67. Mr. President, in speaking for the first time from this rostrum only a few days after your unanimous election to the Presidency of the twenty-third session of the General Assembly of the United Nations, I am highly gratified and regard it as a signal honour that I am able to add my voice to those of the distinguished speakers who have preceded me in extending to you the most sincere and most cordial congratulations of the delegation of Gabon.
68. We welcomed that vote with deep satisfaction, because we know that it was not dictated solely by the just principle of geographical distribution, which requires that the Presidency of this Assembly should be filled by rotation. In our opinion, the result of the election is first and foremost a tribute to your country for the unremitting efforts it is making to preserve a true independence, for its fidelity to the noble ideals set for us by the Charter of our Organization, and for its ever more effective and constructive contribution to the triumph of those ideals. In addition, your election establishes before the entire world the high qualifications and great competence of an eminent diplomat, one who enjoys widespread esteem in his own country and who has won the esteem of the Member States that are represented here in this vast and worthy conclave.
69. Therefore, Mr. President, our delegation, along with the others, cannot but welcome the fact that you have been chosen to fill that lofty post, for the choice was based on criteria which are a guarantee that our work will be conducted with competence, with realism, and with efficacy. And you can rely on our delegation to collaborate in helping you in the delicate task with which you have been entrusted, as we count on you to uphold with the whole weight of your authority the efforts that many
delegations, including my own, are determined to make towards the complete success of this session and the attempt to give new impetus to the activities of our Organization. For there is an increasing need for new impetus of this sort, since the will of many Members has obviously weakened and they are slackening their efforts to keep us faithful to the fundamental principles that our Organization offer mankind as those best calculated to preserve continuing humane and fraternal relations between peoples, to maintain world-wide peace and to establish the conditions best suited to universal well-being and happiness.
70. All Member States, by joining the Organization, eagerly endorsed those basic principles, which are so attractive that their implementation would seem to entail no difficulty whatever, since their efficacy for promoting a peaceful and harmonious coexistence among men is self-evident.
71. Unfortunately, experience shows that the generous impulse that prevailed during the drafting and adoption of the Charter that was ratified at San Francisco by nearly every country in the world has decayed until its implementation is no longer of concern precisely to those who originated it.
72. The new countries, we who are late-comers to this community of nations, we who had counted so much on the peace, harmony, solidarity, mutual assistance and co-operation among nations which the Organization undertook to make effective for mankind, for success in building up our nations and for furthering our development, have been bitterly disappointed. For this slackening of effort by the great founding Powers of the Organization now gives us the impression that they are callously disowning it, as though they were looking backwards out of nostalgia for the habits of a past age which they had disavowed and as though they had been impelled by an irresistible and sombre force once again to rely upon “the right of the strongest” which formerly governed international relations. Yet we thought that the lesson of the last world holocaust, which brought them so much wisdom, would be for all time
the best motivating force for this peace-loving Organization, which was conceived and brought into being to banish forever from our world that law of the strongest.
73. Our disappointment is not, however, discouragement. We know that it is man’s nature to return the next day to what he has repudiated and abandoned the day before. The essential thing is that he be able to draw back in time and realize that such withdrawals, such surrenders will not promote mankind’s progress towards the fullness of life for which all of us also wish naturally.
74. The United Nations Charter is a code of international morality. So long as the rules it embodies are not abandoned by all States, there is still hope. Indeed, if only a very few nations remain faithful to those rules, the defaulting Members will follow their example, recover their nerve and reawaken to their duties as they regain their former spirit. Then, the United Nations will profit from
that new spirit which it needs so badly today in order to keep open all the brilliant prospects for well-being and happiness that its establishment spread before the gaze of mankind.
