On this, the first occasion of the participation of my country in the general debate of the Assembly, I hope the President will permit me to express the sincere thanks of the Government and people of Sierra Leone to all those who have so generously congratulated us and expressed very kind sentiments about my country on the occasion of our admission to the United Nations. Both in the various Committees and here in the plenary meetings of the General Assembly, it was particularly gratifying to us that, at a time when there has been so much difficulty in reaching general agreement on many issues before the Organization, our admission has been attended by such an atmosphere of general goodwill and unanimity. For all this, we are truly grateful. We therefore consider it our first duty to pledge, once again, our complete support and deep faith in all the principles laid down in the Charter of the United Nations. Indeed, it was because of our belief in those principles, and our dedication to the grand ideals accepted by the founding nations, that we sought admission to the world Organization immediately after we achieved independence. We here give assurance that we shall endeavour in every way to play our part in upholding those principles and ideals for which the Organization was originally conceived.
18. My delegation has taken its place in the Assembly at a time when the United Nations is undergoing a painful crisis. We have taken our seats at a time when men the world over seem dazzled and bewildered by the problems of our time—grave problems of war and peace touching the survival of man on this planet and the fate of our civilization. Even though the immediate solution of most of these problems has been entrusted to the hands of the great world Powers, yet, as the ultimate solutions of them touch the destiny of man wherever he may be, whether he belongs to a great or to a small nation, we of the smaller nations cannot afford—indeed, we dare not afford—to remain aloof and indifferent to what is happening all around us.
19. Indeed, to a certain extent, we ought to be more involved as we have a great stake in the peace of the world, without which we cannot develop our communities and improve the circumstances of our people.
20. It is, therefore, from this background that we enter this world forum, fully conscious of the importance of the United Nations as a great force for peace in our times and with the knowledge that it is our duty—and a very solemn one at that—to contribute our utmost towards the achievement of world peace and security.
21. Sierra Leone is first and foremost an African country; and we live in an age when this thought is bound to be uppermost in our minds and to dominate all our policies. It was because of a full realization of this that our Government, led by our Prime Minister, Sir Milton Margai, participated in the Monrovia Conference and fully subscribed to the conclusions reached there. We are most anxious to play a useful role in the councils of African States, because we recognize that we share with all of black Africa a common destiny. In this regard, we wish to identify ourselves with those who have condemned from this rostrum and elsewhere the nefarious and odious practice of race discrimination in South Africa, in flagrant and contemptuous defiance of world opinion. We shall do all we can to hasten the day when men of our colour in that troubled land will be accorded the ordinary rights and decencies which are the true entitlement of every human being. It was therefore a great honour to my country to have had the opportunity of voting for the censure motion which the Assembly [1033rd meeting] passed last week. It was an extraordinary occasion calling for the extraordinary treatment which it rightly received.
22. A great social revolution is now shaking the entire continent of Africa. Wherever men have failed to react to its impetus, there have been convulsions. Angola is now under the sword of the imperialist. Our hearts go out to the suffering Africans in that land, who are fighting so gallantly for their liberation from the shackles of colonialism. Portugal should know that there will be no peace in Angola until the people of Angola completely shake off the last vestiges of the foreign yoke.
23. Events in the Congo continue to worry all those who are anxious for peace in Africa and the preservation of the unity and sovereignty of States which have recently achieved independence. It is an unfortunate fact that there are often forces which are anxious to undermine the territorial integrity of small nations and to weaken their sovereignty. My delegation fully supports the efforts of the United Nations to bring peace to the Congo and establish stability there.
24. My delegation is committed to the principle of unity amongst the States in West Africa along the broad lines laid down at Monrovia. My Government is willing to co-operate with other West African States to achieve this ideal of unity without any interference with the sovereignty of individual States.
25. My country has a long and, if I may say so, distinguished record of service to neighbouring West African States. For many years, our institutions of learning ministered to the educational needs of the whole of West Africa; our missionaries, educators, administrators and professionals of every walk of life went out to help build the great West African nations, amongst whom we now have the honour of taking our places in the world Organization. It is therefore with a feeling of true brotherliness that we join them in the great African family of nations in the Assembly. And though with them we look forward to vigorous participation in the councils of the larger family of African-Asian nations, yet we reserve the right to speak independently on those occasions when we consider it necessary to do so. It is our. firm conviction that the United Nations can best fulfil its avowed task if all nations are free to express their views independently on all occasions, free from any bloc allegiances. This is not, of course, to deny that there are times when the interests of a group of nations lie in the same direction, but we believe that for the maintenance of the dignity and the enhancement of the strength of the Organization, all nations must be guided by objective concepts of freedom and justice, and thus raise the United Nations to the stature of being the conscience of the world.
26. My delegation firmly believes that to enable the Organization to fulfil its role in the affairs of the world as the supreme international body, it should lie truly universal. In this connexion, we wish to record our disappointment that the African country of Mauritania has still been denied membership in the Organization. We appeal to all those concerned not to involve the fate of this country in any ideological conflict with which Mauritania may not be directly concerned.
27. These are days of world tension when we are constantly reminded of the dangers of the nuclear age, and we stand shivering and exposed to the rigours of the cold war. It is a matter for dismay that man, who has been able to make such conquests in the universe, should continue to fail to solve the most fundamental of his problems, vital to his continued existence on this planet. We of the smaller nations have been obliged to watch in patience this sad spectacle of nuclear testing, general rearmament, and the large-scale preparation for war by those nations who sit in the Assembly and in the Committees of the Assembly day after day, taking part in the deliberations of an Organization avowedly devoted to peace and the removal of the causes of war. Is this a situation worthy of the dignity of civilized man? Have we learnt nothing from the history books, if not from real experience, of the horrors and humiliations of war? And what problems does war solve anyway? We still have with us the aftermath of the Second World War, In fact, it is in Berlin, where the embers of the last world war are still smouldering that -we have the greatest threat of another world war. My delegation, alongside the delegations of many small countries in the Assembly, is most anxious to see the solution of the Berlin question and the ultimate removal of this potential source of war. The great Powers involved with the situation there have spent such a long time talking without apparently reaching any solution—is it not time that the smaller nations not directly involved with the passions and emotions of the political situation in Berlin be brought into their councils to inject sanity into their deliberations and help achieve a solution? Who knows whether the small nations of Africa and Asia have not been called into the councils of the world for such a time as this, when men of the older nations seem to be at their wits' end and appear determined to destroy themselves and the world around them?
28. And it is in this role that we believe the small countries can best exert a great influence for peace. We live in times when no one nation can withdraw from the fate and fortunes of the others. It is in this context that the great nations can give economic help and technical skill to the under-developed countries of the world. And such help can be most acceptable through international channels and organizations.
29. The specialized agencies of the United Nations Organization have done much in this field but there can be no doubt that they can do much more. The sixteenth session of the General Assembly has been convened at a time when we are beset with grave and serious problems. The long agenda is full of controversial and thorny questions, but with goodwill on all sides and a genuine desire to meet the challenge of our age, my delegation has every confidence that our deliberations will be fruitful and will make a useful contribution towards the solution of the problems of our time.