YouSaid · the spoken record

RAJARATNAM

lines on the record: 254
first: 1969-09-24
most recent: 1979-09-24
sittings or episodes: 9
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 not saying that this is being done at the moment, but the possibilities are there, especially if the weapons industry should run into economic difficulties. 128. So much for the economic advantages to industrial countries accruing through weapons sales to developing countries. 129. However, the most dangerous consequences are political. The flow of arms carries with it a measure of dependency on the part of the client on the seller of arms not unlike that prevailing under the old imperial system. The weapons now being imported are not only highly sophisticated but also packaged as parts of a very complex, very comprehensive and very expensive weapons system. When a country buys a weapons system it imports not only weapons but a whole army of experts and advisers.”
1976-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 31 (1976)
“Having once embarked on the arms race, the participant has no choice but to stay in the race until he concedes defeat or is ruined. If he decides to stay in the race, he must keep on from time to time disposing of his obsolete weapons system and negotiating for one more up to date and decidedly more expensive. 127. If ever arms-producing countries should form a mutual-aid association to regulate and promote their trade, then the third-world countries would certainly become captives of the great Powers. The dealers could decide -either by a gentleman's agreement or otherwise-when a client's weapons system should become obsolete by simply selling a more up-to-date version to his rival or even by hinting, whether justifiably or not, that the other side was negotiating for an improved weapons system.”
1976-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 31 (1976)
“It ensures a steady flow from less developed to developed countries of wealth, which was and is in danger of being reduced as a consequence of decolonization and the growing economic self-assertion of the developing countries. Modern arms are spectacularly expensive and more so if they are packaged as a weapons system. Moreover, in contrast to the situation in other industries, the greater the number of arms sold, even greater grows the demand for those arms. There is no such thing as over-production in the arms industry. This has to do with human fear. Once an up-to-date weapons system has been sold to a client, the reassuring feeling the client has can only be temporary. The anxiety returns the moment an even more up-to-date weapons system has been delivered to his rival by the same arms dealer or by his competitor.”
1976-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 31 (1976)
“The capacity of the rich nations to absorb the products of this industry, especially as war between them is least likely now, has reached saturation point. As research progresses, weapons become obsolete at a more rapid rate. Astronomically expensive weapon systems suddenly become so much junk. 125. The increase in the number of rival States in the third world, or, more generally, the increase in mutual suspicion and fear among third-world countries, offers a neat solution to the junk problem facing the arms producers. These obsolete weapons, generally one or two generations behind the latest model, can be and are being disposed of in third-world countries. 126. It also solves yet another problem for the industrialized countries.”
1976-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 31 (1976)
“As the Swedish Yearbook quite correctly observes: "Indeed, so hectic has been the international market for arms over the past two years that all appearances of control, whether supposed or real, have vanished." 124. There are depressingly sound economic and political reasons for this changed attitude in regard to arms sales to developing countries. First let me deal with the economic reasons. The arms industry has for many years been an important and growing industry. The annual output of arms throughout the world is estimated at over $US 300 billion. It employs some 400,000 scientists and engineers and other experts who spend some $US 200 billion in research on more deadly weapons. It is a growing industry.”
1976-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 31 (1976)
“What was sold, moreover, were hand-me-downs, simple and unsophisticated weapons for which the industrial nations had not much use and which, by current standards, were less destructive. 123. But the current flow of weapons is of a different category altogether. The gentleman's agreement has broken down. Far from there being any inhibition about selling arms to the third world, arms dealers of the industrialized countries are pushing their hardware with great zest and fervor. There is now a growing clamor in industrialized countries -including those who had kept out the arms business out of moral or political considerations-to remove existing restraints on the export of arms.”
1976-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 31 (1976)
“But it would appear that in the third world the errors and tragedies of European nationalism are being reproduced. In the absence of economic power or advanced technology, force is used, when necessary, to regulate inter-State relations. Reliance is placed on force and the show of force to gain influence and dominance over other nations. 122. However, it is borrowed force, and therein lies the danger to third-world countries. The accumulation of effective force in this day and age depends on very sophisticated and very expensive weapons produced, at the moment, by less than half a dozen industrial nations in the north. In the past, the sale of arms to third-world countries from the advanced countries was governed by some sort of gentleman's agreement between industrial countries. The flow was always regulated to modest proportions.”
