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

“This is a period of time which divides two generations: the pre-war generation, which had already been born when this Organization was founded and which still largely directs its affairs, and the successor generation, born since the United Nations was launched in San Francisco. This latter generation, the post-San-Francisco generation, which is now entering middle age, today constitutes the vast majority of the world's population. In the years ahead the direction of world affairs and of the affairs of this Organization will pass into their hands, and so any discussion of the United Nations and its future must be stated in terms meaningful to this generation rather than in accordance with the quaint beliefs and the obsolete prejudices of a gerontocracy which will fade away. 35.”
1975-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 30 (1975)
“First, I think all of us owe him a debt of gratitude for having convened and chaired the inter-communal talks on Cyprus. Four rounds of such negotiations have been held. Although the negotiations appear to have run into difficulties, I would urge the Secretary-General to continue his efforts with the two parties in order to resume the negotiations on the outstanding obstacles in the way of a peaceful and lasting settlement in Cyprus. Secondly, I should like to congratulate our Secretary-General on the helpful role he played in bringing about the resumption of diplomatic relations between France and Guinea. 34. This year marks the thirtieth year of the existence of our Organization.”
1975-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 30 (1975)
“My delegation would also like to extend its warm welcome and good wishes to the three new Member States: the Republic of Cape Verde, the Democratic Republic of Sao Tome and Principe, and the People's Republic of Mozambique. We also look forward to the accession of Papua New Guinea to membership in this Organization. As a close neighbor, we take very great pleasure in co-sponsoring its application for membership. 33. I should also like to pay a tribute to our Secretary- General, Mr. Kurt Waldheim, for the tireless manner in which he has discharged his duties, some of them difficult and demanding, during the past 12 months. I should like to single out for special mention two examples of his contributions to the cause of inter-national peace and security.”
1975-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 30 (1975)
“Permit me to congratulate you, Mr. President, on your election to the presidency of the thirtieth session of the General Assembly. I believe that you are the first Prime Minister to hold this high office. The fact that you feel able to be away from your country for three months reflects well on the political stability of your country, as well as on your self-confidence and political courage, Not many heads of government would feel safe these days to be away from their countries for three consecutive months. Your election to this high office is primarily a reflection of your personal qualities; it also does honour to Luxembourg. As the Foreign Minister of a small country, I take some vicarious satisfaction in the fact that the representative of another small country has been elected to the presidency of this Assembly. 32.”
1975-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 30 (1975)
“But it will be in the real and long-term interests of smaller and weaker nations not to lose sight of the fact that if the wealth of the sea is not made available fairly to all, then in the nature of things it must go unfairly to the few who are rich, strong and technologically equipped to enclose the seas as private property or to those who claim special rights and privileges over the riches of the oceans merely through the accident of geographical location. The rational approach to the problems of the sea is not without risks and difficulties, but they are far easier to cope with than those arising in a free-for-all scramble to carve up the seas.”
1973-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 28 (1973)
“The other approach is to treat the oceans as the common property of mankind-of coastal States and land-locked States, of poor nations and rich nations and of the most developed and the least developed. I realize that the translation of this same ideal — in the long run, a practical ideal — into detailed policies tailored to suit the different and special interests of so many nations will not be all that simple.”
1973-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 28 (1973)
“So if the first step we take at the forthcoming Third United Nations conference on the Law of the Sea, scheduled to start this year, thrusts us into the jungles of sterile contention and even open conflicts, then, as with the dividing up of the land, the carving up of the seas may well be history written in blood. If the trendy thing is for each coastal State to grab what it can on the basis of the principle of "finders, keepers", then the sea must eventually become the possession of a handful of rich and powerful nations having the technological capabilities and the requisite armoury successfully to assert the dismal proposition that "might is right". 26.”
1973-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 28 (1973)
“At the same time it is recognized that the simple concept of the freedom of the seas as enunciated by eminent jurists and scholars in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, like that of Hugo Grotius, requires reinterpretation and elaboration in the light of present-day reality. 25. Ocean politics and economics are essentially new manifestations of power which we have to learn to cope with. They are untrodden territory, where paths can lead to dead ends and dangerous precipices as well as to reassuring pastures and woodlands. There is a Chinese saying that every journey begins with the first step and that the first step determines the destination.”
