidents, still live in the memory of our countrymen. 136. We welcome your election, Madam President, as that of a representative of a sister nation; but in our eyes and those of our brothers by race it is also symbolic.”

    1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)

28. “Along with all countries that desire to maintain peace, the indispensable condition for economic and social progress, it hopes that the great Powers will become fully aware of their historical responsibilities towards the civilized world, that they will practise international co-operation in a spirit of tolerance and good-neighbourliness, and that they will eschew the use of force and all means of pressure. 55. It also hopes that, in addition, our Organization may become an effective instrument for safeguarding peace and international security, even at the cost of amending its Charter, which is somewhat outdated by the demands of the atomic era, so that mankind’s adventurous climb towards the light may fully succeed.”

    1968-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 23 (1968)

29. “Haitian democracy, applied and practised on behalf of the people, for the people and by the people, who with weapons at the ready stand guard round their Chief of State and the achievements of his revolution, believes in the timeless values enshrined in the Charter signed at San Francisco. It believes in respect for the dignity of the human personality, and in the right of individuals and peoples to freedom. Though firmly attached to the concept of national sovereignty and independence both political and economic, it does not deny the fact of interdependence among States.”

    1968-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 23 (1968)

30. “They have the right to incite the people to revolution. They have the right to cover the Chief of State with calumny, and to assassinate a Haitian consul on foreign soil after leading him into a cowardly trap. 52. However, I think I have said enough on that depressing subject. The wisest course is to leave those gentlemen to their guilty consciences. May they rest in peace! 53. As I have done each year as Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Haiti, on behalf of His Excellency Dr. François Duvalier, Life President of Haiti — its eighth, according to our country’s firmly-established tradition — I am proud and happy to affirm the Haitian Government’s most complete adherence to the principles and noble purposes of the United Nations. 54.”

    1968-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 23 (1968)

31. “50. John David Knox, a British citizen convicted of conspiracy against Haitian State security who had calculated that his hotel was within machine-gun range of the residence of the Chief of State and his family — was he pardoned and delivered to his ambassador after being sentenced to death? According to the enemies of Haiti, that was proof of a wicked ruse devised by the country’s leaders; or maybe — who knows? — it was a violation of human rights. I could go on; but I will not. 51. As for them, however: they have the right to drop bombs on innocent peoples and make uncountable victims. They have the right to pillage crops. They have the right to slaughter poor and peaceful peasants. They have the right to execute defenceless prisoners. They have the right to gun down officials of the Haitian Government.”

    1968-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 23 (1968)

32. “Does an emergency arise in the north-west of our country, due to the drought from which all the Latin-American countries have been suffering and already brought under control by the Haitian Government with the help of international bodies? A press agency paid with traitor’s gold quickly publishes to the four corners of the earth the news that a famine worse than that in Biafra is ravaging Haiti, and that parents are being forced to sell their children for forty cents a piece. But who buys them? 49. Did the President for Life of the Republic commute the death sentences passed against the conspirators captured with their weapons on them during the piratical invasion of Haiti last May 20, having been cravenly abandoned to their fate? The foreign opposition immediately warned against a sham gesture of clemency by the Haitian Chief of State.”

    1968-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 23 (1968)

33. “As for the professional detractors of the Haitian Government — political exiles desiring, solely in order to satisfy their own sordid interests, to impugn the achievements of a revolution fought for the great working masses, virtual "Kings in exile" allied to faithless and lawless mercenaries and to confirmed racists like the unspeakable Graham Greene, who refuses to recognize the least virtue or merit in black or coloured peoples — we would gladly leave them to their poisonous evil-doing, to the ignoble battle they wage against a small people armed only with its boundless trust in its leader and in the justice of its cause, were we not compelled to denounce once and for all the lies and crimes that disgrace them for ever in the eyes of posterity. 48.”

    1968-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 23 (1968)

34. “How true it is that ‘the selfishness of the wealthy nations is more deadly than warfare’! We will struggle through. That must be an article of faith for every Haitian child, for every Haitian woman, for every Haitian man: we will struggle through. We will struggle through to the end in an atmosphere poisoned by selfishness, by prejudice, by the most indescribable and futile hatred, cruelty and violence. No! We do not need to copy anyone. No. Our doctrine, faith and action are in our nationalism.” 47.”