1976-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 31 (1976)
“They rely more and more on economic power, technological superiority and organizational skills for influence and dominance over other nations. It is a fact that the nations of the north have technically been at peace with one another since the end of the Second World War. True, some of them have fought in third-world countries, but even this is being abandoned as counter-productive. 120. Short of some grave miscalculation on the part of the industrialized nations, I see no prospect of serious wars in the north. The devastation and tragedies brought about by two world wars, coupled with the knowledge that the industrial Powers now have the technology to destroy themselves utterly in another war, act as effective curbs on resort to naked force. 121.”
1976-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 31 (1976)
“In fact, the third world's consumption of the world's arms output now exceeds the combined purchases of China, Western Europe, Australia, New Zealand and Japan; their share of the world's arms output in 1975 was only 9.5 per cent as compared with the third world's 12.3 per cent. 118. Certain disturbing inferences can be drawn from these statistics. One of these is that the level of arms consumption is an indicator of the intensity of tensions in an area and of its prevailing political philosophies, policies and anxieties in an area. 119. The rich industrial nations, largely in the north, have in practice accepted that force is of less importance in their inter-State relations than other forms of power.”
1976-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 31 (1976)
“Though the flow of aid has declined, the flow of arms to the third world has swelled dangerously. The third world is clearly creeping towards a more equitable share of the arms resources of the world. For example, the consumption of total arms production by the two main power blocs has dropped from 91 per cent in 1955 to a more prudent 78 per cent in 1975. 117. As against this, consumption of arms by the third world has shot up from a modest 3.2 per cent in 1955 to an alarming 123 per cent in 1975. Presumably this does not take into account the unofficial flow of weapons sold or given under the counter.”
1976-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 31 (1976)
“The 1970 s were also the years when detente was arrived at between the great Powers on the sound grounds that direct confrontation between them would be mutually destructive. 115. This was also a period which saw a steady decline in aid from rich to poor countries. A recent study by the United Nations predicts that, on the basis of current flow, aid from rich to poor countries will be reduced to a mere trickle. For example, between 1961 and 1968 the global assistance development program was valued at $US 75.2 billion, the bulk of which came from the Western world. The flow of aid between 1974 and 1976 will decline to an annual average of between $US 14 billion and $US 12 billion, which, given the present level of inflation, is meager compared with what was available in the 1960 s. 116.”
1976-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 31 (1976)
“According to that Yearbook, the value of major weapons transferred to third-world countries had increased 17-fold between the years 1950 and 1975. The figures were $US 294 million in 1950, but it increased to $US 4,803 million in 1975. Hie big surge forward in the import of arms was in 1974 and 1975, when the value of weapons transferred from developed to developing countries increased by more than 60 per cent. It is also worth noting that those were the years when the industrialized countries were reeling under the impact of increased oil prices and the third-world countries were making efforts to unite against the industrialized countries for a new international economic order. 114.”
1976-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 31 (1976)
“But even with these reservations, such statistics as are available portend, in my view, not only catastrophic dangers for the third world but also a very high probability of a new kind of enslavement of the third world through proliferation of what I called proxy wars. This is not enslavement designed and directed by advanced industrialized countries, but enslavement emerging as a consequence of divisions and conflicts within third-world countries. 112. And there is a close correlation between the level of arms flow into third world countries and increasing contention among them. My primary source of information is the 1976 yearbook on world armaments and disarmament published by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. 113.”
1976-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 31 (1976)
“But since 1970 the flow has acquired tidal proportions, and with each passing year the appetite for arms in the third world has grown alarmingly. The quantity and quality of arms exceed normal defense requirements. 111. Reliable statistics on the arms trade are, for obvious reasons, difficult to come by. It is by nature a furtive trade, and both client and arms dealer are prone to give a lot of misinformation about this most profitable business. In fact, only the United States, of the four major arms-exporting countries, provides information about its transactions. So such figures as I will quote about the transfer of deadly weapons to less-developed countries probably err on the side of underestimation.”
