Allow me first of all, Mr. President, to congratulate you on your distinguished election. With your election the cup of the under-developed countries has now been filled to overflowing: after my friend and colleague Mongi Slim of Africa, after Sir Muhammad Zafarullah Khan of Asia, now, through you, Venezuela and the whole of Latin America are honoured. Your personal qualities, your clear-sightedness and your passionate concern with humanity, which have been displayed during your long career and your term as a member of the Security Council are, for my country, a further —but by no means the least— reason to rejoice at your election. The legendary virtues of your people —their moderation, their active perseverance, their keen sense of responsibility, and that courage and integrity which, as you yourself have told us here, your country has made its golden rule in its international policies— will undoubtedly set their seal on this eighteenth session of the United Nations General Assembly under your presidency.
44. May I also express to your predecessor, Sir Muhammad Zafarullah Khan, my country's admiration for the moral tone and faith which he imparted to our Organization during his term of office.
45. For the first time in seventeen years the General Assembly is opening in the most auspicious circumstances. Two events of capital importance, though of course of different scope, have taken place since we took leave of one another last winter. The first was the pan- African Conference at Addis Ababa, at which the Organization for African Unity, a clear symbol of relaxation of international tension, was born. The second was the Treaty banning nuclear weapon tests in the atmosphere, in outer space and under water. These two events of great political significance have been welcomed in Niger, as everywhere else, indeed, in Africa, with satisfaction and hope. No people can have welcomed these signs of regional relaxation of tension and of international rapprochement with more enthusiasm and relief than my own people. By its history, its geographical position and its spiritual and cultural links, the country which I have the honour of representing here, placed as it is at the cross-roads of races and civilizations, has a natural vocation to conciliation and reconciliation with the aims of establishing a world of peace through negotiation.
46. Niger, conscious of its weakness as an underdeveloped and under-populated new nation, but conscious also of the strength of its faith —faith in mankind and its dominant qualities, faith in mankind's values of civilization and culture, and above all faith in the permanent rules of solidarity and fraternity that form the basis of the international co-operation of which our Organization remains the finest instrument— Niger, I say, is sworn to the passionate and unceasing defence of peace. Peace, which is not only the daily necessity of the small nations, but is also the essential condition for the survival of the great Powers, must not, for us, be static, like a mere state of non-war in an equilibrium of terror, but must be the expression of a reconciled and fraternal human race.
47. The recent Conference of Heads of African States and Governments at Addis Ababa comes at a particularly opportune moment in this perspective. After many efforts, a whole continent has come together to build up, in solidarity, fraternity and internal peace, a stirring future free of all suspicion and discord. This African achievement is not only a positive step towards the establishment of African unity, but is also a decisive contribution to peace in Africa and all over the world. Addis Ababa is the symbol not merely of a reconciled Africa which has found its true self again, but also, and above all, of a strong, well- organized Africa, receptive to the ideas of co-operation and human solidarity.
48. The same is true of the recent agreement signed at Moscow between the three principal nuclear Powers, which has met with the approval of almost every country of the world. Need I say here, from this rostrum, how greatly the Republic of Niger rejoices at this agreement, and with what faith and determination we intend to adhere to it? However limited it may be —for it is, alas, only a partial agreement— it nevertheless constitutes a decisive step towards greater confidence and tolerance, which are prerequisites for the successful outcome of future negotiations. Moreover, although signed in their absence, this agreement nevertheless represents a victory for all those who, in Africa, Asia and America, have tirelessly proclaimed the danger of nuclear fallout. That campaign was a positive contribution by the non-aligned countries to the cause of peace, and shows, if there were any need to do so, that the struggle for peace is indivisible and calls, more than ever, for vigilance and courage on everyone's part. Until the great Powers are convinced of the justice of these simple ideas which underlie all honest and sincere international co-operation, the non-aligned countries and the small countries of Europe must organize themselves to set up a buffer zone designed to curb the expansionist appetites of the great Powers, which are a source of rivalry and engender cold war.
49. To be sure, peace is not something that will fall into our lap. It must be deserved, fought for and built up day after day. Our generation will have the honour and the inspiring privilege of being able to lay its first foundations. There are, alas, still too many obstacles before us. But we will not be asking too much of our international community if we call on it to watch for and eliminate all sources of friction and all trouble spots— so many pockets of cold-war infection.
