1. Mr. President, my country which, as you know, enjoys the most friendly relations with your own, is delighted that you have been chosen to direct our proceedings. In associating myself with those representatives who have already congratulated you on the trust unanimously placed in you, I am paying tribute to your qualities as a diplomat and through you, to your country and to the whole of Latin America.
2. We also wish to express our gratitude to your predecessor, our distinguished colleague the Minister for Foreign Affairs of Romania, Mr. Corneliu Mănescu, whose name will, we feel sure, be included in the roll of presidents who have embodied the spirit of peace. Both my Government and I myself will never forget the warm welcome which his country and he himself extended to the President of Tunisia. May I assure him of our faithful friendship.
3. At the opening of this session, I should also like to express my wishes for success to Swaziland, the latest African State to make its contribution to the advancement of the cause of freedom and peace at a time which does not seem very auspicious.
4. For notwithstanding the tremendous efforts of the United Nations, and more especially the labours of its General Assembly, our world is still in search of itself, or is even being reduced to self-negation and a reversion to the deplorable attitudes we had thought were a thing of the past.
5. Would you consider me too pessimistic if I told you how concerned I am at the worsening situation in the Middle East, after a moment at which there seemed to be a glimmer of hope, when the international community believed, on 22 November last, that there might finally be a chance of peace with justice and freedom, the hope of which, after more than twenty years of warfare and suffering, had not been completely banished from the hearts of the children of Palestine or among all men of good will throughout the world who were shocked at the relentless fate which kept the cradle of human brotherhood torn apart and racked by hatred? We feel it is even more urgent to take stock of the new situation since at the. present time it is marked by confusion between what is essential and what is incidental, between phenomena and epiphenomena, between cause and effect — a confusion which is increasing daily, to such an extent that it is hard to believe it will ever come to an end.
6. More than a year after a terribly destructive conflict, some incident or other between Jordan and Israel, or between Israel and Egypt is on the Security Council’s agenda, month after month or even week after week. On this same date last year, we at least had the satisfaction of discussing a policy, in other words a vision, a common action, in depth, designed to construct and embody a future for the peoples of that region. For some months
past, the impression gained from international consultations on the problem before us is that “entertainment” has taken the place of the serious consideration which is nevertheless so necessary.
7. Will the easy way out of indifference and complacency or even evasion become the prevailing attitude towards another matter whose importance as a test of United Nations’ credibility has been fully demonstrated? I refer to “decolonization”. Admittedly, there have been torrents of words, large numbers of resolutions, many good intentions. But what good do they do to the tens of millions of oppressed Africans and others? There is good reason to fear that they will despair of us and that before the tribunal of history they will accuse us of breaking our own solemn undertaking, the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples.
8. Were it not for the dialogue on Viet-Nam in Paris, the conclusion of the Treaty on Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons [see resolution 2373(XXII)]} and the convening of the second session of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, it would have been difficult if not impossible for the community of nations to show that it was equal to its responsibilities and worthy of itself. We can justifiably congratulate ourselves on those three events so eagerly awaited by all mankind.
9. Unfortunately, disorder and meaningless actions allowed us but a short respite. Prompted by our anxious search for peace to interpret any sign as concordant with our wishes, we failed to see that the evil from which international life is suffering went deeper. Besides, how can we expect peace and brotherhood in a world divided into rich and poor, East and West, into ideological blocs and conflicting ambitions, caring more for ideas than for men?
10. Bearing in mind the recent events in Czechoslovakia and the fact that the Paris talks are merely marking time, we should perhaps do well to moderate our hopes and think more seriously about the regrettable situation from which mankind is finding it so difficult to extract itself.
11. We might remind ourselves that justice and freedom are still being flouted in vast areas of the world, and that man is being subjugated to man and is a prey to disease, hunger and ignorance. Perhaps if we were to think about the suffering of the innocent who are being sacrificed to the implacability of jealous but highly suspect gods; if we were to attempt to understand the appeal of the common man who is suffering and dying anonymously in some terribly backward region in Africa, Asia or Latin America, we might then redouble our efforts to build a world more in keeping with the principles of our Charter.