1973-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 28 (1973)
“So I believe we have already entered the era of ocean politics and ocean economics. The stakes are enormous, and the conflicts arising from ocean politics may be the more important issues that in future will harass the United Nations. The law in regard to the sea has not developed beyond the vague simplicity of the decalogue. There is practically no law for exploration and exploitation of its resources beyond the limits of national jurisdiction. The law in regard to the extent of such national jurisdiction is founded on nothing more convincing than arbitrary proclamations and new papal bulls. 24.”
1973-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 28 (1973)
“Marine transportation accounts for 78 per cent of the physical volume of foreign trade freight and 68 per cent of freight in terms of cost. Sea transport is still the cheapest form of transport and is likely to remain so with the development of super-tankers and containerization. 22. It is also noticeable that in recent years the great Powers are once again emphasizing sea-power as a more effective way of manifesting strength and exercising influence in times of peace. Since the sea is for the most part unencumbered by national frontiers, this is one arm of power which can circumscribe the globe in relative freedom. This includes nuclear-powered submarines, equipped with long-range multiple-warhead missiles and fortified by silos and military installations buried in the sea-bed and directed by sensitive electronic devices. 23.”
1973-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 28 (1973)
“Gunboats have steamed off the shores of Asia, Africa and the Americas to assert or contest claims of possession. Far more serious disputes have occurred off the Icelandic coasts. There are also disputes pertaining to over-fishing and the possible annihilation of certain species of marine life-in particular, whales. The International Court of Justice was recently called upon to adjudicate on France's right to test nuclear weapons in the Pacific. Pollution of the sea by shipping, the discharge of industrial waste and the burial of nuclear waste-in fact, the growing tendency to treat the sea as humanity's garbage can-are potential sources of conflict. 21. These are in addition to the importance traditionally attached to the sea for communication, trade and war. The trade routes that link nations are still primarily sea routes.”
1973-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 28 (1973)
“Undoubtedly the sea may be tomorrow's economic frontier and a possible source for as many bloody conflicts as the carve-up of the earth's surface has generated throughout mankind's history. Hitherto, the ocean has for the most part remained no-man's-land, and therefore all-men's land, simply because mankind had not the means effectively to seize and occupy the sea. Today, many nations have the means, or think they have the means. 20. So it is this contention that mankind, whose ancestors abandoned the sea millions and millions of years ago, is turning towards the sea again, possibly to reproduce all the foolishness and madness entailed in the carving up of the land. Not many people are aware that the first skirmishes have already begun in the battle for the sea.”
1973-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 28 (1973)
“Since the conquest of other peoples' land to acquire and control resources, as in the past, is no longer practical or, in the long run, economical, the sea, covering more than 70 per cent of the earth's surface, is increasingly seen as the new El Dorado. Some claim that there is more wealth in the sea than on the land. This, though unsubstantiated by facts, is indicative of the sort of fever the scramble for the wealth of the sea could generate. Today, mankind gets from the sea about 25 per cent of its protein, about 17 to 19 per cent of its oil and 6 per cent of its gas. Though minerals now extracted from the sea-bed account for only 2 per cent of the ore produced on land, there are mind-spinning estimates of many trillions of tons of ooze and nodules containing manganese, iron, copper and nickel. 19.”
1973-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 28 (1973)
“The increase in population and the insatiable needs of developed countries have raised the spectre of near exhaustion of natural resources. There is a wringing of hands over the so-called energy crisis, over a water crisis, and over possible shortages of meat, fish and grain and of a number of strategic raw materials. It is, of course, open to dispute whether we have already reached or will reach such a crisis. It is sufficient that many nations believe that with rising populations they are entering an era of scarce natural resources, and so long as that belief persists it will be real and that will affect their political behaviour. 18.”