50. One such is divided Germany, where the Berlin wall still stands as a challenge to the spirit of reconciliation and unity of a people which, after paying for the mad adventures of its leaders in a war of which the world still bears the scars, suffers today because it is kept outside the international community. The German people wait in anguish and bitterness for the peace treaty which they have been promised so many times and denied on each occasion. Until that treaty is signed, nothing must be done to perpetuate the division of Germany, but on the contrary, every attempt must be made to pave the way for national reconciliation by democratic means of its own free choice.
51. There is likewise Korea, where there seems, alas, to be a growing feeling of resignation to division and separation in contravention of the resolutions adopted by the Security Council and the General Assembly.
52. And now, today, we have the problem of South Viet-Nam, where fighting has been going on for more than twenty years and where a whole generation has grown up without knowing a single day of peace. While deploring the excesses which have led to bloodshed in this part of the world, it seems to us that it is the duty of our Organization, as of all friends of Viet-Nam, to strive tirelessly to promote moderation, tolerance and respect for humanity.
53. What is there to say about the Chinese problem? Seven hundred million inhabitants of this globe are excluded from the United Nations by the immoderate demands of some and the fanatical obstinacy of others. Certainly, this is a scandal! It is an even greater scandal, however, that no measures are envisaged to right this wrong, and that justice is only being done by denying justice. We can have no moral or legal grounds whatever for sacrificing the presence among us of Nationalist China, a full Member of our Organization, in order to achieve the desired entry of the People's Republic of China.
54. Lastly, how can we pass over the distressing affair of Palestine in silence, with more than a million Arabs wandering without shelter, resolutions flouted, hate building up all the time, frontiers harassed day and night, and insecurity reigning permanently in the heart of the Middle East? What more heart-rending tragedy could there be, what greater danger to peace? On the strength of the bonds which link us with one side and the other and making this tragedy which divides peoples whose virtues of hospitality and tolerance we know and admire our own, we appeal from this rostrum for harmony and reconciliation through negotiation, in an atmosphere of justice and peace.
55. But of all these pockets of cold-war infection, of all these obstacles to peace, the most explosive and most threatening are to be found in Africa.
56. I am referring, as you will have realized, to apartheid and to the mad adventure which Portugal is desperately trying to continue on our continent. If there is one fundamental and positive factor for peace, it is, without the slightest doubt, decolonization. The reason we in Africa have placed this problem in the forefront is that we consider that there will be no peace so long as there are these zones of silence in which certain Powers persist in openly violating the spirit of peace.
57. The African countries represented at Addis Ababa were unanimous in condemning colonialism, which is today an anachronism and a danger to the world. We all know the insane obstinacy and stubbornness of those who are defending the last strongholds of
colonialism in Africa. In the name of the universal morality which inspires our Charter, in the name of the honour and the defence of Africans, and in the name of justice and law, Africa will employ every means to bar the way to these paladins of a bygone world.
58. Apartheid, that form of colonization from within, is even more shameless than the other form, as it gives legal currency to racist theories which are the most retrograde and the most incompatible with the ideas of the Charter. Our desire to see South Africa expelled from our Organization, of which it has predicted the impending demise, is not a matter of passion, but is based on the elementary principle of respect for the Charter owed by every State which claims to be a Member of this Organization.
59. We are familiar, of course, with the acts of complicity, the secret encouragement and the irresponsible statements of this or that official of this or that great Power, which are all grist to the mill of the South African racists, enabling them to continue making our Organization a laughing stock by refusing to heed its decisions and by deriding the resolutions of its most responsible organs. To all those who, directly or indirectly, put their sentimental solidarity with South Africa and Portugal above the ideals of the Charter, we would say that, in spite of these attacks on our Organization, Africa will never compromise, because honour, the dignity of its sons and international ethics are involved.
60. As for the question of the situation in Southern Rhodesia, we consider this to be so important that We wish to reserve the right to revert to it at the appropriate time, as it would be a blatant injustice to transfer powers and attributes of sovereignty to the present Government of Southern Rhodesia, which is the result of an undemocratic and discriminatory Constitution imposed on the people of that country.
61. Besides this vital problem of peace, there are many other items on our agenda that have engaged the attention of my delegation. Allow me to speak, at this stage of our debate, only on the economic and social development of the developing countries and on the revision of our Charter.