75. Gabon is a young country; it has just celebrated the eighth anniversary of its independence. That means that having barely entered the community of sovereign nations, Gabon is still faced with many problems in completing the building up of the nation. Its major problem is the struggle it is waging against underdevelopment, a struggle that it is determined to win in order to join the ranks of the
developed countries as quickly as possible. This, however, is possible only in the context of peace and only if Gabon can rely on the co-operation of the wealthy countries as well as on the understanding and friendship of all countries. For that reason, Gabon is zealously devoted to the fundamental principles that govern our Organization, if only out of self-interest. It therefore feels itself in duty bound to
express its admiration and gratitude to all those who, like yourself, Mr. President, are assuming the responsibility of upholding and protecting those principles.
76. In this connexion, my delegation wishes to take this opportunity to pay a deserved tribute to your predecessor, who with unquestionable competence and wisdom presided over the discussions of the twenty-second session.
77. My delegation would also be seriously remiss in its duty of gratitude and fairness if it were to neglect to make special mention here of the Secretary-General of the United Nations. His abilities and his total devotion to the cause of peace are patent to all, and if the world has not so far been
involved in further disaster, we owe it in great measure to U Thant. We should like to express to him and to his staff our deep gratitude and our sincere esteem.
78. When we examine our Organization’s activities designed to attain its purposes, we find that it is encountering difficulties and obstacles calculated to lead to pessimism.
79. When it comes to putting into practice the provisions of the Charter which we freely accepted, vacillation, open opposition, hesitation and passivity are factors condemning our Organization to impotence, inflicting bitter setbacks on the authorities responsible for implementing that Charter
and discouraging them. Such surrenders by the international moral leadership to often paltry interests represent fatal blows to the United Nations and can only lead to re-establishing in the world the reign of those evil forces—imperialism, oppression, slavery and exploitation of the weakest—all of them forces engendering the ruin and misery that we are trying to eradicate.
80. This course of restoring the reign of irrational forces in the world becomes the more alarming as it increasingly takes a turn that appears to be flouting the action of our Organization.
81. I am not taking any malicious pleasure in drawing up here an account of the shortcomings of the United Nations in order to conclude that it is useless; but I believe that if we are concerned for the survival of this institution, the situation must be examined realistically.
82. Gabon, for one, is concerned for that survival, especially since our Organization is not really impotent; for if the negative aspect of its activity stands out especially, that activity has nonetheless a positive side. And the very fact that the Organization is still in existence is in itself
encouraging. It is encouraging because so long as life remains in a body, even a body that is seriously ill, all is not lost. The same holds true for our Organization, which is still very much alive in all of its Members — and they are in the majority — who are concerned for its existence.
83. We must certainly make a greater effort to augment its achievements in all its areas of activity and to ensure that the very extent of those achievements revives our colleagues’ faltering courage. This means that primarily the founders of the United Nations—especially those which are known as the “great Powers"—need to recover a keen sense — which they appear to have lost—of their duty and their responsibilities towards mankind which is now so deeply disillusioned by their apparent apathy. They have only to examine their conscience to find written there in letters of fire the great principles of the Charter that they drew up and gave to the world; they will rediscover the will and the sense of duty to mankind that will enable them to make the sacrifices that are needed to rise above their
special interests and to safeguard the interests of mankind. For it is the “great Powers” which are responsible for the threats hanging over world peace and for the Organization’s impotence in its attempts to maintain that peace.
84. Having survived the recent disaster and mastered it by their might, they displayed great wisdom by using their genius to put an end once and for all to the horrors of war on earth by setting up an organization designed to safeguard the world.
85. Mankind welcomed their labours with enthusiasm and gratitude. Barely a few years have passed, however, and the “great Powers” have returned to their efforts to achieve world hegemony, burying deep in their consciences the thoughts of peace and brotherhood they had conceived out of their common danger and splitting the world into two violently opposed blocs, each characterized by its own
ideological and economic system, each basing its existence on the murderous might of its armies, each devoted first and foremost to extending its zone of influence. Hence, there has been an unprecedented stockpiling of all kinds of weapons, produced by the greatest scientific discoveries of the century, ranging from the most highly developed of the so-called conventional weapons to atomic and thermo-
nuclear bombs that are plunging all of mankind into the disarray created by an ever-present threat of total destruction. Acting on the instinct for collective preservation, other nations who were able to do likewise were unable to resist their bad example. Then what is the use of people who possess stocks that are capable of blowing the earth to bits submitting to others for signature, a treaty on the
non-proliferation of nuclear weapons?