1973-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 28 (1973)
“Admittedly there is less drama involved in considerations of economic and population problems. Such problems do not lend themselves readily to mind-arresting rhetoric, but for the hungry billions today speculating where their next meal is to come from, and for the other billion waiting in the wings to greet the thirty-eighth session of this Assembly, our rhetoric may be no more than food for despair and fuel for sweeping anger. 17. But the fact remains that our population is increasing catastrophically and that could be the genesis for a new cold war as intense and possibly more dangerous than the ideological cold war which we have tried to cope with in the past three decades and which we have now left behind us.”
1973-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 28 (1973)
“All these problems derive principally from uncontrolled population growth which, paradoxically, is aggravated by unplanned but progressive social and economic measures, by increased food supply, and by modernization of institutions without modernization of minds. In a free contest the dismal fact is that population can always outstrip economic growth and so, unless the third world drastically restrains population growth, economic growth and humanitarian measures could well result not in greater happiness but in increasing misery. 16. The reprieve we have from cold-war pressures could give us an opportunity to consider more single-mindedly than we have in the past those fundamental problems without the resolution of which all other problems remain intractable.”
1973-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 28 (1973)
“The third world's rural crisis is aggravated by a spreading urban crisis. The advanced countries, too, have their urban crisis but it is of a different order from that confronting third world cities. The third world cities are becoming refugee camps for the rural poor whom the land can no longer sustain and for ambitious rural youths who bitterly discover, too late, that cities provide only limited opportunities for people with general rural skills. The cities demand specialized urban skills and those that lack these skills turn to crime and violence as possible alternatives. The third world cities are what might be called accidental cities. They have size without a corresponding economic function. Politically and socially the cities of the third world are political time- bombs. 15.”
1973-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 28 (1973)
“The rising hopes that the "green revolution" would assuage hunger in the developing world appear to be receding. Something like half of the world's population today is said to be hungry at a time when possibly another billion will join the human race during the next 10 years. Most of the increase in population and hunger is in the third world and it is there too that population increase, made possible through economic, social and health improvements, has also multiplied the sum of human misery. Despite creditable growth rates, unemployment is many steps ahead of economic growth-as much as 20 per cent in many countries. Despite an impressive performance in the spread of literacy, there are today 100 million more illiterates in the third world than there were 20 years ago.”
1973-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 28 (1973)
“True, the accord decreases the cold-war pressures to which many small nations were subjected during the past two decades, pressures which they unwillingly succumbed to or which they evaded by necessary, though not always commendable, deviousness. In that sense the accord gives the third world countries a respite from cold war pressures and greater freedom to find their own remedies for their accumulating problems. 14. Our problems, namely the problems of the third world, are multiplying to near unmanageable proportions and many of them overshadow in importance and significance many other problems that have occasioned as much inspired rhetoric in the past. Today, for example, the spectre of famine haunts many parts of the third world.”
1973-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 28 (1973)
“While we welcome the accord as a positive contribution to world peace and a rational ordering of international life, we should not forget that it is what it says it is-merely a detente between the big Powers to ensure that their conflicts do not escalate into mutually annihilating confrontations, and that their global interests and the delicate balancing of forces are not upset by the problems and disputes of smaller nations. That beady-eyed approach is a necessary corrective to the euphoria that the big-Power accord appears to have generated in some of us. The accord is not concerned, except perhaps incidentally, with sorting out the difficulties and problems of small nations. 13.”
1973-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 28 (1973)
“Any negotiations postulated on the basis of victors and defeated is doomed to failure. 11. In the case of South Africa, Namibia, Rhodesia and Portuguese possessions in Africa, the other unresolved items on our agenda, the white minorities have yet to be convinced that the alternative to coming to terms with the dispossessed black peoples is eventually a Viet-Cong type of involution. Until that alternative becomes credible, persuasion and resolutions by this Assembly, though they may make the transgressor cautious, will not convince the dominant white minority that accommodation of the aspirations of the black peoples is the only rational solution. 12. Those, then, are some of the perennial issues plaguing the third world, issues which accord between the great Powers has, for the most part, left unresolved and is unlikely to solve.”
