58. The election of Mr. Arenales to the Presidency of our Assembly shows in what high esteem he is held by the entire international community. The Government of Mali is sincerely pleased at his election, and I am glad to associate myself with the tributes paid to our President by the delegations that have preceded me at this rostrum.
59. May I also pay a deserved tribute to his predecessor, His Excellency the Minister for Foreign Affairs of Romania, Mr. Manescu, whose skill, authority and outstanding personal qualities endowed his presidency of the deliberations of the twenty-second session of the General Assembly with so much distinction and efficacy.
60. Lastly, I should like to congratulate Swaziland on its accession to independence and on its admission to our Organization. We also welcome the independence of Equatorial Guinea. In addressing our best wishes for success and prosperity to the peoples of these two brother countries, we have no doubt that they will add strength to the campaign of the African peoples and the international community.
61. I must.also make special mention of the understanding shown by Spain in its happy achievement of the decolonization of Equatorial Guinea, and express the hope that its example may inspire its neighbour, Portugal, to change its backward and short-sighted policy over decolonization and cease to be a fossil in the community of civilized nations.
62. The delegation of Mali chose to wait until today to take part in the general debate before this Assembly because it wanted to find out from the many statements made over the past weeks by the representatives of countries we consider to be principally responsible for the worsening of the world situation whether there was any ray of light that might suggest the beginning of a settlement of the crucial, even explosive, situations that confront the world and have only got worse in the year that has just passed.
63. At a time when our Secretary-General, U Thant, is raising a fresh cry of. alarm, at a time when certain statesmen are already talking of the possibility of a third world war, at a time when Governments and peoples are giving way to discouragement and weariness and questioning the ability of the United Nations to solve the problems of peace, are we not entitled to expect those who are really responsible for the daily widening abyss between us and the realization of the aims set forth in the United Nations Charter to act before it is too late? Have we not a duty to an anxious and tormented mankind to restore its trust and faith in our determination to safeguard the world from the horrors of a new, universal holocaust? Was it an illusion that those who seem to be becoming the gravediggers of our Organization appeared to be ready to put an end to that habit so frequently denounced and condemned, of shedding crocodile tears over such events by invoking violation of the Charter, when for nearly twenty-three years the record of their policy has been steeped in aggressions against the rights, the sovereignty and the freedom of peoples?
64. We are forced to acknowledge that the hopes of mankind have been disappointed. Nothing we have heard so far from this platform, especially from those Powers and their allies, justifies even a shred of optimism; quite the contrary. A general feeling of frustration hangs over this Assembly. Never has the United Nations seemed so powerless to solve the problems of peace and war. The great Powers, concerned only with the protection of their sordid interests, their hegemony, their spheres of influence, their determination to impose on the majority of us their ready-made solutions worked out away from this body, bear more responsibility for this situation than do the small, weak and unstable nations.
65. The time has perhaps come to speak bluntly, to state certain truths which will no doubt fall harshly on some ears, but which none the less reflect the sincere desire of the Republic of Mali, its Government and its people, to make a modest contribution towards clearing the air, the only way in our opinion to waken our Organization from its torpor and impotence so that it may become the true instrument for peace and security that its founders hoped it would be.
66. It is beyond question that it is in the third world, and especially in Africa, the Middle East and Asia, that we are witnessing the most savage wars, tie most treacherous aggressions, the most horrible domination and oppression. It is there that imperialism and colonialism stand revealed in their most brutal strength. There, peoples are subjected to foreign occupation, to monstrous bombings, to suffering, misery and death. Whether we take the Viet-Namese people or the Palestinian people, the African peoples of Angola, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Namibia and Guinea (Bissau) or the peoples of the United Arab Republic, Syria and Jordan, it is the law of the jungle that prevails and is upheld by the imperialist aggressors and their cohorts.
67. And if we go back to the period following the Second World War, then too the United Nations Charter was violated many times and by the same Powers, both in Asia and in Africa, in the Middle East and in Latin America, from the day the first signatures were affixed, on 26 June 1945 at San Francisco. It is those continents that were the scene of the colonial war of Indo-China in 1945 and of Algeria in 1954. It is there too that the aggressions against the people of Palestine were perpetrated in 1948, against Egypt and the Arab countries in 1956 and 1967, against the People’s Republic of China and Korea in 1950, against the Congo, against Cuba, against the Dominican Republic in 1965, and some ten years earlier against Guatemala.
