3. Madam President, I take great pleasure in offering you the
warm congratulations of my delegation on your unanimous
election to the presidency of the twenty-fourth session of
the General Assembly of the United Nations. This is an
honour bestowed not only upon yourself but also upon
your country and the whole of Africa. Having known you
for a long time and having had the privilege of appreciating
your brilliant qualities as a diplomat, I am convinced that
you will guide the Assembly’s discussions with competence
and to the satisfaction of the delegations which, by their
votes, have appointed you to perform the difficult functions
that are yours from now on.
4. I should next wish to pay a well-earned tribute to the
memory of your predecessor, Mr. Emelio Arenales, the
Minister for Foreign Affairs of Guatemala, whose sudden
passing has caused us deep grief.
5. I should also like to associate my delegation with the
tribute you have just paid to the memory of Mahatma
Gandhi, that great philosopher who gave mankind many
lessons in wisdom and who throughout his life contributed
to the establishment of peace and friendly co-operation
among all peoples.
6. Nearly a quarter of a century has gone by since the
establishment of the Organization. Since then many important
changes have occurred in the world. the population
explosion, an increase in wealth, remarkable progress in
scientific and technological discoveries, the liberation of
many peoples in Africa and Asia. But the most disturbing
fact is the ever-widening gulf between the wealthy and the
under-developed countries.
7. The conscience of the world has been, and still is,
faced with grave problems. Throughout the world, centres of
tension and crises have created dangerous and highly
explosive situations.
8. The principal aim of the United Nations being to
maintain international peace and security, the people and
Government of the Republic of Mali welcomed with great
hopes the statement made in this Assembly on 17 September
1969 [1755th meeting] by the President of the
United States of America, in which he declared that since
he had assumed his weighty responsibilities, no question
had cost him more time and effort than the search for a
way to put an end to the war in Viet-Nam, an end that
would be just to the population of the North as well as to
those who would be affected by the settlement of the conflict.
9. We think that this language is the language of wisdom
and realism, and that it corresponds to the enlightened
self-interest of the people of the United States and
Viet-Nam. But we are still convinced that a just peace for
the populations both of North and South should be
negotiated and freely determined by the genuine representatives
of the whole people of Viet-Nam, without any
foreign pressure or intervention whatsoever, in accordance
with the Geneva Agreements of 1954. The people of
Viet-Nam, which has already suffered greatly to win its
unchallengeable claim to national independence and unity,
has again been cruelly tried by the death of its much-loved
leader, President Ho Chi Minh, who was for all the peoples
of the third world the symbol of patriotism and of
self-denial in the service of his country.
10. The people and Government of the Republic of Mali
believe that the international community should now move
with great determination and impartiality in order that the
valiant people of Viet-Nam may once again live in peace
and national unity in order to devote themselves
whole-heartedly, with the courage which is typical of them, to the
difficult problem of their economic and social development
along the lines they will have freely chosen. Through the
intermediary of the Government of the United States of
America, we make an urgent appeal to the American
people, which has given mankind such eminent personalities
as Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Samuel Adams,
John F. Kennedy, who devoted their lives to making the
United States a progressive country and a great democracy,
we make, I repeat, an urgent appeal to the American people
and its leaders to overcome the possible susceptibilities of a
great Power and to recognize the legitimate aspirations of
Viet-Nam so that its martyred people may at last exist in
peace and know the joy of living in security after more than
a quarter of a century of heroic strife.
11. Did not a great thinker once say that the greatness of a
nation is not measured by the amount of blood it has shed
but by the number of human problems it has solved?
12. We are convinced that the American people, which,
through its creative initiatives, its courage and its genius
succeeded in solving formidable problems relating to its
own nationhood, such as the Civil War, a people which
contributed, in co-operation with the heroic Red Army and
the other allied forces, to the crushing of nazism and
fascism, will also know how to act like the great nation
postulated by the author of my quotation, and will find an
honourable and just solution to the agonizing problem of
Viet-Nam, to the utmost satisfaction of all mankind, which
is at present living in a state of distress and profound
anxiety. The initiative already taken, the measures and
intentions announced from this very rostrum by President
Nixon already give us grounds for hoping that reason and
wisdom will triumph over the forces of war.