62. It is a truism today that the gap separating the "haves" from the "have-nots" is increasing, but merely saying or writing this is not enough: we must act, while there is still time. We must see to it that the two-thirds of mankind possessing only 17 percent of the world's resources feel a greater sense of community with the one third of "haves" enjoying 83 per cent of the common wealth. If we abandon the mad venture of the arms race, will there not be opportunities for more humanitarian endeavour for the immense scientific and technical resources of the great Powers? Could one dream of any competition more peaceful, more necessary or more positive to challenge the dynamism and creative genius of the elite of the developed world than an activity aimed at the welfare of man, its field of action a fairer distribution of the wealth in which our planet abounds? If human solidarity means anything, it must be measured by the effort which the great Powers voluntarily make to free the vast majority of the world's population from poverty, illiteracy and malnutrition.
63. By launching the United Nations Development Decade and by devoting attention to the application of science and technology in the development of the under-developed countries, our Organization and its specialized agencies have acted wisely and well.
64. We cannot overlook, in this brief survey, the effort which such solidarity requires of the developing countries. Most of them, at the cost of prodigious efforts, are applying themselves to the task with courage and determination, and here and there the infrastructure is taking shape and is being perfected.
65. In a recent study on the expansion of international trade, the seventy-second session of the Executive Committee of the International Chamber of Commerce stated:
"...the income earned from exports by developing countries is not... expanding rapidly enough to meet their requirements for economic development".
66. Therefore, before coming to the aid of the less developed countries, the developed countries must have the courage to reverse the commercial trends established in favour of the colonialist economy. Justice must first be done to the developing countries by restoring a balance between primary commodities and manufactured products. It is common knowledge that the prices of primary commodities, which constitute the bulk of the exports of the under-developed countries, are daily declining in a manner as dangerous as it is unpredictable, affecting the buying power of the masses, reducing the investment capacity of Government and hindering the financing of plans for the diversification of production.
67. All this demonstrates, beyond the transitory conflict of interests, that a basis of solidarity and co-operation is essential for harmonious, reciprocal development.
68. After seventeen years of existence and on the eve of a new start which the whole world looks upon as filled with hope and promise, the United Nations has reached the point where it must thoroughly examine its conscience. For greater effectiveness and justice, our Charter must be revised, the better to encompass present-day realities. The United Nations must take its present membership into account and provide itself with a structure better adapted and more flexible with regard to future situations. In doing so it will become more effective, for it will be more just and more in accord with reality.
69. Africa and Asia are calling for more seats on the Security Council. It is not the least of the paradoxes of our Organization that a whole continent, Africa, is absent from the Security Council where representation is supposed to be geographical; moreover, half of the Organization's membership (Africa and Asia together number fifty-six Members) is under-represented on such essential bodies as the International Court of Justice and the Economic and Social Council.
70. We are convinced that in making this necessary adjustment our Organization will not only be acting in accordance with a sense of justice consonant with its spirit, but will also be enhancing Its prestige and its efficiency in the service of peace.
71. It was through an awareness of this need and a desire to strengthen the Organization that the African Ministers for Foreign Affairs at the Dakar Conference unanimously adopted the resolution of which I shall quote a few extracts:
"Whereas, when the United Nations Charter was adopted in 1945 and the Gentlemen's agreement was concluded in London in 1946, only three Independent and Sovereign African States out of the fifty-one States were members of the Organization at the time, that is one seventeenth of the total membership;
"Whereas in 1963, Africa has thirty-two Member States, that is, almost one third of the total membership of the Organization, and that other African States will shortly increase this proportion;
"Appeals with confidence to the Member States of the United Nations, and in the first place to the permanent Members of the Security Council, to facilitate the successful outcome of the just and pressing African claims by not opposing any longer the amendment and the revision of the Charter;
"Resolves finally to make all the necessary efforts to bring to a successful outcome, at all costs, the justified claims of African States so as to enable them, on the acquisition of their just representation, to participate effectively in the United Nations work for peace, and this during the eighteenth session of the General Assembly;
"Solemnly declares that any impediments placed on the path of the African States by any State Member of the United Nations in the effort of the African States to attain this objective shall be regarded as an unfriendly act by all Member States of the Organization of African Unity."
72. Those are the few reflections which I wished to voice on the salient points of our agenda. My country is ready to consider any constructive proposal which has been or may be made from this rostrum.
73. A land of friendly relations and coexistence, Niger unreservedly offers its support to the United Nations and the cause of conciliation. Rejecting the exclusive cult of materialism and money, we have chosen our own path and cast our vote for maximum development and maximum respect for individual freedom. For this reason, in the debates which now occupy the United Nations, Niger will stand fast, open-minded and willing, beside all those who are resolved to work with goodwill for peace and fraternity among men.