    1968-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 23 (1968)

35. “That will give us an opportunity to work more closely together towards the social and economic betterment of Haiti.” 46. Should our hopes, notwithstanding those promising beginnings, turn out futile because — as always — of political interference or any other unforeseen circumstance — well, President Duvalier has already summoned his people to the great adventure of collective effort and has said: “Because I know that in 1968 the principle of total sovereignty is not honoured as it should be, the illusion harboured by the pseudo-developed nations that only imitation can serve a developing nation is still present and active among us. Copy, copy everything: political, administrative and legal structures, methods of action; copy until you go mad. No, no!”

    1968-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 23 (1968)

36. “Galo Plaza: “The transformation of the environment, the improvement of the infrastructure, the raising of the standard of living and economic growth, which is a self-evident increment, are all phenomena that can be brought about through the two concurrent forces of national effort and foreign aid.” 45. The present Secretary-General of the Organization of American States — whom the American nations remember for his forceful intervention when the United States Congress proposed making a heavy cut in the amount of aid to be allocated to the under-developed countries — replied: “It is a striking coincidence that at the present time a technical assistance mission of the Organization of American States is being set up for Haiti, some of whose members are already at Port-au-Prince.”

    1968-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 23 (1968)

37. “(4) Eight armed invasions of its territory, true acts of indirect aggression fomented abroad by false propaganda, have made Haiti spend special funds on national defence. Furthermore, those invasions have always occurred during the coffee harvest or the tourist season, both of which they have hindered but which they will never wipe out. 44. The President for Life of the Republic has never denied the value of open and effective collaboration by the great international bodies at all levels in achieving the goals and meeting the priorities set forth in his plan of action for 1968-1969. On 16 July 1968 he wrote to Mr.”

    1968-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 23 (1968)

38. “(2) Of all the American countries — aside from a loan for eradicating malaria, one for supplying drinking-water, one from HACHO, a fourth for the construction of a small veterinary school, and lastly a loan of approximately 800,000 dollars to meet the expenses of a technical mission of thirty-one experts from the Organization of American States — the total being relatively modest — Haiti remains the country which in loans or gifts has received the least amount of assistance from the Alliance for Progress. (3) Haiti’s economy still feels, and will continue to feel for a long time, the devastating results of the three hurricanes Flora, Cleo and Inez, that struck it within less than two years, destroying livestock and crops and wrecking the hopes of our worthy farmers. Haiti stands in real need of assistance.”

    1968-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 23 (1968)

39. “Furthermore, we are experiencing a great cultural ferment, an interaction of civilizations without distinction of race or language; and, like our brothers in the United States of America and other countries in the hemisphere, we feel we have the right to proclaim that “We too are America”. 43. I am therefore perfectly happy to state the following facts: (1) My country is one of the poorest in the Western hemisphere, with a high population density and one of the lowest incomes per head in the world.”

    1968-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 23 (1968)

40. “Haiti’s independence was recognized first by France and then by the European Powers and by all the world. It has throughout a hundred and fifty years of history devoted itself to establishing friendly and cordial relations with all its sister Latin-American republics, and believes it has succeeded. Haiti has been a member of the Pan-American Union, and is justifiably proud of belonging to that Organization of American States whose new Secretary-General, Mr. Galo Plaza, an outstanding statesman and citizen of America, it has welcomed with the honours due to a Head of State.”

    1968-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 23 (1968)

41. “He wrote: “In my proclamation to the inhabitants of Venezuela, and in the decrees I must issue, I do not know how I can fully express my feelings towards Your Excellency, nor how I can hand down to posterity a fitting monument to your philanthropy”. 41. None the less, when the Congress of Panama, the first Pan-American congress, was held in 1826, Haiti was not invited. Was it through fear of irritating the European Powers? Was it — incredible though this may seem — through an oversight? No one really knows. The United States of America was allowed to send an observer to the Congress, but not my country. Such is the great lesson that history — I repeat, history — has taught my compatriots and my brothers in race. 42. Fortunately, however, both private and international attitudes have changed.”

    1968-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 23 (1968)

42. “As irrefutable proof there stands Savannah, Georgia, in the United States of America, where more than 600 Haitians — among them Henri Christophe, the future king of Haiti — paid with their blood the price of Haitian brotherhood in achieving the emancipation of the thirteen British colonies of America. Further eloquent proof is the grateful testimony of Simon Bolivar, the Immortal Liberator, to the second Chief of State of the world’s first Black republic, who had made him welcome in Haiti and who, after his early set-back, had encouraged, armed and supplied him for his great venture of freeing from the Spanish yoke the people now called “Bolivians”.”