13. Still in the search for peace, stability and security in
Asia, the Government of the Republic of Mali hopes that
the States Members of the United Nations will be more
realistic and more conscious of national independence, so
that the People’s Republic of China may be restored to its
rights as a founding Member of the Organization. It is
extremely perilous to pretend to ignore realities and to
move against the current of history. Whether one approves
or disapproves of the political, economic and social régime
of the People’s Republic of China, the fact is nonetheless
certain that this State is a very great Power in every field
and that it alone accounts for more than a quarter of the
world’s population. In attempting to maintain a Power of
this dimension outside the United Nations—this great forum
where all the major problems of international peace and
security are discussed — seems to the Government of Mali to
be a dangerous violation and abuse of the principle of the
universality of the Organization.
14. To adhere to the Charter of the United Nations, to
recognize the universal mandate and character of the
Organization and at the same time obstinately to exclude
from it the most populous nation in the world — 700 million
inhabitants — are the elements of a grave contradiction
which should be eliminated as soon as possible in the higher
interests of peace and of the essential co-operation between
nations with differing political, economic and social
régimes. The People’s Republic of China should be restored
without delay to its rights as a founding Member of the
United Nations and take its place as a permanent member
of the Security Council as the only authentic representative
of China, the cradle of one of the world’s oldest civilizations.
The Government of the Republic of Mali makes an
urgent appeal to the Government of the United States of
America to rise to its broad and high responsibilities on the
international stage, and strongly hopes that it will not
continue to oppose the restoration of the People’s Republic
of China to its rights as a founding Member of the United
Nations and as a permanent member of the Security
Council. We are sure that that is not beyond the powers of
comprehension and the sense of reality of the Government
of the United States, the first nation whose scientists and
technicians have succeeded in freeing themselves from the
force of gravity and, for the first time in the history of
mankind, in walking on the moon, that distant planet
which has always been an object of curiosity and investigation
for scientists and a source of inspiration for poets at all
times and in all places.
15. For the benefit of those Governments which may still
doubt the will of the People’s Republic of China to respect
the obligations, purposes and principles of the Charter of
the United Nations, I will cite a passage from the statement
made at Peking on 30 September 1969 by the Prime
Minister, Chou En-lai, who said:
“The peace that we seek is based on five principles:
mutual respect for territorial integrity and for sovereignty;
mutual non-aggression; mutual non-intervention in
internal affairs; equality and reciprocal advantages; and
peaceful coexistence.”
It is this not the best possible expression of the purposes,
principles and objectives of the United Nations?
16. Turning now to the subject of decolonization, that is,
the liberation of colonial peoples, the delegation of Mali is
firmly convinced that the United Nations should reconsider
its methods of approach and of search for solutions to this
painful problem, which in our day and age constitutes a
true anachronism. We note with great regret that the long
discussions in the Committee of Twenty-four and in the
Fourth Committee have done little to hasten the attainment
of independence by the peoples still under colonial
rule. Very often, alas, the inclination to rhetoric, and
sometimes to strong emotion, which is certainly justified,
have had the better of realism and of a reasoned search for
objective and effective solutions.
17. Having had the honour and heavy responsibility of
presiding over the Committee of Twenty-four for four
years, I believe that the time has come for the United
Nations to rethink its working methods, its ways of tackling
the problem of decolonization. The time seems to me to
have passed for long discussions in the Fourth Committee,
where the 126 delegations of the States Members of the
United Nations feel obliged to speak, for requests for
information, for petitions and so on. The purpose of those
discussions and petitions was to render international
opinion more sensitive to the inhuman conditions of life,
the humiliations, the deprivation of rights and freedom
imposed on colonial peoples by the colonialist Powers.
18. The international community is now aware of the fate
of colonized peoples and of the reactionary and retrograde
behaviour of the colonial Powers. We think that the United
Nations which will soon have 25 years of life and
experience behind it, should seek a more realistic and
effective approach in order to accelerate the process of
accession to independence of the colonial peoples, a process
which has not shown any noteworthy progress despite the
adoption nearly 10 years ago of resolution 1514 (XV)
containing the Declaration on the Granting of Independence
to Colonial Countries and Peoples.
