YouSaid · the spoken record

ROMULO

lines on the record: 501
first: 1957-09-24
most recent: 1994-09-24
sittings or episodes: 17
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

“I am most pleased to convey to Ambassador Insanally my congratulations and those of my delegation on his election as President of General Assembly at this session. At the same time, I wish to express our sincere appreciation to Mr. Stoyan Ganev of Bulgaria for guiding with skill and dedication the work of the Assembly at its previous session. Let me pay a tribute to our Secretary-General, Mr. Boutros Boutros-Ghali, for the vision and the energy he has devoted to the leadership of our Organization at a difficult but exhilarating moment in history. Allow me to express at this point the deep sympathies of my delegation for the people of India in connection with the tragedy visited upon them by the earthquake that devastated parts of the state of Maharashtra.”
1993-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 48 (1993)
“Through it, we hope to contribute to the noble work of making the United Nations a truly effective instrument, as the signatories envisioned it to be, for saving "succeeding generations from the scourge of war" and for promoting "social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom". The confluence of historic events in our time presents us with a unique opportunity to fulfil the mandate from our founders. Let us prove ourselves worthy of their trust.”
1992-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 47 (1992)
“Towards this end, the Philippine delegation submits that the time has come for the United Nations to avail itself of the provisions of Article 109 regarding the convening of a General Conference to review the Charter. My delegation will consult with like-minded Members in the coming year with a view to definitively addressing this proposal, specifically through a resolution calling for such a review conference, which, according to the Charter itself, should have been placed on the agenda of the General Assembly 10 years after its adoption in 1945. We are only three years shy of the fiftieth anniversary of our Organization. Its celebration, we believe, would be further enhanced by the adoption and implementation of such a resolution.”
1992-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 47 (1992)
“While the prescience of the founders was remarkable, and they succeeded in designing a flexible and adaptable Organization with a Charter of enduring worth, at the same time it was wholly impossible for them to anticipate the speed with which events would carry us into the interdependent global age and the requirements that would be placed on our world body." General Romulo, who happened to be my father and one of the founders of the United Nations, made these remarks in 1974. He might as well be making them today. I do not wish to state the obvious, but I know that my father's message rings loud and clear in this Hall. Let us now proceed to rectify the omissions of the past.”
1992-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 47 (1992)
“"When we began this discussion in 1970, on the twenty-fifth anniversary of our world Organization, the effort seemed pertinent enough. But now, as we continue, the accelerating pace of change in the world has already caught up with us and threatens to pass us by. The mechanisms of the United Nations are increasingly creaky and primitive in light of the task of plenary management that the Organization is increasingly called upon to assume.”
1992-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 47 (1992)
“The design of a new world economic order, the mobilizing of world agriculture, a global approach to population problems, the equitable redistribution of world economic resources, the achievement of disarmament and peace all require an ever more effective and more efficient world Organization. "For these reasons, it is more than ever appropriate that we are continuing our consideration of the improvement of the United Nations itself. The centrality of the United Nations is obvious and inescapable. The increasing value of the United Nations is undoubted. But its rate of adaptation to rapidly moving world affairs is doubted; its adequacy to perform the functions thrust upon it by its Members, and simply by the urgent course of world history, is doubted.”
1992-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 47 (1992)
“Addressing the work of the Special Committee on the Charter and the Strengthening of the Role of the Organization during the twenty-ninth session of the General Assembly, the then Philippine Foreign Minister, General Carlos P. Romulo, said: "At no time in history has it been more clear that the many and closely interrelated global problems that beset us will not yield to piecemeal and national solutions. The paramount importance of the United Nations as the capstone of human society has been reaffirmed with great force by the momentous events even of this single year.”
1992-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 47 (1992)
“Why, for example, should a region with approximately 15 per cent of the world's population and 23 per cent of the total membership of the United Nations have 40 per cent representation in the Security Council this year, with three having the power of veto? Clearly, that is a legitimate question. However, the composition of the Security Council is but one of the provisions in the Charter that could stand improvement. My delegation appreciates current efforts to restructure and revitalize the economic and social sectors of the United Nations and to reform both the General Assembly and the Secretariat. We note, however, that such efforts are often limited by a hesitation to review the United Nations Charter itself.”
