YouSaid · the spoken record

AMERASINGHE

lines on the record: 359
first: 1967-09-24
most recent: 1975-09-24
sittings or episodes: 8
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

“There can be no approach to a settlement unless the four major Powers, in the discharge of their primary responsibility as permanent members of the Security Council, make it clear to Israel that the Security Council resolution of 22 November 1967 alone contains all those elements that can bring about a lasting peace, and that it is not subject to any conditions such as direct negotiations, recognition and peace treaties which are not specified in it, but may well follow. 150.”
1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)
“The two essential features of that resolution are: first, that Israel must withdraw from all Arab territories in accordance with the principle that acquisition of territory by war is inadmissible; and secondly, that there must be a just settlement of the Palestine Arab refugee problem. 149. Despite the numerous United Nations resolutions reaffirming the right of the refugees to return to their homeland or to receive compensation — resolutions which have received overwhelming support — Israel, far from complying with them, has taken action to evict Arab residents from the occupied territories. As we see it, the Palestine refugee problem is at the heart of the Middle East question.”
1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)
“The fire at the Al-Aqsa Mosque was neither the direct nor the indirect consequence of Israeli measures, which the Security Council has refused to recognize, to change the status of Jerusalem. It was not the status of Jerusalem that was the point at issue but the ever present danger of a grave breach of the peace and of a renewal of war inherent in a situation that can only be described as the illegal usurpation of temporal power through war. 148. The cause of peace in the Middle East will not be served by drawing red herrings like the Security Council resolution of 15 September 1969 across the trail, but rather by a determined effort on the part of the United Nations, and especially the major Powers, to concentrate on the substance of Security Council resolution 242 (1967) of 22 November 1967, and to endeavour to translate it into action.”
1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)
“A distinction must be drawn between such acts of resistance and the furious and frenzied reprisals for which they serve as a mere excuse. 147. Events which in other circumstances should have no bearing on the Middle East dispute tend to increase its gravity and enhance the risk of war. I refer to the recent fire at the Al-Aqsa Mosque which formed the subject of discussion in the Security Council during September of this year and ended characteristically with a resolution that was remarkable more for the support it received than for its relevance to the issue or for its contribution to a settlement. The Security Council resolution of 15 September 1969 [271 (1969)] regrettably, in our opinion, skirted the real issue.”
1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)
“There are many States Members in this Assembly whose peoples have suffered the indignity of foreign occupation and have found in organized resistance the only hope of deliverance when no help can come from outside. Such resistance is a matter of right until the alien trespasser is evicted. Are these demonstrations of resistance, conducted under the vigilance of an occupying Power, in the shadow of overwhelming strength, and at the certain risk of draconian punishment amounting to total devastation of property and complete evacuation, to be treated as violations of the cease-fire and as a pretext for terrorizing the population of the occupied territories? Resistance of this nature by the population of an occupied territory is a natural and understandable reaction.”
1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)
“The use of occupied territory as a form of hostage in international negotiations is contrary to the spirit of the Charter. 146. Concern has quite properly been expressed here over attacks on airports and the hijacking of aircraft. These are not, however, the most serious features of this problem. We do not condone such attacks on innocent persons. They are to be deplored. But in scale, in consequences, and in the degree of force employed they are diminutive in comparison with the regular and systematic Israeli attacks on Arab territory and the trail of death and destruction that these attacks leave. The Israeli contention is that these reprisals are in retaliation for the actions of Arab resistance groups.”
1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)
“Tension in the area grows unabated, bringing the world time and again perilously close to the brink of war and disaster. The Secretary-General has in the clearest possible terms stated that the fighting in the Canal Zone constitutes virtually a state of active war. His own observation forces, unarmed and in the line of direct, fire, are exposed to intolerable dangers, but continue to face them with a heroism which goes unnoticed in a world where the only badge of honour is a weapon. 145. Israel’s failure to withdraw from the occupied territories not only implies a rejection of the proposition fundamental to the settlement contemplated in Security Council resolution 242 (1967) that acquisition of territory by war is inadmissible, but is an obstacle to the creation of the only conditions in which a just and lasting peace can be discussed.”
