59. Several distinguished speakers have already been to this rostrum to tell the Assembly of the problems confronting their countries and also to state their views on a number of international questions which are of concern to us all. For its part, the Cambodian delegation intends to make its position known as briefly as possible, in the hope that the voice of a country and people much preoccupied by the present situation will receive your full attention.
60. Cambodia is an essentially and fundamentally peaceful country, While the young great Powers of today may be discovering the intoxication of military glory, a country with a civilization as old as ours knows how vain it all is. Like the nations of Europe, the Khmer empire for several centuries made great use of armed force. But times have changed.
61. We do not turn our backs on our past. Yet, it seems to us that in this twentieth century international relations must be based exclusively on law, as was solemnly proclaimed when the United Nations was established. Unfortunately, there are still some countries which retain an anachronistic thirst for conquest and domination. Cambodia is at present experiencing tips from its neighbours on the West and on the East, supported and encouraged by the United States of America.
62. In this connexion, I should like to draw attention to the real policy of Thailand towards my country. All the protestations of good faith of the Bangkok leaders cannot in fact camouflage an attitude and overt acts which the Members of this Assembly will appreciate at their true worth.
63. First of all, there is the direct military intervention of the Thai army against Khmer territory. Our frontier posts and villages are regularly attacked by the Thai armed forces, which are as regularly repulsed by our covering troops. Indeed, these attacks are not a great source of anxiety. What is more serious is the placing of mines by small groups of Thais who infiltrate into Khmer territory. These American-made mines, of the latest undetectable model, are scattered over vast areas, which the rural population is then forced to leave.
64. The Government of Thailand attributes this particularly base terrorist activity to so-called "rebels", self-styled "free" Khmers. It is true that some bands of mercenaries participate in this activity, but we have the clearest proof that they are permanently installed in Thai territory and depend totally on Thai and United States services.
65. Nevertheless, we gave favourable consideration to the mediation of Mr. Herbert de Ribbing, U Thant's personal representative, and made it clear that Cambodia was ready to renew diplomatic relations with Thailand immediately, subject only to the prior signature of a joint declaration proclaiming respect for the present frontier between the two countries. It will recall that this frontier was fixed long ago by international treaties and confirmed in 1962 by a judgement of the International Court of Justice.
66. However, to this day, the Government of Thailand has not seen fit to assent to our proposal and the information available to us indicates that it intends to challenge the boundary line and even the judgement of the International Court of Justice concerning Preah Vihear. How, in these circumstances, could we give any credence to Thailand's protestations of good faith?
67. The pseudo-Government of Saigon for its part maintains an insane claim to nearly all the Cambodian coastal islands. However, no serious-minded country attaches the slightest importance to the diplomatic activities of authorities who represent nobody but themselves.
68. The military situation on the Khmer-South Viet-Namese frontier is far more serious. In effect, the United States Air Force is continuing its terrorist bombing of our frontier villages, sowing death and destruction among peaceful civilian populations. In some cases, the United States Command in South Viet-Nam claims to have attacked units of the Viet- Cong which have taken refuge with us. This is completely untrue, for all the observers from the International Commission for Supervision and Control have been able to see for themselves that the only victims of these aggressive acts have been harmless Khmer peasants. In other cases, the same United States authorities maintain, against all verisimilitude, that the bombed villages were in South Viet-Nam.
69. Lastly, I may add that these attacks by United States aircraft are being supplemented by those of Saigon's land forces, which are increasing their incursions into our territory. Thus, in the East as
well as in the West, we must face co-ordinated aggression which is obviously intended to destroy our independence and territorial integrity.
70. Nevertheless, Cambodia's only ambition is to live at peace within its frontiers, practicing the policy of its choice and pursuing with universally recognized success its national development in every field. Unfortunately, it does not appear that the United Nations is in a position today to ensure that its Members' most sacred rights, set forth moreover in the Charter, will be respected and guaranteed.
71. I should like now to take up the problem which is in the forefront of all our minds and takes precedence over all the others with which the Assembly is called upon to deal: namely, the war in Viet-Nam. We have heard the head of the United States delegation [1412th meeting] give a rather special version of that war and put forward what he describes as a plan for the restoration of peace in Viet-Nam. We have also listened without surprise to certain other speakers offering him their unconditional support.