86. No, the real way to restore peace on earth is through total disarmament, and it is for the “great Powers” to set an example and to take the initiative. Their prestige cannot but be increased and their credit enhanced in the great ledger of history if they can, without reticence or haggling, divert to the purposes of justice and solidarity the power and the wealth that they are now lavishing upon weapons. It has been suggested that one day’s preparations for war should be devoted to development and peace. May this suggestion be heeded!
87. There are those who will call me an optimist when I advance such proposals for restoring credit and power to the United Nations. Those who see things simply, who try to see clearly and to walk a straight path, go right to the heart of problems and do not indulge in euphemism. That, in a word, is the special characteristic of the people and Government of Gabon on whose behalf I am speaking here.
Gabon loves simplicity and directness. It has faith in reason and truth. It engages in dialogue in order to achieve tolerance, two sacred words that are henceforth enshrined in the threefold principle of Gabonese policy, the third being peace. Gabon shuns hypocrisy and subterfuge. It is able to fulfil its obligations and it is on that account that it finds it hard to believe that the fundamental principles governing our Organization can be systematically flouted by some, or that the Charter has lost its meaning and become nothing more than a worked-out lode.
88. My country is among those that retain their confidence in our Organization’s ability to carry out the role entrusted to it, a confidence inspired by the advance in thinking that has occurred since the Second World War and by the establishment of this Organization. The clash of ideologies, the opposition of blocs, manoeuvring and scheming, all mean very little since they have not impeded the survival of our institution.
89. I have already said that my country is a young country and a small one; it does not have the means to undertake alone the enormous task of building the nation. Nevertheless, like all those countries which have in recent years gained control over their own affairs and have acquired international sovereignty, Gabon is actuated first and foremost by a will to build up the nation, by a concern for
its economic and social development on which depends the improvement of its inhabitants’ living conditions. Its presence within the Organization assuages its feeling of isolation and gives it some sort of confidence that here it will find the support and the courage it needs to meet its future.
90. Faced with the duties incumbent on all Members of the Organization in the accomplishment of its task, Gabon therefore naturally feels itself compelled to take part in the consideration of all the problems that must be solved in order that the threats that have been mentioned may be overcome and dangers averted.
91. Situations of this sort are in fact being created in various parts of the world. Gabon must therefore have its say with regard to them, as it must express its views concerning the important problems that concern the world. I must do so on its behalf, and in order to do that I need only refer to the three basic areas in which the United Nations is taking action and from which all the items on
our agenda are derived. These are the maintenance of international peace and security; the right of mankind to life, liberty and dignity, as well as the right of peoples to self-determination; and, thirdly, understanding and solidarity among nations in achieving a balance of development and prosperity which will enable them to overcome the inequality of living standards.
92. With regard to the first area, though it is fortunate that the two super-Powers, despite the basic difference between their social and economic systems and despite their struggle for influence that represents the greatest threat to the world, are endeavouring to practise peaceful coexistence, causes of tension continue to pose a permanent threat to world stability; and here and there the tension explodes and gives rise to open armed conflict.
93. There is, for example, the Far East, where the war in Viet-Nam has been going on for years with its awful spectacle of horrors and destruction. There are the African countries still under colonial rule—Angola, Mozambique, Guinea, or Bissau—in which liberation movements have organized to win free from the Portuguese conquistadors by force of arms. There is too the Middle East, where the serious and bloody crisis opened between Israel and the Arab countries over a year ago far from being solved completely, owing to lack of a settlement, has been reappearing for some time in periodic explosions that may
at any moment rekindle the war.