1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)
“We feel it to be incumbent upon the major Powers and indeed on all States to search for a bold and enlightened strategy for peace and for ways and means of establishing and implementing the principles of friendly relations and co-operation among States regardless of their ideological foundations: 143. The same problems continue to plague the world with varying prospects of mitigation or settlement — the conflict in the Middle East, the war in Viet-Nam, apartheid and colonialism. 144. More than two years have passed since the Middle East war of June 1967 and it is almost two years since the Security Council unanimously adopted its resolution 242 (1967) of 22 November 1967. That resolution was acclaimed almost universally as a carefully balanced one but there is still no definite prospect of its implementation.”
1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)
“Scientific research and tests continue to be conducted with the same hectic desire to establish an absolute superiority over others without any diminution of the quality or quantity of weapons of mass destruction. The arms race is only the outward manifestation of the mistrust and hostility that exist between nations. It is not by slowing down the arms race or by reducing the volume or destructive capacity of weapons that peace can be established and international security ensured but rather by the eradication of the factors that create mistrust and hostility. As the Foreign Minister of Italy very aptly observed this morning, war must not be considered solely as the result of lack of military equilibrium.”
1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)
“In what we hope is its death throes colonialism has assumed the evil visage of apartheid and racialism. Those regimes which pursue these policies must know that they cannot long prevail despite the comfort and the support they receive directly or indirectly, clandestinely or openly, from certain sources. 141. The First United Nations Development Decade was a great endeavour inaugurated in 1960 with almost evangelistic fervour but ending in the melancholy realization that those early hopes have been far from attained. 142. Disarmament, after years of discussion, has produced an unsatisfactory and inadequate test-ban Treaty and an equally unsatisfactory and no less inadequate Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons which has yet failed to secure the ratifications necessary to bring it into effect.”
1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)
“The restoration of the lawful rights of the people of China will repair an injustice and retrieve a folly of 20 years’ duration. It will also bring within reach of fulfilment any hope that remains of real progress in disarmament or in the elimination of the nuclear danger. Without the agreement and co-operation of the People’s Republic of China no progress in these fields can be achieved. It should be abundantly clear by now that the representatives of the People’s Republic of China can be seated in the United Nations only through the exclusion of the representatives of the Chiang Kai-shek regime. It is the United Nations that has imposed on itself this dangerous and unrewarding isolation from the people of China. 140. The policy of decolonization has been pursued with a measure of success but the task is far from complete.”
1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)
“Along with the review of the Charter, some of the procedures of the Organization call for fresh examination. One example that comes to mind is the established procedure of ending every discussion with a resolution. Its futility is most apparent in the Security Council where the provisions of a resolution at the very moment of its adoption are given contradictory interpretations which completely vitiate it and render it nugatory. This admittedly is 2 symptom of a general malaise afflicting international relations. 139. We hope that the twenty-fifth anniversary of the United Nations will also see the attainment of real universality in its membership with the seating of representatives of the People’s Republic of China in the United Nations as the only legitimate representatives of that country and its people.”
1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)
“All we are aware of is that there is growing disillusionment among us regarding the good intentions expressed in article VI of the non-proliferation Treaty and in the earlier agreements. This disillusionment is sharpened by the realization that tests are being conducted for the perfection of even more elaborate and fiendishly destructive nuclear weapons and devices and that the partial test-ban Treaty has been quite ineffective in stopping the development of offensive nuclear capacity. The international community can be excused if it has doubts regarding the value of the assurances repeated by the nuclear Powers of a cessation of the nuclear arms race. One nuclear Power alone — the United Kingdom — deserves credit for having ratified the non-proliferation Treaty with commendable promptitude. 138.”
1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)
“The best examples are the General Assembly resolution [1762 (XVII)] of 1962 condemning all nuclear-weapon tests, the August 1963 partial test-ban Treaty with its firm promise to seek the end of underground tests and finally the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons of 1968 which was pressed on the membership of the United Nations with astonishing vigour and speed mainly on the assurance contained in its article VI. The world still awaits some sign of the effective measures relating to the cessation of the nuclear arms race and to nuclear disarmament which were promised in that article. We cannot be content with declarations by the two opposing sides that they are ready for these negotiations.”
