1. Mr. Vice-President, I should be grateful if you would convey to our President, along with our sincere congratulations, the best wishes of my country, Laos, for his recovery. The unanimity of his election bears eloquent witness to his abilities as a statesman and as a respected diplomatist. In saluting him, I salute Latin America, which can be rightfully proud of having produced over the centuries great statesmen, distinguished jurists, poets, writers and philosophers whose works are esteemed throughout the world. I am firmly convinced that he will place his ability, his energy and his objectivity at the disposal of the United Nations, and preside over our labours with tact and skill.
2. In that connexion, I would be remiss were I not to stress the difficult but praiseworthy role performed by his distinguished predecessor, Mr. Manescu, whose authority does honour to his country as well as to all the nations that are represented here. After a year in which we have witnessed a tumult of events, it is fitting that we pay him a well-earned tribute.
3. I should like to take this opportunity to welcome Swaziland, a new arrival to the community of nations.
4. Finally, I should like to congratulate the Secretary-General, U Thant, for the courage he has demonstrated whenever the faintest gleam of hope has enabled him to intervene to preserve the principles of the Charter. In so doing, he has rendered great service to the United Nations cause, and he fully deserves our grateful recognition.
5. Summer storms, with their turbulence and convulsions, are always laden with unforeseen events of unknown scope. What does this autumn season hold in store for us, this season in which we come as we do each year to compare views and to lay our case before the free tribunal of nations?
6. As you will recall, the summer of 1965 witnessed the outbreak of the Indian-Pakistan border dispute; in the summer of 1967, the world was shocked by the spectacle of the so-called “six-day war" in the Middle East; and last summer, the Czechoslovak crisis erupted, shattering the conscience of the peoples of the world. The United Nations intervened, often successfully, to check outbursts of frenzy, to extinguish or circumscribe flames of war, though unfortunately without solving the problems that are always ready to flare up at the least disturbance of the balance of power.
7. In South-East Asia, the increasingly violent war in Viet-Nam and Laos is daily becoming more bogged down in the tangle of negotiations to which no end can yet be seen. The humiliation suffered by the Arab people is far from being forgotten. Elsewhere in Africa, the tragedy of Biafra offers the distressing spectacle of a lamentable slaughter. And everywhere in the world the fall-out from a certain revolution continues to affect every continent, causing material destruction and mental confusion. The virus of revolutionary ferment is infecting the young, challenging the consumer society and society as a whole. The poison of violence is spreading. Helplessness, humiliation, confusion, bewilderment, those are the world’s feelings after these tragic events.
8. The United Nations itself, a bastion created for the protection of the small nations and an instrument for the safeguarding of world peace, remains powerless in the face of this bloodshed and human tragedy; in the words of our Prime Minister, Prince Souvanna Phouma, it has become “a weakness beset by malevolent forces” [1590th meeting, para, 88]. For year by year we witness with growing apprehension a steady reduction in the efficacy of the United Nations both as an expression of the hopes of mankind and as an instrument for international harmony and co-operation. The results of the second United Nations Conference on Trade and Development held at New Delhi at the beginning of this year disappointed the immense hopes of peoples trying desperately not only to break the chains of poverty and bondage, but also to close the ever-widening gap between themselves and the rich and secure peoples. Nor did the Conference of Non-Nuclear Weapon States recently held at Geneva achieve the goals it had set itself. Five years after the signature of the partial nuclear test ban Treaty, the only major achievement to the credit of the United Nations is the recent approval of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons [resolution 2373 (XXII)].
9. Alas, these failures are the reflection of the chaos into which the world has fallen. And all because, disregarding the chorus of warning statements, we have persisted in following the same dangerous paths and in skirting the same precipices. The principles of the Charter are forgotten when Governments and peoples are driven by the forces of ambition, of ideology or of hatred. When denounced from this platform, sometimes by those very people who should speak about them the least, the clash of social systems and racism becomes mere pretext for rhetoric.
10. War is still raging in Viet-Nam; the martyred Viet-Namese people continues to count its dead and to add up its sufferings and misfortunes. The Paris talks are making little headway, but lead us to hope that reason may eventually prevail; they seem to show that at least one of the parties at least feels that aggression does not pay and that it is time to decide to deal with the problem by diplomatic discussion, the only reasonable way when there can be no military victory. Although in any event there will not be any miracle tomorrow, we are hopeful that those talks will lead — the sooner the better — to an honourable settlement cf the conflict. Stubbornness and intransigence lead nowhere, except to an increase in the death toll.
11. In the Middle East peace is still precarious. Difficulties are steadily increasing. Notwithstanding Security Council resolution 242 of November 1967, there are still alarming symptoms of incipient conflict. However, the most serious threat to the peace is in Europe, whose interests are vital to both East and West. It is in Europe that the spectre of the cold war can be revived; it is there that events can give rise to wider conflicts. However justified the motives for the Soviet Union’s intervention in Czechoslovakia may be, we address to that great country, on behalf of all countries devoted to peace, justice and international understanding, a final appeal not to take any irreparable step so that the deeply disturbed universal conscience may be reassured, and that those small countries which for their own protection have put their hopes in respect for the principles of the Charter by all Members of the United Nations may not come to believe that our Organization is completely ineffective. The Soviet Union is a great Power with vast resources and unlimited means of action. Through its contribution it can do much to assist either in bringing about international détente or in provoking widespread disorder and concern among all States, which is the case at present. Moreover, it has taken a leading part in guiding through several resolutions, of which it seems to me the most pertinent at the present time are unquestionably the resolution condemning the settlement of disputes or conflicts by force [resolution 2160 (XXI)] and that containing interference in the domestic affairs of States [resolution 2131 (XX)].