94. One of those causes of tension can be found in the division imposed on certain nations by external forces.
95. For example, we find such a great European Power as Germany doomed, for no discernible reason, to exist divided and to be kept out of our Organization — in flagrant violation of one of the fundamental principles of our Charter, the right of peoples to self-determination — and those responsible for that partition ignore its protests. Such a situation cannot, however, but arouse our conscience as
Gabonese for, as I stated earlier, Gabon is devoted to the fundamental principles embodied in our Charter, and it cannot understand how nations that feign a like devotion can systematically withhold from another nation that right to self-determination to which we all lay claim for ourselves. If we think that such a partition is desired by the majority of the German people, it must be proved to the
world by holding free elections throughout the country and by accepting the democratic decision of those elections, either to continue partition or to proceed to reunification. That is the only way to find a just solution to that problem, a solution which is one of the prerequisites for establishing
a true relaxation of tension on the European continent and throughout the world.
96. The same problem arises with regard to Korea, and there, too, it cannot be solved, in our opinion, other than by means of a free election by all the Korean people, held under United Nations auspices.
97. But it is the armed conflicts which are now ravaging some areas of the world that fill us with dismay and bitterness. Unfortunately, our Organization, which was powerless to prevent them, lacks all means of putting an end to them.
98. With regard to the war in Viet-Nam, everyone has already been greatly relieved to learn that the belligerent parties have agreed to hold discussions around a conference table; it can only be hoped that the discussions will not be a dialogue of the deaf.
99. With regard to the Middle East and the Arab-Israel conflict, Gabon has already taken a stand that it regards as being in conformity with the rights and principles which it endorsed when it became a Member of the United Nations. What is now at issue is respect for the territorial integrity of States and the peaceful settlement of disputes, which apply equally to Israel and to the Arab countries.
100. If, therefore, we are to recognize Israel as a State with a right to exist, whose territorial integrity must be respected, morality and logic require us to take the same position with regard to the Arab States. We are therefore in favour of the withdrawal of Israeli troops from the occupied Arab territories, with the proviso, however, that the Arab States refrain from belligerent actions likely to
rekindle the war.
101. In any event, no one can accuse the United Nations of remaining inactive in the sensitive, complicated and explosive situation prevailing in that part of the world. For twenty years, it has exerted all its efforts to remedy that situation, and if it has but imperfectly succeeded, its sense
of responsibility cannot be questioned.
102. The maintenance of peace among nations is of such vital importance to us because it is basically a guarantee of security for both the life of nations and for the lives of the individuals that form nations. Consequently, we believe that wherever human life is being threatened, our Organization must have its say and, if need be, must take the steps necessary to protect human life. Man, who cannot create life, cannot have the right wantonly to destroy it.
103. I must appeal here to man’s inalienable right to life, to existence, as I think of the upheavals that have for several years been disturbing the African continent and have brought about wide-spread destruction of human lives. Hundreds of thousands, millions, of lives have been destroyed in this way, and no one has lifted a finger or tried to determine the cause. Whatever the reason, whether it be quelling a rebellion or preventing secession, our Organization cannot remain indifferent to such slaughters. When a State is going through those upheavals, we can at most allow other States, in their rightful concern to respect the principle of non-intervention in the domestic affairs of other States, to remain passive. But that principle may be advanced to conceal a pogrom, a campaign of genocide in
our States that have a mixed population, where ethnic minorities are not sufficiently protected. Our laws, laws that severely punish parents that mistreat their children, have as yet done nothing to guarantee that same protection to the majority of our States in which tribal antagonisms still prevail and where the refusal to live in those societies that do not adequately protect the weak is looked on as treason punishable by death.
104. What States cannot undertake with regard to another State by virtue of the principle of non-intervention in the domestic affairs of others can be undertaken by the United Nations, in line with its duty to see to the protection of human life. That duty gives it the right to supervise the affairs of States whenever the lives of individuals or groups of individuals are threatened for a motive that cannot be discerned from outside, especially when those individuals are of the same ethnic background. It is futile for us to strive valiantly to eradicate malaria, yellow fever, smallpox and other endemic or epidemic diseases if we must stand by impotently and watch the extermination of human beings for the sole reason that they are a hindrance to others or that they are distasteful to them.
