Mr. President, I should like to start by expressing, on behalf of my delegation and on my own behalf, our warm congratulations on your election to the office of President of the eighteenth session of the General Assembly. I have every reason to expect that your wide experience and great wisdom will render our deliberations happy and fruitful.
99. Since this is the first time that my delegation has participated in the general debate, I should also like to seize this opportunity to express our heartfelt gratitude for the wise guidance and exemplary devotion to duty which your predecessor. Sir Muhammad Zafrulla Khan, so eminently displayed as President of the seventeenth session and of the fourth special session of the General Assembly.
100. I just said that this is the first occasion on which my delegation is actively participating in the general debate. I intend, therefore, to put to the General Assembly the view of my delegation, as briefly as I can, on such international issues as my delegation regards as of the greatest moment.
101. Speaking from this rostrum last year, on the occasion of my country's admission to this world organization, the Prime Minister of Uganda said:
"I am very conscious that Uganda joins the Organization at a time when humanity is at the crossroads of destiny, when great nations are rearming with the most devastating weapons ever known, when the world Organization and the world at large are ridden with ideological conflicts and the continuing effects of the cold war, and when vast resources that should be used for the alleviation of human misery are being channelled into nuclear armaments." [1158th meeting, para. 95]
102. Today, less than a year since those words were spoken, there has been considerable improvement in the situation. The eighteenth session of the General Assembly meets when the future points to prospects brighter than they have been in the last decade and a half. The prolongation of the Eighteen-Nation Disarmament Conference is indeed most encouraging, indicating as it does that there is a growing willingness to discuss and negotiate rather than resort to warlike measures. The signing of the nuclear test ban Treaty by the three nuclear Powers, and subsequently by other nations, albeit only the first step, is yet a significant move in the right direction. It is my delegation's hope and prayer that even greater efforts will be exerted to effect general and complete disarmament.
103. My delegation welcomes the proposal made by the Foreign Minister of the Soviet Union [1208th meeting] that there should be a summit meeting of the Heads of State of the eighteen Powers that have been participating in the disarmament talks to deal with general and complete disarmament. Uganda, in acceding to the nuclear test ban Treaty, appealed to the nuclear Powers to use their influence so that Africa would be declared a nuclear-free zone. I should like to echo the voice of the representative of Brazil [1208th meeting] when he pleaded with the nuclear Powers and the United Nations to do all they can to restrict the stockpiling of nuclear weapons in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, to mention only a few.
104. As a newly independent nation lately come into it own, Uganda holds the view that no price is too high to pay for peace and has most willingly joined the ranks of peace-loving countries and appended its signature to the nuclear test ban Treaty. We are now hopeful that wiser counsel may prevail, that the nations that have been spending the natural resources of the world over which no one nation in the history of mankind could justifiably claim exclusive monopoly in the manufacture of arms, are beginning to see the futility of the armaments race which has all the elements of eternity and which threatens to engulf us all in utter destruction.
105. My delegation submits that there is plenty of room on this globe for different peoples with different ideologies, confessing different religions and with different skin complexions, to coexist, and to do so peacefully. The ideological conflict which has been the most salient feature of the East-West relationship and which has had such a profound and unhealthy effect even on the deliberations of this Organization, is not materially different from the spirit of intolerance, racial discrimination and all the various manifestations of hatred which have bedevilled man since the dawn of history.
106. As a newcomer in this council of nations, one cannot help giving expression to a first impression that perhaps this Organization has given more thought to economic and social development and to the promotion of formal education than to the improvement of relations between man and man.
107. While it is meet and right to ban nuclear tests and, indeed, our bounden duty so to do, while it behoves us all to heed the voice of reason from either side of the iron or bamboo curtain, urging us to learn to live in peace with our neighbour be he Jew or Gentile, capitalist or communist, white or black, in the view of my delegation this Organization is in an eminently advantageous position to mount special programmes with the intention of studying the root-cause of the trouble and devising ways and means of eradicating this plague which threatens us all with such catastrophe.
108. This programme of study or research, it is suggested, should concern itself with the sort of literature that children of all lands and of all ages read. It should take into its ambit the whole mental pabulum that is provided for citizens of the Member nations that comprise this august body. If it is found that the literature —indeed the mass media— in any Member State is out of step with or contrary to the basic provisions of the Charter and of the principles of human rights, then it should be the duty of such Member State to enact such appropriate legislation as would render its publication illegal.
109. It is idle to talk of peaceful coexistence when the whole might of the most modern system of mass media in one's own country is locked in mortal combat with the unfortunate inhabitants on the other side of the curtain. It is equally futile to denounce Jim Crow and apartheid policies when children during the most plastic and most impressionable time of their lives are daily indoctrinated in their belief on television, in the movies and indeed in their school text-books that the colour of a man's skin is the most significant thing about him and that to be black is to be a subhuman being.
110. One might ask whether in a world which intends peacefully to coexist, there is still room for the "cowboy and Indian" sort of stories and whether consideration should not be given to the need for pruning the syllabi of our school systems, throwing out such education garbage as the story of Robert Clive, where the yardstick for fame and greatness is the ability and craftiness of one man to hoodwink and humiliate another race. A tremendous amount of introspection on the international and national scale right down to the individual is called for to determine whether the education of Member States is properly oriented. The sort of United Nations programme that has been suggested above will, it is contended, enable movie and television producers, writers and news publishers, to realize that the "pen is still mightier than the sword" or, in modern parlance, that television can work greater havoc than the atom bomb. The proper use of publicity material and mass media is the quickest way of ending the cold war and of creating that spirit of co-operation and respect for humanity that is so sadly lacking today.
