1. Mr. President, I should like, first of all, on behalf of the delegation of Gabon, to express our warmest congratulations to you upon your election to the Presidency of this Assembly. The unanimity with which you were elected to this high office is striking testimony to the esteem and confidence which your eminent personality aspires in all members of this lofty forum. Your qualities as a statesman, one who has been called upon in his own country to assume responsibilities of the highest order, together with the ability you have shown for many years in the debates in this hall, are the sure guarantee that the work of the twenty-first session of the General Assembly will proceed under the joint sign of firmness of character and generosity of heart-for I think that is, if not the best, at least the most concise way of defining your personality.
2. May I be permitted also to express our warm gratitude to Mr. Amintore Fanfani, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Italy, who guided the work of the twentieth session of the General Assembly with faultless authority and vigilant objectivity.
3. At the same time, the Government of the Republic of Gabon and the delegation which I have the honour to lead would like to pay a special tribute to U Thant for his high-mindedness, his competence and his tireless activities in the cause of peace. Our dearest wish is that the United Nations will be able to benefit during a new term of office from the presence of this distinguished person at the head of the Secretariat-one who has come to symbolize in himself the ideal of peace, which is the aim of his life.
4. We welcome in friendship Guyana, the one hundred and eighteenth Member of our Organization; we are certain that it will be able to take its share of the responsibilities devolving upon it in the comity of nations seeking universal concord and human brotherhood.
5. Further, we are glad to see Indonesia resuming its place among us. The agreement it has reached with Malaysia in order to settle the differences between the two countries provides a lesson on which it would be well to reflect. It teaches us, if that is still necessary, that there is no dispute which nations of goodwill cannot settle by negotiation in a spirit of respect for their mutual interests.
6. We are likewise relieved and most happy to welcome the recently attained independence of Botswana and the Kingdom of Lesotho, two fraternal countries which will certainly soon be here to enlarge and strengthen our Organization.
7. This time last year [1355th meeting], speaking from this rostrum, I assured the General Assembly of Gabon’s attachment to the spirit and fundamental principles of the Charter of our Organization.
8. In a statement made on the anniversary of the founding of the United Nations, one whose voice carries more authority than mine, Mr. Leon Mba, President of the Republic of Gabon, said:
“In the Charter signed on 26 June 1945 at San Francisco the founders of the Organization made a point of proclaiming their faith in the dignity of the human person, in equality of peoples of different races and religions and among nations, large and small, in freedom in all its essential forms-freedom of thought, of expression and of association .... And all the signatories of the Charter, all the Members of the United Nations, undertook to respect these fundamental rights, thereby solemnly condemning slavery and discrimination of any kind.
“The chief objective of the United Nations is the maintenance of peace in the world. In order to attain that objective the Organization first adopts the principle that all differences must be settled by peaceful means-negotiation, arbitration and the exercise of good offices.
“But the Organization has set itself also the aim of combating poverty, ignorance and disease, which it denounces as the principal causes of social unrest, economic rivalry and antagonism and, ultimately, war.
“We see the United Nations as a human institution and therefore as one which is both imperfect and capable of improvement. Therefore, in good times and bad, it pursues its goals and gives men greater confidence for the future.”
We still have full confidence in the final result of the undertakings which, step by step, we are pursuing together, despite the opposition and reserves of some, the inertia of others and the obstacles in our path, which cannot be readily overcome, nor easily by-passed.
9. Nevertheless, if certain setbacks can, in the final analysis, be described without hypocrisy as half-successes, if certain solutions that have been worked out, although only partial, are none the less praiseworthy, it is important not to delude ourselves about the magnitude of the task still to be accomplished, the gravity and complexity of the problems which the United Nations must tackle in order to keep the promises it has made to mankind and in order not to disappoint the hopes it arouses in human communities all over the world. There is the problem, for example, of the working languages in our Organization. There should be an end to making the use of French the subject of special, sometimes irritating bargaining. In the course of the present session my delegation intends to take the necessary steps for normalizing the situation.