1976-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 31 (1976)
“Abstention, where it injures one party, is not now accepted as evidence of impartiality and friendliness. 109. And so one consequence of this is the new practice by this Assembly of voting for draft resolutions which are contradictory and irreconcilable because we do not want to offend our friends, and we cannot judge what is right and what is wrong. 110. More alarming evidence of increasing third-world conflicts is the flow of arms from some half-a-dozen wealthy, industrialized countries into the third world. There has been a steady increase in the flow of arms from developed to developing countries over the years. There was nothing disturbing about the initial flow of arms. It was natural that as States became independent they should acquire arms commensurate with their defense requirements.”
1976-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 31 (1976)
“Cities and countrysides are being laid waste at this very moment-not by the invading armies of great Powers, but by contending forces within the third world. 108. There are a number of draft resolutions for consideration in this Assembly which, stripped of their diplomatic phraseology, pertain in one way or another to conflicts between developing countries. Just as once before in years past small nations had to scrutinize carefully draft resolutions by the big Powers to avoid becoming partisans in their conflicts, so today we search draft resolutions to avoid entanglements in disputes between friends. However, benevolent neutrality becomes increasingly difficult as draft resolutions, in response to sharpening bitterness, are worded with a precision and openness that preclude neutrality.”
1976-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 31 (1976)
“gradually increasing [in number]; that is why the third world is the scene of growing violence...Textbooks on military strategy refer to this as the strategy of fighting limited wars It also includes the promotion of wars of national liberation, support for guerrilla uprisings, subversion and the engineering of coups in small countries. " The small nations are more than ever before necessary instruments for big-Power conflicts-the only available instruments .. .". That was what I said five years ago. 107. Five years ago it could have been said that this was mere hypothesis. It may have been so then, but it is no longer the case today. Violence and wars in third-world countries have increased, while rumbles of new conflicts can be plainly heard.”
1976-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 31 (1976)
“conflicts between big Powers are inevitable so long as the drive for power and dominance remains the overriding consideration in international relations. But they will be waged by means other than direct confrontation [between them]. "And the means are the small nations. Big wars can be and have been fought through small nations. The idea is not really new. In the past, small nations have been pitted against one another to further the interests of great Powers. But today the technique of wars with small nations as proxies has been more systematically developed. Small wars have in the nuclear age become the only safe method of conducting big-Power conflicts. That is why... small wars are ...”
1976-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 31 (1976)
“Questions of war and peace should, in our opinion, be of greater concern to third-world countries because they have already become the battlefields of what could be described as the Third World War, for, in our view, a new world war will not be a single dramatic catastrophe but a cumulation of an interlocking series of proxy wars fought in third-world countries. 105. Therefore, I would like to return to a thesis which I propounded in this Assembly five years ago at its twenty- sixth session. At that time the theme was somewhat tentative and, to some, possibly even tendentious. It was an expression more of probabilities than of actualities. But, unfortunately, what I then merely feared has now become real. A new threat confronts the third world. 106. This extract from my statement made at the twenty- sixth session summarizes my theme: "..”
1976-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 31 (1976)
“One consequence of this massive accumulation of weapons is the proliferation of armed conflicts, almost all of which are in the third world. In the period 1945 to 1975, it has been estimated that a total of 119 wars of a civil and international character occurred. Those 119 wars were fought by 81 States in the territories of 69 countries -that is, nearly half the membership of this Organization. More people were killed in those wars since 1945 than during the Second World War. Indeed, since September 1945 there was not a single day in which one or several wars were not being fought. On an average day about 12 wars are under way. 104. It would, however, be factually wrong were we to pretend that the problem of disarmament is a problem primarily of the two super-Powers or of the developed countries.”
1976-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 31 (1976)
“The arsenals of nuclear and conventional weapons which the States Members of this Organization have accumulated are sufficient to annihilate mankind several times over, and yet they are being constantly augmented. 102. The amounts of financial resources expended by countries, rich and poor alike, for the acquisition of arms are astronomical. It has been estimated that in 1974, the last full year for which data are available, actual arms expenditure totaled well over $300 billion. In the 10-year period 1964 to 1974 the world's arms expenditure doubled. The two super-Powers alone account for 60 per cent of the world's total arms expenditure. The five permanent members of the Security Council together account for 70 per cent. 103.”