    1968-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 23 (1968)

43. “Thus they acquired the habit of stifling the most legitimate aspirations of a country which, like its sister American republics, had experienced growing pains but was struggling — and is still struggling — to vanquish amidst indifference, misunderstanding and widespread hostility the age-old evils that beset the third world: poverty, ignorance and disease. 39. And yet, despite all those difficulties, my country’s history is one of the most arresting in all the Americas. Its untiring devotion to the cause of freedom has never been questioned; its desire to attain the heights where brotherhood and solidarity prosper has always impelled it to come to the aid of oppressed peoples. 40.”

    1968-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 23 (1968)

44. “The Republic of Haiti was the black sheep, the shunned plague carrier, the State whose first steps must not be assisted because its prosperity — or, I should say, its very relative progress — would have made it a dangerous cynosure for its racial brothers in America and everywhere else. 38. Thus it was that the yellow journalism of the great countries of the time acquired the habit — and generates terrible force — of depicting our manners and our customs, the smallest details of our national life, in a disgusting light, of ridiculing our folklore, of discrediting our most progressive Heads of State: Faustin Soulongue, Henri Christophe, Félicité Salomon Jeune, Dr. François Duvalier, to mention only a few.”

    1968-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 23 (1968)

45. “Think for a moment how our Republic, which emerged triumphant from its struggle for independence in 1804 after meeting and defeating the Spanish and English forces summoned to the rescue by the Great Whites, after driving into the sea the 25,000 soldiers of General Leclerc, Napoleon Bonapart’s own brother-in-law, recruited from the most seasoned battalions of the Italian campaign — think how our Republic was forced to develop over the next half century in the midst of the English, French and Spanish Antilles where slavery was rampant, and so near to the United States of America, where the great Abraham Lincoln did not free the Negroes until 1863, during the bloody Civil War. 37.”

    1968-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 23 (1968)

46. “The negro Republic of Haiti, the world’s first independent and sovereign negro State, an offshoot of the African stock thrust into the heart of the Caribbean Sea, lost amidst that Anglo-Saxon and Hispanic America from which it has none the less never withheld its expressions of sympathy and deep solidarity, even at the risk of its national existence; that country, proud of its ethnic origins but firmly attached to its French culture, represented for a long time a real challenge to the slave-owning Powers of the period. 36.”

    1968-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 23 (1968)

47. “Those future leaders will be increasingly convinced that the civilization of mankind is the product of contributions from all civilizations, large and small, and that, in the words spoken by the lamented Senator Robert Kennedy in addressing the students of the University of Cape Town, in South Africa, that bastion of human injustice: “Only earthbound man still clings to the dark and poisonous superstition that his world is bounded by the nearest hill, his universe ended at the river shore, his common humanity enclosed in the tight circle of those who share his town and views and the colour of his skin.” 35.”

    1968-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 23 (1968)

48. “I should be remiss if I did not mention the incalculable services rendered by the United Nations to Member States through its specialized agencies—such as UNESCO, FAO, WHO and the Special Fund — through the services of trained and devoted experts supplied simply for the asking to under-developed countries, by its great understanding of the special situations created by natural disasters and especially by the feeling of universality that it helps to create in its seminars and in its study courses for the young, which are a means of recruiting tomorrow’s leaders.”

    1968-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 23 (1968)

49. “Whatever the fate of the Secretary-General’s proposal, I ask his leave to congratulate him on it publicly, on behalf of all weak nations. Your voice, Mr. Secretary-General, speaks for the conscience of the world; it puts into words the profound aspirations to that “international security” without which a mad humanity would founder in the hatred and chaos that herald irreparable world catastrophes. May Your Excellency continue to make proposals, to plead for moderation, and to appeal for a just and lasting peace without fear of playing Cassandra and of being for ever the solitary voice crying in the wilderness! “Sound forth,” said the poet. “Sound forth, clarions of thought!” 34.”

    1968-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 23 (1968)

50. “That is the meaning I should willingly give to the repeated attempts made by U Thant, the tireless traveller in the cause of peace, whose statements, sometimes irritating to the States concerned, have nevertheless captured the attention of all peace-loving peoples. 32. That is how I should like to interpret his latest proposal aimed at bringing about during the present General Assembly session a meeting between the Ministers for Foreign Affairs of the four great Powers — the United States of America, the Soviet Union, France and the United Kingdom — that would pave the way to a summit meeting of Heads of State to examine the sources of tension and reverse the deterioration in East-West relations that has arisen because of the events in Czechoslovakia and of the no less disquieting Viet-Nam war [see A/7201/Add.1,para.169]. 33.”

    1968-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 23 (1968)