10. Furthermore, it will be my purpose to specify before this Assembly the concerns of my country, which, like all those that have in recent years achieved national sovereignty, is feverishly concentrating on its own national construction, its improvement and progress, but which realizes that it cannot do all this by itself, that relations of interdependence and mutual involvement must inevitably come into play, because of the necessary community of sympathies and the common responsibilities that must be assumed within the great human family.
11. These concerns, to which we wish forcefully to draw your attention, fall under three heads: first, the inalienable right of all men to dignity and equality, together with the right of peoples freely to decide their own destiny; secondly, the necessity of understanding among the nations of the world — in other words, peaceful coexistence and the maintenance of peace; thirdly, the balance that must be created in regard to the distribution of the fruits of labour and the wealth of the various peoples, so that the gap at present separating the developing nations, the producers of primary commodities, from the highly industrialized nations, will be progressively removed.
12. On the first point, we are obliged to note that the last forces of colonialism are striving to maintain foreign domination in Africa. Portugal, lost in its dream, imprisoned in its past, is striving to keep a colonial empire in Africa; against the will of the indigenous population, it is seeking to impose its will by force and terror.
13. I shall not tire of repeating that the Republic of Gabon remains firmly wedded to the principle of self-determination and therefore does not understand Portugal’s attitude in obstinately denying to millions of individuals their right to freedom and independence. The theory that Portugal’s overseas possessions are Portuguese provinces can deceive no one; it is an aberration and in any case is unacceptable to us Africans who witness with horror and revulsion the unleashing of violence in Angola, Guinea (Bissau), Mozambique, Sao Tome and Principe. In those countries Portugal goes on perpetrating genocide with cold determination, methodically and ruthlessly. Cruel, blind repression falls indiscriminately on men, women and children. Terror reigns and the unfortunate peoples on which Portugal persists in imposing a political order which they do not want have no alternative but to answer violence with violence. Thousands of men have thus been constrained to take up arms to defend their rights, their dignity and their very lives.
14. Time and again the African Heads of State have formally condemned the aggression Portugal is committing on African soil. In complete unanimity they have decided to co-ordinate and intensify their efforts with a view to hastening the unconditional accession to national independence of all the African Territories still under foreign domination and have affirmed that all the independent States of Africa are in duty bound to support the African peoples which have not yet attained national sovereignty in their fight for freedom and independence. This determination clearly shows how firmly the African States are resolved to thwart Portuguese imperialism. But Portugal, as though it were marked out for the downfall of nations that live with their eyes turned towards the past, is showing itself incapable of adapting to the realities of our time.
15. In vain have we appealed, one after another, to the conscience of Portugal, as it faces the will of all peoples to achieve a life worthy of them. That is why the delegation of Gabon addresses an appeal from this rostrum to the conscience of the West, for the conscience of Portugal is deaf. We ask the Western nations if they do not consider Portugal’s obstinacy a constant threat to peace and a manifestation of total contempt for the wind of liberalism which has been blowing over Africa since the end of the last World War. For Portugal seems to regard as criminals those who, departing from Africa with their heads held high, now offer their co-operation and friendship to the peoples formerly dependent upon them. Would not the attitude of Portugal, a country which is itself, after all, underdeveloped, be quite different if it did not feel itself supported by a certain number of other, important countries? We in Gabon believe that if such support were withdrawn, Portugal would not dare to persist in its insensate behaviour. That is why the delegation of Gabon solemnly invites Portugal to adopt the policy of its neighbours, France and Spain, and enter upon a dialogue with the populations of its African colonies.
16. In this connexion I should like to mention the happy evolution towards independence of a neighbouring brother - State of Gabon, Equatorial Guinea. This evolution has been greatly accelerated of late and the proclamation of Equatorial Guinea’s independence in the near future is foreseeable.
17. This result, which gives Gabon particular satisfaction, is due to the realistic policy of Spain, to the wisdom and clarity of thought shown both by the autonomous Government and by the leaders of the country’s political parties, and lastly, to the decisive action of conciliation carried out by the decolonization mission sent to the territory by our Organization.