1992-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 47 (1992)
“We commend for especially close consideration the Secretary-General's bold proposals for giving life to Chapter Vll of the Charter, particularly Article 42, which authorizes the Security Council to take military action to maintain or restore international peace and security, and Article 43, which mandates Members of the United Nations to place armed forces and facilities on call for this purpose. Granting the United Nations increased power and greater authority for peace-keeping and enforcement action would gain stronger support from the international community if the Security Council could function with a greater degree of democracy than heretofore.”
1992-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 47 (1992)
“We commend it to the world for serious consideration, for it seeks to bring the United Nations back to its roots as an organization with an effective capacity to make peace and keep the peace. The report is filled with wise, timely and practical prescriptions, and I should like to single out a few. We support the Secretary-General's call for an enlarged and more effective role for the International Court of Justice. We join the Secretary-General in reaffirming the Manila Declaration on the Peaceful Settlement of International Disputes, as approved by the General Assembly. We endorse his recognition of the need to relieve the economic difficulties of States that are affected by sanctions imposed on another State under Article 41 of the Charter.”
1992-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 47 (1992)
“These hopes are focused especially on the new possibilities for the United Nations in its mission of preventing war, making peace, keeping the peace and building for peace. In this new era of opportunity it is both possible and imperative for the United Nations to discharge the role envisioned for it by the Charter as the primary keeper of peace and security in the world. It is therefore extremely fitting that in his first report on the work of the Organization our new Secretary-General dwells almost exclusively on this role of the United Nations and the opportunities opened for it by the historic changes of recent times. The Philippines welcomes the Secretary-General's report, "An Agenda for Peace Preventive diplomacy, peacemaking and peace-keeping," and is studying it with great attention.”
1992-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 47 (1992)
“It is our hope that these dialogues will help to avert misunderstanding and conflict and eventually lead to the day when this vast, vital and strategic portion of the sea can be transformed from an area of incipient tension into a region of enduring peace and cooperation. All these fall squarely under the purposes and principles of the Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation in South-East Asia, which the signatories, including the Philippines, are requesting the General Assembly to endorse at this session. Thus, even as the world welcomes the cold war's end and the march of freedom and democracy across the earth, in the relations among nations old wounds fester, break out and recur and new ones are opened. And yet hopes run higher than they have ever done since the last great war.”
1992-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 47 (1992)
“It is now the responsibility of the international community to ensure that the fabric of imminent peace does not unravel and to place the peace process back on track. Conflicting claims in the South China Sea have given rise to acute concern among the countries involved and other States with interests in the area. Last July the Foreign Ministers of ASEAN issued in Manila the ASEAN Declaration on the South China Sea, calling on all claimants to settle their disputes peacefully, pledging to embark on cooperative endeavours in the area and inviting all parties concerned to subscribe to the Declaration. Dialogues have been taking place in the region involving officials and academicians from the claimant States and other interested parties.”
1992-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 47 (1992)
“In our own region of South-East Asia, in Cambodia, a peace agreement painstakingly worked out by the United Nations, the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN), other interested Governments and the Cambodian factions themselves has provided for and led to the mounting of the largest peace-keeping operation of the United Nations and the assumption of one of its gravest responsibilities, the United Nations Transitional Authority for Cambodia, to which the Philippines has contributed a contingent of policemen and naval observers. However, one of the factions has, of late, chosen not to participate further in the peace process until its conditions, some of which go beyond the terms of the Paris peace Agreement, are met.”
1992-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 47 (1992)
“The people of Bosnia and Herzegovina, specifically its Muslim population, are subjected to the barbarity of ethnic cleansing and the horrors of fratricidal war while the international community helplessly looks on. Similar forms, if not similar degrees, of ethnic violence have erupted in some places in the former Soviet Union.”