68. And how many other dramas, intrigues, plots and coups d’état have there been, fomented and manipulated from outside? How many wars of national liberation nearly everywhere in these areas of the third world where the imperialist and colonialist Powers have continually denied and flouted the United Nations Charter, practising policies dictated solely by their selfish interests in order to maintain their political, military and economic domination?
69. The war of national liberation in Viet-Nam has lasted for nearly twenty-five years, twenty-five years during which those who are trying to force their bankrupt and bogus democracy on the peoples of the third world through the medium of renegades and puppets, a democracy of bombs and napalm, of torture and misery, seem to have learnt nothing. Yet the years during which the Viet-Namese people resisted its aggressors were proud and glorious years for those who died as martyrs on the battlefield and for all those who still hold high the banner of freedom and dignity so that Viet-Nam may be for the Viet-Namese and the aggressor and his flunkeys in Saigon may be thrown out.
70. Despite our scepticism we had hoped and wished that the Paris talks that have been going on since last April might succeed in opening the way for genuine negotiations to end the war on the basis of the 1954 Geneva Agreements.
71. But neither the unpopularity of Washington’s policy with world and American public opinion, nor the serious division of the American people themselves, perhaps unprecedented in modern United States history, nor the considerable pressures applied by the leaders of most of the world’s countries, nor even the serious disorders in American domestic life which the war has at last provoked, have succeeded in altering the bases of a policy that is discredited and condemned by the overwhelming majority of the peoples of the world. By refusing to halt unconditionally the bombing of the Democratic Republic of Viet-Nam, by demanding in return some sort of reciprocity from the Viet-Namese fighters, America’s leaders are putting the aggressor and the victim of aggression on the same footing of equality and responsibility, just as though they wanted to tie the hands of the Viet-Namese fighters in case the negotiations, once begun, should lead to nothing as a result of the artificial obstacles set up to hamper the negotiations.
72. Symptomatic of that, and paradoxical too, is the statement made a few days ago — on 12 October 1968 — by one of the most determined supporters of the continuation of the Viet-Nam war when, speaking at De Pauw University in Indiana, he unequivocally stated that escalation of the war would not work and that the American people would not agree to the continuation of a war that was costing it 30,000 million dollars and 10,000 American lives every year. He said:
“The war cannot be won by the United States. There is no prospect of a military victory over North Viet-Nam, no matter what the level of military force, whether acceptable or desirable in our interest or in the interest of world peace.... There are more Americans than are needed in Viet-Nam and what they cannot do cannot be done even by doubling their number....”
It took five years for that distinguished person to face the facts, but at the price of how many tens of thousands of victims, how much devastation and what needless suffering?
73. Be that as it may, we know that, for the Vietnamese people who have risen to defend their homeland and their dignity; victory is at the end of the road. And from this platform we salute the heroic struggle of the people of North Viet-Nam and of the National Liberation Front of South Viet-Nam. We are sure that, faced with imperialist aggression, they will find that all peace-loving, justice-loving and freedom-loving peoples are solidly behind them.
74. Seventeen years of discussion have brought us no closer to the conditions that are indispensable for the unification of Korea, still less to a lasting peace in that part of Asia. The United Nations Commission for the Unification and Rehabilitation of Korea, which was, as we know, established illegally, encourages the stationing of interventionist forces in South Korea under the United Nations flag. Furthermore, that Commission, which has become a tool serving the imperialists’ policy of aggression, is endeavouring to establish permanent United States domination in Korea in contempt of the purposes and principles of the Charter and in flagrant violation of the provisions of the Korean Armistice Convention (1953).
75. As you know, my country long since showed the only way to restore peace in that part of the world: withdrawal of foreign troops; dissolution of the so-called United Nations Commission for the Unification and Rehabilitation of Korea; freedom for the Korean people to choose for themselves, without outside interference, the ways and means of reunifying their country. For an objective consideration of the question, on which discussions have already begun in the First Committee, our Assembly should invite representatives from both parts of Korea to take part in the discussions.
76. A lot has been talked in this hall about peace and disarmament and a lot about universality. Is universality conceivable if a third of mankind is ignored, in other words, the 700 million Chinese who are still kept out of the United Nations by the ostracism and fanatical obduracy of certain great Powers? An immense people, nearly an entire continent, with untold possibilities and what is more, now a nuclear Power?
