1. It is a special pleasure for me to honour our President, on behalf of the delegation of the Republic of Guinea, on his election to the presidency of the twenty-third session of the United Nations General Assembly. We take additional pleasure in this election since, above and beyond his country, Guatemala, he represents Latin America. That continent, through sharing with Asia and with our homeland Africa the same affliction of colonialism, the same social injustices and oppressions, and through nourishing the same hopes for political liberation in the past and for social justice and economic development today, has so many ties and affinities with Asia and Africa that they can surely be called three brother continents, three continents that fate has bound together.
2. Thus our President represents that Third World to which we belong, that world whose determination to reject any foreign domination in whatever guise, any discrimination of whatever sort, is well known to all. Our joy at hailing his election can therefore be imagined. For those of us who know him, who have been able on many occasions to appreciate his human qualities and truly to evaluate his complete mastery of international affairs, there is no need to express our conviction that his presidency will be balanced, just and skilful.
3. Furthermore, in expressing our sincere gratitude to all the eminent delegations represented here, we should like to express to the President our pride at having been elected to the Vice-Presidency of the General Assembly, and to assure him and all our colleagues on the General Committee — whose election we also welcome — and of course the Assembly itself, of our determination to work at his side and under his leadership for the complete success of the twenty-third session of our Organization’s General Assembly.
4. We also take this opportunity to welcome the admission to our Assembly of two new African States, Swaziland and Mauritius. The accession of those two countries to independence will, I am certain, hearten the struggle of the African peoples against colonialism and racism.
5. As you know, Guinea, whose independence following its historic vote of 28 September 1958 played a part in strengthening and broadening the principle of universality contained in the Charter by contributing to the emergence on to the international scene of some new States, is celebrating this year the tenth anniversary of its accession to international, sovereign and independent existence. That anniversary coincides with an event whose political and historical importance must be evident to any observer of the African political scene: the return to the earth of a free and sovereign Guinea which they defended with all their strength, with dedication and passion, against colonial defilement, of the mortal remains of the two great African heroes of Guinean origin, Almamy Samory Touré and Alpha Yaya Diallo, both of whom died in exile, one in Gabon, the other in Mauritania, amidst the material hardships, moral afflictions, humiliations and sufferings created by a colonial rationality — compounded of cynicism, falsehood, fraud and plunder — that sought to eradicate every vestige of African civilization and history.
6. Thanks to the brotherly understanding and co-operation of the Governments of Gabon and Mauritania, the remains of those great African patriots repose today in the soil of their native land, where their heroic sacrifice will continue to inspire the people of Guinea and national liberation movements. We should like here to express our deep gratitude to President Albert Bernard Bongo of Gabon and President Mokhtar Ould Daddah of Mauritania, and to their Governments, for their historic and fraternal gesture.
7. An anniversary is always an opportune occasion to review the past in order better to realize the direction being taken by developments; and if today we were to take a retrospective glance at Guinea’s ten years of independence, we should find that we have come a considerable distance.
8. Today we can still remember the extremely difficult but intensely exciting conditions under which Guinea leaped on to the international scene, armed against adversity only by the determination of its people and by its unswerving faith in the future of Africa. The enemies of our State predicted for it but a few weeks of life before it fell apart; while its closest and most optimistic friends, while hoping fervently for its survival, were unable to believe in the feasibility of such a miracle.
9. The ten years through which we have just lived have been ten years of real hardships, of cruel sufferings, of plots concocted by enemies who have learnt nothing from either time or reason. However, they have also been ten years of plots foiled by an alert mass vigilance, ten years of courage and sacrifice, of active sovereignty and real responsibility. They have been ten years of African history that has been free and not imposed on us, in a constant ferment of revolutionary change under the impetus of the Guinean Democratic Party, which has during that decade broadened its popular and democratic base.
10. Starting from practically nothing, the Guinean Democratic Party, with complete trust in the people, has systematically and methodically built a nation, a State that has crossed the threshold from tribalism. We mean “nothing” for, when we came to power, some seemed to be of the opinion that neither the conditions nor the characteristics of a State were present. There were no administrative personnel, no finances, no records, no service agreements. There was an army, a police force, a national guard without uniforms, without rifles, pistols or even swords.