1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)
“This, in our opinion, is not the most serious defect in the Organization nor should only one section of the membership be thus singled out for censure. Realism does not mean patient resignation in the sight of intolerable injustice. Emotion is a poor description of the human reaction to the repeated frustration of all efforts at curing such injustice. 136. The real damage to the prestige and dignity of the Organization comes from the practice of adopting declarations, resolutions and even treaties with all due solemnity and of immediately thereafter pursuing policies which are in flat contradiction of the provisions of such instruments. 137.”
1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)
“If we are to hold out to future generations even the remotest hope of realizing the purposes for which the United Nations was brought into being, we have to find the means by which nations and their peoples can free themselves from the shackles of avarice, mistrust and arrogance. 134. The twenty-fifth anniversary of the founding of the United Nations is also a most suitable occasion for a review of the Charter and the procedures of the United Nations. We have had enough time and have acquired enough experience to judge ourselves. 135. It has been stated here on the highest authority that a section of the membership is too prone to the belief that the mere passage of resolutions, actuated more by emotion than by a sense of realism, is futile and serves only to imperil the prestige of the Organization.”
1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)
“There is a need for a renewal of faith in the principles and purposes of the Organization and for an honest pledge to make a greater effort to develop the United Nations into the living force for peace and international security that it was meant to be. Any other form of celebration would only make more obvious our reluctance to face hard facts — a habit that seems to have become deeply ingrained in the Organization as a whole. 133. It is easy enough to indulge in platitudinous assessments that the Organization has not failed using the argument that its continued existence refutes that charge, but survival is not a sign of success just as much as lack of complete success need not necessarily mean total failure.”
1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)
“To us at the United Nations the most important incident in the historical process was the establishment of our Organization, the twenty-fifth anniversary of which falls next year. This is the most appropriate time, therefore, to survey contemporary history, to reflect on the experiences of the past, to examine our own and the United Nations’ achievements and shortcomings and to seek the means of redeeming our lost opportunities. Elaborate preparations are being made to celebrate — not in the festive sense, we hope — the twenty-fifth anniversary of the establishment of the United Nations. Apart from the visible and symbolic displays that are customary on such occasions, there is another form of commemoration, devoid of pageantry and panache, which the Members of the Organization should consider.”
1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)
“Those last three anniversaries should serve as a reminder and a warning of the imperious challenge that the three most pressing problems of our times — international peace and security, the emancipation of subject peoples, and the economic advancement of developing countries — present to the United Nations. 131. We celebrate at the same time yet another anniversary, surpassing the rest in its relevance to the objectives and purposes of the United Nations and the problems it has yet to solve. I refer to the centenary of the birth of Mohandas Gandhi, who, by precept and example, demonstrated to the world the efficacy of satyagraha as a weapon against oppression, discrimination and injustice, and whose life and teachings have left an indelible imprint on the memory and conscience of man. 132.”
1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)
“It is 5O years since the doctrine of self-determination for subject peoples was enunciated, and which, while first finding expression in the redrawing of the boundaries of Europe and in the birth of many new nations, provided the inspiration and impetus for by far the greatest adventure of our times: the liquidation of colonial rule. 129. Twenty-five years have passed since the establishment of the United Nations. It is nearly 10 years since the General Assembly adopted its historic Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples in resolution 1514 (XV) of 14 December 1960. We are also reaching the end of the First United Nations Development Decade and preparing for the inauguration of the Second. 130.”
1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)
“We are indebted once again to the Secretary-General, His Excellency U Thant, for a penetrating and candid analysis of the international situation contained in the introduction to his annual report on the work of the organization [A/7601/Add.1]. The lonely eminence of the thirty-eighth floor provides, in a spiritual and moral sense, a view of the world that is denied to others too deeply involved in its conflicts and aberrations. The Organization can only at great peril submit the Secretary-General to the fate of Cassandra. My delegation would like to pay tribute to him for the patience, zeal and unfaltering faith with which he continues to serve this Organization and the highest of all causes: peace and progress. 128. We meet at a time when several important anniversaries coincide.”