1973-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 28 (1973)
“What these new Middle East initiatives should be only the parties concerned can determine, and all that we, conscious of our limitations, can do is to ensure by our demeanour that we do not exacerbate this protracted and tragic conflict. 10. However, before such initiatives can be seriously taken, two barriers need to be cleared. The first is psychological. As long as the parties to the conflict believe. - that war and not negotiations will ultimately resolve their problem, peace will remain as elusive as ever. The second relates to basic principles. Before there can be any serious negotiation there must be a clear assurance that settlement would be in accordance with principles basic to our Organization. The territorial integrity of the States concerned and their security cannot be qualified as the price of a settlement.”
1973-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 28 (1973)
“I do so again, but with a growing feeling that reiteration of one's position will not materially affect the steadfast positions of the parties directly involved in the conflict. Since the detente of the big Powers precludes the Arab-Israeli dispute from ever becoming, or being allowed to become, a casus belli between the great Powers, they are not under the same pressure as they were in years past to take any major initiative in regard to this protracted conflict. 9. The initiative must therefore come, as it has in the case of the two German Republics, in the case of Viet-Nam and in the case of big-Power conflicts and rivalries, primarily from the parties to the conflict.”
1973-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 28 (1973)
“These, far from diminishing, have tended to increase during the past decade and have been and are being fought largely with increasingly expensive weapons supplied by, or bought from, the developed world. 7. Some of the crucial items on our agenda, which' have repeatedly come before us, year after year, relate to disputes involving violence in the third world. The most serious of these is the Arab-Israeli conflict. The detente between the big Powers, though it has enhanced immeasurably the prospects of global peace and eased cold-war pressures on weaker nations, has however not in any way enhanced hopes for peace in the Middle East. 8. I have on previous occasions reiterated my Government's position on the Middle East conflict.”
1973-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 28 (1973)
“Conflicts and profound disagreements there certainly will be, but their resolution by recourse to arms is a fear that appears to have receded into the realm of the implausible. For all practical purposes Europeans believe they have at last outlawed war among themselves. 6. I wish I could be assured of as happy a prospect for the third world. The killing, the dying and the destruction have yet to come to an end in the less-developed world as they have in Europe. Since 1945 much of the third world has been plagued by violent conflicts. It has been estimated that 95 per cent of the major and minor wars since 1945 have been in the under-developed countries. They have ranged from anti-colonial wars and wars of intervention to insurgencies, civil wars, wars of liberation and disputes between third-world countries.”
1973-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 28 (1973)
“It is a salutary reminder that prognostications about the growing irrelevancy of the United Nations are not all that widely shared and that, for all its many shortcomings, most nations believe that international relations would be fraught with even graver perils without it. 4. This year we have admitted three new Members. The first, the Bahamas, enters our ranks by virtue of having gained its independence, and I would like to congratulate the Bahamas and its people on their new status. 5. The admission of the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic marks the happy resolution of what had for over two decades been a delicate and intractable European problem. For the first time in centuries peace is now more assured than ever before at any time in Europe's strife-torn history.”
1973-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 28 (1973)
“1. First of all, may I, on my own behalf and that of my delegation, extend our felicitations to our President on his unanimous election to preside over the twenty-eighth session of the General Assembly. Undoubtedly, it was his deep knowledge of the ways of nations and his wide experience of procedures derived from his close association with our Organization that commended his election to his high office. 2. I would also like to join other speakers in paying a tribute to his predecessor, the distinguished Deputy Foreign Minister of the People's Republic of Poland, Mr. Stanislaw Trepczynski, for the skill, and understanding with which he directed this Assembly. 3. A frequent but very pleasant task is the welcoming of new Members.”
1973-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 28 (1973)
“Without the United Nations we, the small nations, may be nothing too in the drama of world politics.”