1976-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 31 (1976)
“This is one sixth of the agenda, and no other subject or question has as many items on the agenda. Our Secretary-General has repeatedly called our attention to this problem. The Prime Minister of Luxembourg, Mr. Gaston Thorn, in his farewell address to the Assembly [1st meeting] gave prominent place to the question of disarmament, and in your presidential address, Six, [ibid] you also referred to the problem of disarmament and even suggested the possibility of holding either a special session of the General Assembly to consider the question of the convening of a World, Disarmament Conference. 101. There is no denying that the relentless arms race in which all of us are participants is alarming. It poses a threat to the very survival of man on this planet and a constant challenge to our rationality.”
1976-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 31 (1976)
“Kurt Waldheim as our Secretary-General because he has faced the endless stream of problems and challenges posed to him with fortitude and with a judicious mixture of realism and idealism. I would like to single out for special mention the competent manner in which he has managed the United Nations peace-keeping operations in the Middle East and in Cyprus. We should also thank him for his efforts to bring about an accommodation between the two communities in Cyprus and encourage him to persist in his efforts in spite of the disappointing results. 99. I should like to greet our newest Member, the Republic of Seychelles, and to extend to its people and Government our best wishes for peace and prosperity. 100. A global problem which has come increasingly to dominate the work of the General Assembly is disarmament.”
1976-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 31 (1976)
“Our two countries, Sri Lanka and Singapore, have very close bonds based on a very long association of history and peoples, some of whom emigrated to Singapore and have become Singaporeans. It therefore gives me great pleasure to congratulate you and to wish you a very successful tenure as our President. 97. The thirtieth session of the General Assembly witnessed some very controversial debates and decisions. We must all be thankful to the Prime Minister of Luxembourg, Mr. Gaston Thorn, who presided over our proceedings with admirable calm and fairness. 98. The Secretary-General's job has often been described as the most impossible job in the world. We are fortunate to have Mr.”
1976-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 31 (1976)
“Mr. President, your election as President of the thirty-first session of the General Assembly is a reflection of your personal merit and of the honorable place your country, Sri Lanka, occupies in the international community. It is no accident that your Prime Minister, Mrs. S. Bandaranaike, is the current Chairman of the non-aligned movement. Prior to your entering the foreign service of your country in 1963, you served with distinction in your country's civil service, rising to the rank of Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Finance. At the United Nations, you have acquired an enviable reputation for your acute intelligence, for your mastery of the English language, for your eloquence, your personal charm and your outspokenness.”
1976-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 31 (1976)
“But I like to think that we and they have atoned for all this by creating this Organization dedicated to the outlawing for ever of wars and imperialist adventures, But the atonement will not be complete until we can hand over to the new generation a United Nations refined and perfected to make it a reliable instrument for truly uniting the nations of the world. Then the new generation will have cause to say: "The generation from whom we inherited our world were unique in that they swept nothing under the carpet for us to clean up."”
1975-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 30 (1975)
“The United Nations is the appropriate forum in which solutions to these problems can be found. The seventh special session has perhaps been a turning-point in United Nations history. It has shown that the United Nations can be made to work, that peoples and nations can negotiate. Let us resolve to continue to exert our efforts in that direction. 64. I began by saying that the thirtieth year marks the period of the gradual take-over of this Organization by the generation born since its inception. The older generation, the pre-war generation, has many things to be ashamed of, and the most shameful of these was the senseless slaughter unleashed by the last war and the subjugation of millions in the name of empire.”
1975-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 30 (1975)
“The four rules which I have suggested above are by no means original, nor are they intended to be exhaustive. They should, however, convey an idea of the kind of new values and attitudes which must animate the negotiations and guide the negotiators if the United Nations is to be changed from an arena for shadow-boxing into a forum for negotiations. 63. Those who drafted the Charter of the United Nations were inspired by the vision of the Organization as a centre for harmonizing the actions of nations. That vision has never been more relevant than it is today. We are faced with a new agenda of pressing problems energy and the proliferation of nuclear weapons, food and famine, the population explosion and environmental deterioration and the north-south dialog: these are planetary challenges to which only planetary responses may be feasible.”