72. The Cambodian delegation for its part believes that it is essential to state the burning question of Viet-Nam as it really is, in other words, the assassination of a people by a foreign Power. The so-called justifications of the Administration in Washington will never be able to wipe out from our minds the horror and brutality of the United States military action in North and South Viet-Nam. In this connexion, we in Cambodia are better placed than anyone to denounce to the representatives of the entire world crimes which are the shame of all civilized countries.
73. The United States is solely responsible for the martyrdom of the Viet-Namese people, and it will have to answer for it to history. It was the United States which gave the dictator Ngo Dinh Diem the support, means and advice which enabled him to impose his bloody regime on the Viet-Namese people. It was the United States, as General de Gaulle has so rightly pointed out, which then imposed its political and military authority on South Viet-Nam and made the war break out again in the form of a national resistance. All these are facts and the so-called explanations of the United States representatives will deceive no impartial person.
74. The colonialists of the past had at least the merit of frankness when they sought to impose their rule on other countries. Today, however, the United States imperialists think they can hide their ambitions under hypocritical formulae. Need we add .that no colonial conquest of the last century was as brutal as the invasion of South Viet-Nam by the United States.
75. Attempts are made to place this invasion by 350,000 United States soldiers, and the indiscriminate daily bombings, on an ideological plane, namely, the fight against communism. This is merely an attempt to deceive international opinion. In fact, the Viet-Namese people are fighting for their independence, just as the Cambodian people and the people of the United States themselves would fight if they were attacked and invaded. Such great nationalist countries as Trance are not deceived.
76. The United States representative has tried to persuade this Assembly of the United States' will for peace. We do not think that these fine words will make us forget that at this very moment United States aircraft are pouring bombs, napalm, chemical poisons, into Viet-Namese villages.
77. The United States Government is deceiving world opinion in proposing what it calls a peace plan. What it is really asking for is the capitulation of the Viet-Namese national resistance movement and the recognition of the right of the United States to maintain in Saigon a Government of its choice which the people of South Viet-Nam do not want. The recent farce of elections, which our Secretary-General described very aptly as neither free nor fair, could not of course given any appearance of legality to the occupation of South Viet-Nam by the United States army.
78. Lastly, we regard as an affront to intelligence and common sense the argument that Viet-Nam is the victim of aggression by the Viet-Namese and is being defended by the United States. The truth is that Viet-Nam is the victim of aggression of which the United States alone is guilty. This guilt is still further compounded by the despatch of Asian mercenaries to the battle fields of Viet-Nam.
79. The United Nations is an organization which was created so that the world should no longer be ruled by the use of force and so that all countries should be entitled to settle their domestic affairs without foreign intervention or interference. It is not, as is thought in some quarters, its duty to impose mediation in the Viet-Namese war, because the violations of the Geneva Agreements of 1954 on Indochina, of the United Nations Charter and of international law as a whole, are purely unilateral.
80. It should simply demand an end to United States aggression in Viet-Nam and the evacuation of its troops from a country which they have invaded with no other justification than an out-dated will to dominate. As for the arrangements for the withdrawal of these troops, it rests with the Government of the United States and it alone to discuss the matter with the authentic representatives of the Viet-Namese people, that is to say with the National Front for the Liberation of South Viet-Nam and with the Hanoi Government of the North.
81. Of course we know perfectly well that the United States Administration has chosen to turn a deaf ear to all the condemnations of world public opinion, and to use the power of its arms where and when it sees fit. There can be no doubt that this policy of force will lead to a world war, and at the present rate of escalation, we may well imagine that this General Assembly may be our last. In this planetary conflict we shall all share the responsibility, unless we try every means at our disposal to compel the United States to obey to the letter the Charter which it has signed.
82. There is another question of major importance which this year again the General Assembly is called upon to examine: the restoration to the People's Republic of China of its seat in the United Nations and in all its dependent agencies. However, this year again, the United States has decided to use every means in its power to perpetuate the farce of the presence in China's place of the representatives of the Chiang Kai-Shek clique.
