I should like first of all to express once again, on my own behalf and on that of my delegation, our sincere congratulations to Mr. Boland on his election as President of so important a session of the General Assembly. The confidence which the Assembly has thus shown in him is a just tribute to his personal qualities, to his country and to its brave people, whose valiant struggle has so often been an example and a symbol to us.
37. The special importance of this session of the United Nations General Assembly is underlined in the first place, by the presence of Heads of States or of Governments, to whom I should like to convey an expression of esteem. Their participation in our work invests the General Assembly's debates with particular weight and seriousness. The presence of so many responsible leaders of Member States brings into unusually full relief the questions which they and we have to consider. We believe — and hope — that, despite the occasionally dramatic fever of the first few days, sound and suitable decisions may finally be reached and that the process of finding solutions for the fundamental problems before us can be accelerated.
38. The current session has opened under the happy augury of the admission of sixteen new Member States from the Mediterranean region and Africa. This should, in my view, benefit the United Nations in two ways. First, it makes the Organization more representative, especially as far as Africa is concerned, and thus brings it closer to its goal of universality. The nations which have just acceded to independence, and which my country welcomed here only a few days ago, are all numbered among the under-developed countries of the world. We are sure that their profound attachment to both individual and collective freedom, for which they have fought so resolutely, will be the most valuable contribution they can make to the debates in the Assembly. Their determination to secure genuine emancipation and economic and social liberation will unquestionably help to lay greater stress on this prime aspect of the problem of decolonization. To make devotion to freedom more active, and to present a more complete picture of the exigencies of decolonization — that, we feel, is the most valuable contribution which the new Mediterranean and African States can make to the United Nations, and constitutes a further reason for the considerable importance of the fifteenth session.
39. But apart from the calibre and composition of several of our delegations, and from the sharp outline of the problems before us, the significance of our debates is, we feel, emphasized still further by the special atmosphere which has prevailed in this hall since this session began. Serious problems have quite suddenly, and almost unexpectedly, arisen. Today the Organization itself is being reappraised, not merely in regard to its geographical location, its administrative structure and its methods, but also, and primarily, in regard to the fundamental meaning of its existence and of the permanent principles by which it is guided, as they derive from the Charter. Such a reappraisal has never before been made so insistently, so seriously or so disquietingly. Until now, the United Nations has constituted the supranational framework within which conflicts of interest between nations could be at least attenuated, if not solved. Negotiations undertaken to that end have been based on the twin principles of tolerance and co-operation, which of necessity imply mutual understanding and reciprocal concessions in conformity, of course, with the requirements of law and justice. The Organization has been erected and maintained on the basis of the fundamental principle of equality among nations, whether great or small, strong or weak.
40. At the national level, problems are viewed from the standpoint of the immediate interests of each State and in the light of its main concern to safeguard its national sovereignty. At the international level, the search for solutions to the problems and conflicts under consideration proceeds from a broader interpretation of our responsibilities; it is directed towards a less selfish goal. Here, we act, and are in the habit of acting, as representatives of the different members of the community of mankind, and our first concern should be to safeguard peace and to ensure that individual interests are adjusted to each other without the use of force.
41. But, for just a month now, the United Nations, as the focal point of all conflicts, has been suffering from an absolute lack of tolerance, a narrowly nationalist, regionalist or partisan concept of problems, and a marked placing of individual interests above the short-term general interest and the long-term interests of mankind. In truth, the United Nations is suffering, today, from a moral crisis of humanity and its leaders; for of what use are organizations and charters if the level of men's morality is still too low?
42. This moral crisis through which the United Nations is passing is, we feel, reflected in the desire recently shown by some to induce others to accept, and almost perforce to embrace, their opinions. The small countries of Africa and Asia are at times insistently urged to adopt one or another form of dogma. No sooner do we recover our freedom than we are invited to give it up, and let others interpret international problems for us and tell us what our position with regard to them should be. We have also been invited to consider ourselves a third, integral, African or African-Asian bloc, having as its sole catechism the breviary of statistics reflecting our regrettable state of under-development.