77. Since its admission to the Organization my delegation has supported the restoration of the legitimate rights of the People’s Republic of China in the United Nations. Its position has not changed, on the contrary. Restoration of the legitimate rights of the People’s Republic of China is more than even an absolute necessity. The great country of Mao Tsz-tung, a civilization thousands of years old, which has just victoriously carried through its great proletarian cultural revolution — except in Taiwan province — the greatest cultural revolution of all time, must have the special place amongst us worthy of its human, economic, cultural and scientific scale, and of its creative genius.
78. All right-thinking men are deeply convinced of the necessity and the inevitability of ejecting the representatives of Chiang Kai-shek.
79. Nevertheless, some representatives with Machiavellian guile have advocated double representation, the People’s Republic of China and the puppets of Formosa. What would happen if we proposed to those whose countries have undergone revolutionary changes, that they should be represented by people who had lost the peoples’ confidence and been driven out of their country? Since when and by virtue of what provision of the Charter can one and the same State enjoy double representation?
80. In the Middle East, sixteen months after the Israeli aggression of 5 June 1967, the resolution [242 (1967)] unanimously adopted on 22 November last by the Security Council remains a dead letter. Israeli troops still occupy vast territories of independent sovereign States, and all the praiseworthy attempts made by U Thant’s Special Representative in the Middle East, Mr. Jarring, have not succeeded in opening the way to a just settlement, all the elements for which are contained in that resolution.
81. It is not hard to detect the motives behind the intransigence of Israel’s. They are similar, in fact, to those which have always dictated the attitude of the imperialist and colonialist Powers who — in Viet-Nam today as in Africa and Latin America — have never understood the realities of the revolutionary struggle of our age, nor the factors that inspire and guide peoples subjected to the foreign yoke. They are greatly deluded if they think that time is on the side of the aggressor, that each day that goes by strengthens their own and weakens their victims’ position, and that the day will come when the victims will “resign themselves” to their state of subjection and lose all will to defend their inalienable rights by agreeing to submit to the diktat imposed on them.
82. It is obvious to us that the present situation in the Middle East cannot last indefinitely. Let there be no mistake about the determination of the Arab peoples as a whole and of the Palestinian people in particular, to continue their struggle until all relics of the aggression have been eliminated and their national rights recognized and attained. They have many powerful allies and friends throughout the world, on every continent, and the dream cherished by those who think that in time the Arab peoples will bow to the will of the aggressor and his supporters is being every day rudely disturbed by the resistance movement as it becomes even better organized and more effective.
83. Even if the cease-fire, though precarious enough, has so far been maintained, how long do you think the Arab peoples will continue to stand by and see their towns and villages occupied by enemy forces, their men, women and children suffering in body and spirit beneath the humiliation of the foreign jackboot? How much longer can they tolerate the intolerable, whatever the sacrifices and the consequences may be? Those who, like us in Africa, have been subjected to occupation, domination, oppression and persecution, remember all too clearly their emotions at the time and their impatience, but also their unwavering determination to face any risk for the victory of the sacred cause of freedom and independence.
84. Every day brings us news of the exploits of resistance militants in the occupied areas, a resistance that neither the most savage reprisals nor threats and blackmail will ever break. On 9 June 1968, on the occasion of a series of strikes on the Israeli-occupied west bank of the Jordan, The New York Times, a newspaper that no one can accuse of Arab sympathies, in an article entitled “No peace in Jerusalem,” wrote:
“The new mood of independence and militancy among the Arabs surprised the Israelis and left them wondering what caused it....
“The Arabs of Jerusalem and the West Bank appear to have another purpose in mind. They seem to want to demonstrate to the world their opposition to the Israeli annexation of Jerusalem and the occupation of the West Bank.
“As one leader of the Jerusalem Arab Community put it last week, ‘We want to make sure that the world, and particularly the United Nations, is aware that Jerusalem is not as Peaceful as the Israelis say it is’.”
How strange, and yet how touching and significant, is this trust of the people of Palestine in the United Nations whereas the United Nations has given them nothing but disappointment and disillusion.
85. No, strong in their rights and confident in their future, the victims of the aggression of 5 June 1967 will not stand idly by while their enemies consolidate their positions and augment their war potential. If peace is one day to return to the area, a peace based on the resolution of 22 November 1967, there will have to be a radical change in the mentality, in the attitude and in the policy of the Israeli leaders, who must know that military victories are often ephemeral, that yesterday’s vanquished may become tomorrow’s victors, and that peace among peoples and nations is not forged by brute force and the might of arms, but by recognition of and respect for the legitimate rights of others, in justice and equity. In our view, and we have already proclaimed it from this platform, the only way in which peace can be restored in that part of the world is through total and complete withdrawal by Israel from all the Arab territories it has occupied and the recognition of the rights of the Palestinian people who have been expelled from their homeland.