18. But the indispensable work of liberating Africa will not be completed, colonialism will not be eradicated, so long as there remains any form of oppression of the African in any part of our continent. The Pretoria Government, in contempt of fundamental human rights, keeps in slavery millions of human beings to whom it denies the very quality of men. The abnormal policy of apartheid is aimed at eliminating the indigenous population from national life.
19. In South Africa, racialism has been promoted to the status of political doctrine, to the status of dogma. The indigenous South Africans, because they are black, have no right to participate in their country’s life and a handful of immigrants holds them in bondage. Deaf to warnings, to the appeals addressed to it from all sides, the Government of South Africa continues to defy world opinion, encouraged in this policy, admittedly, by certain Powers which lend it discreet, but none the less effective support. The United Nations must redouble its efforts and call upon those of its Members which are aiding South Africa to stop doing so and to comply with the resolution which the Genera] Assembly has adopted in order to abolish the apartheid policy. Those who do not yet understand must come to realize that this policy of the Government of South Africa is an extremely dangerous cause of tension.
20. In this connexion my Government cannot but add its voice to those raised in all parts of the world in denunciation of the recent Judgement of the International Court of Justice at The Hague which maintains and consolidates South Africa’s domination over South West Africa. Based on legal artifice, without regard to the substance of the matter, that purely formal Judgement, which could not have been handed down but for the casting vote of the President of the Court, is a veritable scandal in the eyes of all the States of the “third world”.
21. Gabon, therefore, disquieted by the situation in that Mandated Teiruory, especially after the Judgement of the International Court of Justice of 18 July 1966, has sponsored, along with other members of the Afro-Asian group, a draft resolution to be placed before the General Assembly [A/L.433 and Add. 1-3], whereby the Mandate over the former German territory of South West Africa entrusted by the League of Nations to South Africa would be withdrawn and an authority set up, composed of States Members of the United Nations, to assume the administration of the country and to propose, before the next session of the General Assembly, a date for its independence. In any event, Gabon would gladly welcome any suggestion making the accession of South West Africa to national sovereignty a more practical possibility.
22. As far as Rhodesia is concerned, my Government last year denounced the manoeuvres of the white majority and warned the United Kingdom, the administering Power, against the action of the settlers leading to their proclaiming independence for their benefit alone. We are forced to admit, first, that the minority in question has achieved its end, thus depriving the indigenous majority of its legitimate right to govern itself, and second, that the system of economic sanctions, which we were assured would rapidly bring the Smith Government to its knees, has failed.
23. It is now a proven fact that the United Kingdom, whatever its goodwill, will not succeed in making its rebellious colonists listen to reason, if it persists in regarding itself as the only party concerned with this rebellion and, consequently, in not resorting to the United Nations. The recent failure of the Anglo-Rhodesian prenegotiations and the uneasiness that it provoked in the Commonwealth, can only strengthen us in our conviction. Only resort to the United Nations and concerted action by all the Powers, within the framework of our Organization, can bring down the Salisbury regime, through the strengthening and broadening of sanctions. That is what my Government wishes, along with an increase in aid to Zambia, whose economy would be likely to be as hard hit as that of Rhodesia if it were finally decided to take really effective measures.
24. While some countries are determined to go against the current of history, the rights of man to liberty and equality will be flouted, the fundamental principles of the Charter that we have granted ourselves will remain, for part of humanity, pious hopes. Reasons for confrontation and violence will persist and peace will be threatened. For it is not only in black Africa that peace is in jeopardy; other causes of tension exist elsewhere and I should like to bring out, in this second point, the case of those countries that are suffering the consequences either of a past war or of a present conflict.