1992-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 47 (1992)
“However, hope must be tempered still, as the basic cause of conflict the denial of a homeland and sovereignty to the Palestinian people remains unresolved. In South Africa, the institutions of apartheid have been dismantled, a hopeful development that can be attributed in no small measure to the resolute and patient efforts of the United Nations and the international community. We are heartened that the stalled negotiations on the future of that country may finally get back on track with the expected resumption of the Convention for a Democratic South Africa. In Somalia, intertribal warfare conspires with the cruelties of nature to inflict upon the people of that unhappy land death by violence or starvation.”
1992-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 47 (1992)
“It has thus opened new vistas of hope for peace and global security, directly leading to major advances in some of the world's hitherto intractable conflicts: Afghanistan, Cambodia, the Middle East, Central America, South Africa. Nevertheless, intra-regional and intra-national conflicts continue to ravage people's lives and homes. The end of super-Power confrontation and the dissolution of empires and blocs have freed nations and dismantled tyrannies. They have also unleashed age-old hostilities between antagonistic groups and released them to erupt in tragic violence. These conflicts, new and old, have taken various forms and dimensions. In the Middle East, movement in the peace process has given rise to new, albeit modest, hopes.”
1992-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 47 (1992)
“I am also pleased to announce that, in observance of the International Year for the World's Indigenous People, the Philippines will host in April next year a Global Youth Earth Summit or Global YES in cooperation with the United Nations Environment Programme's Global Youth Forum and with the full endorsement and support of the United Nations Development Programme, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, and the International Labour Organisation. I appeal to the world to support this undertaking. The cold war's end has lifted a great pall of global threat from over the Earth and closed a fundamental division in the international community.”
1992-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 47 (1992)
“At that Conference, the collective will of the international community was marshalled at the highest level of leadership on behalf of the sustainable development of our Earth and its resources. The Philippines applauds its considerable achievements and remains committed to its goals and ideals, as embodied in Agenda 21, the implementation of which requires adequate new and additional financial resources. To carry out on a national scale the objectives set forth in Agenda 21, my President has created the Philippine Council for Sustainable Development, which counts non-governmental organizations and, particularly, the youth among its members.”
1992-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 47 (1992)
“Roaming the streets of the world are 145 million children homeless, hungry, neglected, in most cases victims of abuse and mistreatment by adults. Thousands of the disabled and the aging, particularly in the developing countries, are cast away, stripped of their dignity, from the mainstream of society. The untrammelled population growth in many regions, the profligate use of the Earth's resources and the pollution of the land, water and air have severely damaged the Earth's life-sustaining ecology in many places, threatening the livelihoods of farmers and fishermen and the health of everyone. It was therefore with a keen sense of hope and high expectations that the Philippines participated in the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro last June.”
1992-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 47 (1992)
“As one of the largest sources of this migration, the Philippines is convinced that it is now time for the international community to deal with this phenomenon no longer in haphazard and isolated ways, but on a planned and strategic basis and on an international scale. In so doing, we would do well to heed the appeal of the Secretary-General to accord deeper understanding and respect to the rights and needs of the more vulnerable groups of society. A substantial part of the migration of labour is the thousands of young women from many developing countries who venture forth to more affluent countries in search of a better life for themselves and their families, only to fall victim to unspeakable abuse, in many cases to violence, sometimes ending in death, simply because they are women.”
1992-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 47 (1992)
“And the United Nations has a paramount role in seeing to it that it is realized. The ongoing restructuring and revitalization process in the economic and social fields should therefore be geared towards the effective discharge of this role by the United Nations system. The continuing scourge of poverty, the rapid increase in population, the uneven rate of economic growth among countries and the asymmetry in the economic and social structures of nations, together with the dazzling advances in transportation and communication, have given rise to a new phenomenon of our times: the massive migration of labour.”