43. Our fidelity to democratic principles sets us, from the outset, against the very principle of power blocs. True, the admirable principles of the African-Asian Conference held at Bandung in 1955 won our complete and unreserved support; and the Conferences of Independent African States, held at Accra, Monrovia, Addis Ababa and, most recently, Leopoldville for the purpose of defining a common attitude towards the important problems directly affecting our continent, have done much to strengthen a solidarity which is both natural and beneficial. But that does not, in our opinion, suffice to justify our forming a bloc whose establishment would, we feel, give rise to serious dangers.
44. The sacrifices which the people of Tunisia has had to make in order to recover the right to freedom of judgement and choice is still, in fact, too fresh in our memories for us to have any inclination to abandon that freedom in haste. Firmly attached to its policy of non-alignment, Tunisia cannot easily embrace a policy of general, systematic alignment. To us it seems more realistic, and more in accordance with the principle of free and peaceful coexistence between equal nations, to maintain our position of non-alignment, which enables us to bear our own responsibilities in regard to each problem on the basis of its merits and of the requirements of law and justice. What is more, we are convinced that it would not be in the interests of the United Nations, and would be still less in those of our African, the Asian or even the American continent, for us to embark on such an adventure without weighing its implications very carefully.
45. The Tunisian delegation could not, in the name of what is commonly called political realism, agree to regard the division of the world into blocs of nations or coalitions of interests as something final. We do not wish to subscribe to the idea that peaceful coexistence is only a moment of respite vouchsafed to mankind. Such a prospect would mean, not only a denial of the very principles of the Charter, but indeed the end of coexistence among nations, and a sort of collective suicide by persuasion.
46. For young States like Tunisia, to embrace one political dogma or another, to subscribe to the establishment of a new permanent coalition of interests or to the strengthening of any of those already existing, would not only mean the abandonment of our freedom but would also upset, to a dangerous degree, the already tenuous balance which allows the United Nations to function.
47. The United Nations is the framework within which all our efforts must be directed towards a better harmonizing of international relations on the basis of the fundamental principle of the equality of Member States, great and small, strong and weak. We feel that only by assuming our full responsibilities, and jealously guarding our freedom to evaluate problems and the attitudes of the great nations in regard to them, shall we be acting in the best interests both of the international Organization and of ourselves, the small nations. The opening meetings of the current session have shown us sufficiently clearly, I think, that the fate of peace is now more than ever linked to the fate of the freedom of nations and the dignity of men. The freedom of all of us and the freedom of the Organization will depend, in the last analysis, on the maintenance and preservation of the freedom of each of us individually.
48. The Tunisian delegation therefore opposes the division of the United Nations into three blocs, reduced to the status of offices or institutions. It is even more strongly opposed to the splitting of the United Nations executive into a sort of triumvirate.
49. The veto in the Security Council is even now distasteful to most Member States, because it runs counter to the principle of the equality of all States and gives to a few the power of thwarting the will of the majority. Its effects are counteracted to some extent by the "Uniting for Peace" resolution [377 (V)] which has already, four times, made it possible to call the General Assembly into emergency special session with a view to avoiding serious situations that might have gravely endangered international peace and security.
50. But the great majority of Members of our Organization continue to hope that this veto will be replaced by a more democratic system and that the committee on reviewing the Charter may find a suitable formula to that end.
51. To transform now, or seek to transform, the office of Secretary-General into an organ which could also exert some sort of veto on the implementation of our Organization's decisions would undoubtedly result in rendering the United Nations ineffective.
52. We can readily understand that the present structure of the United Nations, as manifested in its principal organs, was conceived in a political context which new events have to a great extent made out of date, and that we must to some degree consider adjusting the Organization and adapting its organs to the new situation created by the increase in the number of Member States and the greater diversity of the problems to be dealt with. The committee on reviewing the Charter will be specifically responsible for proposing the necessary adjustments to this end. Nevertheless, that should not entail a complete reappraisal of the Organization and cannot, in our view, justify the radical upheaval which has been proposed. Such a transformation, if effected, particularly at the executive level, would inevitably bring the normal functioning of the entire Organization to a halt.