25. I am thinking particular^ of Berlin, where an entire people is divided and families are separated. Today, as in the past, I must reaffirm that my country remains wedded to the right of people to self-determination. The Berlin problem and the problem of Germany in general cannot be settled by means of an imposed solution. Only a free consultation of the entire German people will make it possible to find the basis for an agreement that can put an end to the division, reunify the country and reconcile the two sections of the population. We are convinced that negotiation is the only valid means of settling conflicts. Here, too, as in the Israeli-Arab conflict, the problem of the Palestine refugees, the United Nations must put forth all its efforts in order to start among the parties concerned the dialogue from which general pacification and reconciliation will emerge.
26. If the United Nations, in which we place all our hopes, must do its utmost to abolish the consequences of past wars, it must surely all the more - and this is the purpose of our Organization-do everything in its power to bring the current conflicts to an end and make future wars impossible. I have in mind the distressing conflict that continues to rend Viet-Nam, a brother nation, which in reality has been in a state of war for a whole generation.
27. The Republic of Gabon, a member of the great family of nations, has chosen dialogue, arbitration and conciliation as the ways and means of settling disputes and conflicts. Deeply attached to those principles of international morality, Gabon cannot understand how countries, whether or not they have subscribed to the same commitments, can display intolerance, refuse peaceful coexistence and choose force to impose their will. We reject and emphatically condemn violence. We do not believe in the ineluctability of wars, nor in their inevitability and we solemnly adjure the Powers concerned to have recourse, again and always, unremittingly, to negotiation, which alone can put a final stop, without humiliation for one side or the other, to that interminable conflict, the extension of which is endangering world peace. It is high time that negotiations were undertaken on the basis of the 1954 and 1962 Geneva Agreements, which the parties concerned accepted at the time.
28. Several countries, arguing particularly from the necessity of ending the conflict in Viet-Nam, have this time again raised the problem of the admission of Peking China to the United Nations, While considering this problem to be one of major importance, we are obliged to note that the party principally concerned does not seem to set great store by the efforts made on its behalf by either side, since it bus never submitted its application for membership. Admittedly, the leaders of that country have not disowned the action taken in their favour; but the conditions demanded of the Organization are such that their warmest supporters have every reason for scepticism as to the sincere desire of that great nation to come into the United Nations, Moreover, certain recent experiences are scarcely encouraging for Africans who might, for various reasons, want the People’s Republic of China to be admitted to the Organization. In the circumstances, the Government of Gabon will continue to give its support to the Republic of China, a founding Member of the Organization.
29. Further, it would not be sufficient merely to quell open conflicts, unless appropriate measures were taken to exorcize, once for all, the spectre of war threatening mankind. The Republic of Gabon, in signing the Moscow Treaty on the prohibition of nuclear weapons tests, wished to show that it unequivocally condemns the use and testing of those frightful weapons, which can lead only to the destruction of the human race. Our condemnation extends equally to the manufacture of all weapons of mass destruction, whether they are called “conventional” or not.
30. Gabon was one of the first countries to sign that agreement. In so doing and in being at the same time a co-sponsor of the resolution on the denuclearization of Africa [resolution 2033 (XX)], my country wished to show how devoted to peace are its peoples and how forcefully they are calling for and encouraging all initiatives likely to lead to peace. In a world in which two-thirds of humanity are suffering from hunger and from disease which the present resources of medicine could eliminate if material means to put those resources to use were available, it is sad and discouraging to see the prosperous nations devoting a large part of their power to the manufacture of armaments. Would not those resources, that labour, that intelligence, be put to better use in feeding the hungry, in caring for the suffering, in finding work for the unemployed and drifting young people of all countries?
31. Not only do we see that nothing of the kind is being done, but on the contrary, that the gulf separating the developed from the under-developed countries grows ever wider. That is a point which, in the present situation, is related to a crucial problem in countries like Gabon, which have secured their independence and legal sovereignty, but which see that independence - and that sovereignty to be merely a derisory illusion unless accompanied, on the economic plane, by means enabling their peoples to have a better life and to live as well as others. The world food situation has never been so critical and the developing countries will, in the near future, not have enough to eat unless they import vast quantities from the developed countries; but the stocks of the developed countries are almost exhausted and even a draconian production plan could not resolve the crisis, for the developing countries do not have sufficient financial means to import vast quantities of food.