1992-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 47 (1992)
“The world's peoples call upon the international community, in particular upon the developed countries, to lay aside narrow self-interest and push forward the Uruguay Round of multilateral trade negotiations to a speedy and successful conclusion. The formation of trading blocs in some areas has aroused the apprehension of countries outside those blocs with respect to their potential for artificially diverting trade and investment, diversions damaging to the efficiency of the global economic system. We in the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) have committed ourselves to the formation of an ASEAN free trade area that would facilitate trade among ourselves. But we are determined to keep ourselves open to world trade, on which our economies depend so much. Each country has an inalienable right to development.”
1992-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 47 (1992)
“At the very least, the debtor countries should be given access to their actual and potential markets without any artificial restrictions, to allow them to develop their economies and improve the lives of their peoples while they continue to service their debts from meagre resources. More and more of the world's nations have adhered ever more strongly to the proposition that economic liberalization is vital to the improvement of industrial productivity and the generation of economic growth. And yet, most ironically, protectionist barriers continue to rise and to hamper the flow of goods and services.”
1992-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 47 (1992)
“The end of the cold war may have greatly diminished the likelihood of worldwide conflict and global cataclysm, but it has given rise to new challenges that are just as threatening for the peoples of many nations and regions, even as many of the old issues remain unresolved. The weight of their external debt continues to crush the economies of many developing countries, including those countries, like the Philippines, which have made strenuous efforts to pay their debts religiously. Surely, with some imagination and creativity, and a modicum of good will and enlightened self-interest, the nations of the world can, together, arrive at some solution that would allow the debtor countries to develop and get out from under the crushing burden of their debt.”
1992-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 47 (1992)
“Only a few weeks ago, in Jakarta, the capital city of our Indonesian neighbour, we joined the Non-Aligned Movement, in which the Philippines had been an observer for many years. Far from being rendered irrelevant by the end of the cold war, the Non-Aligned Movement, we found, was larger, stronger and even more relevant than ever before. Many of the old divisions in the Movement had closed, and a new cohesion had been found. Moreover, the Movement had turned more of its attention to problems of trade, finance, technology and all those other things that make up economic relations between nations.”
1992-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 47 (1992)
“We have chosen this path for the same reason others have done because we believe that it is the best road to sustained economic growth and a better life for our people. Our new leadership, immediately upon assuming office, committed itself unequivocally to the liberalization of our trading regime and of the rules governing investments in our country. We have removed virtually all foreign-exchange controls, thus facilitating the international movement of currency. The privatization of key public industries proceeds apace. Consistent with the new primacy of commerce and economics in relations between nations, we have placed trade and economic relations at the top of our diplomatic priorities.”
1992-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 47 (1992)
“In pursuance of national stability and peace, our new leadership, under President Fidel V. Ramos, has embarked on a policy and mission of reconciliation among our people, closing divisions, healing wounds and reaching out to all. Among the measures we have taken is the granting of amnesty to those disaffected groups which had taken the path of rebellion of whatever ideological or religious persuasion they might be, to whatever organizational or ethnic affiliation they might belong. Elected under the banner of people empowerment, our new leadership has chosen, through its policies, to ride the crest of the wave of economic liberalization that has inexorably rolled across the world and has, in so many nations, improved so many lives in so short a time.”
1992-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 47 (1992)
“This list of new States, new Members of the United Nations, reads like a roll of honour in the annals of freedom in our era. We welcome them, as we also do San Marino, to these halls. We Filipinos take pride in having been early in the ranks of democracy's march in recent history. In 1986, through the exercise of people power, we restored the institutions of democracy in our country. This democratic restoration found both fulfilment and renewed strength in the national elections our people conducted five months ago and in the peaceful transfer of power that resulted from the supreme exercise of the democratic process. The very fact of that peaceful transfer of power through free elections has affirmed, for all to see, the political stability of our land and, no doubt, contributed to the climate of peace and stability in our region.”
