I am deeply moved and no less proud, to be addressing this august Assembly for the first time on behalf of my country, the Congo (Brazzaville).
2. It is with real pleasure, Mr. President, that I welcome your election as a pledge for the success of our work at the eighteenth session, which each one of us expects to be a turning-point in the untiring struggle of the United Nations to maintain peace throughout the world. Your distinguished reputation within and outside this forum, your sincere devotion to democratic ideals, and your fierce determination to place yourself at the service of man irrespective of his status, colour or philosophical outlook, all lead us to think that under your wise authority the United Nations General Assembly will lead mankind a step nearer the fulfilment of its aspirations to progress.
3. The history and civilization of Africa, which went into eclipse owing to slavery and colonial domination, antedate the Charter of San Francisco, which came into being only in 1945. Freedom regained has enabled the Congo to rediscover its ancestral beliefs and to explore more deeply the Bantu philosophy which is the hallmark of its own genius. May our brothers who are still oppressed and humiliated also regain their independence.
4. However, we cannot overlook the fact that Independence is not an end in itself, but rather a means through which to achieve the economic and social development of our countries. In some countries, thanks to wise government, the change is taking place fairly smoothly; in others, where the Government fails to take account of the people's legitimate aspirations, it proceeds by jolts and revolutions. The Congo (Brazzaville) went through one such necessary change on 13, 14 and 15 August 1963.
5. Though the former political leaders of our country had worked valiantly for its independence, that independence had become a cake shared out among the privileged according to their ties of family or ethnic origin. The only signs of freedom were the luxury of Ministers' residences and the coming and going of outrageously showy official vehicles in the streets of Brazzaville.
6. The decline in morals was most alarming. Values, in every sense of the term, had ceased to exist and had been replaced by corruption and favouritism. Embezzlement, malfeasance and high-handedness had become a commonplace. Impunity was the order of the day. Injustice and persecution had thrown the machinery of administration out of gear. The practice of filling posts of authority and responsibility with subordinate officials who were manifestly incompetent and dishonest, and whose only merit was their absolute, blind devotion to Abbé Fulbert Youlou, had made the Congo a byword for maladministration. As a result all sense of duty and discipline and all professional probity had disappeared.
7. The deterioration in social conditions was becoming more marked every day. The waste of public funds was blatant, and the rift opened by independence between the false "bourgeoisie" it created and the neocolonial proletariat, and between the rulers and the young people, was widening at an alarming rate. The incompetence openly flaunted by the technical advisers whom the Congolese leaders had gathered round them, the indiscretions of the regime in matters of concerted inter-African policy, and its many acts of interference in the domestic affairs of neighbouring States completed a picture already dark enough, whose background was the economic morass in which the country had been submerged since attaining its sovereignty.
8. The Congolese people, at all levels, had become aware of the danger at the same time as they realized that the leader they had freely chosen a few years earlier had now only one dream: to sit on them. So they acted as one man when Abbé Fulbert Youlou, the dictator, tried to use against them the fatal weapon that was to be his own undoing: the creation of a single party,
9. The Congolese were not, and are not now, opposed to the single-party system. In fact they wanted it in order to end the tribal quarrels which rend the young African States. But they grasped in time the dictatorial Abba's real intentions, and the peaceful revolution which they carried through on 13, 14, and 15 August 1963 saved the country at the last moment from an absurd neo-colonialism.
10. That revolution produced the Government to which I have the honour to belong and of which every member was appointed by the people, not on the tribalistic lines followed heretofore, but for his competence and devotion to the common cause.
11. Some have said of our revolution that it was not a popular movement, that it was the work of the big towns alone, and that the rural masses remained faithful to the old regime. Others have even alleged that the so-called events of Brazzaville, which properly speaking were events of the Congo, were instigated from abroad. The Congo has no intention of answering such assertions except by saying: "I have clone no more than my duty as a pioneer in the emancipation of Africa."
12. Permit me to utter from the rostrum of the United Nations a ringing tribute to the doughty Congolese people, at whose political maturity the whole world will marvel for a long time to come. To achieve a peaceful revolution in this day and age, when the world seems every day thirstier for human blood, seems a feat of magic even to the most experienced political observers. It is true that three of our compatriots for whom we grieve, have darkened by their death the extraordinary page of history just written in the Congo. But can any citizen meet a nobler end than in falling to save his country?
13. After its installation, the Government of His Excellency Mr. Alphonse Massamba-Debat announced that its only policy would be to work selflessly for conditions in which the Congolese people could attain to a better life.
14. For what have we to gain by becoming involved in the ideological struggles that divide the world? Our aim is not to conquer our neighbours but merely to live fully, utilizing all the means which science and technology now place within the reach of all peoples willing to use them in the higher interests of mankind. In pursuing this aim we count on international co-operation and —why not be frank?— on the help of all the highly industrialized countries, bar none. It would be pointless to divine in our actions the results of hidden influence, ox to draw political conclusions from our various leaders' trips to Washington, Paris or Moscow. We hold out our hand to all who will grasp it with respect for our dignity and sovereignty. We are resolved to examine every problem earnestly, mindful of the highest interests of our country and careful to seek in every case a truly African solution.