11. From one day to the next, the hospital orderly became a highly-placed administrator, the commander of a region; the prefect took charge of the school; the court clerk donned the robes of an appellate judge or examining magistrate; the African doctor, teacher or registrar found himself a minister, an ambassador, a negotiator in the complex international jungle, or resolutely put on the uniform of a military officer.
12. The young student barely out of university and possessing only academic knowledge, when he dared return to his native country notwithstanding a systematic campaign of disparagement in the international Press, found himself the director of some important State service, a company chairman, a bank manager. They were all active members of the Guinean Democratic Party, with no experience whatsoever of their new life but sentenced to succeed whatever the cost, despite storm and stress, for the honour and the grandeur of Africa. They all possessed no other means of succeeding in those various positions than their determination that was daily, constantly replenished, their unshakeable faith that was daily and constantly renewed in their country’s future.
13. We take little pleasure in recalling all those facts. However, they belong to the realm of history, which we can neither conjure away, change nor ignore. In any event, that retrospective look seems appropriate to us in order better to understand the true lineaments of the State of Guinea.
14. It was with those men, those great nameless and unknown men, that the Guinean Democratic Party managed to build one of the most stable nations and States in Africa and in the world. That is the honour and the greatest achievement of the Guinean Democratic Party: to have made all the ethnic groups forming Guinea into a nation aware of its existence and its solidarity; to have restored to the African of Guinea all his pride and dignity, to have decolonized him, to have made of him a man without complexes, certain of his basic equality with all men of whatever continent or colour; a man, indeed, determined to carry the African democratic and socialist revolution to its conclusion.
15. And today? Today we can be proud of what has been done. No sector of our national life lies outside our control: no responsible position on any level, at home or abroad, in our diplomatic service, is occupied by a foreigner. And, because of our clear awareness of our interests, we are our own technical advisers.
16. The glorious Guinean people’s army also obeys that rule: there are no foreigners in any of its arms—land, sea or air. Whereas in 1958 it was practically impossible for us to find carbines to arm our soldiers, and the air force did not exist, nor the navy for that matter, today we can state with pride that our people’s army is a modern army, well equipped and capable of resisting any foreign aggression.
17. It has an improved air force with more than a hundred chief pilots, navigators, radio men and mechanics. Many of them are fighter pilots able to fly supersonic aircraft with incredible skill. The entire network of the Air Guinea National Company is provided with the most modern aircraft piloted by completely Guinean crews.
18. The national navy, which also has several units, protects our coastline and our territorial waters with solely Guinean crews.
19. An army of the people, not an army for conquest or of mercenaries or parasites, or for coups d’état, the Guinean people’s army plays a vital part in the country’s economic life. It has its own factories, its own agricultural areas that belong completely and solely to it and whose production enables it to supply its own needs to a large extent, so that it can forgo any contribution from the State budget.
20. Staffed by convinced militants of the Guinean Democratic Party, with which it is closely linked, the Guinean people’s army is only one specialized branch of the population, whom it protects against any outside aggression. In Guinea every soldier is a militant, every militant a soldier.
21. The State, the Government, the Army are all instruments of the policy of the Guinean Democratic Party; and the Guinean Democratic Party is the organized population, the nation mobilized in the service of Africa. Thus we can say that the State, the Government, the Army, the party, the people, the nation, all are one, inspired by the same determination, by the same revolutionary African spirit. It is on that basis that we can issue the solemn guarantee that in the African land of Guinea, free and sovereign, proud and lordly, colonialism will never again appear, neo-colonialism will not be tolerated, and imperialism will find its final burial-place.
22. Moreover, the Guinean Democratic Party undertook from the outset a fundamental reform of teaching in order to decolonize it completely and to make it a mass education, harmonious, balanced and adapted to the facts of our African life. It is within that framework that the national literacy campaign was undertaken, to eradicate from the country the taint of illiteracy.
23. That also enabled us to launch on 2 August of this year the socialist cultural revolution, dedicated to the masses and diametrically opposed to elites, thereby making culture the business of each and all, without distinction.