1975-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 30 (1975)
“Every party to a negotiation must be prepared to sacrifice some of its demands and to make some concessions and compromises. There can be no successful bargain if it satisfies all the demands of one side and none of the demands of the other. There must be a mutuality of gains and losses and of rights and obligations. 61. The fourth and final rule which I would offer is that every country has a certain irreducible minimum national interest. It is unreasonable to expect a country to consent to any proposal which detracts from that interest. The parties to a negotiation must therefore attempt to perceive the extent to which other parties are able to make concessions, or can even be pressured into making concessions, and the limits beyond which it would be unreasonable to expect an opponent to go. 62.”
1975-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 30 (1975)
“One needs to find a position offered by one side acceptable to the other side, and try to build from there. To put it very simply, the essence of the first rule in any negotiation is to see the problem from the point of view of your opponent; to understand the interests he has to serve; the constraints under which he has to operate. 59. The second rule, I would suggest, is that one should not seek superiority in any negotiation. As a very distinguished diplomat and negotiator, Mr. Averill Harriman, has put it, "You can't accomplish anything by knocking your opponent over the head ... the idea that you can whip your negotiating opponent into agreeing with you is nonsense." 60. The third rule which I would offer for your consideration is that no party to a negotiation must insist that all its demands be satisfied.”
1975-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 30 (1975)
“Upon approval by the Council, the agreement would be passed to the Assembly, which would approve the agreement, refer the matter back to the group or take some other action. 57. My delegation sees considerable merit in the consultative procedures proposed by the Group of Experts. We support them because they are designed to promote agreement on major policy issues where agreement might otherwise be unobtainable. We recognize, however, that it is not enough to introduce new consultative procedures for reaching agreement. It is also necessary to address the question of how negotiations should be conducted. 58. Allow me to suggest four further rules for your consideration. The first rule is that to be successful in any negotiation one must examine the most constructive proposals the opponent offers.”
1975-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 30 (1975)
“Each negotiating group would function under the guidance of a full-time chairman with the assistance, if necessary, of a small representative body of vice-chairmen, all of whom would be proposed by the Secretary-General and confirmed by the Assembly or the Council, depending on where the proposal for the group originated. The full-time chairman would serve for the duration of the group. Each negotiating group would operate on the basis of unanimity. When a negotiating group reached agreement it would report to the Council, which could adopt the agreement, refer the matter back to the negotiating group for further consideration or take such other action as it deemed appropriate.”
1975-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 30 (1975)
“These groups would operate for periods of one to two years, subject to renewal as determined by the Assembly or the Council. 55. The Council would be kept informed by the negotiating groups of the progress being made by them. During the two-year period, the Assembly and the Council would be free to consider subjects under discussion in the groups and to vote resolutions thereon; but, in deciding upon whether to vote on a particular resolution, the Assembly and the Council would take into account the progress of the negotiations. 56.”
1975-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 30 (1975)
“I should like now to make a few comments on the recommendations contained in the report of the Group of Experts on the Structure of the United Nations System, which bears the title, A New United Nations Structure for Global Economic Co-operationI refer, in particular, to its suggestion that, at the request of the General Assembly or the Economic and Social Council, or upon the motion of one tenth of the members of either body, a small negotiating group should be constituted to seek agreement on a specific action proposal or related action proposals in the field of development and international economic co-operation. Negotiating groups would be of manageable size, normally between 10 and 30, and would include countries principally interested in the subject-matter whether or not they were members of the Council.”
1975-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 30 (1975)
“The minority has yet to be satisfied that majority decisions are arrived at with judicial impartiality and that majority decisions are made by men of virtue and not by a kangaroo court. 53. So this Organization must for the time being aim at consensus-building or, as the United Nations Charter itself wisely prescribed, we must make the Organization "a center for harmonizing the actions of nations" not encouraging and expanding disharmony and conflicts. 54.”