1992-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 47 (1992)
“As we embark on large-scale relief and rehabilitation efforts in the affected areas, my Government would like once more to appeal for assistance from the members of the international community and organizations even as we thank them for the help already extended since Mt. Pinatubo erupted in June 1991. We hold this session of the General Assembly at a moment in history that has seen the wave of democracy and national freedom sweep the world with astounding and unprecedented rapidity. This is manifested by, among others, the roster of new countries admitted to the United Nations this year nations newly emerged from the confining and oppressive darkness of totalitarian imperialism: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Krygyzstan, the Republic of Moldova, Slovenia, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan.”
1992-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 47 (1992)
“Permit me at this point to express the heartfelt appreciation and gratitude of the Philippine Government and of the Filipino people for the generous assistance extended by the members of the world community and international organizations to the hundreds of thousands of victims of floods and mud flows from Mt. Pinatubo, whose fury has described by scientists as "the volcanic eruption of the century". Their dire prediction is that Mt. Pinatubo's mud flows, which have already buried towns and villages and turned the once green fields of Central Luzon into a grey and desolate landscape, will continue its destruction for several more years.”
1992-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 47 (1992)
“Shihabi of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, for his excellent leadership in presiding over the Assembly at its forty-sixth session. My delegation also warmly welcomes Mr. Boutros Boutros-Ghali. He brings to his arduous and exalted mission decades of experience in and deep insight into the relations among nations and the nature and work of the United Nations. In less than a year in office, Mr. Boutros-Ghali has demonstrated not only an unflinching devotion to the work of our Organization but also a keen sense of the direction it must take in dealing with the great international issues of our time.”
1992-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 47 (1992)
“It is with special pleasure that the Government and the people of the Philippines extend to you, Sir, their warm felicitations on your assumption of the presidency of the General Assembly at this session. You were one of the most prominent and vigorous advocates of freedom and democracy in your country. We in the Philippines watched your struggle with interest and sympathy, and we joined the rest of the world in applauding the triumph of that struggle as the triumph of us all. That triumph led to your elevation to the high office you now hold in your country and, now, to your election as President of the General Assembly. Your election, therefore, is a source of special satisfaction for us. At the same time, we congratulate your predecessor. His Excellency Ambassador Samir S.”
1992-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 47 (1992)
“Time is running against us, and it is running against us with the speed of Sputnik." I leave you with this food for thought.”
1983-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 38 (1983)
“General Bradley was of course an American and his words were addressed to his fellow Americans, but they retain, a generation later, perfect relevance to the problems of our time and address all citizens of the world. He said: "The central problem of our time ... is how to employ human intelligence for the salvation of mankind. It is a problem we have put upon ourselves. "If I am sometimes discouraged, it is not by the magnitude of the problem but by our colossal indifference to it. I am unable to understand why ... we do not make greater, more diligent and more imaginative use of reason and human intelligence in seeking an accord and compromise which will make it possible for mankind to control the atom and banish it as an instrument of war. "Unless we soon get started, it may be too late . . .”
1983-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 38 (1983)
“At the thirty-seventh session of the General Assembly, he asked Member States to redouble their efforts to solve their differences, and at the Seventh Conference of Heads of State or Government of Non-Aligned Countries, at New Delhi in March, he reminded us that the United Nations should be developed more as a forum for negotiations and agreements and less as a place of confrontation and debate. In his report to the current session, he outlines the various issues confronting the Assembly and calls for a recommitment to the Charter because, "With an objective as elusive and as vital as the preservation of peace, a sense of shared purpose and direction is imperative." 26. In conclusion, I should like to quote from a speech delivered by General Omar Bradley in 1957.”
1983-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 38 (1983)
“I hope that together we can elaborate a new international human order for economic co-operation. 24. We look with favor on the joint proposal submitted by the delegations of Malaysia and Antigua and Barbuda on consideration of the question of Antarctica. A study of this subject should enhance understanding of that largely unknown continent. We believe that the destiny of Antarctica is a matter of universal concern and should not be left in the hands of a few States only. 25. As I leave this rostrum, I wish to pay a tribute to the Secretary-General, who has brought to his office a refreshing candor, as well as the courage of his convictions. He has provided us with lucid insights into the problems besetting the world.”