53. Small States like Tunisia are, first and foremost, interested in having a coherent, a strong and, in particular, an effective international organization. The problems facing us in our efforts to speed up the independence of our brothers now fighting in Algeria, Africa and elsewhere in the world, to consolidate our sovereignty and to rationalize our economic situation, all impose on us the duty of supporting the United Nations and the unity of its executive more than ever, and of urging authority and prestige for it, so that it may aid us more effectively in a struggle which is often one-sided and arduous. We need an organization whose prestige is unanimously acknowledged and whose authority is undisputed, despite its imperfections, so that we may be spared all the disastrous consequences of a failure like that experienced by the League of Nations on the eve of the Second World War.
54. I shall now take up one of the most important problems to be discussed at this session — the Algerian problem. Algeria is, no doubt, the only country in the world in which a real and murderous war has been raging for long years and maintaining a permanent state of tension in the Mediterranean area. I cannot, during the general debate, give a complete description of the Algerian problem. But my delegation finds it difficult to understand how it is possible to avoid mentioning it, even summarily, in a discussion which is so important for both the present and the future of the international community.
55. For Tunisia, this conflict, which in a few days will enter its seventh year of war, represents much more than a permanent threat to our sovereignty. It is highly detrimental to North Africa’s relations with France and with the other parts of the world in which that nation is established. This war has at times caused us to doubt the effectiveness of the United Nations, which impotently witnesses the continuation of the conflict, the daily repetition of large loss of life and of useless sacrifice, and the forcible maintenance of a regime superannuated by history, against the manifest will of a freedom-loving brother people which is constantly invoking the principles set forth in the Charter and demanding that they be respected.
56. We deeply regret that the situation has not evolved in the direction of peace since the last session of the General Assembly, despite the agreement in principle between the French and the Algerians on the necessity of allowing the Algerian people freely to determine its own future through a genuine popular vote. It will be recalled that, at the fourteenth session, a draft resolution [A/L.276] recommending negotiations to that end was adopted, paragraph by paragraph, by the required majority in the General Assembly. In so voting, Members’ delegations hoped to offer adequate safeguards for a genuine referendum designed to restore peace. But the draft resolution as a whole did not secure the necessary majority. Need it be recalled that this vote on the draft resolution as a whole was cast by delegates favourable to the Algerian cause, solely for reasons of expediency, with the one object of not hindering, at that juncture, the efforts of both parties to achieve a peaceful solution of the conflict?
57. It was not long, however, before the hopes which all of us here had all entertained for the return of peace were demolished. Public opinion in Tunisia had welcomed with deep satisfaction the opening of the Melun “pourparlers” between the French Government and the Provisional Government of the Algerian Republic. The peoples throughout the world had confidently hoped that those "pourparlers" would result in the conclusion of peace in conformity with the draft resolution adopted last year by the First Committee. In Tunisia, we could not believe that France would reject the goodwill displayed by the authorized representatives of the struggling Algerian people and that it was going to dismiss the Algerian delegation after communicating to it the Draconian conditions which we all know, in the manner of victor speaking to vanquished. "The fact is that the atmosphere surrounding the stay in France of the Algerian emissaries, and the conditions presented to them, were such that only the plenipotentiaries of a defeated army, come to sue for peace and capitulate unconditionally, could have tolerated them. The French Government seemed to wish to convert these negotiations into a surrender." Yet no one can deny that the Algerian fighters are far from being defeated.
58. The press conference held by the Head of the French State on 5 September 1960 was, unfortunately, only too enlightening. Contrary to all its previous statements, the French Government seemed to believe once more in the possibility of a final armed victory over the Algerian people. Thus, the position of the reactionary forces in Algeria, which we had hitherto regarded as the ill-considered and short-sighted attitude of a coalition of interests, received, alas, official sanction and unexpectedly became the very foundation of French policy in Algeria. Negotiation is no longer contemplated as the only decent, honourable means of ending a war equally lacerating for two nations who have so many reasons for co-operating and living together on good terms. Even the "brave man’s peace" is no longer mentioned. What is proposed to us today is that the Algerian people should lay down its arms and accept whatever status France may subsequently be pleased to confer on it. The persons responsible for the destinies of France have, in short, been increasingly espousing the doctrines of the reactionaries in Algeria.