12. In conformity with its history, its vocation and its ideals, true to itself, Tunisia is trying for its part, guided by the law of the golden mean — in short, by justice — the only law which we wholeheartedly observe, to guard against all extremist trends, all heresies, or to render them harmless; to aim at tolerance of others in the hope of reciprocal action; to find its way towards creativity and progress in peace and harmony; in short, to bring about a future that will be better for mankind, in peace, freedom and dignity.
13. Whether it be a question of the peoples’ struggle to break the chains of their bondage or of the state of permanent conflict in the Middle East since the establishment of the State of Israel, of disarmament, or of the role the United Nations should play in promoting and maintaining international peace and security, the principles motivating our action remain the same, because they are rooted in the history of our own struggle for freedom: on the one hand, the right of peoples to self-determination, to decide their own future for themselves, and on the other hand, the need for compromise, for negotiation, in dealings between men as well as between political or State entities or entities which inevitably become such.
14. Who will maintain, unless he be naive or what is worse, completely Machiavellian, that freedom prevails amidst the lamentations of the enslaved peoples in Rhodesia, South Africa, Namibia, Angola, Mozambique, Guinea (Bissau) or the Cape Verde Islands? Who can find freedom in the land of that great hope for Africa, Nigeria, after the terrible fratricidal carnage or after the rumbling of the tanks of certain socialist countries that have violated the sovereignty of another socialist country and are doing so in the very name of defending socialism?
15. Are the Israeli leaders honouring freedom by the military occupation of Jordanian, Syrian or Egyptian territories, or by perpetuating the tragic fate of more than a million Palestinians who are living as slaves within their own homeland, or by giving a new meaning and content to the Diaspora of their oppressor, a Diaspora which only a short time ago was the source of that people’s moral strength but which, today, unfortunately, goads it to defiance and arrogance — premonitory signs, it should be noted, of its defeat, as other oppressors before it have always learned too late?
16. Finally, what is this balance of terror being created in the shadow of deadly silos but a fearful and permanent threat to the very future of our race, liable at each conflict of interests between the great Powers to break down and to bury everything in the oblivion of the ages, even the nations themselves — not only their interests — and to erase all memory of freedom, thereby keeping mankind in a state of anxiety unprecedented in its history?
17. Tunisia believes there is an alternative to the strategy of all or nothing from which the dismal picture I have painted may some day emerge: that of reason, in other words a return to dialogue, to the serious search for a compromise, in those areas of course where opportunities for an honourable compromise without surrendering our principles really exist. For us Tunisians, dignity and glory are not to be confused with overweening pride or foolish vanity, both of which, when political leaders fall under their sway, can only lead to violent clashes between nations.
18. It is said that nations are worth no more than the principles which guide them. But they must honour those principles in their institutions, respect them in their every-day actions, whether external or domestic. Fully aware of its duty as a member of the international community, Tunisia cannot be content with restricting to domestic use the principles which rule its life and have undoubtedly created in our country peace of mind and peace of heart. Tunisia also intends to act and to call to action all Member States of the United Nations so that freedom and peace can be given a chance in this world.
19. We are deeply convinced that tomorrow’s world will not come about so long as even in one portion of the globe nations fear for their sovereignty, or so long as even one man remains enslaved. In this connexion, so long as Jordanian, Egyptian or Syrian territories remain occupied, so long as the Palestinians are deprived of their sacred rights to their homeland and the Middle East is in a state of shock because of recent and all previous violence, or even anxious about the future within a region where three great messages of faith in human brotherhood and the future of mankind have nevertheless resounded — so long as such a situation prevails the universalist ethic from which our Charter derives its strength will continue to be violated.
20. In order to hasten the restoration of law, my delegation holds the view that Israel must conform to the requirements of the Security Council resolution of last November, in other words, it must unequivocally accept both the terms and the spirit of that resolution and co-operate wholeheartedly with Mr. Jarring’s mission. In that way a process will have been started which may lead to the quenching of the fires of the recent past, reduce the military and verbal escalation on both sides which we are witnessing today and to the establishment of a minimum of normal relations between all States in the region. Once a more serious attempt has been made by them all and also, and more especially, by the four Great Powers, it will then be necessary to promote and develop among the former belligerents the type of coexistence indicated by the Security Council resolution dated 22 November 1967 [242(1967)]. In fact, we shall have isolated and dealt with one aspect, and a superficial one at that, of the Palestine tragedy; in short, we shall have lifted the veil in which the ambition to achieve hegemony and the political intrigues prevalent in the Middle East since the establishment of the State of Israel have enveloped a basically simple fact: the right of the Palestinians to the liberation of their homeland from the yoke of this new type of colonialism, Zionist colonialism. At that point, this basic fact will emerge spontaneously and will take its normal place in the panorama of our era: I am referring to the great task of decolonization started soon after the end of the Second World War and which, twenty years later, has not yet been completed.