24. That socialist cultural revolution, covering every area of social science, natural science and applied science, holds that there can be no limits set on the acquisition of knowledge for whatever end, and that where knowledge and its application are concerned, society — the whole of society — can overcome any limitation. We can quote President Ahmed Sékou Touré and say:
“That cultural revolution, which will create a new nature of things, a new morality, a type of new man, will enable us to free ourselves finally and completely from any ties that bind us to the colonialism that created an historical eclipse in the life of our nation, and will lead to the total victory of our brave efforts to bring our continent to civilization and to direct it towards international co-operation in regained and strengthened dignity and responsibility.”
25. During that first period of its existence, Guinea undertook a systematic decolonization of its economic structures. Resolutely adopting the non-capitalist path towards development and turning its back forever on the crippled colonial economy whose ruins had been handed down to it, Guinea set itself the goal of building on those ruins factories to supply the primary needs of its people and of setting up a national economy that can achieve a balanced economic development of the whole Guinean nation. Thus all the primary sectors — land, water, electricity, banks, insurance companies, transportation, trade, etc. — were nationalized and now belong solely to the Guinean people.
26. On 1 March 1960 that new order culminated in the creation of the Guinean monetary system, independent of any zone, secured by the labour and trust of the Guinean people and not by gold, as decreed by the theorists of the classic monetary doctrine.
27. That monetary reform gave rise to violent criticism, made the more violent by the basic challenge which the reform offered to privileges that were considered inviolable in a field held to be taboo and were supposed to be reserved for a few initiates, for a few wizard States that are obviously nothing but colonizing and exploiting States.
28. Alt kinds of criticism were levelled against that important reform in the hope of overturning it, some going so far as to declare outright that it would be the single cause of our hardships. From time immemorial we have considered the right to mint money to be a prominent attribute of sovereignty. That explains the existence of the Guinean currency, which is not doing so badly and which will continue to improve. And, if it does give rise to hardships for us, they are hardships we have chosen and brought upon ourselves, and are the keystone of our future well-being. No more than we shall abandon our chosen political sovereignty, shall we abandon the sovereignty of our currency, which is equally basic.
29. With regard to international co-operation, Guinea has defined the assistance it can accept as that assistance which can help it to forgo assistance, adding further that it would never regard foreign assistance as more than a supplement to its own national efforts, upon which everything else is based.
30. All those economic reforms enable us to look to the future with the greatest confidence, especially since the loans granted to Guinea by the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the United States of America to develop the vital bauxite deposits at Boké, the largest and richest in the world, have just been signed in Washington.
31. That is the outcome of several years of difficult negotiations in which the United States of America, the Bank, the partners of Guinea and Guinea itself have shown patience, understanding and mutual and reciprocal respect. Those loans will enable Guinea to quicken its economic growth and enter on the path of harmonious and unimpeded economic development.
32. We wish to extend our very sincere and heartfelt thanks to the Bank, the United States of America, and our various partners in the Compagnie de Bauxites de Guinée. We assure them once again that Guinea will, as always, faithfully and scrupulously respect all its commitments.
33. This is the place and the moment, particularly at the end of this decade of accepted responsibilities, of active sovereignty, of tried and proved liberty, to state the complete determination of the Guinean people, which has never shunned and which never will shun any sacrifice on the altar of African freedom and dignity, always to be in the vanguard of the struggle for a better future for our continent.
34. Thanks to our undisputed leader President Ahmed Sékou Touré, the supreme leader of the Guinean revolution, on 28 September our whole people gave brilliant proof, despite all colonialist theory, that any people that have been ideologically trained — African peoples as well as others — is always fit to control its own affairs at any moment in its history, no matter how difficult the conditions in which it finds itself.
35. Everyone will be aware of the historic role played in the political development of Africa by President Ahmed Sékou Touré, a man formed in the womb of the African conscience and incarnating the virtues and legitimate aspirations of Africa. That great African, who has eschewed all honours for honour itself, who has given himself to our African homeland that throughout history has been despoiled and despised, has become the superhuman embodiment of a special conception of Africa. This is based on the premise that Africa, whose historical development has been retarded merely by colonization — that degrading fact which mankind would have been better of for not having to recognize — is nevertheless the equal of any continent, and that the African is the equal of any man.