105. In these cases, therefore, the United Nations must act, even if it incurs the risk of being accused of complicity. It must begin by seeking information on the origin of the events in order to determine their hidden motives and then go on to intervene in order to stop the massacres, by rendering harmless those who take refuge in the principle of non-intervention in the domestic affairs of States in order to proceed coolly, without qualms, about their sorry business of grave-diggers.
106. Again, with regard to international security, there are those who think that the admission of the People’s Republic of China to the United Nations would be an essential factor in relaxing international tension and promoting world peace. The Government of Gabon is concerned with that problem, which has, in its opinion, special importance because of its implications. If Gabon remains hesitant with regard to the admission of that country, it is primarily due to the fact that the leaders in Peking and their bellicose and intolerant attitude towards ideological matters make my Government sceptical as to their ability to work for the peace and solidarity of nations, whatever their form of government. It is for that reason that my Government continues to support the Republic of China which is, furthermore, a founding Member of the Organization; but to us the ideal situation would be a single China.
107. Following a consideration of the problems facing the United Nations with respect to the maintenance of international peace and security, I must now turn to the field of man’s right to freedom and dignity and to the right of peoples to self-determination.
108. That field is of special interest to the continent of which Gabon is a part — the African continent — because it is there that these two rights have been the most flouted.
109. Nevertheless, the fate of the world has decreed that after the Second World War mankind, newly alive to its duties towards itself, has directed its forward march in a direction more in keeping with the value and dignity of man. It is for that reason that the colonial Powers, loosening their hold on the continent, initiated the process which history will call “decolonization".
110. The young nations that resulted from this decolonization are all represented within this Hall. I need not, therefore, name them. May I, however, associate myself and my delegation with those speakers who have from this rostrum welcomed the accession to independence of Mauritius and Swaziland in the period between Assembly sessions and the admission to our Organization of Swaziland at the opening of this twenty-third session [1674th meeting].
111. In a few days, Equatorial Guinea, another country formerly under colonial domination, will be acceding to independence. At least, that is the pledge the Spanish Government, which is responsible for that territory, has made before the world, and we regard everything it has done so far to further the speedy and regular development of the decolonization process in that country as an assurance that Spain will keep its word.
112. Gabon, which has followed the evolution of that process of decolonization with the utmost attention and with unconcealed satisfaction, cannot but be pleased at this brother country’s accession to national and international sovereignty. This accession is a striking testimony to the realistic and humanitarian policy of the Spanish Government, which I should like at this time, on behalf of my
country and my Government, to congratulate most warmly on the magnanimous example it has thus set to its neighbour, Portugal.
113. There you have three new examples of the liberation of colonized peoples that must be set down to the credit of our Organization. But, although we have every reason to rejoice on their behalf, the concern we feel regarding some extremely serious situations that appear to be growing up on the African continent has not diminished. Those situations are those in South Africa, in Rhodesia and in the
Portuguese possessions.
114. Notwithstanding the repeated appeals and the numerous condemnations issued during the course of successive sessions in the form of General Assembly resolutions, the South African Government not only remains set upon its insensate policy of apartheid, but is continuing to extend it. Arbitrary laws on segregation, sentences, summary executions, these are some of the despotic methods being employed by the leaders in Pretoria in implementing this policy.
115. This being so, it is hardly surprising that these millions of oppressed, humiliated and segregated, human beings are resorting to lawlessness and violence since they are forbidden to make themselves heard peacefully and legally. And because violence begets violence those who claim to be their masters are retaliating with the most savage oppression.
116. Inasmuch as the resolutions of the Security Council and of the General Assembly are regularly being flouted by the rabid and unrepentant South African racists, what can we do to put an end to such a situation? It is naive to believe that their stand will be altered by condemnations issued in this Assembly unaccompanied by sanctions.