21. The urgent need radically to revise our approach to the Palestine problem is becoming increasingly and grievously evident; for that matter, everything points to it: the failure of the unrealistic pro-Israel policy being pursued, and often imposed, by some Middle East leaders; the start of a clarification process with regard to the relations between States of the Arab world, States, incidentally, that are still sovereign and independent. Everything indicates that need. Indeed, since last summer we have been witnessing the actual reassumption of control over their own destiny by the Palestinian people, thus adding their defiance of colonial oppression to the already lengthy list of sacrifices being made by the formerly colonized peoples of Africa and Asia.
22. From this rostrum Tunisia wishes to pay tribute to that resistance, to express its faith in the action undertaken to change a fate which was seemingly sealed; Tunisia pledges its support, so far, of course, as its resources permit, for whatever action the Palestinian people, and they alone, may decide to take.
23. The same tragedy of human freedom and brotherhood is being played out in other parts of the world, and Tunisia wishes to express and to reaffirm the same support to the oppressed.
24. Of course, a single life saved represents an absolute moral gain for humanity. Only an unbridled ideological fanaticism will deny this. Nevertheless, historical situations such as the one existing in South Africa, finally make one doubt the possibility of peaceful change, lead men to despair and justifiably discredit any appeal to reason.
25. In our Secretary-General’s own words, in the introduction to his annual report on the United Nations’ work, “the latest developments in... southern Africa seem to indicate that the danger of violent conflict in South Africa... resulting from the policies and practices of apartheid of the Government of the Republic of South Africa, should not be discounted or minimized”. [A/7201/Add.1, para.144].
26. Uttered by a man whose devotion to the cause of peace is known to us all, this warning has a special significance, and in our opinion it must be taken seriously if we wish to preserve Africa and the world from terrible upheavals.
27. Far from changing the course of its policy in the direction of equality of rights for all races in its territory and freedom for all its citizens, the Pretoria regime has on the contrary promulgated new legislation aimed at strengthening both racial segregation and the repression of its political opponents. What is worse, it has done all it can to consolidate and extend the influence of its aberrant philosophy in neighbouring territories, particularly in Namibia and Southern Rhodesia. of course all this has been done in defiance of Security Council and General Assembly resolutions.
28. It constitutes a challenge to the rule of law and to mankind; the only similar challenge in history is that of Nazism. It is most regrettable to note that so far we have met that challenge only with resolutions, dozens, hundreds of resolutions, which admittedly become more emphatic all the time, but about which we may legitimately wonder whether they are not serving as alibis designed to conceal a real lack of resolution.
29. Who among us can seriously maintain that he is unaware of the real problem, that he does not visualize the actual means by which the Pretoria leaders can be brought to see reason? We all know that so long as South Africa’s main trading partners fail to put an end to their economic, political or military co-operation with that country’s Government, thereby encouraging it to persist in its policy, we shall only be amusing ourselves by practising the sterile art of composing resolutions.
30. The South African leaders have become so accustomed to this that they do not appear to have hesitated long before flouting United Nations authority when it decided to put an end to their direct administration of Namibia. Their only response to our resolutions was their trial and conviction of many Namibians and their opposition to the attempts made last April by the United Nations Council for Namibia to enter that territory in order to perform the functions assigned to it by the General Assembly. Finally, to complete the image it has of itself and the idea it has of us, the South African Government, on 6 June 1968, triumphantly promulgated an act designed to promote the establishment of Bantustans — quasi-zoological reserves — in South West Africa, and has since undertaken to implement it, by force and repression, of course.