59. For us, who remain attached to the principle of the peoples’ right to self-determination, such a position is contrary to the liberal principles of which France has been one of the most respected champions and, in that capacity, one of the most beloved by us. Moreover, this attitude is not at all in line with international ethics. It represents a flagrant violation of the provisions of the United Nations Charter which we, together with France, continually invoke when considering the problems that come before this Organization. It gives to might preference over right, and replaces negotiation by resort to arms. Furthermore, it runs counter to publicly expressed intentions to seek peace and engage in parleys with the Algerian people. In face of this unfortunate situation, is it possible for us to remain in a state of expectation and allow the war and its evils to continue?
60. How long can those who invoke the principles of liberty and justice, set forth in 1941 by the Atlantic Charter, continue to be so considerate of French sensibilities and of so-called solidarity in so bad a cause, at the risk of undermining presumptions in their favour which, but for this conflict, there would be no reason to discard?
61. The leaders of the Algerian people at war have genuinely made every possible effort, and every concession compatible with the unassailable principles of right and justice, with a view to settling their dispute with France by the peaceful means of negotiation.
62. Can any blame now attach to a people, compelled to carry on this deplorable struggle which during six years has caused so great a loss of human life, for seeking support and backing from every possible political quarter, whether in the East, the West or the third world, with a view to ensuring respect for its dignity and recovering its freedom and independence? This involves a serious moral problem for us all — a problem which my Government has settled in favour of our Algerian brothers, with the grant to them of definitive and unequivocal support, whatever the political colour of the backing given to them for the purpose of ending this war.
63. Three days ago, on 7 October 1960, in the speech opening the regular session of the Tunisian National Assembly, President Bourguiba used, in this connexion, the following words: "For us, the only thing of importance is that the war should be ended, with the aid of all who are convinced that the interest of humanity and the preservation of moral values require the ending of the war. We are resolved to assume our responsibilities and to take our stand, come what may. We are ready to cope with any developments. We shall be equal to any obligations which events may lay upon us in the near future on account of the Algerian war." My delegation will venture shortly to circulate the text of this important statement.
64. Can the Organization continue to confine itself to expressions of hope for peace in the matter of this tragedy which will soon have lasted seven years? Is it not becoming essential that the Organization should take effective action to help both parties towards an honourable and just solution? It seems increasingly clear to us that this solution lies in a genuine and unchallengeable referendum held under United Nations auspices, as no ocher solution is now possible and the door to any bilateral talks has, apparently, been closed.
65. Like all the small nations who give evidence of their profound attachment to the United Nations and to the principles of liberty and equality inspiring it, Tunisia hopes that the Organization will intervene in Algeria to re-establish peace and ensure the triumph of freedom and human dignity. By doing this, the Organization will have acted in accordance with its mission and will not have disappointed the hopes that we repose in it. For us Tunisians — and we do not think we are alone in holding this view — the Algerian war is more than ever a test, which will enable us to estimate the real, practical value of the principles, and the moral capacity, of the Organization and its Members.
66. The destiny of Tunisia is inseparable from that of Algeria. Our future, like our distant or more recent past, is the same. The freedom of Tunisia would be but a reprieve, if the Algerian war continued amid the indifference of the nations or ended with the victory of brute force over justice, of might over right, of oppression over freedom.
67. The responsibilities of the United Nations in Africa have been adequately stressed. In Algeria the Organization has a great, delicate and urgent responsibility. Need I repeat what so many other speakers have said — that at this moment human beings are dying, families are being deported, homes razed to the ground and death sentences passed and executed?
68. The Government of the Republic of Tunisia has been pleased and encouraged by the many statements made from this rostrum in support of the just and rightful cause of the Algerian people.
69. We ardently hope that the coming debate on Algeria will effectively help to bring back peace, which is so necessary for the peaceful development of the North African region and for friendly and fruitful co-operation between our African countries and the rest of the world. As President Bourguiba said on United Nations Day, 24 October, in 1958: "We must hope that the United Nations will oppose the excesses of tyranny and the depredations of greed. It is certainly able to do so, and has proved it by stopping the bloodshed in Korea, by making a stand against tyranny in Hungary, and by combating aggression on the Suez Canal. We must hope that it will adopt an equally worthy attitude in regard to Algeria, so that it may reassure the small nations, restore their faith in the rule of justice and convince them, to greater effect, that the United Nations is still an impregnable refuge for them and will always be ready to protect them from the excesses of tyranny." Two years later, these words are unfortunately still fully applicable to the circumstances.