15. This year our continent has taken a great step towards unity with the establishment of the Organization of African Unity and the Heads of State who met at Addis Ababa have served Africa well,
16. The Organization of African Unity (OAU) represents a historic step towards the co-ordinated utilization of our resources and the joint solution of our problems. We are proud to have helped in establishing it, not only because it is the culmination of our people's fight for freedom, but also because our nations, now that they have been liberated, have affirmed in a fraternal charter their determination to live under the laws of a new, united and peaceful world in the spirit of the Charter of the United Nations, we have faith in OAU; we are convinced that it will set itself to serve the peoples and —unlike some regional unions which the events in the Congo (Brazzaville) have enabled us to unmask— will never degenerate into a syndicate designed only to protect the selfish interests of a few powerful individuals.
17. In this connexion, the Congolese people and Government here and now pay a solemn tribute to the Malagasy Government and people who, immediately after the revolution, gave a demonstration of solidarity which has strengthened the already close ties that have always bound Tananarive to Brazzaville. Such a demonstration —which signifies that the friendship that counts in the world at large is friendship between peoples, not between individuals —is something for which other countries, albeit reputed to be friends of the Congolese peoples have now kept us waiting more than a month and a half.
18. On reading the annual report of the Secretary-General on the work of the Organization [A/5501] I have found only grounds for hope and reassurance. In the course of the past year the cause of peace has in many cases won only half-victories, but it has undoubtedly made progress. In every area threatened with war, the United Nations has shown or maintained a presence which, though not a panacea, has spared the protected peoples some suffering, while the conciliatory role of the Secretary-General has steadily grown in importance and proved itself a necessity.
19. We also appreciate, with ever-renewed gratitude, the United Nations work for refugees, those unfortunate victims that every national or international crisis leaves in its wake as shameful evidence of our world's imperfections.
20. The United Nations Operation in the Congo (Leopoldville), which has caused such sharp dissension among Member States and which still divides them deeply because of its financial Implications, is now drawing to a close. We hope that in this matter the United Nations will have faith in the Government of the Congo (Leopoldville) and that the withdrawal of United Nations troops will be carried out according to the wishes of the local authorities, as stipulated in the resolution adopted by the Security Council on 14 July 1960. After so much money has been spent and so many human lives sacrificed, it would be a pity to leave the job unfinished. To disregard the opinion of the Congolese Government on this point would be construed as a lack of confidence in that Government. The feelings of brotherly solidarity which link the peoples on both sides of the Congo river bar us from supporting any action contrary to the interest of our sister Republic of the Congo (Leopoldville).
21. Despite the harmful distortions of facts by major organs of the Press, the United Nations Operation in the Congo will have had the merit, among others, of giving the most advanced nations a clearer idea of African problems. Without boasting, we were able to say with pride that this year's session of the General Assembly, the eighteenth, was to be Africa's session. It is the first time our thirty-two countries, whose number is destined to increase still further, have formed such a coherent body here, fully conscious of constituting a third of the total membership. It is true that they are far from possessing a comparable proportion of the world's economic and military power; but our Organization must recognize their moral importance if it wishes to achieve the hoped for triumph of right over might and to ensure that human rights finally defeat the old concepts of nationalism and imperialism. To grant Africa its rightful place in the world is to accept the just law of democracy on the world scale; to give the poor man the same vote as the rich; and to confer on man an intrinsic value independent of material considerations.
22. The Charter of the United Nations was drawn up in 1945 thanks to an admirable display of good will on the part of the Allies who then held the fate of mankind in their hands. But eighteen years have passed since then, and revision of the Charter is more than ever necessary to adapt it to present-day realities.
23. The Security Council has become too narrow an executive organ, and its composition should no longer recall an era when the greater part of the African continent was under colonial rule. We hope that the permanent members of that organ will have the wisdom to draw the logical conclusions from the prodigious evolution which has taken place, owing in part to the generosity and breadth of vision they themselves have shown.
24. You will be aware that the great countries of the world have their own problems; it is indeed astonishing to find that, the more powerful the nation, the greater is its fear of being subjugated, as though the apprehension aroused by the scientific and military progress of a potential adversary inexorably stifled common sense and the voice of reason. But this year we have been able to see that the cycle of terror was not irreversible, and the Moscow Treaty on a partial cessation of nuclear tests has applied a salutary brake on the dangerous slope down which the great nations were speeding.
25. If the permanent members of the Security Council advance more resolutely towards relaxation and disarmament, perhaps we may hope that they will approach the problems of decolonization in a completely new spirit. For we have reached the point where all forms of moral pressure have been applied without success in the effort to eradicate through negotiation the last vestiges of colonialism on our continent. Such help as the Africans can give their brothers still in subjection, such political and economic sanctions as they can apply, the wars of liberation which they are in duty bound to support —all these come up against the direct or indirect assistance which the great Powers are giving to the racist minorities in control of central and southern Africa.