1975-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 30 (1975)
“Decisions are openly arrived at as a result of secret deals on matters irrelevant to the issue on which the pronouncement is made. 51. Again, there are resolutions which by their very nature invite defiance and even threats to peace. For example, any resolution which calls for hostility towards nations with which one has no quarrel and with which one may even be on the best of terms, or any resolution which calls upon a State to liquidate itself politically or economically will understandably be breached. Yet there have been occasions when such resolutions have been solemnly adopted by this Assembly. 52. It would, of course, be a good thing if decisions could be arrived at and implemented on the majority principle, But we do not think that the members of this Assembly are ready for it yet.”
1975-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 30 (1975)
“It has on many occasions become a device, not for conciliation, but for staging confrontations for humiliating opponents or for impressing antagonists and suggesting that the prime mover has more camp followers than his enemy. The result is that, through constant misuse, majority decisions have lost their efficacy. Far from intimidating the victim, they only strengthen his intransigence and compel defiance. 50. It is also true that on many occasions majority decisions are not made on the merits of the case. The unfortunate defendant is well aware that the judges and the jury have already arrived at a decision long before they have heard the case and the facts which is not surprising because the facts and the case which prompted the decision more often than not have nothing to do with the case at hand.”
1975-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 30 (1975)
“This is perhaps our greatest weakness and one which has greatly helped to bring this Organization to its present sorry state. Where a resolution injures the basic interests of dissenting States, it will be ignored. Worse still, the resolution will be quietly breached even by States which had been shamed or cajoled into voting for it. By adopting resolutions which we know would be shamelessly breached we are in fact helping to bring our resolutions into disrepute. 49. The emphasis should therefore be not on decisionmaking by a majority but on conciliation and consensus-building. It is a fact that the principle of majority vote is becoming increasingly suspect in this Assembly for a variety of reasons.”
1975-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 30 (1975)
“If we are to find global solutions to planetary challenges, then we must learn to use this Organization as a forum for negotiations and problem-solving. It is no use talking about international co-operation while adopting tactics calculated to divide and humiliate Member States. 47. A problem-solving approach requires a different cast of mind. It must accept the fact that, given 141 Members with diverse interests, very often a series of compromise solutions, less good than what we expect but each better than the preceding one, might be the practical road to an eventually satisfactory solution. 48. Secondly, we must get away from the prevailing belief that a resolution adopted by a decisive majority has in fact solved a problem.”
1975-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 30 (1975)
“If this Organization is to acquire significance and meaning, it should become the instrument for the planned nurturing and direction of the global community which we are now creating in an unplanned and unpurposeful manner. 45. If we are to play this role and, as we see it, this is now the only justification for this Organization then I should like to suggest some guidelines. 46. First, we must get away from the old concept, which dominated the last 30 years, of using this Organization as an arena for staging contests and confrontations for the edification of our home audiences and the working out of obscure private and public frustrations. In this regard, the great Powers should be blamed for first initiating this unworthy tradition in the days of the old cold war.”
1975-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 30 (1975)
“This does not mean abandoning national identities or the sacrifice of basic national interests; it is largely a question of a new kind of thinking which would permit us to consolidate and expand national interests within the wider framework of a global community. And this is not as difficult as it sounds. Great nation-States have managed to establish a satisfactory relationship between conflicting individual, group and minority interests within the structure of transcending national interests. 44. In this Organization we have 141 Members. Our interests do not always coincide and often they are diametrically opposed. Yet, collectively, we constitute the global community.”
1975-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 30 (1975)
“Worse still, we create more and more problems for ourselves by compelling an interdependent world to conform to the imperatives of an outmoded and increasingly irrelevant ideology. So our economic problems get worse because 141 nations formulate solutions to global problems in purely national terms. Hence, monetary problems, to name one, become unmanageable because there are as many often-conflicting solutions as there are nations. 43. So the first prerequisite for the revitalization of the United Nations is an acceptance of the fact that we are moving towards a global community and that, unless we think as members of a world community, the more intractable our problems, both domestic and international, will become.”
1975-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 30 (1975)
“But, shorn of these wrappings, what stands revealed is the seventeenth-century mind. Perhaps most dis-tressing of all is how readily some third-world countries, despite their having been victims of this outdated European ideology, have taken to xenophobic nationalism and the racial and religious arrogance associated with their former Western rulers. We quite rightly complain of the arrogance of the powerful, but if we are honest with ourselves we should also be critical of the growing arrogance of the weak. 42. The inadequacy of the United Nations is only partly attributable to organizational defects and inadequate procedures. More basic is the fact that we are seeking to resolve what are global problems in terms of a steam-engine nationalism.”