70. There is not only the question of Algeria, In the tragedy of Palestine, too, might has supplanted right. A people has been driven out of its national territory. In. tragic circumstances, hundreds of thousands of human beings have had to leave their country, which is that of their ancestors, and live in refugee camps near what were once their homes. Thus men who yesterday lived in prosperity, honour and dignity are, today, reduced to statelessness and to an existence dependent on the relief supplied by the United Nations.
71. My country is not racialist; it abhors all racialism. We have never confused Judaism and Zionism. But, while condemning the anti-semitism which has been put forward to justify the injustice committed against the Arab people, we condemn the procedure which involves defrauding a people of its rights, to the advantage of another people. In other words, we cannot agree that reparation can be made for the crime of Nazism by the eviction of a brother Arab people from its ancient homeland.
72. Nor can I forget that many of the Organization's decisions on the Palestine question have not been carried out.
73. This problem, in our view, constitutes a permanent source of disturbance and agitation in this highly sensitive area and, therefore, a standing threat to world peace.
74. The problems of Algeria and Palestine and many other problems cannot prevent me from speaking of a question which has recently arisen in Africa and has led to a disturbing situation, highly dangerous to international peace and security — the question of the Congo (Leopoldville).
75. The Algerian war — in our view one of the most serious problems which, in recent years, has faced the United Nations and the conscience of its Member States — has for some little time ceased to be the centre of world attention. Over the last few months, the Congo has taken precedence of Algeria. The events which have occurred and multiplied there within a fairly short space of time are also of importance and international significance.
76. The crisis which has overtaken and is still afflicting the Congo seems to have been caused, in the main, by the rather exceptional difficulties which that country encountered at the moment when it ceased to be a colony. There has, we feel, been some over-hasty criticism of the Congo on the score of its people's political immaturity, its leaders' lack of experience, and the inadequate number of trained men ready to assume the responsibilities involved in administering a free State and to deal quickly with the many delicate problems bound up with independence and the transfer of power. There is no doubt in our minds that in this connexion Belgium bears a heavy responsibility for its long neglect of one of its most compelling duties — that of helping to train Congolese for administrative positions, of gradually associating them in the management of their country’s public affairs, and so of preparing the young African Republic for a stable and harmonious future. It seems clear to us that the Brussels Government chose quite a different policy, which might be summed up in the words "No ‘élites’, no trouble". This principle seems to have formed the basis of a colonial policy which was supposed to be far-sighted. The futility of that idea, and its dangers for mankind and international peace, have been amply demonstrated by recent events in the Congo.
77. While we might be prepared to understand the official explanations of the Brussels Government, which has several times affirmed the purity of its intentions, this would not mean that we could absolve Belgium or minimize the role which its agents and nationals have played in the Congo — a role most harmful to peace and to stability. It is particularly hard to deny the part played by certain groups of vested interests in the attempted secession of the provinces of Katanga and Kasai. It is possible that Belgium is officially pursuing a policy which, at the very least some of its agents in the Congo are sabotaging. It is probable moreover that the policy which Brussels has publicly laid down conflicts, in the day-to-day life of the Congo, with that followed by certain senior civil servants, officers in plain clothes or representatives of economic interests who are still active there. This system of dual responsibility, with its resulting confusion and anarchy, is something which for many years we in North Africa have known too well for us to be deceived by it today.
78. In any case it is incontestable that Belgium bears a glaring responsibility — direct or indirect, official or unacknowledged — in connexion with the recent disturbances in the Congo. I shall not try, in this debate, to go again into the whole question, on which my delegation has commented in sufficient detail during the discussions in the Security Council and at the fourth emergency special session of the General Assembly.
79. But the case of the Congo reveals the devious ways in which colonies sometimes obtain their freedom, and the often serious difficulties which African peoples encounter in the task of consolidating their sovereignty and independence.
80. In a continent where colonial war has raged for years, where racial segregation — despite United Nations condemnation of it — is made into a principle of government, and where dearly repurchased political freedoms are faced with the harsh facts of economic domination and social dependence, the experience of the Congo serves as a test. Africa is today the last bastion of colonialism. Many, in their insatiable greed, cast envious eyes on the great resources of Africa’s soil and sub-soil. It was therefore easy to foresee that the process of decolonizing the African countries would encounter difficulties, whose number and gravity would be proportionate to that greed and envy. For this reason, among others, the United Nations experiment in the Congo is invested with special value. It is in fact the first time that a young State, faced with a tragic situation jeopardizing its independence, has appealed to the moral conscience of the United Nations and has received, from the Organization, such speedy and effective assistance in the civil and military spheres.