1972-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 27 (1972)
“I am not saying that this approach will resolve the many and difficult problems that confront our Organization. There are no simple and quick remedies to many of our problems. All I am saying is that, so long as most of us view the United Nations as an arena for dramatic contests, there is very little chance of our being able to restore to the United Nations the vigor and prestige which it deserves. 55. Maybe it is not the United Nations which needs to be reinvigorated and nursed to health. It may well be that we have got the United Nations we deserve. For the United Nations has no existence outside of the Members that constitute it. The United Nations is no more than a mirror reflecting the collective weaknesses and defects of us all. 56. Outside of us the United Nations is nothing.”
1972-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 27 (1972)
“This is preferable to protracted meetings where no solutions are arrived at because sometimes the purpose of the Council is to decide who is innocent and who is guilty. 53. The gist of my plea is that the United Nations should become less of an arena for public contests and more of an Organization for smoothing out conflicts, for reconciling differences. The relative success of recent bilateral discussions holds an important lesson for our Organization. It is that we should inject into our Organization the spirit as well as the techniques successfully employed in bilateral negotiations. Such negotiations are private, they are informal; the participants go there not to decide who is guilty and who is innocent, but to reach accord while containing differences. 54.”
1972-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 27 (1972)
“We believe that what we say and do is being eagerly followed by the press, television and radio the world over. This may have been the case once, but it is my impression that in recent years the publicity media too have grown weary of us. 52. This is not to advocate that all proceedings of this Organization should be behind closed doors. However, this Organization should give serious consideration to supplementing public discussions with more private and closed- door discussions, especially in regard to issues of great delicacy involving profound emotions and what the Asians call "face". For example, my delegation would not object if the Security Council were to attempt to resolve sensitive problems without formal open sessions through informal consultations with interested parties.”
1972-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 27 (1972)
“Where initially the parties to a dispute are few, it becomes unwieldy through the accretion of fresh partisans, resulting very often in everyone losing sight of the initial causes of the dispute. 50. This may explain why some of the issues that have haunted this Assembly for decades have been more satisfactorily resolved through direct negotiations between the original parties to the dispute. Presumably in bilateral discussions the initial causes of the dispute are recollected in relative tranquility. 51. Another reason for the success of bilateral discussions is that for the most part they take place in private. Unfortunately, most of the proceedings in the United Nations not only have the atmosphere of an arena, but they are also public. We perform not only for the home audience but for a world audience as well.”
1972-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 27 (1972)
“The situation is aggravated by the curious expectation in this Organization that countries not directly or even indirectly involved in a conflict should line up on one side or the other. This expectation is based on the premise that friends should prove their friendship by making enemies of their friend's enemies. 49. The consequence is that a conflict between two Members is, over a period of time, transformed into a generalized conflict involving many more Members of our Organization. The interested bystanders, instead of helping to resolve the conflict, themselves become contestants. That is one reason why many issues that come up before our Organization remain unresolved year after year.”
1972-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 27 (1972)
“They see their problems and disagreements not in black-and-white but in shades of grey. The language of conciliation, of the problem-solver, has to be publicly expressed in shades of grey, whatever our perception of them may be in private. 47. That is not to say that we should not clearly enunciate our disagreements and the nature of our disagreements. But in situations of crisis and conflict, rhetoric and polemics, far from reducing tensions, make positions rigid, especially when uttered publicly to provoke and humiliate an adversary. Under these conditions, compromises and concessions become well-nigh impossible because, against the backdrop of polemics, concessions and compromises become humiliating defeats. 48.”
1972-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 27 (1972)
“Transgressions of principles basic to our Organization, such as forcible conquest and occupation of other peoples' territories or racial segregation and oppression, must clearly be condemned; nor can there be peaceful solutions to conflicts arising from such transgressions so long as the transgressors refuse to admit that basic principles have been breached. 46. But if the intention is conciliation, concession and problem-solving, then the polemical approach-the arena atmosphere will hardly accomplish any of these things. That is why earlier in my address I drew attention to the literary style of communiques and statements that preface successful bilateral discussions: they are invariably barren of polemics. Even when they testify to disagreement, they avoid apportioning blame.”