117. Some believe that only the great Powers hold the key to the problem, since only they possess the economic means to force South Africa to listen to reason. When I think of the results of the economic sanctions that were imposed on Southern Rhodesia, I continue to be sceptical on that point. I continue to be sceptical even with regard to the effectiveness of force for putting that country on the
right track, when I consider the conditions under which it was created—unless all the Powers represented here and that are censuring it form a coalition to compel it by force to alter its policy.
118. The fate of the Blacks of South Africa is therefore hopeless, as was the fate of the other colonized countries in Africa before decolonization. In my opinion, only the fluctuations of history can bring the South African Government to alter its policy. Indeed, such a change implies an
evolution in mentality that can enable South Africa to live in the present; by their actions its leaders are revealing that their present mentality is out of date; it is a way of thinking that harks back to the Stone Age. Hence, it is not surprising that those leaders are incapable of adapting themselves to the intellectual currents of the twentieth century, which particularly condemn racial! discrimination.
119. Portugal’s policy with regard to its colonies can only be explained by the same phenomenon. It is shocking that seven years after the adoption of the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples Portugal should still be bending all its efforts to maintain its hold on its colonial possessions. But Portugal will be unable to appreciate the Declaration as long as the
considerations of justice and equity that warrant the Declaration remain inaccessible to its intelligence. For that matter, neither economic sanctions applied against it nor open revolt by the peoples of its colonies will influence it to give way before the great surge of liberalism that has
dismantled the colonial empires, since liberalism is not a notion that is accessible to every mind. Can it be done by rebellion? Perhaps but it must still overcome the might of Portuguese reaction.
120. Portugal will let go only when it comes to realize that it is moving against the times, and that history furnishes no instance in which demands for freedom and justice have not finally been victorious. But what a price in human deaths and destruction will be paid for that victory!
121. But since everyone believes that the boycott of Portugal will succeed in weakening its position, while Gabon will continue to maintain it since it is willing to live up to its undertakings, it will do so without conviction — but it also hopes that those who voted for those sanctions will not shirk their part — just as it will continue to support so far as it can those who are struggling to gain their freedom in Angola, in Mozambique and in Guinea (Bissau).
122. While for years our Organization has been struggling fruitlessly to bring South Africa and Portugal to see reason and change their policy, the colonials of Southern Rhodesia — British colony — under the guidance of their leader, Ian Smith, have brazenly and unilaterally declared that country independent since 1965. Although this Assembly has on two occasions warned them against any arrangement
whereby the powers of the administering Power were transferred to the colony in conditions disregarding the rights of the local population to self-determination and independence, the Rhodesian rebels have gone ahead and, following the example set by South Africa, the neighbouring country whose mentality and political concepts they share, they have turned that country into a new stronghold of apartheid in which millions of Blacks still live under the domination and yoke of barely 200,000 Whites, not knowing whether they will one day obtain their freedom and enjoy the exercise of the civil and political rights which most of their brothers on the continent possess today.
123. In order to bring an end to the Rhodesian rebellion, the Security Council imposed economic sanctions against Southern Rhodesia; however, with the complicity of South Africa and Portugal, its partners in the shameless practice of racism and racial discrimination in Africa, Southern Rhodesia is receiving supplies, bolstering its export trade and continuing to live—to such an extent, indeed, that in 1968 the notorious and discredited illegal regime of Ian Smith will be celebrating its third birthday, and the establishment of a South African-Portuguese-Rhodesian axis is to be feared, perhaps with the aim of reconquering the African countries which have already become independent.
124. I have already stated what my country feels about the efficacy of economic sanctions against South Africa, Portugal and Southern Rhodesia; although we are applying them in a spirit of co-operation, we do not believe that they will achieve the desired results.
125. If our Organization and the United Kingdom are really determined to re-establish the rule of law.in Southern Rhodesia, they must contemplate other forms of action.