1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)
“It was with a profound feeling of sadness that we of the Ceylon delegation heard the news of the death of His Excellency Dr. Emilio Arenales, the able and talented Minister for Foreign Affairs of Guatemala, who presided over this Assembly last year. Despite a grave illness which he bore with admirable fortitude and composure, he did not flinch from his responsibilities but carried his task through to its appointed end. His death a few months after the close of the twenty-third session brought to an untimely end a career already marked by brilliant achievement and full of ample promise. To the delegation of Guatemala we extend our condolences in the loss that their country has suffered. 127.”
1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)
“In doing so, the United Nations has done honour to her country and to the entire African people, whose problems and trials, whose hopes, yearnings, aspirations and strivings figure so prominently in our deliberations within the United Nations family, and which are so close to the hearts and minds of all those who believe that all men are born equal and are equally entitled to freedom and the right to determine their own destiny. On behalf of the Government and delegation of Ceylon, and on my own behalf, I offer the Honourable Angie Brooks our cordial congratulations on her election as. President of the General Assembly, and at the same time should like to assure her of our unstinting co-operation in the discharge of the arduous functions that she has assumed. 126.”
1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)
“125. The delegation of Ceylon is taking this opportunity of adding its own tribute to the many that have already, in the course of the general debate, been paid to the Honourable Angie Brooks on her election as President of the twenty-fourth session of the General Assembly. Although the cloistered woman has long been almost a social symbol of Asia and Africa, it is those two continents that have given the General Assembly of the United Nations its only two women Presidents. Like the illustrious daughter of India, Srimati Vijaya Laxmi Pandit, who preceded her in the enjoyment of this distinction, the Honourable Angie Brooks has to her credit a record of service to her country and to the international community which makes her a most worthy recipient of the honour that this Assembly has conferred on her.”
1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)
“The brilliant achievements of the Soviet Union and the United States with Zond 5 and Apollo 7 have thrilled the world. But this should not be the pinnacle of man’s endeavours. If he is to escape a Promethean fate he must now turn from the laboratories of science to the laboratory of human relations and concentrate on a far more important discovery, the discovery of the moral formula that will transform the vision of international brotherhood into a reality.”
1968-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 23 (1968)
“Our overriding obligation is to such principles and the discharge of that obligation demands the immediate restoration of its lawful rights to the People’s Republic of China. 116. We hope that those who claim to be genuinely interested in securing the membership of the People’s Republic of China in the United Nations will not be so indifferent to their avowed wish as to insist that the question of the restoration of the lawful rights of the People’s Republic of China be treated as an important one. If it is important, we should find every means of ensuring it rather than support the surest way of preventing it. 117. May I say, in conclusion, that man’s Olympian genius has brought him within an ace of reaching regions of the universe to which only his proud imagination had previously aspired.”
1968-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 23 (1968)
“The Government of the People’s Republic of China alone is the legal representative of the people of China whom it has governed for nineteen years. It is the restoration of the lawful rights of the people of China that calls for the admission of the People’s Republic of China to membership as the sole representative of the people of China. 115. We have also heard it said that, in the admission of the People’s Republic of China, the practical problem arising out of the position of the Chiang Kai-shek régime in Formosa has to be considered. An organization founded on principles of justice and international law owes its first duty to the observation and enforcement of those principles. Practical problems cannot be accommodated at the expense of such principles.”
1968-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 23 (1968)
“All efforts at international co-operation, especially on questions of such moment as non-proliferation and disarmament, can have only a limited effectiveness without the participation of the People’s Republic of China in the work of this Organization. We have heard it said that the present occupant of China’s seat in the United Nations has an unchallengeable right to remain in the Organization as a founder Member of the United Nations. This argument totally ignores the elementary principle that the Members of this Organization are the peoples of the world. It ignores the fact that the Government that represented the people of China at the time of the founding of the United Nations was replaced by the Government of the People’s Republic of China.”