81. Need I recall that, thanks to the United Nations, more has been done in the Congo, in less than two months, to evacuate occupying troops than Tunisia has been able to do in five years of independence? Even today, a great bastion of our port system is still in the hands of occupying French troops, against the will of the Tunisian Government, despite two appeals to the Security Council, and notwithstanding the intervention and good offices of friendly countries.
82. Other States have not been vouchsafed the aid which, thanks to the United Nations and by its agency, the Congo has received in the organization of its administrative system. All this invests the Congo experiment with its significance and value on the plane of international relations. If this experiment were completely successful, it would constitute a promising precedent for the peaceful solution of decolonization problems. Such an experiment would, in the eyes of some, have been a precedent of incalculable significance if — thanks to the concerted action of Members of the United Nations, acting strictly through and within the Organization — the improvement, if not the liberation, of the economy of a former colonial country had followed closely upon that country’s political emancipation.
83. My delegation deeply regrets that the cold war, the effects of which are so disastrous for international peace, has also become a factor exploiting the Congo situation for its own purposes.
84. The execution of the Security Council’s decisions concerning military or civil assistance to the Congo has been the subject of criticism. My delegation still believes that the action taken by the United Nations in the Congo is in conformity with the Security Council decisions. In all honesty and objectivity, we can only pay a tribute to the Secretary-General, whom that body entrusted with the implementation of those decisions, and to his representatives, for the untiring devotion with which they have performed this really impartial task of peace and international solidarity.
85. That is our belief, based on the facts themselves and on the joint study of the situation, on the spot, by the Conference of Independent African States held at Leopoldville from 25 to 30 August 1960. This Conference, in a statement adopted by it unanimously, paid a well-deserved tribute to the United Nations for the work of peace which the Organization had done in the Congo. We consider, moreover, that it is in our common interest, as the Leopoldville Conference of Independent African States affirmed, to prevent the Congo from becoming a battlefield in the war of ideology.
86. Both in the Security Council and at the fourth emergency special session of the General Assembly, the debates have laid adequate stress on the need, in the interest of international peace and security, to keep this action in the Congo on its true basis of international solidarity, genuinely neutral and disinterested.
87. Our own experience, together with that of many other countries formerly under foreign domination, tends to prove that political liberation may constitute but one stage on the road to true and effective emancipation — that emancipation, in fact, which enables the formerly persecuted communities to escape, once and for all, from the horror 3 of hunger, disease and ignorance.
88. The experience in the Congo has for us a symbolic significance in that it has raised the problem of decolonization in one complete instance and in all its aspects — administrative, political, military, economic and social. This problem, which called for urgent solutions, gave Tunisia an opportunity of putting into practice the principles of human solidarity which it takes as its guide. The Government of the Republic spared no effort to make an immediate response to the appeal from the sister Republic of the Congo and, within the United Nations framework, furnished it with all the assistance required. The three thousand Tunisian soldiers have already, in the Congo, made their contribution in dead and wounded to the cause of peace, and the best of our country’s civilian technicians are today making their experience available for the task of reorganizing the administration, the security and telecommunication services, the banks and the health service.
89. The delegations from Asia, Africa and Latin America are perfectly familiar with the economic and social aspects of national emancipation and their importance in the process of decolonization. This awareness, among the communities of the third world, of the extent and gravity of their under-development is a well known sociological phenomenon. It can, we think, be best expressed, not so much with the aid of statistical comparisons, but rather by what has been called "the costs of man”, the purpose of which is to furnish the individual with the material support essential to his dignity as a free being. I need hardly recall that there can be no true dignity in physiological and material want, in unemployment, in precarious health conditions, or in ignorance.