36. Furthermore, this is the place and the moment for us to express our deep and sincere thanks to our friends throughout the world, and especially to the socialist States and to the People’s Republic of China, whose support has never failed us during the most arduous moments in the life of our State. By their loyalty and steadfastness they have helped us to triumph over every obstacle impeding our novel and typically African path. May they too know that history has already recorded their actions, for which the African peoples are most grateful to them!
37. Lastly, we repeat our sincere determination, restated during the historic eighth Congress of the Guinean Democratic Party, to maintain with the States of the world, and especially the African States, friendly relations based on mutual respect and reciprocal benefits and interests.
38. It is an incontrovertible fact that Africa’s inexorable progress towards its unity is not always in a straight line, that it takes detours and that obstacles have been created abroad to impede its advance. Nevertheless, in West Africa some notable advances have been made towards unity. At the historic Labé conference in Guinea, within the framework of the Charter of the Organization of African Unity (OAU), Mali, Mauritania, Senegal and Guinea, linked together by every tie — by geography and blood, by history and culture, by political needs and by the demands or economic development, and lastly by the keen awareness of a common destiny — created the Union of Riverain States of the Senegal River.
39. We are convinced that those four States will devote all their efforts towards the successful realization of that common undertaking, which is for the benefit of Africa and has already shown concrete evidence of its vitality by taking the initiative in establishing at the Monrovia meeting the West African Regional Group (WARG). The Group opens new vistas for western Africa and is a milestone in the constant advance that is bringing the African nations closer to the final unity of their continent.
40. Of course, West Africa is today face to face with a tragedy that is assuming the dimensions of an African tragedy. The secession of eastern Nigeria from the Federal Republic of Nigeria, plotted from outside because of the existence in eastern Nigeria of strategic raw materials such as petroleum, and using tribalism as a tool, is one of those fundamental problems whose solution in one way or another affects the political development of all African States, most of which we must acknowledge, have unhappily not advanced to a point where they are safe from tribal difficulties.
41. A great deal of emphasis has been laid on the atrocities of the war raging in Nigeria. In justification of the completely partisan interventions in that affair, and to support the secessionists, it is said that the war was a humanitarian problem and must be brought to an end at whatever cost — in other words, by confirming the secession.
42. In our opinion such reasoning cannot stand. Its proponents not only ignore that any war is atrocious by its very nature and cannot benefit mankind, but they have also never stressed the atrocities that have for several years been committed daily in Viet-Nam, nor those that are rampant in so-called Portuguese Guinea, in Angola, in Mozambique, in Namibia, in Southern Rhodesia and in South Africa.
43. They have never denounced the atrocities committed in the Middle East against the forcibly-exiled Arab population of Palestine, nor those committed in the Arab territories illegally occupied by an invader that the Security Council is unable to bring to its senses.
44. In those tragic situations there is also a humanitarian aspect that could fully justify intervention by the champions of the reasoning that we are denouncing. In those cases, however, they have always taken refuge behind the principle of non-intervention in the domestic affairs of States, which here as elsewhere should give way to the right of peoples to self-determination.
45. For our part we are deeply distressed whenever an African falls in defence of his freedom under the blind bullets of the Portuguese colonist. We are deeply distressed whenever a man dies anywhere in the world in the sacred cause of the ideals that brought about the creation of the United Nations. We are also deeply distressed whenever a man is lost in that cruel Nigerian war.
46. What we are saying is that we believe that all wars throughout the world should be ended. We are also saying that in our opinion the Nigerian civil war must be ended, and at once, in virtue of the principles contained in the Charter of the Organization of African Unity and freely accepted by all African States, namely the preservation of the national unity and territorial integrity of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, which some misled brothers who are playing the imperialist game have attempted to challenge on tribal pretexts, thereby bringing great affliction upon an entire people.
47. Only through respect for those principles of the Charter of the OAU will it be possible to avoid further wars, further sufferings and further atrocities in Africa. You have only to glance at the political map of Africa: there are many potential Biafras!
