1. Mr. President, I should like to address to you, on behalf of my delegation, my warm and sincere congratulations upon your election to the Presidency of the General Assembly at its twenty-first session. Anyone who, like myself, has had the privilege of working at your side for over five years knows that despite the clouds now darkening the horizon your wisdom, your energy and your fairness will guide our work at this session to a successful conclusion.
2. The storms which issue from this mass of clouds periodically jolt our Organization — temporarily, it is true, but with an intensity which in the opinion of some eminent observers may prove fatal to the United Nations, heir to the defunct League of Nations. The reason is that the causes of these convulsions are permanent: poverty, territorial and expansionist ambitions, and distrust. Poverty holds nearly two thirds of the world's population in its grip, while the prosperous third lives in luxury and indulges in lavish expenditure with an almost shameless nonchalance. Territorial and expansionist ambitions give rise to military defence blocs. Lastly, subversion, itself caused by the division of the world into two ideological blocs, engenders distrust. And the end result is social unrest, famine, revolutions, coups d'etat, border disputes, infiltration, subversion, cold wars and the other wars, dignified with ordinal numbers like dynasties: the First World War, the Second World War; and on the horizon, ready to burst, the black clouds of the third and final world war. Never have international peace and security been threatened as they are today.
3. Most of the under-developed countries, despite the efforts they have made with their own resources or with bilateral or multilateral assistance, continue to grow poor while the developed countries as a group continue to grow wealthy. And the magnitude of these problems greatly exceeds the efforts made thus far, although those efforts have not been negligible. The time has thus come to take stock of the ways and means of co-operation.
4. The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, despite the setbacks it has suffered through the selfishness of certain wealthy Powers, remains the instrument by which the deterioration in the terms of trade so detrimental to the centuries of the Third World can be brought to a stop through the establishment of a system for guaranteeing the prices of primary commodities, particularly agricultural products. This could be done, for example, by creating an equalization fund on an international scale. The fact that we lose more by price fluctuations — not to speak of their disturbing effects on our economic - development plans — than we receive in assistance from the developed States no longer needs proof. That is why praise is due to the African States for the work they have done to establish customs unions, such as the West African Customs Union and the Customs and Economic Union for Central Africa, and to set up equalization funds to guarantee some of their primary commodities — for example, the sugar guarantee fund established by the States members of the Joint African and Malagasy Organization. We must also thank the Development Fund for Overseas Countries and Territories for the substantial assistance It is giving the countries associated with it, and the United Nations for the work it has done, despite its modest means, to help the African nations under the United Nations Development Programme.
5. The second cause of our problems arises from territorial claims and expansionist ambitions. That was an element inherent in the Second World War; it results from every country's desire to extend its borders, develop its system of government, destroy everything not itself, and thereby create a revolutionary dynamism based on intolerance. During the Second World War, one of the Allied Powers in fact observed that that war was not like past wars: a country which occupied a territory imposed its own social system on it; every country imposed its system as far as its army could advance, and the situation could not have been otherwise. Unfortunately, that was no mere figure of speech. States have changed regimes overnight, others have experienced civil wars; mistakes and weaknesses have been systematically exploited, and every great Power has methodically woven its network of alliances. Military blocs — the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the South-East Asia Treaty Organization, the Warsaw Pact — have been forged, and the alliance upon which this Organization was founded has shivered. Nations once united like Germany, Korea, Indo-China, have been divided. The concept of negotiation from positions of strength has led to the arms race, the failure of the collective security system, and the paralysis of our Organization. All this has come about because the partisans of regimes have closed their eyes to the lofty purpose of the United Nations — the maintenance of peace — and calculate the advantage their neighbour might derive from every one of their actions.
6. "War", as Mr. Houphouet-Boigny, President of the Republic of the Ivory Coast, has observed, "has never settled anything conclusively, and whoever loses a war today can hope to win it another time. Would it not therefore be infinitely preferable to live in peace with one another?" The Ivory Coast has never been in favour of war and never will be; but while condemning war we also condemn subversion, which leads to the most tragic of all conflicts, civil war. As far as Viet-Nam is concerned, my country hopes that foreign intervention will cease, whatever its nature or origin. This conflict remains limited for the moment, but it may spread into a general conflagration, for it bids fair to get out of control. While there is still time, the Ivory Coast wishes to join its voice to those of the other small countries, which urgently need peace, in an appeal to the conscience of mankind. We beg the belligerent parties, those who support them and those who are able to influence them to work together to restore peace to Viet-Nam. That can be accomplished by putting an end to subversive activities in South Viet-Nam, by stopping bombings, intervention and infiltration, by a supervised cessation of hostilities and by returning to the Geneva Conference to solve the problem of unification on the basis of the sacred principle of negotiation and self-determination.
7. Proposals for negotiations have been submitted from this rostrum by the United States. While they were deemed unacceptable by others, the stake involved in this war is so great that we must not be discouraged, and the United States should make a solemn gesture by halting its bombings and air attacks. At the same time, we should encourage the convening of the Geneva Conference with a view to the initiation of negotiations for a return to the 1952 and 1954 agreements, and induce the belligerents to agree to a supervised suspension of hostilities until the Conference has come to a reasonable conclusion. It is the duty of each of us, according to our relations with the United States, the People's Republic of China, North Viet-Nam, South Viet-Nam and the Viet-Cong, to persuade these parties to agree to negotiation — within the context of the Geneva Conference and with no preconditions — as the only means to save the peace,
8. We in the Ivory Coast believe In the virtue of negotiation and self-determination, and we are convinced that they remain the only answers to the distressing problems of countries arbitrarily divided by ideological conflicts imposed from outside, We are referring to Indo-China, Korea, and, above all, Germany, a nation which will not tolerate permanent division and which is a potential hotbed of war, inasmuch as the reaction to this division will inevitably be the awakening of an insurgent national consciousness.