32. It is therefore imperative that the developing countries should be enabled to increase their production. The “third world” as a whole is eagerly following the efforts made by the Food and Agriculture Organization to achieve the acceptance of a massive programme of agricultural development, the only practical method of solving the problem of hunger in the world.
33. In regard to the imbalance between the wealthy and the underprivileged countries, eloquent figures have already been cited from this rostrum by previous speakers and we cannot but support their indictment of the policy of the wealthy countries. Our Organization, which must be congratulated on having given these problems the importance they deserve by inaugurating, in 1961, the United Nations Development Decade, envisaged for the developing countries an average-annual growth rate of 5 per cent; but the average growth rate of these countries has been 4 per cent.
34. The financial aid granted by the well-endowed to the poorly-endowed countries, often, alas, lacking the bare necessities, falls far short, except in the case of France, of the target regarded as ideal; namely 1 per cent of the gross national product of the rich countries. To cite, again, only a few simple figures, the financial aid granted in 1965 to the developing countries was only 0.69 per cent of the gross national product of the developed countries, compared with 0.83 per cent in 1961. That financial aid is therefore still insufficient and is not increasing proportionately with the income of the rich countries. Rather does It seem to be decreasing and the less favoured countries, like my own, cannot but note such defaulting with considerable bitterness and anxiety.
35. Nevertheless, it is not really a question of some soliciting aid while others provide it, whether on the international, the multilateral or the bilateral levels. My country, Gabon, putting into practice the old adage that “God helps those who help themselves”, is seeking to equip and develop itself as far as possible through its own resources. The considerable efforts Gabon is making in this direction need to be supported and increased, financially and technically, particularly in regard to the establishment of the indispensable infrastructure — roads, railways, ports — by means of foreign capital, which is in practice associated with the exploitation of our natural resources, the chief of which are our forest and mineral reserves. This being so, Gabon finds itself in the unstable and perilous position of countries with primary economies obliged to negotiate the sale of their primary commodities and raw materials on the world market.
36. Our Organization rightly tackled this great problem by establishing the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development. We earnestly hope that Conference will succeed in devising concrete solutions that can be quickly put into effect and can lead to an improvement in the world markets for our major export products, on the basis of the principle of equity and stability.
37. We shall not be able to get a fair return for the work of our peoples and the exploitation of our resources, we shall not reach a decent standard of living, if our primary commodities and raw materials are exported-when they can be exported — at invariably falling prices, while the manufactured products we are obliged to import are constantly increasing in price.
38. In this connexion we have noted with satisfaction the establishment of the United Nations Industrial Development Organization [resolution 2089 (XX)]. It is obvious that a nation like mine cannot break the heavy yoke of under-development unless it can obtain consumer goods and finished products on terms commensurate with the average per capita income and unless it can establish within its borders, or in a neighbouring area with which it has connexions, industrial plants capable of converting its raw materials into manufactured goods. We have taken a step forward in that direction through the establishment of regional co-operation with four neighbouring sister-countries which will henceforth make up, with Gabon, the Central African Customs and Economic Union.
39. Concrete achievements, both in bringing tariffs and investment laws into line, and in connexion with industries which have been made viable thanks to an enlarged market, are evidence of the initiative the young African nations are showing. But we are too dependent on the general economic policies and conditions imposed on us by the present structures of world trade for such an initiative to suffice.
40. So I shall conclude my statement with a renewed appeal, urging the world’s leading economic countries, meeting here with us, to try to promote equality, justice and peace, in conformity with the Charter which is our governing instrument.
41. Men cannot be regarded as freely enjoying self-determination, or as having truly equal rights, or, finally, as enjoying that peace to which they ardently aspire, so long as some are subjected to poverty and what is now called under-development. Only a consistent effort of solidarity and fraternity on the part of those whom fate has endowed and some time overwhelmed with riches can diminish and, in the long run, put an end to this disparity in living conditions. Once again I proclaim my unshakable confidence in the United Nations as the standard-bearer in this crusade for freedom.