26. Mr. Salazar's theories no longer find any champions in this Assembly except Mr. Salazar's own representatives. No one dares to uphold the policy of apartheid except the white settlers who invented it for their own gain. Nevertheless, the Portuguese and South African Governments, as well as the Southern Rhodesian authorities, draw support from powerful friends who are moved by political, economic or other considerations. On the chess-board of the cold war, every country is a pawn which, at whatever cost, must be kept from falling to the other side. Everyone is prepared to make a pact with the Devil if God once lets him down.
27. We hope that, in the years to come, the great Powers will stop thinking of Africa in terms of military bases, strategic minerals or private financial interests, and will accept it as a self-evident fact that the total liberation of the continent will benefit all races alike, in a world whose economy and trade must continually develop and diversify. We accordingly look forward to the cessation of assistance that enables Portugal —a small nation, and itself not fully developed— to wage colonial wars at a cost clearly beyond its unaided resources. We hope the United Kingdom will take quick action in Southern Rhodesia, so that self-government granted during the colonial period may not be used as a pretext for withholding their rights from 90 per cent of the country’s population.
28. Under various labels, privileged castes are still trying to keep part of our continent in servitude. Complicated electoral systems are used to keep the people from voting where the authorities have not had the audacity, as in South Africa, to pass laws that openly and completely deprive the people of their rights. Artificial limitations on the suffrage existed in Europe in the past but have now completely disappeared, and the Charter of the United Nations, with which we have resolved to comply, has set the elementary principles of democracy as the foundation on which to erect a whole edifice,
29. If government of the people by the people has no other foundation than the "one man, one vote" rule, how can the right to vote be made subject to conditions such as payment of a certain amount of tax, knowledge of a foreign language, or even membership of a particular race? Such forms of discrimination are dying out all over the world; they would be unjust even if they were used only to oppress a minority. But what if they result in a country's being governed against the will of the majority of its inhabitants? It may seem idle to repeat what are now widely accepted truths. Yet the great Powers accept them only theoretically; they have still to acknowledge their practical consequences and to realize that the total liberation of Africa is in the best interest of all nations because negotiation with free men is always the most fruitful.
30. The vestiges of colonialism are in fact an obstacle to the great enterprise of international cooperation which will become the most important part of the activities of the United Nations on the day when the preservation of peace becomes, as we hope it will, an easier task. It is disturbing to find that, for all the efforts already made, the industrialized states, irrespective of economic structure, have steadily progressed and raised their peoples' levels of living, whereas most of the developing nations have been unable to win the tragic race between economic expansion and population growth. The system of trade relations based on the exchange of manufactured goods for raw materials, if perpetuated in its present form, would eventually bring the world to an impasse. In a word, Africa denounces the colonial arrangement. The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development which is to be held in 1964 must put an end to the profiteering which characterizes international dealings in raw materials and finished goods.
31. The establishment of compensatory financing machinery on a world-wide scale should be our first objective with a view to stabilizing and maintaining raw material prices. Just as each nation has, generally speaking, striven to protect its farmers from the upheavals attendant on rapid industrialization, so must the world at large come, as one body, to the aid of the agricultural and ore-producing countries against the ill effects of an economic evolution which in other respects is rich in promise for mankind.
32. It is a matter of bringing the benefits of modern civilization to a world most of whose inhabitants do not get enough to eat. The fight against under-development is warranted not only on moral grounds but also by a clear and realistic assessment of future economic prospects. Any widening of the existing gap between the world's two component groups of nations would lead only to strangulation in the long run. Western Europe and the developed countries with planned economies are on the way to attaining the level of industrialization already reached by the United States of America. At the end of this evolutionary process, the logical expectation is that needs will be to some extent saturated and expansion will have lost its momentum. It would be deplorable if these rich countries were then to retire into strict protectionism at a time when the capital development of the underdeveloped nations offered them vast opportunities for investments beneficial to all. We all look forward to the day when all Member States will accept an international solidarity tax so as to make systematic provision for the aid which some countries need in order to take their place in a balanced world economy.
33. In this connexion, we welcome the work many Governments have done through their bilateral cooperation programmes. We are glad to observe what the Organization is doing under the arrangements for the United Nations Development Decade. We hope that the United Nations capital development fund will soon come into being and serve as the starting point for an effective contribution to the development of Asia, Latin America and Africa. We are eager to see the methods of economic science and planning placed at the service of the youth and vigour which, in our countries, seek only to be put to use.
34. The economy is the beginning of all policy, but its end Is always man, his dignity and his intrinsic worth, which we have undertaken to protect. With that in mind, I should not like to conclude without also commending the efforts of the United Nations in the realm of human rights. In the quest for peace, decolonization, and economic and social development, respect for the human person remains the supreme purpose of our Charter and the underlying motive of our efforts.
35. As His Excellency Mr. Massamba-Debat, the Head of our Government, recently remarked in a public statement, there is a Congolese proverb which says "Always beware of the poor man's fist"; for the poor man has nothing to lose by hitting out, whereas the rich man's efforts at self-defence are hampered by the weight of his interests. Let the nations ponder this Bantu saying; for when man is homeless and hungry, he is deaf to the voice of reason. Let us give thought to his lot; let us end his poverty by using the resources his own genius have given him. For in the last analysis there is but one race in the world; the human race; and that is the race we must save.