48. The Fifth Session of the Assembly of Heads of State and Government of the OAU, held at Algiers from 13 to 16 September 1968, was very fortunately able to return to the African charter and to adopt a resolution that falls within the scope of protection of the unity of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and preservation of its territorial integrity.
49. In that resolution the African Heads of State made an appeal to all States to refrain from any intervention in Nigeria. We will judge the respect those States hold for Africa and the friendship they feel towards it by their reply to that appeal.
50. To this day Africa is still the only continent where colonialism is rampant in its pristine — in other words, in its most brutal — form. The African peoples of Angola, Mozambique and so-called Portuguese Guinea are waging a desperate struggle for national liberation against that inhuman, savage, abject and degrading colonialism. They are achieving resounding successes daily, and the Portuguese owe their continued existence in those territories that they are continuing to pillage solely to the massive assistance with which their Western NATO allies are generously providing them, notwithstanding the United Nations recognition of the legitimacy of the armed struggle of the peoples of those colonies, and despite General Assembly
resolution 1514 (XV).
51. That military organization that today stands in the way of African liberation is made up of Western nations that are quick to make statements of principle which all thinking men must applaud. Unfortunately, those statements of principle are then betrayed in the most cynical way. The Western nations must realize that in the long run it is they who are the losers when they oppose the inevitable freedom of Africa. We wonder how they can reconcile their abetment of Portugal’s wars of colonial repression with their proclamations of friendship towards the peoples of Africa. At any rate they should know that those peoples are not taken in by their double-dealing and that, if they persist in it, the peoples of Africa may well end by becoming their bitterest enemies.
52. Strong in the support of its powerful allies, Portugal is at present pursuing a deliberate policy of provocation and bombing against the African States bordering on the territories it illegally occupies; and it is indulging in acts of piracy that pose a standing challenge to international law. Thus, in addition to constant raids against our border villages, Portugal has for more than six months, in violation of the principles of the International Civil Aviation Organization, been detaining civil aircraft belonging to the Compagnie Nationale Air Guinée, with its crew, who were obliged to land in so-called Portuguese Guinea because of a technical instrument failure.
53. Again, it is the West that is enabling the apartheid régime not only to survive but even to grow stronger in spite of every principle embodied in Western constitutions, in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and in the United Nations Charter. The Western nations maintain with the South African neo-nazis a trade that is certainly flourishing, but flourishing at the expense of Africa and of African dignity.
54. The West is also wholly responsible with regard to the minority régime in Southern Rhodesia, which is aping that of Pretoria. In our opinion, as we have stated on numerous occasions both before this Assembly and in the Security Council, the only solution to that problem is and remains the employment of armed force to put down Mr. Ian Smith’s rebellion. The United Kingdom, which has the main responsibility for that affair, still speaks. to us of economic sanctions in an attempt to shirk its historic responsibilities. The Western nations that possess the military means to exert pressure are adopting the same attitude and outdoing the United Kingdom in their calls for economic sanctions.
55. However, from our own experience we cannot agree that economic sanctions can be effective if they are not total and complete. Now, in the matter before us, that cannot be the case, owing to Southern Rhodesia’s geographical location and political alliances.
56. Of course we must not condemn unduly either the United Kingdom or the Western Powers while we African States ourselves, who are vitally concerned about those serious problems of apartheid and of Southern Rhodesia’s minority régime, are unable to take a consistent stand. Our first step towards any solution to those problems is to organize ourselves and to decide upon a common plan of battle, one that will extend beyond mere words and one by
which each of us will make it his duty to abide.
57. The result of our present inconsistencies, the procrastinations of the Western Powers the United Kingdom’s unwillingness to fulfil its responsibilities is that Mr. Ian Smith, his unilateral declaration of independence having gone unpunished, is today preparing to make a new move, a new declaration, a declaration of a Republic, to the detriment of the interests of his country’s African majority population.
58. Guinea is making an urgent appeal to all African States to join their efforts and to concord them even further so that this second humiliation shall not go unpunished.