111. This brings me to my next point. I refer to the extremely explosive situation that exists in Africa today, where a minority group of white settlers in South Africa, Southern Rhodesia and in Angola and Mozambique, armed with the most modern and, therefore, most destructive weapons, have deliberately set their face against the upholding of those basic human rights and democratic principles which are the mainstay of this Organization.
112. It is wrong to beguile ourselves that these are local or domestic situations from the consideration of which we are precluded by Article 2 of the Charter. It does not take a clever man to see that in all these areas there is such tension that one need not be called an alarmist for saying that a shooting-war is the only inevitable or foreseeable result in the not too distant future. This is precisely what the arms build-up in South Africa and Southern Rhodesia indicates.
113. What, one may ask, is going to be the attitude of the big Powers when the big show-down takes place in Africa? There is an element of hypocrisy when the big Powers sign the nuclear test ban Treaty and talk of peace and at the same time permit, nay, even actively assist, militarily explosive situations to continue on the African continent.
114. It is a justifiable presumption that if the Republic of South Africa, when it agreed to become a founding Member, had known that the membership of this Organization would later become predominantly non-European —if one may use the racial classification adopted in South Africa— it would not have joined this Organization. One would presume further that the South African representatives find it extremely uncomfortable to sit at conference tables with Africans and other non-Europeans.
115. Surely the only proper thing to do for a State which believes implicitly in racial inequality and racial discrimination is to withdraw voluntarily. But since South Africa has proved so recalcitrant and has so persistently flouted the resolutions of the United Nations, this Organization has no alternative but to excise what has become a diseased organ of the body politic that has been spreading the infection to other parts adjacent to it.
116. It is heartening to know that the request of the Prime Minister of South Africa, that the High Commission Territories should be transferred to South Africa, has been turned down by Great Britain. No doubt Great Britain fully realizes that such transfer would be an act of criminal folly and would incur the displeasure of the whole of the African continent, indeed of the whole world.
117. The atrocities that have been committed by Portugal in Angola and Mozambique render it persona non grata in an international organization that believes in peace and human dignity. My delegation wishes to condemn Portuguese imperialism in the strongest terms. We know that time is on our side, but we feel at the same time that the big Powers can do a great deal more than they are doing now to hasten Portugal's day of reckoning.
118. When addressing the General Assembly last fall [1158th meeting], the Prime Minister of Uganda left no doubt whatever that, while Uganda is itself underdeveloped and has internal problem's of its own, it nevertheless intends to follow an active policy in the elimination of colonial rule.
119. The writing which has for so long been discernible on the wall was further limelighted during the recent summit Conference of Heads of African States and Governments in Addis Ababa, when the signatories of the Charter of the Organization of African Unity unanimously agreed to concert and co-ordinate their efforts and actions to bring about a speedy end to colonialism, apartheid and racial discrimination in all its manifestations.
120. There is one point on which my delegation, in common with other African States, feels so strongly that I consider its settlement a sine qua non before this Organization can function equitably and effectively. I refer to the need for a review of the United Nations Charter.
121. Because of historical circumstances, the membership of the various organs, committees and functional commissions of the Organization has been heavily weighted in favour of founding Members and non-African nations. On the Security Council, to mention only one instance, certain regions of the world are grossly over-represented, while other regions are grossly under-represented or not represented at all. It is wrong to expect African States to abide by the gentleman's agreement concluded in 1946 at a time when, of the present thirty-two independent African States, only three were independent. To say that the Charter should remain sacrosanct until certain States have been admitted to membership is a non sequitur which should not be seriously advanced or entertained.
122. In the light of subsequent experience, there is need to overhaul the Charter on other grounds; for the use of the veto in the Security Council has only too often rendered the Organization a mockery of what it was intended to be and to effect. It has occasionally been found necessary, contrary to the terms of the Charter, to bypass the Security Council and submit questions properly falling within the exclusive jurisdiction of the Security Council, for the consideration of the General Assembly.
123. While the United Nations has a great deal of ground yet to cover in effectively pursuing its aims and objectives, it is good to note that its achievements in the Congo and in the Cuban crisis have earned for it the greatest respect of all freedom-loving peoples. The role which the Secretary-General played in the most difficult of international situations deserves special tribute by my delegation.
124. As a next-door neighbour, Uganda is deeply interested in what goes on in the Congo. The maintenance of United Nations forces in the Congo for a longer period, provided that that is the wish of the established Government of the Congo and provided also that this is coupled with an intensive course of military training of the Congolese citizens, should be welcomed by everybody concerned.
125. Great Britain's intention to transfer military forces and arms to the settler Government of Southern Rhodesia is calculated to strengthen the position, both physically and morally, of the white settlers in the whole of southern Africa. Such transfer of political and military power by Britain would be a grave disservice to the cause of African freedom, and my delegation earnestly hopes and prays that no such transfer of powers or attributes of sovereignty will be affected until Southern Rhodesia adopts a government fully representative of all the Inhabitants of the colony.
126. Let me point out yet one more beacon in the dark and stormy sea. In a world torn and eaten up by prejudice and intolerance it was a good thing to hear the President of the United States making a brave and forthright speech against racial discrimination and exhorting his own countrymen to treat Negro people and Negro children even as they and their own children would like to be treated. It was a great speech, but I should like to submit, without intending in any way to detract from the efficacy of the speech, that, away back home in Africa, what the Americans do in Alabama.