1968-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 23 (1968)
“We hope that the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development will intensify its efforts to secure a satisfactory solution of the problems facing primary commodity trade as a matter of the highest priority and, through the co-operation of developed countries, secure approval of policies on questions of pricing of commodities, access to markets in developed countries, liberalization of trade and genuine transfer of capital resources from the developed to the developing world, so as to enable the developing countries to emerge from their present state of stagnation and stimulate in them the process of steady growth and expansion. 114.”
1968-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 23 (1968)
“The figure does not reveal the full effect of the terms of trade as it does not take into account the increase in prices of our imports during the same period. Such foreign aid as we have received during the same period has offered only very limited compensation for this trade loss. 113. These factors do not lie within the control of the developing countries, but they are the principal cause of the stagnation that is so noticeable a feature of the economies of developing countries.”
1968-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 23 (1968)
“If we were to deduct from this official aid the debt servicing charges as representing an outward flow of resources, it would be found that foreign aid has produced a negligible net flow of resources from the developed market economies to the developing countries. 112. Ceylon has suffered a severe drain of her resources through the sustained decline in her terms of trade since 1958 which was not by any means the best year for her three principal export commodities, tea, rubber and coconut products. The fail in the export prices of these three commodities from the level of prices obtaining in 1958 has entailed for Ceylon a loss of approximately $US281 million in foreign exchange earnings during the ten years since 1958. This is a transfer of resources from Ceylon to her trading partners, chiefly the developed market economies.”
1968-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 23 (1968)
“The resulting steady decline in their terms of trade has caused a huge flow of resources from the developing to the developed countries, which has correspondingly diminished the benefits of aid to these countries from the developed market economies and multilateral agencies. 111. During the five-year period 1961-1966, developing nations have, as a result of unfavourable trends in the terms of trade, lost in foreign exchange earnings a sum equivalent to approximately $US13,000 million. This figure represents almost 40 per cent of the aggregate official aid that these countries received from the developed market economies and multilateral agencies during the same period.”
1968-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 23 (1968)
“If petroleum, which is a special commodity affecting a comparatively small number of developing countries, were to be excluded from our calculations, we find that primary agricultural and mineral products account for 55 per cent of the export earnings of developing countries. The chronic instability of these products, the seemingly irreversible downward trend in their export prices, the competition of synthetic equivalents or substitutes, no less than the protectionist policies cf developed countries, are proving to be insuperable obstacles to the economic growth of developing countries. 110. The foreign reserves of developing countries, on which they have to rely chiefly for financing their development programmes, have been subject to the two-fold mischief of falling export prices and rising import prices.”
1968-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 23 (1968)
“We are forced to revert to a tone of disappointment when we examine the results of last year’s efforts in regard to questions of trade and economic development. Much was expected of the second session of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development when it met in New Delhi earlier this year, but little was achieved. The Development Decade, with two years more to run, holds out little prospect of that 5 per cent growth rate for developing nations which was its declared aim. For developing countries the stress has to be on primary commodity trade, on preferences for their manufactured and semi-manufactured goods, for increased liquidity and for a greater volume of external finance on more liberal terms. Primary agricultural and mineral commodities constitute 85 per cent of the total exports of developing countries.”
1968-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 23 (1968)
“These two sets of principles constitute a most constructive and valuable contribution on this subject and could provide the foundation for an agreement in regard to the principles that should ultimately be applied to the regulation of all activities in this area and the exploitation of its resources for the benefit of mankind. 108. The developing nations look with hope and expectation to the developed and technologically advanced nations without whose co-operation no progress in regard to this item and towards the fulfilment of the aspirations of the developing nations can be achieved: We hope that, during this session, the General Assembly will take decisions that will carry us forward to the attainment of the objectives and purposes of the resolution of the General Assembly that initiated the examination and study of this question. 109.”
1968-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 23 (1968)
“These are referred to in paragraph 88 of the Ad Hoc Committee’s report. The first, the draft declaration of general principles, was the result of the joint efforts of the Latin American and Afro-Asian groups in the Ad Hoc Committee. The other set of principles, the draft statement of agreed principles, was the product of the efforts of the North American, West European, Far Eastern and Pacific groups of nations in the Committee. Almost all the Afro-Asian members of the Ad Hoc Committee were also in agreement with this draft statement.”