1972-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 27 (1972)
“One reason is that the United Nations has tended over the years to become less and less an organization for reconciliation and more and more an arena for staging contests. That is reflected in the style and temper of many United Nations debates and resolutions. Instead of ad-dressing ourselves to finding practical solutions to difficult and complex problems we give ourselves over to polemics and rhetoric. The object is to whip up strong emotions, affix blame to one side or the other and compose resolutions around such all-too-familiar words as "condemn", "deplore", "censure" and "expel". This is not to deny the sincerity behind these great emotions or that the felt outrage is justified.”
1972-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 27 (1972)
“But the small nations, too, with their wrangling and posturing, have contributed as much to the decline of the world Organization; and if we, the small nations, want to restore vigor to the United Nations-as we must if we are to play any kind of role in world affairs then we must look at our shortcomings with a frank and critical eye. We must do so because not only is the United Nations being by-passed by the big Powers but it is also. as I have said, being by-passed by smaller nations. Like the big Powers, the small nations, too, are slowly veering to the view that the United Nations is not an organization which can be relied upon to resolve their conflicts, to solve their problems. 45.”
1972-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 27 (1972)
“But now that the United Nations has been relegated to a position of relative unimportance by the great Powers we, the small nations, run the danger of being deprived of a very important instrument that we have for shaping and influencing major decisions on world affairs. 43. It is all too easy to cast the blame for the by-passing of the United Nations wholly on the selfishness and arrogance of the great Powers. They have their faults. Their wrangling and posturing to further the ends of the cold war undoubtedly contributed a great deal to the decline of the United Nations. 44.”
1972-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 27 (1972)
“In the early days of the United Nations, when the great Powers treated it as an important instrument of diplomacy, the smaller nations did play a not unimportant role in the shaping of international events. The aspirations and views of the third world nations did in some measure influence the policies and attitudes of the major Powers. The small nations were wooed with an ardor and a persistence which many small nations found satisfying. The great Powers valued, if not our views, at least our votes, because at that time, at the height of the cold war, they set great store by the resolutions approved in this Assembly.”
1972-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 27 (1972)
“The big Powers have over the years established an international network of their own which, if the small nations are not careful, will increasingly shape the course of world events independently of the small nations. It is we, the small nations, rather than the great Powers, who stand to lose in the long run by the diminishing role assigned to the United Nations in the making of world history. The United Nations activities could, given present trends, be no more than foot-notes to the chapters the great Powers will write. 42. Without the United Nations there is no way in which the small nations can exert direct influence on the course of world history.”
1972-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 27 (1972)
“Big-Power problems could, it was felt, be more expeditiously and satisfactorily resolved in face-to-face discussions, unhampered by the importunities of a host of small nations. In so far as the major Powers show any interest in the United Nations, it is to regard it more as a forum for scoring propaganda points and to use smaller nations as pressure groups to influence their rivals. The United Nations, in other words, is for the big Powers a supplementary but subsidiary instrument of diplomacy. If they cannot resolve their problems through the United Nations, there ii always face-to-face diplomacy to fall back on. 41. The unpleasant fact that the small nations must face up to is that the great Powers do not need the United Nations for their diplomacy or the influencing of world affairs as much as small nations do.”
1972-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 27 (1972)
“The interests and ambitions of the big Powers cannot, they feel, be promoted and safeguarded by striving to get a consensus among some 130 Members, with interests and conflicts which the great Powers find not only irrelevant and tiresome but also increasingly dangerous to big-Power accord. It is not an accident that the drift towards an independent big-Power diplomacy began with the accelerated increase in the membership of the United Nations and with the tacit agreement that war between major Powers must be avoided at all costs because it implied mutual annihilation. Discussions and consultations with some 130 nations would not, the big Powers felt, promote their somewhat different interests.”
1972-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 27 (1972)
“In this connexion I should like to draw the attention of representatives to Article 1 of the Charter, which proclaims that one of the purposes of the United Nations is "to be a center for harmonizing the actions of nations in the attainment of these common ends". 39. The unpleasant fact we have to face is that after 27 years the United Nations is less and less a "center" for harmonizing the actions of nations. The time has therefore come for us to begin the unpleasant task of searching out the reasons for the growing lack of confidence in the efficacy of the United Nations and for its declining prestige. 40. There is, as in all great and complex problems, more than one cause. There are the external factors, such as the conviction of the big Powers that world diplomacy should be equated with big-Power diplomacy.”