59. Another source of concern that we feel called upon to point out remains the Middle East, where armed might long ago replaced reason. Peace is still a chimera for ail the peoples of that part of the world, and will continue to be so as long as Israel, flouting United Nations decisions, persists in refusing to withdraw from the Arab territories it is illegally occupying as a result of its aggression of 5 June 1967. The first step towards any peace in the Middle East, towards that peace that is devoutly hoped for by all men of
good will throughout the world, is the withdrawal from those territories.
60. Faithful to its anti-imperialist policy and to the decisions of the Organization of African Unity, my Government reaffirms its unconditional support for the just and legitimate demands of the Arab countries.
61. We pay tribute to the Secretary-General and to his personal representative in the Middle East, Mr. Gunnar Jarring, for the untiring efforts they have made in the search for a final settlement of the Middle East situation. We wish to assure them of our total support.
62. Again this year we must repeat how deeply our feelings of justice and equity, our political feelings, are offended by the ostracism that is still the lot of the greatest Asian State — the People’s Republic of China — one of the largest in the world and in any case the one having the largest population, with regard to its membership in the United Nations. China has on many occasions given concrete proof of its love for peace and has made an outstanding contribution to world development. The arbitrary and completely personal motives of a minority of States, in particular of the United States of America, are in no way serving the cause of peace or the interests of the United Nations.
63. For that reason Guinea, along with a number of Afro-Asian countries, is this year as in previous years co-sponsor of a draft resolution designed to restore to the People’s Republic of China its legitimate rights within our Organization. Our hope, our ardent hope, is that that draft may at last receive the approval of the majority of the States represented here.
64. Even though the question does not appear on our agenda, how can we refrain from reiterating our deep concern at the continuation of the Viet-Nam war, notwithstanding all the indignant protests that have been made by all the peoples of the world? The majority of States represented here must recognize themselves in Viet-Nam, for, as experience so clearly shows, each of them could have its great Power that might at any time plunge it into total disaster.
65. The Paris peace talks that were hailed the world over with fervour and with hope are becoming increasingly bogged down. The Guinean Government is of the opinion that the restoration of peace in Viet-Nam must of necessity arise out of the complete and unconditional cessation of the bombing of the Democratic Republic of Viet-Nam and the return to the 1954 Geneva Accords.
66. The United States of America must understand that it would serve the cause of peace and also that of its own greatness if it were to make the move that the whole world expects of it in order to bring an end to that brutal war, to that martyrdom of a people that wishes only to live in peace and freedom, a people whose courage we hail with respect, deference and admiration.
67. Korea is another hotbed of war in Asia. That great country, whose people have lived through more than five thousand years of history, a country that has never experienced tribal or linguistic discord, has been arbitrarily divided for nearly a quarter of a century. The United Nations, which is involved in the Korean situation, must do all it can to withdraw from Korea and allow the Korean people, as masters of their own destiny and sovereign in their own affairs, to settle the problem of reunifying their country according to their own clearly-understood interests.
68. My country remains deeply devoted to the concept of general and complete disarmament that alone will bring about the attainment of a true peace, one that will be more than simply a state of non-belligerence. It is for that reason that Guinea will support any effort made in that direction, which is historically and politically the only effective direction. It does not believe in the value of half-measures such as the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons, which, far from basically altering a state a of affairs that all the nations of the world have denounced, is tantamount to legalizing that state of affairs.
69. The resources eventually released by general and complete disarmament could be used to advantage for the economic and social improvement of developing countries. That could eradicate the present division of the world into “have” and “have-not” countries, a situation fraught with more tragic consequences for the world than any ideological division. One need not be clairvoyant to declare at this early date — pessimistically, of course — that the Second United Nations Development Decade is from the outset doomed like the First if the great Powers do not fulfil that duty for the sake of mankind.
70. We cannot conclude this statement without expressing our sincere disappointment at the outcome of the second session of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development. The great hopes aroused by the 1964 Geneva Conference have today given way to a bitterness that we cannot conceal. The responsibility of the great Powers is deeply involved in that area. They must realize that solidarity and international co-operation are not empty words but powerful factors for world peace.