1968-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 23 (1968)
“We must be careful to avoid a race to grab and to hold the lands under the high seas. We must ensure that the deep seas and the ocean bottoms are, and remain, the legacy of all human beings.” 106. That pronouncement is a message of hope. If the principle enunciated there were accepted as an article of faith and of policy by all nations, it could mark the beginning of a new era in international co-operation and could set the United Nations on a course that would lead it to one of its most magnificent achievements. 107. The Ad Hoc Committee was successful in securing a wide measure of agreement on two sets of proposals: one, a draft declaration of general principles proposed for submission to the General Assembly, and the other, a draft statement of agreed principles also proposed for submission to the General Assembly.”
1968-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 23 (1968)
“We recognize the need for maintaining intact the traditional freedoms of the high seas under international law, subject only to such modifications as are indispensable to the profitable exploitation, in the interests of all nations, of the resources of the sea, to the requirements of national security and to the preservation of international peace and harmony. 105. On 13 July 1966, the President of the United States, speaking at the Washington Navy Yard, gave eloquent expression to the principles that should govern our endeavours and shape our decisions in regard to this problem when he stated: “Under no circumstances, we believe, must we ever allow the prospects of rich harvest and mineral wealth to create a new form of colonial competition among the maritime nations.”
1968-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 23 (1968)
“The existing law defining the limits of present national jurisdiction over the sea-bed and the ocean floor and the sub-soil thereof underlying the high seas is too vague and indefinite. If the limits of the area are not known, any principles that are determined and agreed upon will lose much of their relevance and value. 104. My delegation hopes that action can be taken by the international community to examine the question of the definition of the limits of the area and to reach agreement upon it without delay. Any such definition must take into account the peculiar problems of certain countries in regard to the continental shelf bordering their land mass.”
1968-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 23 (1968)
“Foremost in the minds and hopes of the members of the Committee were the exclusion of the area from military use and its reservation for peaceful purposes and the avoidance of international competition, for purely selfish national interests and advantage, in the development and exploitation of the inexhaustible mineral resources of the area. 103. Important as the definition of a set of principles would be for the regulation of all activities in regard to this area, so far as the economic exploitation of its resources is concerned, and also in the prevention of the use of the area for military purposes, the clear delimitation of the limits of the area in contemplation is an essential prerequisite for further progress with this item.”
1968-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 23 (1968)
“In yet another element, the United Nations has an opportunity for co-operation without conflict, an opportunity for united and common development and exploitation of the fabulous resources of this area for the benefit and enrichment of all. 102. In its final session, which, through the generosity of the Government of Brazil, was held in Rio de Janeiro, the Ad Hoc Committee concluded its deliberations and approved the report [A/7230] that will, during this session, come before the First Committee and the General Assembly. The Committee’s task was to study the question and to indicate practical means of implementing international co-operation in the exploration, conservation and use of the ocean floor and its sub-soil.”
1968-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 23 (1968)
“The other achievement of the last year which may be cited with satisfaction, although it marks only a beginning, was the appointment of the Ad Hoc Committee to Study the Peaceful Uses of the Sea-Bed and the Ocean Floor beyond the Limits of National Jurisdiction, and the use of their resources in the interests of mankind. It was my privilege to serve as Chairman of that Ad Hoc Committee and I take this opportunity, the first I have had before the full membership of the United Nations, to acknowledge my deep personal appreciation of the substantial contribution that the members of the Committee made on a matter that is of the utmost importance to the future of us all.”
1968-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 23 (1968)
“International conferences devoted to this purpose are more likely to produce results than the discussion of disarmament in an atmosphere of ill-concealed animosity, antagonism and bitter rivalry between power blocs or nations. What we need more than the procedure for settlement of disputes is the creation of that spirit of fraternity between nations which would prevent the occurrence of disputes, the spirit which may best be described in Walt Whitman’s words as “that fervent element of manly friendship that is more binding than law or treaties”. 101.”