1983-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 38 (1983)
“That meeting, begun with bright promise when the developing countries, in their meetings at New Delhi and Buenos Aires, decided to approach the session of the Conference held at Belgrade with an expressed willingness to co-operate. The lack of significant results has left us with a bitter aftertaste. 23. We have no magic recipes for ending the impasse, but my Government will continue to contribute its modest share to every effort to overcome those problems. It was in this spirit that we proposed last year the inclusion in the agenda of an item entitled "New international human order: moral aspects of development". We believe that the establishment of a moral framework for economic co-operation provides an important key to the promotion of the inevitable just international economic co-operation.”
1983-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 38 (1983)
“Yet we accept the principle that interdependence is not an option but a fact. It involves mutuality of interests and commonly derived solutions. Where these new realities are resisted, a malfunction in the infrastructure of the world economy inevitably develops. Withheld participation leads to imbalance and inequities. 21. The thirty-seventh session of the General Assembly was extended until 19 September in a desperate effort to launch global negotiations on international economic co-operation. That it failed is symptomatic of the malaise characterizing this aspect of international relations. 22. The results of the sixth session of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development are a further sign of such malaise.”
1983-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 38 (1983)
“Based on the urgency lent to the work of the Special Committee by the report of the Secretary-General, we were optimistic that further significant results would be forthcoming from that Committee. Unfortunately such has not been the case. The session of the Committee during this year has been a disappointing and disheartening one, despite the best efforts of its able Chairman, Mr. Nabil El-Araby of Egypt. We are gratified, of course, that discussion on a joint proposal by Romania and the Philippines on the establishment of a permanent United Nations commission for mediation, conciliation and good offices has begun, and we look forward to further elaboration of this proposal. 20. The world economy is in disarray. Despite signs of limited progress, large portions of the earth are in the deadly grip of poverty.”
1983-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 38 (1983)
“With the twenty-fifth anniversary of the United Nations a major effort was begun to enhance the capabilities of the United Nations in the light of the manifold changes which had taken place in the world since its founding. The major focus for this effort has solidified in the 47-nation Special Committee on the Charter of the United Nations and on the Strengthening of the Role of the Organization. During the course of its existence the Special Committee has produced the most substantial study on ways to improve the United Nations that has so far been developed. Most of the members of the Committee have contributed their best efforts to this end. 19. At its previous session, the General Assembly adopted the Manila Declaration on the Peaceful Settlement of International Disputes, a major achievement of the Special Committee.”
1983-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 38 (1983)
“As Chairman of the Group of Experts on the Relationship between Disarmament and International Security, I have pointed out that States have chosen to emphasize the pursuit of arms limitation and disarmament without examining how security is to be provided in the absence of national arms and armies. 17. The Secretary-General, in his report of a year ago, strongly stressed the ways in which the United Nations and its Members were failing to live up to their responsibilities, especially in the field of the maintenance of international peace and security. We fully shared his view then, as we do now. The world Organization is principally afflicted by the indifference of some of its significant Members. 18.”
1983-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 38 (1983)
“It is both unconscionable and unthinkable that not even this small step has been achieved. 15. The most needed step now is an immediate moratorium on the development and production of new strategic nuclear weapons systems. 16. I take some hope from the newer directions which are beginning to emerge in the Disarmament Commission and other bodies of the Organization. The concept of common security developed in the report of the Independent Commission on Disarmament and Security Issues parallels a concern which I have long expressed. I am convinced that a search for security is bound by its very emphasis to be more fruitful than a search for disarmament per e.”
1983-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 38 (1983)
“The United States has something like 9,500 warheads in its strategic arsenal, while the USSR disposes of 7,700. Two or three hundred are generally regarded as sufficient to devastate either nation. The USSR has about 13,000 smaller nuclear explosives, each much larger than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima in the Second World War, while the United States has a tactical arsenal of about 20,000 smaller weapons. 14. The number of resolutions on disarmament adopted last year is a measure both of the concern felt in the international community and of the effort we have made year after year to elicit positive action from the two major protagonists. In the past 20 years the major Powers have not cared to complete a comprehensive test ban, a modest first step in slowing down the nuclear arms race.”