83. For years now, the arguments put forward by the United States and the countries it controls have not changed. For years, the Cambodian delegation has felt obliged to draw the Assembly's attention to the denial of justice constituted by the refusal to give China the place to which it is entitled. But we know that our appeals to reason, like those of all truly independent countries, are blocked by a United States imperialism exerted more and more openly in the United Nations.
84. Nevertheless, the Cambodian delegation appeals once more to all the delegations subject to United States blackmail on this matter of re-establishing the rights of China in the United Nations. The United States never stops proclaiming that China is a warmonger and threatens the peace of the world. Yet, is there a single Chinese soldier outside China, a single Chinese military base in foreign territory? In fact, the only wars being waged in the world at present are being waged by the United States, and the only bases which encircle and threaten China and all the socialist countries are those of the United States.
85. Responsible United States generals no longer hesitate to proclaim that their objective is to push China and Viet-Nam back to the stone age. A hysterical campaign is developing throughout the United States in favour of using force, including atomic force, to break the resistance of those countries which refuse to bow to its domination. And they dare claim that China threatens the peace of the world!
86. The truth, the truth which we hope will one day triumph, is that the People's Republic of China, a nation of 700 million, is being kept out of the United Nations in flagrant violation of the principles on which our Organization was founded. We should wake up to a fact often recalled by Prince Norodom Sihanouk, the Cambodian Chief of State, namely, that the United Nations needs the presence of China much more than China needs to sit in the United Nations.
87. Above all, the United States must give back to China that Chinese province of Taiwan which it is occupying and administering through the Chiang kai-Shek clique.
88. We also believe that it is the duty of the United Nations to ask the United States troops to leave South Korea, after first removing the Korean question from its agenda and dissolving the United Nations Commission for the Unification and Rehabilitation of Korea. It is indeed a sorry fact that United Nations interference in the domestic affairs of this country is in reality support for the colonialist policy of the United States, which no longer even hesitates to use tens of thousands of South Korean soldiers in the Viet-Nam war. The Korean people are entitled to peace and reunification; such reunification, by peaceful means, is their own business.
89. The Cambodian delegation notes with regret that the United Nations has shown itself powerless or unable to solve problems which become graver and more complex every year. We are forced even to recognize that its acceptance of violations of the Charter by the Western great Powers the United States in particular, is leading the world inevitably into a general war.
90. In this respect we would like to pay a glowing tribute to the efforts of U Thant to save the United Nations and the peace of the world. Unfortunately, his warnings, his appeals, his advice have gone unheeded by those responsible for the present situation. We understand his anguish and his discouragement. At the same time, we shall go on fervently hoping that he will accept another term, for he has our full and complete confidence.
91. The crisis which the United Nations is at present going through undoubtedly has many causes; neocolonialism in some quarters, economic and political imperialism in others, chauvinism on the part of the great Powers, ideological rivalry, and so forth. One of the fundamental causes, however, is and continues to be racism.
92. Throughout the world we are witnessing savage demonstrations of that racism which is the shame of certain countries and certain civilized societies. In South Africa, the African population undergoes the most cruel oppression at the hands of a white Government whose representatives sit here among us. In Rhodesia, despite resolutions which have remained a dead letter, the Government of Ian Smith is still in power at Salisbury. In the United States, 25 million Negroes are fighting for their dignity and the recognition of the fundamental rights which are refused them.
93. Why could we not imagine the United States one day committing against a white race the atrocities of which it is guilty every day in Viet-Nam? Even before the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, we knew that certain Western Powers had nothing but contempt for the so-called coloured peoples. Present developments confirm that this attitude persists and is growing stronger in the self-styled free world. The Cambodian delegation hopes that all its brother countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America will become aware of this question, which will become more crucial every year.
94. In conclusion, may I stress the pleasure with which we welcomed the election of Mr. Abdul Rahman Pazhwak, the leading representative of a friendly Asian country and a universally respected international figure. The Cambodian delegation asks him to accept its hearty congratulations and its best wishes for the complete success of the noble task entrusted to him.