90. I need not recall either, in this connexion, that if the under-developed countries are to develop reasonably quickly and as international stability and cooperation require, foreign aid in the shape of capital investment and personnel is essential. That aid is a duty in so far as it is agreed that under-development is primarily the consequence of colonial expansion. It is also a measure of justice in so far as the exploitation of these countries’ resources and the trade derived from such exploitation have been achieved at the expense of the communities ruled. Such aid, supplementing the efforts and sacrifices necessarily made by the newly independent peoples themselves, will give to the phenomenon of decolonization its full meaning, by opening for our countries the way to a rapid and harmonious restoration of their economic and social structures.
91. But no effort of this kind can go forward and fulfil the hopes placed in it unless, as a primary condition, men have peace in their hearts and can contemplate the future without fear. Peace in our countries, peace on our frontiers and among our neighbours, peace in general — such is the necessary framework for growth and for the co-ordination, on a world scale, of the various forms of progress which it involves. The restoration of our economies has never implied, in our minds, refusal to co-operate with other countries, even though those countries be our former colonizers. In a world in which great economic, social and even political units are being built up, it is by no means our intention to isolate ourselves or refuse co-operation. While the formerly colonized communities need peace for the rehabilitation and reconstruction of their countries, peace is equally needed by mankind as a whole. In face of the dangers involved by nuclear weapons, the need for peace and calm is today the greatest of all the essential needs of the international community.
92. Peace is, in the first instance, the absence of armed warfare. It is, unfortunately, indicative of the short-sightedness of those who today are responsible for the fate of mankind that they should accept the murderous war in Algeria as a necessary and, in any case, geographically circumscribed evil, without any apprehension that the conflict might spread and degenerate into a general one.
93. Recent examples of localized wars in Europe and Asia have, indeed, sufficiently proved that it is almost always wrong to be so short-sighted and to think that armed conflicts can still be dealt with by the same methods that would be used in the case of a forest fire — by digging fire-break trenches behind which the fire can be left to burn the trees. It is our deep-seated belief that peace is as indivisible as liberty or justice.
94. This will indicate how disappointed we were to learn of the fate of the Summit Conference in Paris, from which the whole world had hoped so much. That disappointment was further increased by the suspension of Geneva negotiations on disarmament. We still think that, so long as mutual mistrust persists between the great armed Powers, the arms race will continue to be one of the gravest dangers for the very existence of mankind. We are therefore convinced of the absolute and urgent necessity of finding the best possible formula for achieving general and complete disarmament, covering both nuclear and conventional weapons and accompanied by effective control calculated to restore mutual confidence.
95. We remain fully persuaded of the need to find a practical solution, agreed upon by the two parties, to the problem of preventing a surprise attack and ending nuclear tests for military purposes.
96. On the basis of these principles, we would not despair of the wisdom of the men who are responsible, not only for their own peoples, but also for the future of the entire human race. We venture to hope for a rapid improvement of the world atmosphere, opening the way to a real and lasting “détente” in international relations, which is an essential condition for real, general and complete disarmament.
97. The question of Mauritania, that of the plan for further French nuclear tests in the Sahara, that of racial policy in South Africa, that of Tibet, the struggle of the African peoples who are trying in various ways to recover their dignity as free men and their sovereignty as independent nations — such are some of the important questions in regard to which my Government’s position will be clearly set forth, at the appropriate time, during the present session.
98. All those questions, and others as well, derive more or less directly from the problem of colonialism itself. Tunisia, essentially an African country and one basically adhering to moral values, remains opposed to any form of domination of one people by another. From its nature, as well as by the deep conviction of its people and its President, my country is fundamentally opposed to all colonialism and all imperialism. It is true that in modern times imperialism has assumed various forms, ideological as well as economic. There has been ideological hegemony of a political or social nature, and there have been economic structures imposed by force, under the pretext of ensuring the true welfare of the peoples concerned, or by persuasion, with the threat of force in the background. All these forms have the same end and object — the domination of one people by another.
99. This session has been termed "the session of Africa". That implies the idea of the end of colonialism and the arrival of a genuine era of freedom, of brotherhood among the peoples and of co-operation between equally sovereign and independent nations, in peace and in justice.
100. The eyes the world are at present turned toward the General Assembly. All those — and they are many — who, like ourselves, have placed their faith in the Organization, in the principles set forth in its Charter, and in its various organs whose effectiveness we have observed, are reposing great hopes in this session. In spite of everything, I am convinced that these hopes will not be disappointed.