31. We must not be surprised therefore that such contemptuous arrogance is being emulated. That Mr. Ian Smith should take the Pretoria leaders for his mentors is only logical. That the Portuguese Government should ally itself with the South African and Salisbury Governments to terrorize and persecute the African populations in the territories under its domination and to flout the authority of the United Nations was foreseeable and also natural. This veritable “axis” formed by Pretoria, Salisbury and Lisbon is today a reality against which the verbal escalation of our resolutions has had practically no effect and probably never will. In my Government’s view, therefore, the choice, with regard to the populations subjugated by those régimes and also with regard to the broader reality of decolonization, is no longer between degrees of severity in the terms of a further resolution, but between two methods of meeting the challenge, the one not exclusive of the other. Either the economic, political and military partners of those three régimes finally take action to enforce international law, or all Member States, especially the African States, must come to the assistance of national liberation movements, on whom will devolve the main task of changing the course of
history.
32. Blood has been flowing in Africa for a long time past. Further efforts and further sacrifices will be needed. That is the price that will have to be paid for freedom, which is never granted as a gift. If it is to be genuine, freedom must mean liberation. This is borne out by history and by our own experience; and we have always made it our duty to say so on all occasions, even when plain speaking was difficult.
33. Nevertheless, we appreciate the efforts made by the Special Committee entrusted with the study of the implementation of the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples. In many cases, constituting in fact a specific category, the Committee has to confront administering Powers that have formally undertaken to lead the territories under their authority to self-determination. Even under those conditions, the Committee does not always encounter all the goodwill or all the co-operation desirable to enable it to carry out its task.
34. Consequently, we can only express our regret that, eight years after the adoption of the Declaration and notwithstanding the irreversible trend of events since the 1950’s, some Powers persist in preserving anachronistic systems which history has already condemned. As a matter of fact, so far as some Member States are concerned, that dogged adherence to outmodel ways of thinking is not confined to their attitude on decolonization. Their concept of security is also based on the realities of former times which are as foreign to a world that has been reshaped and remodelled by the nuclear factor as the Middle Ages were to the nineteenth century industrial revolution. Is it not an anomaly and even an error to conceive of the defence of one’s country’s and of peace from the standpoint of nuclear superiority when we know — all too well — that should a conflagration occur there will be neither victors nor vanquished, let alone witnesses?
35. The ideal should therefore be the total prohibition of nuclear weapons, their manufacture, stockpiling and use. States should make an effort to resign themselves to this, if not from moral rectitude at least out of sheer realism.
36. Consequently my Government was gratified to note the conclusion of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, a Treaty which we signed and hope soon to ratify. In our opinion, it represents a step towards peace, despite some imbalances such as the inadequate guarantees promised by the three nuclear Powers as a counterpart to the nominal abandonment of sovereignty by non-nuclear countries.
37. Another serious defect in that document is that certain countries, such as France, or others such as the People’s Republic of China, which is still absent from this Assembly, did not participate in its elaboration and do not recognize its validity.
38. We referred to anomalies: is not the absence of the People’s Republic of China from the United Nations the most flagrant anomaly of all? We spoke of error: is that not the most dangerous of errors?
39. My Government considers that the presence of the People’s Republic of China in this Assembly is necessary if we wish to find a solution to the major problems of our world. It rests with the United Nations to work out a formula which will enable that great Power to play its proper part in our Organization; the acceptance of that formula by the People’s Republic of China is also required, since, in our opinion, such a formula must in no way
prejudice the future presence in the United Nations of the Taiwan Government.
40. In regarding general disarmament as the true objective, we were thinking not only of the disappearance of war in inter-State relations, but also, and above all, of the release of the enormous financial, technological and human resources which could then be devoted to combating hunger, disease, poverty, ignorance — in short, to assisting mankind to emerge from under-development. The magnitude and urgency of the task awaiting us in this connexion are so great that even all our combined efforts will not be too much.
41. In the social field, we must strive to achieve the objectives of the draft declaration on social development [A/7161, annex I], to the preparation of which Tunisia was privileged to contribute. In the economic field, we must satisfy the hopes placed by the peoples of the Third World in the second session of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, which was expected to be the outstanding event of 1968.
42. During the debates of the twenty-second session, we all expressed the hope that that Conference would make it possible to enter a new phase of the process begun in 1964, and that its work would lead to the elaboration of concrete proposals for the solution of the problems before it.