126. Thus, for forces of colonialism, like those of imperialism, are still very active in Africa, where they control almost impregnable strongholds. Alongside them, however, other more insidious forces are at work. Acting under the seductive guise of an ideology of liberation and under cover of a revolution aimed at setting up a society in which everyone will enjoy the benefits of equality and fraternity,
those forces are silently creating a dangerous threat by undermining the stability of our new nations. These machinations take the form of interference in the domestic affairs of these nations, where subversive movements are set up in an attempt to change their régimes and lead them into the Marxist-socialist camp.
127. We must vigorously denounce, as Gabon has always done, these unwarrantable interferences that represent a constant threat to the domestic security of our countries and that constitute a threat to their sovereignty and territorial integrity.
128. In conclusion, let us consider the area in which the United Nations is pursuing the aim of understanding and solidarity among nations in order to achieve balanced development and prosperity that will lead to redressing the differences in levels of living. This aim is embodied in the search for a solution to the crucial problem brought about by the difference in economic and social conditions
between the so-called developed countries and those which have been classed among the countries rightly called underdeveloped.
129. We must be grateful to the United Nations for having given this problem high priority by inaugurating a Development Decade in 1960, and also for setting up specialized agencies to promote that development, financed by contributions from Member States. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the World Health Organization, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization and the United Nations Development Programme have been and still are of great assistance
to many countries of the third world.
130. We may of course properly ask why these organizations demand an equal contribution from all States, from the underdeveloped as well as the developed countries, whereas solidarity in the true sense would seem to require the latter to contribute to the former from their surplus wealth.
131. Be that as it may, my country is most grateful to the United Nations for its support of our current efforts towards promoting an economy that will promote the social progress of the Gabonese people, one that will enable that people not only to have access to a decent standard of living but will also consolidate the country’s political independence by making it economically independent.
132. Within the framework of the first economic and social development plan which is to be completed in 1970, and in the second plan designed to supplement the first, Gabon has begun carrying out the vast development projects which it considers essential for its economic “take off”, a deep-sea port, a railway, dams, the extension and improvement of its road network, its air transport system, schools, health services and so on.
133. The construction of the port, which was initiated last June, has been financed by the European Development Fund to the amount of nearly 350,000 million francs CFA. The accompanying industrial underpinning was financed by the French Fund for Assistance and Co-operation at a cost of nearly 1,000 million francs CFA.
134. We should like to express here our warmest gratitude to France and to the European Economic Community of which France is a member for the valuable and substantial assistance they have given us in our struggle to overcome underdevelopment. The assistance given us by the United Nations, too, is considerable, and it is because we are aware of the assistance it is furnishing us that we shall not hesitate to call upon it again for help and for the necessary capital in the form of long-term loans in order to complete the other major projects planned for our economic development.
135. We have great hopes of obtaining those loans from the recently created United Nations Capital Development Fund. We are also counting upon the United Nations Industrial Development Organization. Indeed, because of its mineral wealth, Gabon is made for industry, and so it may contemplate establishing a modern industry that will enable it to develop a dynamic economy capable of providing our people with the benefits of a twentieth-century industrial society.
136. At the present moment, however, the fact is that Gabon is an underdeveloped country with an economy that is still primitive and, even worse, extremely unstable. Gabon produces timber, manganese, uranium and oil, and a large part of its economy depends on their export. As a result, it is in the dangerous and unstable position of the countries which must compete for the sale of their raw materials on the international market.
137. Gabon is, therefore, in the same position as the rest of the underdeveloped countries in this regard. It is not my intention to reiterate here the factors that are characteristic of those countries’ economies and account for their instability and their inability to achieve and regularly to
maintain a growth rate sufficient to enable them rapidly to join the ranks of developed countries.
138. It has long been generally agreed that the division of mankind into nations which are growing richer and richer and nations that are growing ever poorer is placing it in so insecure a position that the danger need no longer be demonstrated. In the general interest, therefore, we have tried to take the necessary steps to obviate that danger; for the situation calls for concerted action, since the underdeveloped countries cannot act alone to achieve the aims we have described without the assent of the developed countries.