86. And yet nothing has been said here by the Minister for Foreign Affairs of Israel, or by the Powers that support that country, not one word, not one sentence that might suggest some prospect of progress towards a settlement of the conflict.
87. The last summit meeting of the Organization of African Unity, held at Algiers during the month of September, gave its unanimous support to the United Arab Republic, the African victim of Israeli aggression, as well as to the other occupied Arab countries. It clearly stated that the restoration of peace in the Middle East depends on the strict implementation of the resolution of 22 November 1967, the essence of which is the evacuation of the territories occupied by Israel.
88. I speak for Mali in addressing a fraternal salute to the Palestinian freedom fighters and in hailing the struggle of the brother Arab peoples against imperialism and neo-colonialism.
89. Furthermore, nothing that we have heard from the. Powers directly responsible for the perpetuation of colonialism in Africa inspires us with the slightest hope for the inauguration of a new policy that would put an end to the domination and oppression of tens of millions of Africans now beneath the yoke of the Portuguese, Rhodesian and South African racists. To be sure, we have heard some spokesmen for those Powers condemning racism and denouncing apartheid and oppression. But what have they ever done to translate their pious sermons into concrete acts? Have they stopped their military support to the Pretoria racists? Have they cut off their economic and military assistance to the Lisbon Fascists? Have they taken steps in accordance with their international obligations to wipe out by force the rebellion of the Smith clique in Salisbury? Have they curtailed or liquidated their investments in southern Africa amounting to billions of dollars that enable the régimes in that region to strengthen and maintain themselves and to threaten the independence of neighbouring African countries? What good then is the Security Council resolution [233 (1968)] of 29 May 1968 imposing mandatory sanctions against Southern Rhodesia, when we all know that the oil Salisbury needs will still be supplied by Pretoria and that its military forces will be equipped and reinforced by Portugal and South Africa, both of which are getting all the assistance they want, without restriction or limitation, from the Western capitals? We toss a bone, as it were, to world public opinion by voting mandatory sanctions against Southern Rhodesia, but at the same time economic and military relations with the two colonialist Powers that are the financial backers and protectors of the Salisbury régime are expanded.
90. What a piece of hypocrisy is this policy of making pious statements disapproving and disowning racism and oppression in southern Africa while actively supporting the architects and the authors of that racism and oppression!
91. However, as in Viet-Nam and the Middle East, the resistance of the African peoples subject to colonial and racist domination is increasing and intensifying daily. The nationalist movements have already begun a real war of national liberation, and patriots by the thousands are struggling and sacrificing themselves, weapons in hand, against the Rhodesian, Portuguese and South African régimes. And neither the unholy alliance between Salisbury, Pretoria and Lisbon, collaborating for the protection of their sordid interests, nor the strategies drawn up by the racists Vorster and Smith during the latter’s visit to Johannesburg last July, strategies that involve plans for aggression against Zambia, can alter the unshakable determination of the African patriots to struggle on to the total liberation of their nations.
92. Neither by discussions with the racist régime in Salisbury, nor by resolutions providing for partial or total, optional or mandatory, sanctions, can the United Kingdom or the United Nations help to solve this problem. If the crisis is to be settled through peaceful means, the British Government must fully accept its complete and exclusive responsibility; and the only way open to London is recourse to force to crush the domination of the Zimbabwe people by the 200,000 Salisbury racists. In our opinion, there is no other solution.
93. But the root of the evil lies in Pretoria and in Lisbon. That is the root that must be torn out, and the primary responsibility for that lies with the industrial Western Powers, particularly certain NATO countries, whose policy towards South Africa and Portugal allows a stronger and bolder challenge to be hurled at us by those two countries, which are creating in Africa a standing threat to our security and our stability.
94. The war of secession in Nigeria, about which a great deal of ink has been spilt, and, we are told, a lot of tears have been shed in capitalist countries, has started a lot of log-rolling in the imperialist press stimulated by hot-beds of subversion. We still consider that that is a strictly domestic problem for the Federal State of Nigeria. The jeremiads of some and the snivelling of tawdry philanthropists cannot alter that juridical reality in the slightest. We can speak at length about the sufferings and hardships created by the civil war, which fill us especially with sorrow, although we know of no war that has been a humane one.