1983-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 38 (1983)
“The Middle East, however, will not cease to be a seed-bed of conflict until the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination—including its right to establish an independent State in Palestine—and the rights of all States in the region, including Israel, to a secure existence within internationally recognized borders are assured. 11. If the Middle East remains a dangerous flash-point for global conflict and possibly for nuclear war, the accumulation of weapons designed for such a war also continues to accelerate. 12. Is there anything new to be said about the arms race? Each year we rehearse the frightful statistics, the wasteful sums spent on the arms race, both conventional and nuclear, which could have been better used for economic development. 13.”
1983-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 38 (1983)
“The efforts of the United Nations to deploy, at a minimum, observer teams should continue to be supported, and the goal remains the withdrawal of all unauthorized non-Lebanese forces. At an appropriate time it would also be highly desirable to replace the remaining non-Lebanese forces with a United Nations peace-keeping presence, while the Government of Lebanon consolidates its role and the democratic political balance is restored. We were happy to read the statement of the Foreign Minister of Saudi Arabia today, when he said that an agreement had been reached for a cease-fire in Lebanon, ending the war and starting a national dialogue. What has been secured is a great achievement. We appeal to all our Lebanese brothers to go beyond the bloodshed and the hatred in order to resume the building of Lebanon. 10.”
1983-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 38 (1983)
“If there is an area of the world pre-eminently on the minds of all members of the world community, it is the Middle East, including the situation in Lebanon. We can recall many years, even decades, of relative harmony and peace in a prosperous Lebanon. One of the root causes of the turmoil which has destroyed the political balance in what had been a peaceful country is the unresolved problem of the future of the Palestinian people. Lebanon's invasion by Israel has now led to the direct involvement of major Powers in the area. The most immediate need, in our view, is for a cease-fire and the cessation of hostilities throughout Lebanon. We rejoice that such a cease-fire has been achieved and we join in the hope of the Secretary of State, Mr. Shultz, that the fact will force Syria and Israel to follow suit.”
1983-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 38 (1983)
“In another part of the world, the visit of the Secretary-General to Namibia and South Africa last month, under a mandate from the Security Council, defined the basic problems which impede agreement on the steps which could lead to the independence of Namibia. The question is whether South Africa genuinely wants a solution. In its view, Namibia is not the problem; the problem is Angola. Yet it is clear that the security problems of both South Africa and Angola are not necessarily resistant to solution. In the view of my Government, further progress on the question of Namibia can be achieved only when South Africa recognizes its larger responsibility for the peace of the whole of southern Africa, of which it is an integral part. 9.”
1983-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 38 (1983)
“In Afghanistan, the international community is similarly called upon to undertake fresh efforts to restore the legitimate right of the people of Afghanistan freely to determine their own destiny. The intensified activities of the foreign troops there suggest that they are in Afghanistan to stay. The Assembly cannot, on the basis of the principles which are its reason for being, accept this intolerable situation. The failure to make headway on the Afghanistan problem is all the more regrettable in view of the exemplary efforts of the special representative of the Secretary-General, our able Mr. Diego Cordovez, to promote a meeting of minds at the Geneva conference. In the middle of this year, progress was achieved only to founder on the rock of technicalities which have their real basis in lack of confidence and political will. 8.”
1983-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 38 (1983)
“The countries members of ASEAN have therefore issued an appeal for Kampuchean independence which has been circulated to the members of the General Assembly My country places considerable hope in the future of the coalition headed by Samdech Norodom Sihanouk as President. The international community has recognized this coalition as the legitimate representative Government of this sad and decimated country. A chain of events that will be positive for the peace, freedom and neutrality of South-East Asia can follow the restoration of Kampuchea to the Kampuchean people. We believe that the international community must renew and redouble its efforts to achieve that result. 7.”
1983-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 38 (1983)