19. Without seeking to diminish the militancy of nationalists,
it would be advisable to find a new mechanism
which, under the auspices of the Secretary-General or of
the Security Council, would make it possible to hold
discussions and serious negotiations between the representatives
of the colonial Powers and those of the liberation
movements, in order to identify the stages and steps to
independence, while maintaining links of friendly co-operation
and solidarity, as was done in the case of most of
the former French and British colonies. Although, in
certain particular and regrettable cases, typified by that of
Algeria, to mention only one, independence was only
acquired after many years of armed struggle, in many other
cases in Africa that result was achieved through negotiations
between the former metropolitan country and the
representatives of the political parties of liberation movements.
20. It is therefore desirable that, instead of long and sterile
discussions, the Organization should find, in tranquillity
and without passion, a mechanism which would put the
representatives of the colonial Powers and those of the
liberation movements in direct contact. In our opinion,
such a method would be more realistic and effective,
experience having shown that it is vital for the colonial
Powers and their former colonies to maintain the essential
degree of co-operation to meet various categorical needs.
Consequently we ask States Members of the United
Nations, particularly the allies of the colonial Powers, to
look objectively at this new approach that we suggest to the
solution of colonial problems, which, as I have just said,
constitute in our times a humiliating and repugnant
anachronism.
21. It is unthinkable that the peoples of Angola,
Mozambique and Guinea (Bissau) should remain under the
domination of a Government with such mediaeval and
unpractical ideas as that of Portugal. In spite of, and indeed
because of, the bonds of friendly co-operation which link
Portugal with certain States Members of NATO, the
Government of the Republic of Mali considers that the
latter States should cease to provide the Government of
Portugal with any direct or indirect assistance enabling it to
continue to wage an unjust, barbarous and cruel war against
the peoples of Mozambique, Angola and Guinea (Bissau),
that only aspire to exercise their inalienable right to
self-determination, a right enshrined in the Charter of the
United Nations and the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights.
22. As regards the problems of Namibia and of apartheid
in South Africa, we consider that we have here a brazen
defiance of the United Nations and of all States devoted to
peace and justice. Indeed it is unbelievable and incomprehensible
that over 20 years after the adoption of the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights and nearly 25 years
after the proclamation of the Charter of the United
Nations, the international community should allow the
racist Government of South Africa to oppress more than 13
million Africans in their ancestral homeland. The persistent
refusal of the Governments of Lisbon and Pretoria, and of
the illegal authorities of Southern Rhodesia, to implement
the decisions of the Security Council reveals, unfortunately,
the rooted complicity of certain great Powers and the
disquieting weakness of the United Nations, which remains,
despite everything, the one hope of the smaller States and
of oppressed peoples. It is therefore time that the great
Powers, particularly the permanent members of the
Security Council, became more conscious of their responsibilities
towards mankind and co-operated with the Organization
of African Unity and the other States devoted to
peace and justice to impose upon the Governments of
Portugal, South Africa and Southern Rhodesia the principles
and rules of international morality. The tacit consent,
indeed the indirect support and the complicity, of certain
great Powers with regard to the reactionary or illegal
régimes of Lisbon, Pretoria and Salisbury give ground for
concern and despair to the peoples of Africa.
23. The Republic of Mali, as a developing country, is
keenly concerned with the development of economic and
commercial relations between the industrialized countries
and those of the third world. As a result of the steadily
deteriorating terms of trade, the economic gulf between the
developed and the developing countries grows wider every
year. Apart from any kind of philanthropic consideration,
it is time for the industrialized countries to realize that a
gradual narrowing of the gap between their own standard of
living and that of the third world constitutes a decisive
factor for international peace, security and co-operation.