1968-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 23 (1968)
“If the only priority were to be the final goal itself, which is general and complete disarmament, we would have to resign ourselves to protracted discussion without any practical results. 100. Disarmament has uniformly been treated as a physical and material problem, as one of reducing armaments to the very minimum consistent with essentially peaceful interests and policies. This treatment of the problem is based on the fallacy that war can be prevented by the reduction of armaments. It disregards altogether the immediate causes of war and the tensions that find their climax in war. These are the cupidity of nations, mutual mistrust and fear, and above all injustice. Eliminate them or reduce them and you eliminate war or reduce the risk of it.”
1968-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 23 (1968)
“We have more than once urged that the non-proliferation Treaty should be followed immediately by the following stages of action: a categorical undertaking by the nuclear Powers not to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear States; the conclusion of a comprehensive test-ban treaty; the cessation of the manufacture of nuclear weapons and the freezing of stockpiles of nuclear weapons; and finally, the gradual dismantling of the apparatus of nuclear terror. 99. The contention that the dismantling of the nuclear arsenal cannot be undertaken independently of the establishment of a proper balance in conventional weapons strength is inconsistent with the argument that disarmament has necessarily to be a slow process executed in stages and in accordance with a proper order of priorities.”
1968-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 23 (1968)
“The stationing by a nuclear-weapon State of nuclear weapons on the territory of a non-nuclear-weapon State, whether or not it has renounced the right to manufacture or possess nuclear weapons or is denied control over them, is itself a negation of the main principle underlying the non-proliferation Treaty. 98. The overwhelming concern of the entire world is to prevent a nuclear war and the accompanying threat of total annihilation. If the nuclear-weapon States are genuinely anxious to prevent a nuclear war, it is within their power alone to do so by renouncing the use or the threat of use of nuclear weapons against non-nuclear-weapon States. That they have as yet shown no willingness to do so accentuates the fears as well as the doubts of the non-nuclear-weapon States.”
1968-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 23 (1968)
“We regret that the Conference of Non-Nuclear-Weapon States failed to take into account one aspect of proliferation which could be no less dangerous than those forms of it which the Treaty seeks to eliminate, and that is the stationing of nuclear weapons on the territories of States which themselves do not possess, manufacture or control the use of such weapons and renounce the right to do so. The 1964 Cairo declaration of non-aligned countries entitled "Programme for Peace and International Co-operation” and operative paragraph 4 of General Assembly resolution 2153 (XXI) explicitly or by implication seek to prevent or discourage this form of proliferation.”
1968-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 23 (1968)
“One of the main purposes of the Conference of Non-Nuclear-Weapon States, which was held in Geneva in September of this year, was to contribute towards arrangements for ensuring the security of non-nuclear weapon States in return for their renunciation of the right to manufacture and possess nuclear weapons. The non-proliferation Treaty seeks to arrest the spread of nuclear weapons lest the risk of nuclear war be increased by their indiscriminate distribution and deployment.”
1968-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 23 (1968)
“It is fitting that we associate with these felicitations the Government of Spain for its honourable and progressive liquidation of a long imperial heritage. 96. The international scene, though presenting a dismal outlook, is not one of unrelieved gloom. There are a few achievements to the credit of the United Nations which are heartening and show that the hope of international co-operation on important issues is not altogether lost. Chief among these achievements was the approval of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons [see resolution 2373 (XXII)] by a convincing majority during the resumed twenty-second session, although the support that the draft treaty received was qualified in many cases by significant reservations. 97.”
1968-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 23 (1968)
“We hope that the United Kingdom, as the administering Power in Southern Rhodesia, and the other major Powers within whose physical capacity alone it lies to weaken the will of those who are intent on driving Africa to a melancholy fate, will, before it is too late, wake up to their responsibility. 94. The emancipation of subject peoples goes forward and we are happy to welcome to the Assembly the newest Member of this Organization, the Kingdom of Swaziland. We wish the Government of Swaziland success in its task of employing the dignity of freedom to bring the blessings of prosperity and progress to their people. 95. We should also like to extend our cordial felicitations and sincere good wishes to the latest beneficiary of the policy and process of decolonization, Equatorial Guinea.”
1968-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 23 (1968)