12. The drama of Biafra continues to shake the conscience of mankind by the extent of its atrociousness and the hatred it is creating. There the scene of hunger, destitution, frustration and fear is taking on the dimensions of a human tragedy. Elsewhere, in Angola, in Mozambique and in so-called Portuguese Guinea, a lingering colonialism in its most backward form retains its privileges by keeping those countries in the darkness of oppression and slavery with stubborn force. Further shameful practices, such as the racial discrimination that is openly made a principle in South Africa and Rhodesia, are so many challenges to United Nations authority and prestige.
13. In Laos for years we have been suffering the direct effects of the Viet-Nam war. Through the intermediary of the so-called Pathet Lao forces, which were recently transformed into self-styled “national liberation forces", and in collusion with them, the North Viet-Namese have extended the war to Laos. In defiance of the 1954 and 1962 Geneva Agreements, and with the help of the subversion it has fostered over the past decade, North Viet-Nam, with its leaders and its battalions, is brazenly assisting the military operations of the Neo Lao Haksat, which receives subsidies and weapons from Hanoi. It is an open secret that dozens of North Viet-Namese battalions are deployed in our country, attacking our forces, killing our women and children, destroying our villages and living on the abundance of rice and livestock commandeered from our people. The violent offensive that was started at the beginning of the dry season by the combined Pathet Lao and North Viet-Namese forces against our troops from north to south was significant. It revealed the North Viet-Namese Government’s determination to intensify the so-called “national liberation” war in Laos and to destroy the bases of the provisional national coalition government of Prince Souvanna Phouma. Hundreds of thousands of refugees are still fleeing from the areas “liberated” by the Pathet Lao.
14. Dozens of North Viet-Namese prisoners belonging to regular units have been captured in battle zones in Laos. From documents found on the dead and interrogations of prisoners the Laotian Government has obtained irrefutable evidence of the presence in our territory of some forty thousand North Viet-Namese troops. The construction of the Ho Chi Minh trail, several hundred kilometres long, most of it on Laotian territory, and the deployment of
immense human resources for the protection of that crossing and entry route for North Viet-Namese soldiers on their way to South Viet-Nam, constitute in themselves the most insolent intervention. The International Supervisory and Control Commission set up under the Geneva Agreements has established the facts and denounced them to international public opinion. The Laotian Government itself has produced irrefutable proof of these facts and has also made them known to international public opinion and event here in this Assembly on several occasions. The Laotian Government has issued two white papers denouncing North Viet-Namese intervention. But despite our efforts to make ourselves heard, it appears that a sort of conspiracy of silence envelops the Laotian affair, in contrast with the anxiety and tension that grips our people. This forgotten war, forgotten all the more the longer it lasts, is creating havoc on our territory and a burden on the future of our people.
15. Every intensification of the war in Viet-Nam means an intensification of the war in Laos, so that the future of the Laotian war depends entirely on the vagaries of the Viet-Nam war. And yet, Laos is not Viet-Nam. The Laotian problem was settled by an international agreement guaranteed and concluded at Geneva in 1962. The neutrality of Laos and its territorial integrity were both recognized by all the Powers, particularly by that very Power that is attacking us and using our territory as a springboard for its aggression elsewhere.
16. Since we are the victims of aggression, we are entitled to expect that our territorial sovereignty and integrity should be promptly re-established in their entirety by the withdrawal of the North Viet-Namese forces. As a faithful Member of the United Nations for thirteen years, we have the right to demand from our neighbours complete respect for our independence, our sovereignty and our neutrality. We are sure that Laotians, to whatever party they belong, do not wish their country to become the complaisant dependent of any country, or to be reduced to the rank of a mere cog-wheel in a piece of machinery subject to the arbitrary control of the testing of others. At the risk of the loss of a part of our national territory, we refuse to bow to tie logic of force, of conquest, or even of the fait accompli. We wish to be the masters of our fate.
17. We do not belong to any military or political bloc. We are neutral, and we intend to remain neutral. Our neutrality, which is a supreme national law, since it is inscribed in our Constitution is not just a mental attitude, but a political and geographical imperative. In our opinion, the Laotian problem must be settled by the Laotians themselves, without outside interference, and in accordance with the principles of Buddhist tolerance and peaceful coexistence.
18. It is ironic that, just as we are preparing to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, we should see on all sides those rights not only ignored but violated and flouted. It is distressing that, after twenty-three years existence, the United Nations should tolerate open attacks by sinister forces avid for hegemony and domination on the great principles of non-interference, non-intervention, self-determination, peaceful coexistence and respect for independence which constitute the very bases of the Charter. Finally, it is appalling to note the retreat of justice, order and international morality as the advance of science 2nd technology gathers speed. Tangible and topical proof of this is the extraordinary feat of those three men who, as they manoeuvre in the atmosphere and circle the globe in their spaceship, continue to defy imagination.
19. For our part, we are convinced that, if we can unite all our efforts to suppress national selfishness and the thirst for domination, we shall be able to secure an international detente and co-operation in peace.