95. After a thorough analysis of the question, based on the report of the Advisory Committee for Nigeria, composed of Heads of State, all clear-headed men of integrity, the recent Conference of Heads of State and Government of the Organization of African Unity adopted by an overwhelming majority a noble resolution [AHE/RES.54 (V)] which, while unequivocally condemning secession, set out specifically the ways and means by which hostilities might be ended and Nigerians enabled, through a general amnesty, to be reunited in the great federal family of 50 million people that is the pride of all Africans because of its rich human and economic possibilities.
96. Some who for hidden motives support the secession of so-called Biafra in the name of the sacrosanct principle of self-determination have contested the validity of the position adopted by nearly all African Heads of State, capping their plea for the universality of humanitarian principles, which they allege as the ground for their support of the secessionist region, with the crushing argument that Africa is no more qualified to deal with the matter than anyone else. We agree with those sanctimonious miscreants that there should be no private preserves anywhere. We African leaders shall remember that when we read about separatist or autonomist movements, Flemish or Walloon disputes, or calls for “Free Quebec!”. For we know that tribalism in its pure state is not confined to Africa. What is more, the problem of the Ibos, who live alongside millions of people of other ethnic origins, has a strong smell of oil, with a good dose of holy water to dispense it.
97. Nevertheless, we are appealing to the sense of responsibility of certain Powers for them to cease their support for a lost cause. The secession has been condemned for objective reasons by the Africans directly concerned. Far from serving the interests of Nigeria and of Africa, any contrary position constitutes direct support for the interests of the imperialist monopolies and the centrifugal forces hostile to the unity and independence of the African States.
98. As was only to have been expected, in addition to the unprecedented deterioration of the international political situation, the twenty-third session of the United Nations General Assembly will have been marked by no less burning problems of economic and social development. How could it be otherwise, on the threshold of the next United Nations Development Decade and after the recent work of the Economic and Social Council, the discussions of the annual Assembly of the Bretton Woods organizations, and particularly after the resounding failure of the second session of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development?
99. The majority of the representatives who have preceded me on this platform have amply described the sombre background of the under-developed world. I have no wish to add my contribution, it would only make the picture blacker. Whether “absolute” or “relative”, the facts of poverty are well known: approximately 50 per cent of the world’s population contributes only one eighth of the world’s production of goods and services; gross product per capita in most of the industrialized countries is eleven times higher than in the under-developed countries; half the population of the under-developed world lives in countries whose growth rate is less than 3.5 per cent; and finally, two thirds of the world’s population lives in countries where the per capita production is less than 100 dollars a year.
100. From Geneva to Algiers, from New Delhi to New York, this deplorable situation has been frequently described and analysed from every angle; but for all that, no remedy worth the name has been found, despite the accuracy of the diagnosis. In these circumstances, how can the poor countries be enthusiastic about the results of the Decade that is ending and not help wondering with some concern about the fate of the next Decade, even though during its preparation they continually hear encouraging noises like “development charter”, “global strategy”, “decisive breakthrough", and so on?
101. My delegation has no desire to indulge in sterile criticism and facile condemnation. Although it may be true that economic and social development is a complex phenomenon that requires concerted action within a system of clearly defined objectives, although it may also be trie that the United Nations Development Programme and the specialized agencies have achieved some noteworthy results in the third world, it must nevertheless be recorded that the current Decade will unquestionably have been distinguished by the fact that over this same period the developed countries have enjoyed a hitherto unparalleled rate of growth, whereas the poor countries are still waiting not for manna, but for real assistance corresponding to their real needs under a genuine policy of universal human solidarity in accordance with the United Nations Charter.
102. If the Republic of Mali was disappointed by the New Delhi Conference, it was not surprised at its failure, since we are not in the habit of dreaming empty dreams. In this field too, our political thinking is based on a scientific analysis of the international situation, which is characterized by the international class struggle — that is not just theory — and our examination of it leads to the conclusion that in the present state of capitalist society, euphemistically called the consumer society, it is inconceivable that what are called the rich nations should permit any real and rapid development of the “proletarian nations", since capitalism has no intention of digging its own grave. The failure of the New Delhi Conference will at least have done one good service if it has taught the third world countries to draw the necessary conclusions.