1972-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 27 (1972)
“All these admittedly hopeful events occurred in contexts quite divorced from this Organization, its personnel, facilities, debates and resolutions. 37. All this is not to suggest that we should deplore settlements outside the framework of the United Nations. On the contrary, we should welcome any easing of tension and resolution of conflicts, however reached. The point I want to make is that, if the trends I have drawn attention to persist, then the United Nations could become a meaningless and irrelevant organization-no more than an international social club for wearisome rhetoric. 38.”
1972-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 27 (1972)
“What my delegation did not then foresee was that small nations too would by-pass the United Nations to resolve differences and conflicts. The Secretary- General is sufficiently struck by this development to draw our attention to it in the introduction to his report on the work of the Organization. He makes this appeal: "... But when long-standing conflicts create vast humanitarian problems and may affect the peace and security of all mankind, the United Nations should surely be involved in the attempt to settle them." [A/87011 Add.l, p. 4. J In saying that, the Secretary-General was not expressly referring to developments of the past year. However, he clearly had these developments in mind when making his observations.”
1972-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 27 (1972)
“The bilateral accord reached between the People's Republic of China and Japan in Peking on 29 September 1972 is yet another instance of differences being resolved independently of the United Nations. 35. The divided States of Korea and Germany are making progress towards rapprochement outside the framework of the United Nations. Another outstanding issue, the tragic and protracted conflict in Viet-Nam, given present indications, is more likely to be settled outside the United Nations than within it. 36. Those instances of the by-passing of the United Nations have profound implications for our Organization. As far back as 1969 [1782nd meetingJ my delegation drew the attention of this Assembly to the separate decision-making network the big Powers were erecting to by-pass this Organization.”
1972-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 27 (1972)
“This resulted in a joint communique as well as a declaration of basic principles which stressed that "Differences in ideology and in the social systems of the USA and the USSR are not obstacles to the bilateral development of normal relations.. .". Here again what is worthy of note, apart from the reference to bilateral developments, is the tone of the speeches and declarations. They convey attitudes not of challenge and antagonism but of accommodation and conciliation. 33. The third instance of the by-passing of the United Nations was the signing of the Simla Agreement between the leaders of India and Pakistan. Here again what is noticeable in speeches and statements is the absence of polemics and antagonism. 34.”
1972-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 27 (1972)
“Last year the President of the United States, following a series of bilateral discussions outside the United Nations, went to China and had direct talks with the Chinese leaders. At these talks both countries stated their areas of agreement and disagreement in language calculated to encourage further accord. This language was shom of all the polemics and posturing that had been depressing features of speeches and resolutions on the China issue in our Organization. 32. The second occasion when the United Nations was by-passed was the summit meeting between the President of the United States and the leaders of the Soviet Union.”
1972-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 27 (1972)
“The first of these events was the resolution outside the United Nations of the seemingly irreconcilable differences which had existed between the United States and the People's Republic of China and which for a quarter of a century had been a source of international tensions and threats to peace. In the shape of the Taiwan issue it was for two decades debated inconclusively in the United Nations. Each debate left behind an accumulating residue of enmity and factionalism within the United Nations, which ensured that the next debate would be more sterile than the preceding one. 31. But now American-Chinese relations have been put on a more rational basis, not through the efforts of the United Nations, but in spite of them.”
1972-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 27 (1972)
“This is because he is taking over an organization which is sick and enfeebled. The period between the last session and the present one has revealed in a striking fashion the Organization's weaknesses and failures in shaping and guiding the collective destiny of mankind. 29. The world witnessed during this period what could be described as the unkindest cut ever delivered to the United Nations. Great Powers and smaller nations discovered that complex and delicate international issues could be more expeditiously and satisfactorily settled outside this Organization through bilateral discussions rather than within it. 30.”
1972-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 27 (1972)