Since poor and under-developed countries cannot be good
customers and effective partners, the industrialized countries
should make a sustained effort to speed up the
economic, industrial and social advancement of the countries
of the third world. It is in their interest and in that of
all mankind. It is discouraging to note that the Governments
of the developed countries spend enormous sums on
the conquest of outer space and of remote planets, while
here on earth thousands of human beings die each day of
hunger and of the major endemic diseases, despite the
immense advances of science and technology. We believe
that the industrialized countries should show a greater
realism and solidarity and should accept the provisions of
the Charter of Algiers!
24. In this connexion, my delegation welcomes the efforts
already made by a few industrialized countries, such as the
French Republic, which, on a bilateral basis or under the
aegis of the United Nations, are devoting one per cent of
their national income to assistance to developing countries,
or intend to.do so within a few years. Although this points
to remarkable progress towards securing acceptance of
international co-operation, this percentage, as was so
eloquently pointed out by Mr. Thorn, the Minister for
Foreign Affairs of Luxembourg, in his statement of 29
September 1969 [1769th meeting], should mark a beginning
and not an end, in view of the enormous gap between
the industrialized and the developing countries. This spirit
of assistance and co-operation in accordance with the
Charter of the United Nations undoubtedly constitutes a
positive contribution to international peace. Similarly, my
delegation wishes to express its great appreciation to the
Government of the United States of America and to the
Governments of the European Economic Community for
their food programmes, which make it possible for the
developing countries to meet the hazards of shortfalls in
their grain production.
25. In so doing, my delegation wishes to express itself
without any false shame, because we look on the assistance
of the developed countries not as charity, but as a
demonstration of solidarity and of a resolve to achieve
international co-operation based on the interdependence of
the various national economies.
26. Being a country situated at the crossroads of central
West Africa and being dedicated to the maintenance of
friendly relations with the States that respect its sovereignty
and observe international morality, the Republic of
Mali is deeply concerned with the preservation of peace,
which represents the decisive factor in progress and fruitful
co-operation among Governments. We are therefore following
with deep anxiety the development of the situation in
all those: parts of the world where conflicts have arisen,
particularly in the Middle East. Although the Republic of
Mali is a secular State, its population is 90 per cent Muslim.
It was therefore profoundly disturbed and affected by the
setting on fire of the Al Aqsa Mosque, one of the most
important holy places of Islam, an act which is but one
aspect — or more precisely one of the unfortunate results — of
the explosive situation that has prevailed in this region since
the establishment of the State of Israel.
27. Although sincerely and deeply sympathetic to the
Arab peoples, the Government of Mali intends to remain
realistic. We express our full sympathy and support for the
Arab refugees in Palestine because, like every other people,
they have a right to a fatherland, a home and a national
existence as a community of men. But the fact is that the
State of Israel exists and that it was set up and recognized
by the General Assembly and the Security Council of the
United Nations, particularly by the permanent members of
the Security Council. Moreover, Israel is a Member of the
United Nations.
28. The Government of the Republic of Mali is sincerely
in favour of a policy of peaceful coexistence between Arabs
and Jews and is fiercely opposed to the annexation of Arab
territories by Israel. Consequently we will work with
determination to ensure that all the Arab territories
occupied by Israel following the hostilities of June 1967 are
restored to the Arab States concerned. The Government of
the Republic of Mali disapproves of, and wholeheartedly
condemns, all acquisition of territories by war or force. For
that reason we ask the Security Council to demonstrate its
authority and to impose on the warring factions in the
Middle East conflict the terms of its resolution of 22
November 1967 [242 (1967)]. The Charter of the United
Nations, approved by all Member States, gives the Security
Council the authority and necessary means to implement its
decisions. Regardless of the interests, the feelings and
sympathies involved, the Government of Mali considers that
the Security Council resolution of 22 November 1967
should be imposed on all the parties concerned, failing
which the Council will lose its prestige, to the great
detriment of the international community.
29. Mali, as a non-aligned country firmly determined to
pursue a policy of genuine national independence, will act
in complete freedom on the questions included in the
agenda of this session. It will do so in order to promote
international peace, security and co-operation in accordance
with the purposes and principles of the United Nations.