43. Today we are forced to admit that the Conference was a great disappointment to all concerned. With his customary sobriety, the Secretary General, U Thant, described the results as meagre. For his part, Mr. Raúl Prebisch, who considers them very limited and not commensurate with the urgency or the magnitude of development problems, writes:
“Be it as it may, developed countries, with a few exceptions, continue to consider the development problem as a residual one that can be tackled here and there with a few and insufficient measures instead of bold and resolute action."
44. One of the temptations to which we might fall prey is that of attributing the meagre results achieved by the Conference to defective operating methods. Without denying that this assessment contains a grain of truth, we must nevertheless recognize that what the Conference suffered from more than anything else was the absence of political will, particularly on the part of the developed countries.
45. In our opinion, what the New Delhi meeting needed much more than efficient procedures and refined technical contributions, was the active sympathy of the “have” countries that were engaged in discussions with the Third World, the only attitude on their part which could have paved the way for progress. They ought to have accepted for the time being the need for granting real favours, for compromise, in short, for priorities benefiting the poorer countries; they ought to have realized that generosity of that kind would provide the only real stimulus to Third World development and hence to international economic co-operation.
46. In other words, we could have hoped for at least the same effort at sacrifice on the part of the “have" countries in favour of the “have not” countries that the latter are making on their own behalf. On both sides, that would have meant firm long-term financial commitments.
47. Nevertheless, we consider that the wave of pessimism and the feeling of frustration which immediately followed the second session of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development should today give way to reflection and an objective analysis so as to ascertain to what extent we can improve the image of the Conference and its aims, thus enabling those aims to be brought closer to the needs of our world and the hopes of the poorer nations. That task has already been begun by the UNCTAD secretariat, and the secretariats of the United Nations specialized agencies. We feel sure that the elaboration and implementation of a global development strategy will provide this new instrument for progress with the place it deserves in that vast project which must in our opinion be the basic objective of the second United Nations Development Decade.
48. We are aware of the complexity of the work to be undertaken; we are also aware of the need for that work and of its urgency. That is why we should like to pay special tribute to all those who have agreed to share in that task.
49. The encouraging results achieved by the United Nations Development Programme should reassure the “have” countries about the efforts made by the developing countries and convince them of the sacrifices the latter are making; those results should convince them of the really stimulating and progressive effect produced by the external aid received from the developed countries. Nevertheless, the Programme’s operations, although fruitful and encouraging, are still inadequate owing to the very modest resources at its disposal. For that reason we endorse the appeal made by the United Nations Secretary-General in the introduction to his annual report to the General Assembly that the minimum target for 1970 should be set at $350 million [see A/7201/Add.1,para.110].
50. I cannot let this opportunity pass without paying a special tribute to the administration of UNDP and particularly to Mr. Paul Hoffman, whose zeal and dynamism have helped to make the Programme what it is today. Other problems in this field are also a matter of concern to the Tunisian delegation. We hope and believe that the discussions concerning them during the current session will produce positive results.
51. Such is our view of the international situation; such are the principles guiding Tunisia’s action; such are the thoughts my country has felt bound to bring to the attention of the international community in the hope that they will contribute to a solution of the crises and problems which darken our horizon.
52. If we did not basically believe in man, in his reason and his genius we should be tempted to fall prey to pessimism, to ideologies and idolatries which, when we are beset with anxieties and difficulties, distract us from our vital need for well-being, progress and peace, luring us with the fascination of absolutes and the ease of Manichean dreams. The spectacle of youth that is everywhere being deliberately driven to despair and extremism — an extremism to which it inclines by virtue of its basically generous nature and its uncompromising aspiration for the absolute — does not that spectacle reveal to us the gravity of the crisis through which our era is passing, and does it not give us an idea of the danger to which man’s freedom and happiness are being exposed?
53. Nevertheless, I think that mankind discovers the virtues of rational effort and when it is less divided by the unequal distribution of well-being and riches, it will be less fascinated by that veritable nihilism. Tomorrow, perhaps, the various societies will discover that in this age of modern economies their interests are interconnected and their destiny is a common one. Then, perhaps, a collective existence founded upon reason will come about, and mankind will be able reasonably to hope for the advent of a true peace.