1975-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 30 (1975)
“They are the beliefs which were shaped to meet the needs of a seventeenth-century Europe which had just discovered the marvels of coal and steam technology. The ideology of that period was a xenophobic nationalism built around the myth of racial supremacy and the civilizing virtue of a national religion which, it was claimed, was most favored by the Creator himself. That same ideology sanctified wars of conquest and the subjugation of inferior peoples as necessary steps in the march towards a higher civilization. 41. It is this seventeenth-century ideology which still governs our thinking and shapes our international policies in this Organization. True, these basic beliefs, in these more enlightened times, are dressed up in the rhetoric of internationalism and world brotherhood.”
1975-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 30 (1975)
“Food and fuel, population and the environment, the proliferation of nuclear weapons, the making of a new legal order to manage the uses and resources of the world's oceans, the transfer of resources and technological skills from developed to the less developed countries, and the rapid modernization and industrialization of the less developed countries are problems that demand simultaneously national and global solutions. Neither one by itself is sufficient. 40. In short, the world is one, and its fundamental problems are indivisible. This is the reality. But the ideology and approaches that guide deliberations in this Organization are rooted in a world and an epoch that has for the most part vanished.”
1975-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 30 (1975)
“This is because over the past 30 years we have unwittingly, and even unwillingly, created a truly interdependent world. It will become more, not less, interdependent with every passing year. Modern science and technology and the political, social and economic institutions they have forced upon us are thrusting us, very often against our will and against the grain of our national ideologies, in the direction of a global community. The global community is today not a myth, but a reality. Our economics, our politics and our social problems have global as well as national dimensions.”
1975-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 30 (1975)
“Never before in human history have so many nations met so frequently to conduct discussions on so comprehensive a scale. 39. So, as we see it, the dismantling of the United Nations, far from making for more effective international diplomacy, would in fact plunge the world into inevitable disaster. The belief that world stability could be restored by a reversion to traditional great- Power diplomacy or by a restricted concert of nations calling themselves the third world would, in the long term, be disastrous for mankind. The fact is that there is no alternative today to the United Nations. Even if we were to scrap it tomorrow we would be forced, as a matter of survival, to create another organization very much like this one.”
1975-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 30 (1975)
“The achievements of the United Nations may have fallen short of expectations, but its record in spreading education, in bettering the health of peoples the world over, in assisting developing countries in social and economic development and in promoting international co-operation in such diverse fields as outer space, the oceans of the world and peace-keeping are significant achievements and evidence of its great potentialities for good. 38. Perhaps the two most outstanding achievements which more than compensate for its many failures are, first, the liberation of hundreds of millions of people from imperial bondage and, second, the inculcation, in however rudimentary and imperfect a form, of the habit of discussion and co-operation among 141 nations.”
1975-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 30 (1975)
“What is required even more is a fundamental change in the intellectual, moral and emotional approach to world problems on the part of the 141 nations which collectively constitute the United Nations. The shortcomings and weaknesses of this Organization are in fact the sum of our own failures. We cannot absolve ourselves from blame by hiding behind abstractions like "machinery" and "procedures". We are the United Nations, and it can be no better or worse than we are. 37. Before I embark on what is really self-criticism, let me say that I disagree with those who claim that this Organization has nothing to be proud of and that the world would be better off without it. The facts do not justify that extremist view.”
1975-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 30 (1975)
“It is generally agreed that after 30 years this world Organization has lost much of its zest and vigor, and there are pessimists who hopefully predict its eventual demise. Though we disagree with the pessimists, it is nevertheless true that the high hopes the United Nations held out in its early years have, for the most part, evaporated. The sorry state into which it has fallen no doubt prompted this Assembly to set up an Ad Hoc Committee on the Charter of the United Nations [resolution 3349 (XXIX)] to look into ways and means of rejuvenating it. These experts have now completed their report and I shall comment on their largely constructive and helpful recommendations later on. 36. But the streamlining of United Nations procedures and the restructuring of its machinery are by themselves not enough.”
1975-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 30 (1975)