9. In a letter to Marshal Stalin dated 29 April 1945, Winston Churchill wrote:
"There is not much comfort in looking into a future where you and the countries you dominate, plus the Communist Parties in many other States, are all drawn up on one side, and those who rally to the English-speaking nations and their associates or dominions are on the other. It is quite obvious that their quarrel would tear the world to pieces and that all of us, leading men on either side who had anything to do with that, would be shamed before history."
Of course, we are still suffering the effects of this crisis, but we should find comfort in the thought that it is not an insoluble one. Eastern and Western Powers are making commendable efforts to overcome it and inaugurate a more positive policy of peaceful coexistence, the coexistence of the two regimes. Only the People's Republic of China refuses to join in that effort; it wages insidious and often clamorous warfare against everyone — communist, capitalist and non-aligned nations alike — by promoting subversion everywhere, in African and other countries, in the name of some sort of international revolution.
10. Our position on the question of the People's Republic of China therefore remains unchanged. We hope that nation will realize that its intransigence is causing much turmoil throughout the world and is seriously Injuring the small African States, which need an atmosphere of peace and fraternity if they are to overcome their lag in development.
11. Another cause of war, and not the least significant one, lies in the trend towards domination, for domination stifles freedom and engenders revolt, as witness the unrest brewing in the Portuguese colonies, the resistance to Pretoria's inhuman policy of apartheid, and the hostility stirred up by South Africa's seizure of South-West Africa. These policies, all based on violence, are to be condemned. The whites of South Africa have been unable to rise above their selfish privileges of the moment to build the South Africa of the future. Our policy in the Ivory Coast consists in calling upon our friends throughout the world to join with us in persuading the Whites of South Africa to refrain from accumulating hatreds which will overwhelm them when, in a few years’ time, the balance of strength has changed. A situation imposed by force cannot last forever.
12. The South West Africa issue is an international scandal. South-West Africa is the only Mandated Territory of the League of Nations whose future is uncertain, because South Africa wishes to annex it and is being abetted by many other States in its efforts to do so. South Africa's bad faith in this matter is obvious; its intention to annex South West Africa is clear, and the Ivory Coast condemned the Judgment delivered by the International Court of Justice on 18 July 1966 because it was politically rather than juridically motivated. South Africa has violated its Mandate, and the United Nations must seriously consider revoking that Mandate.
13. Portugal, for its part, persists in applying in Angola, Mozambique and so-called Portuguese Guinea a policy of "assimilation" which no longer has any place in an independent Africa. We beseech Portugal to adopt a realistic policy based on self-determination, such as France carried out in Africa and plans to carry out for a second time in Djibouti.
14. With regard to Rhodesia, we have up to now placed our trust in the United Kingdom. The United Kingdom must now live up to that trust by refusing to allow the 200,000 rebel Whites of Southern Rhodesia any more time, time which they would use to organize themselves more effectively and arrogantly persist in their defiance of the civilized world. Without further delay, the United Nations must intervene under Chapter VII of the Charter.
15. I have intentionally omitted to mention the question of disarmament because when we analyse the causes of the arms race we realize that they lie essentially in distrust, a distrust which increases day after day, suggesting that the policies adopted by the various parties are intended only as diversionary or delaying tactics. There are some things which depend upon us and others which do not. If disarmament depended on the will of the Ivory Coast, I would say that we are in favour of total, general, complete disarmament. However, the duty incumbent on us is to create an atmosphere of fraternal understanding, and conditions which will allow the present temporary respite to become permanent and will render the accumulated armaments useless for want of work.
16. That is possible because the world, fortunately, is governed not by force buy by public opinion. We must therefore strengthen our Organization, which calms tempers, limits risks, and is the embodiment of our moral aspirations and the universal conscience.
17. In a world which is unfortunately a prey to dangerous and unpredictable upheavals, we have done well to entrust the United Nations with the mission of maintaining peace wherever it has been threated. The creation of an Emergency Force has thus been fully justified. My delegation takes this opportunity to pay tribute to the United Nations Emergency Force for the effective work it has done and is still doing, within the limits of its still too modest means; work, above all, which it has done in a spirit of noble impartiality. We hope, therefore, that the costs of maintaining and equipping the Force will be adequately and regularly met, now and in the future, by all concerned — particularly the wealthier States.
18. The Ivory Coast is happy to see that, despite the growing problems facing our Organization, independent countries continue to join the United Nations. My country, which was honoured to be Guyana’s guest on the occasion of its proclamation of independence, takes great pleasure in congratulating that friendly country and in welcoming it to the United Nations.
19. During the two years in which the Ivory Coast has been a member of the Security Council, we have been able to appreciate the difficulties which confront the Secretary-General in the discharge of the noble task entrusted to him. We cannot therefore leave this rostrum without paying a special tribute to him, by expressing our warm and sincere congratulations on the courage, energy and wisdom he has always demonstrated in the conduct of international affairs. On behalf of my Government and my President, it is my pleasant duty to reaffirm the complete confidence of the Ivory Coast in the Secretary-General.
20. It is our hope that the Secretary-General's courageous report for this twenty-first session [A/ 6301] will be deeply pondered, for the good of all mankind, by all States Members — and non-members — of the United Nations.