30. Member States, particularly the permanent members
of the Security Council, should do everything in their
power to strengthen the authority of the United Nations
which, despite everything, is still the hope of mankind in
these troubled times.
31. In this connexion I should like, in the name of the
Government of Mali, to pay a well-deserved tribute to
U Thant, the Secretary-General of the United Nations,
whose wisdom and perseverance have enabled the Organization
to surmount many crises which might have proved
disastrous. I should also like to thank and congratulate the
specialized agencies of the United Nations which are
making a major contribution to the economic and social
expansion of the developing countries.
32. Owing to its importance, my delegation has reserved
the last part of its statement for the disarmament problem.
We believe that the maintenance of peace, which is the
principle purpose of the United Nations, cannot be ensured
until the arms race, and particularly the nuclear, thermo-nuclear,
biological and chemical arms race, is halted. The
non-proliferation of nuclear weapons and the partial nuclear
test-ban constitute, of course, important stages
towards general and complete disarmament under international
control. In the view of the Government of Mali,
however, the total destruction of all nuclear arms must be
the final objective, because as long as weapons of mass
destruction exist there is still a possibility of their being
used, either by mistake or in order to safeguard the prestige
of a great Power. The monopoly of nuclear and thermo-nuclear
weapons by the great powers is not an adequate
safeguard for mankind, because history has shown beyond
doubt that great wars are always provoked and maintained
by conflicts of interest or of influence between the major Powers.
33. The Government of the Republic of Mali firmly
supports the moving appeal made to the great Powers by
the apostle of peace, Mr. Raoul Follereau, who implored
those Powers, in the interests of mankind and of their own
peoples, to put a brake on the arms race, because the
enormous sums thus spent for reasons of pride and prestige
would amply suffice to eradicate widespread diseases which
kill thousands of people every year, to save thousands of
children who likewise die every year of disease and
malnutrition, and bring fertility to hitherto unproductive
land which has remained derelict and uncultivated for lack
of resources.
34. With all these considerations in mind, the Government
of the Republic of Mali welcomes and strongly supports the
proposal submitted for our consideration jointly by the
USSR and other socialist countries [A/7655] for the
conclusion of a convention on the prohibition of the
development, production and stockpiling of chemical and
bacteriological weapons and on the destruction of such
weapons. For the reasons just mentioned, my delegation
hopes that the scope of this convention can be extended to
all weapons of mass destruction.
35. Before concluding, I should like to suggest that the
Secretary-General and the Committee of Seven should
consider further and without delay the study on the
functioning of the United Nations and the organization of
its work. The agenda of General Assembly sessions seems to
be overloaded and includes many routine items which not
everyone is prepared to discuss, since discussion leads to no
practical or feasible solution. When it was first established,
the United Nations had only 51 members; it now has 126.
The working methods suitable at the time are therefore no
longer adapted to the present day. Moreover, the steady
increase in the staff of the central administration and the
specialized agencies, the numerous conferences and meetings
of doubtful value and the great length of General
Assembly sessions impose far too heavy a burden on the
meagre budget of young States. We therefore believe that
prompt and effective reforms are necessary in this field;
otherwise the list of countries in arrears in the payment of
their contributions is likely to grow longer each year and to
paralyse the beneficial activities of the Organization.
36. This closes the modest contribution of the delegation
of Mali to the debate at the twenty-fourth regular session
of the General Assembly of the United Nations, soon to
celebrate its twenty-fifth anniversary. The international
community now has a duty to draw the lessons from its
experience and to embark on a more active programme to
promote peace and the well-being of mankind. In this
connexion, a more extensive and effective campaign should
be undertaken by the United Nations to ensure that the
Second Development Decade responds fully to the hopes of
the peoples of the third world, because, as Disraeli
observed, there is nothing so exhilarating in public life as
that which presages the future and which, through enveloping
the fog of the present, traces a path towards the light
37. The nations met here together, motivated by solidarity
and mutual understanding, can trace such a path towards
the light for present and future generations. In the
execution of this great and exalting design, I wish to
reaffirm before the Assembly that the people of the
Republic of Mali are and will always be at the side of the
forces of peace and progress.