139. If, however, the studies that have been made have revealed the weak points in our economic system, weak points that can be described in a general way by the classic expression "worsening of the terms of trade", those responsible seem to falter before the need to apply measures designed to improve the situation. Naturally, it is the wealthy countries that display this hesitation, to the point where we have been forced to draw the depressing conclusion that prosperity—individual as well as national
prosperity—tends to create a detached, if not indifferent attitude with regard to the well-being of others.
140. One of the first measures was the inauguration of the United Nations Development Decade from 1960 to 1970 [resolution 1710(XVI)}], during the course of which development was to reach a growth level of 5 per cent in order to give it sufficient impetus to traverse the various stages that poor countries must go through to arrive at the level enjoyed by the rich countries. With one year to go in the Development Decade, the rate of growth has reached only 4 per cent.
141. The hopes that were aroused by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development from the time of its first session in 1964 in the search for appropriate ways to eradicate the worsening of terms of trade are far from being realized. And we know that that worsening is the most serious brake upon the growth of our economy and on our general development, since it prevents us from setting up
stable development plans.
142. Although the Kennedy Round produced some agreements, those agreements were of benefit only to the rich nations, which used them to organize their exchange machinery and to increase their trade, whereas no significant advantage accrued to the underdeveloped countries, and no solution was found to their basic problems.
143. In the face of this desperate situation, with the gap between rich and poor growing ever wider, the poor countries have realized that they must agree amongst themselves in order to undertake concerted action to convince the developed countries of the need to join together to restore the balance of world development, a balance that will ultimately lead to security for all, even though its realization will demand greater sacrifices from some than from others.
144. The representatives of the underdeveloped countries, now known as the Group of 77, meeting at Algiers in October 1967, therefore undertook a careful study, in depth and in detail, of the problems raised by the establishment of this balance in order to arrive at appropriate solutions. Those problems and solutions, which form what is called the "Algiers Charter”, are well known.
145. This Charter is not a declaration of war against the developed countries. It is, as has been stated, “an act of faith in a future of justice and peace, an instrument of solidarity and co-operation, and not of division and sectarianism; it is a sincere programme for world co-operation for a balanced development”. It is a global strategy made up of measures designed to accelerate economic and
social growth in the developing countries.
146. Submitted by its authors at the second session of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development at New Delhi, the Charter could have helped in drawing up this policy of development, lacking which the first Development Decade achieved so little. It would thus have ensured the success of the second Development Decade.
147. The meagre results of this Conference, as we well know, showed that those to whom the Charter was
addressed were not prepared to appreciate its scope and to grant it their immediate support in order to bring about that moral solidarity between rich and poor countries which is needed if the desired balance in world development is to be achieved.
148. At least the Conference had the basic positive result of arousing a growing sense of moral solidarity in certain circles within the developed countries, where the economic and political consequences of the exclusion of States to the third world, so serious in the long run, are beginning to be seen more clearly. Those consequences would include the formation of a real world proletariat opposed to the rich nations, an element of disunity and insecurity for all mankind.
149. However, the third world has not lost heart, and the measures that have just been adopted by the two conferences of the Organization of African Unity—that held by the Ministers followed by that held by the Heads of State — which met last September in Algiers enable us to foresee more vigorous, better co-ordinated and more methodical action at the next session of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development.
150. In the meanwhile, the States of the third world know that they must make a great effort to convince public opinion of the value of their arguments. For it is a matter, first and foremost, of acting through persuasion so as to bring about a widespread conviction that will overcome all
hesitations. Next we must go on to implement the principles embodied in the Charter. It is at that point that we are destined to come up against the barrier that is formed by considerations based on self-interest. Therefore, in order to achieve the basic goal, balanced world development, we must fight and win against self-interest. Selfishness itself is the most formidable force preventing the
attainment of all the goals set forth in the programme of the United Nations. But precisely because we are desirous of attaining to all the ideals embodied in our Organization in order to bring about the new era of justice, peace and happiness to which all mankind aspires, we will fight and we will vanquish selfishness wherever it is to be found.