103. Those are the realities of the world situation as we understand them. Those are the basic and essential reasons for the worsening of the international climate that is arousing the legitimate and justified apprehensions of all mankind. In this hall, as elsewhere in the various United Nations bodies, Mali has always spoken out against any violation of the United Nations Charter by States, whether great or small; but no one can deny that most of these violations are committed by the imperialist and colonialist Powers and their adherents.
104. Again, Mali has always opposed the division of the world into blocs or spheres of influence, just as it has opposed any attempt to reserve to the great Powers the exclusive responsibility for settling serious international problems. If we have been a faithful Member of the United Nations, if we signed the Charter in all good faith, if we have never violated its principles and its provisions, it is because our people believed and want to go on believing in the mission and in the goals of the United Nations, whatever its failures and whatever our disillusions. It is also because we believed that the age of the domination and use of force in settling international disputes had passed, that peace was not the business of two, four or five Powers, but of all the countries of the world, and finally, that coexistence and détente were not the special preserve of blocs or power groups. For neither coexistence, nor détente nor world peace can develop and prevail on our planet so long as certain great Powers speak and act as imperialists and colonialists. We have heard an important person say from this platform that the road to détente is the road set out in the United Nations Charter, We are the first to share that opinion, but We would ask him simply whether he honestly thinks that that is the road that his country and the majority of its allies have followed since the United Nations was founded, particularly with regard to the third world.
105. Some of the “moralists” whose jeremiads and sarcasms on the subject of the recent events in Czechoslovakia we have listened to over the last few weeks should have the courage to ask themselves, conscientiously, what their attitude has been during these past twenty-three years when planes were dropping thousands of tons of bombs on the cities and peoples of Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America. Where were they when napalm was scorching the bodies of innocent people on our continents? Why were not their consciences revolted then?
106. As a remedy for the growing impotence of the United Nations to solve the problems of coexistence, peace and war, some have advocated a sort of international third force to occupy the middle ground between the two opposing blocs, but without defining either its composition or its structure. This seems to us a completely utopian and mistaken idea, because it fails to take into account the reality of the international class struggle. One is either for or against imperialism and colonialism; one is either for or against peace. The balance of opposing forces cannot be assessed in terms of a horizontal combination of such forces. On the contrary, an objective analysis of the international situation shows that there is a vertical combination of democratic and anti-imperialist forces, in the sense that in the capitalist and imperialist countries there are powerful revolutionary and popular forces following the same course of action as the anti-imperialist countries of the socialist camp, the peace camp. So that on the one side we have governmental minorities working for the monopolies and the forces of war, and on the other side the vast majority of the progressive socialist countries and all peace-loving and freedom-loving peoples. There can be no intermediate front in the struggle against the forces of reaction and war. The choice is clear. It certainly could not be the non-aligned countries, which have never agreed to be a third force between the two opposing blocs. The non-aligned countries which drew up a peace programme at Cairo undertook to fight against imperialism, colonialism and neo-colonialism, and to support the liberation movements in Africa, Asia and Latin America. President Modibo Keita, leader of the Mali people, has always stated that non-alignment is not a “tight-rope act”.
107. So that, in order to combat continual and systematic violations of the Charter, to resist the growing impotence of the United Nations, the representatives of peace-loving and justice-loving countries, countries determined to fight imperialism and colonialism, must organize themselves for concerted, coherent and decisive action against those nations, large or small, which have violated or may violate the Charter. The countries representing the forces of peace and progress are obviously in the majority. In order for that majority to become an effective force, the third world countries in particular must accept their responsibilities, all their responsibilities, agree to sacrifice if need be the interests of their immediate policies, resist aggression, learn to rely first on themselves and to treat outside assistance as just supplementary, and to embark at all costs on the construction of independent national economies. That is how, in the vast confrontation between the only two great forces possible into which the world is divided — the imperialist forces and the anti-imperialist forces — the real tangible majority in the international community will win the day, because the peoples and popular forces are with them.
108. At the recent summit meeting of the Organization of African Unity at Algiers, President Modibo Keita, referring to the speech of a great statesman, said: “Nothing can be done with supine peoples”. The third world, the peoples of the three continents, must rise up and fight against imperialist aggression on the political, economic, social and military planes, must fight resolutely against monopoly imperialism and put an end to its expansionist aims. The day when the majority of the small nations like us begin to understand and decide to fight for this categorical imperative, the United Nations will be saved and the peoples will have triumphed.