126. I have already had the opportunity to express to Mr. Pazhwak the Jamaican delegation's sincere congratulations on his election to the office of President of this Assembly, We know of no one whose dedication to the good of the United Nations is greater than his, and we are confident that under his guidance the activities of this session of the Assembly will prove to be fruitful for the welfare and peace of mankind.
127. I would also request the delegation of Italy to convey my delegation's thanks and appreciation to its distinguished Foreign Minister, Mr. Fanfani, whose able direction of the business of the twentieth session earned the respect and admiration of all delegations.
128. The Jamaican delegation has noted with satisfaction the emergence to independence of Botswana and Lesotho, formerly the British Protected Territories of Bechuanaland and Basutoland. We are pleased that they have taken their places among us as sovereign and equal Member States of the United Nations. My delegation is also particularly pleased to welcome Indonesia, one of the great countries of Asia, which has resumed its participation in the work of the United Nations. We entertain high hopes of the special contribution which, by reason of its wealth, its geographical location, its large population and the genius of its vigorous people, Indonesia can make to the general effort towards international co-operation through the United Nations.
129. Jamaica looks forward also to the coming independence of Barbados, and my Government is pleased that the date for that independence has been set. The people of Barbados are lovers of freedom and independent in outlook and have a deep dedication to the highest principles of parliamentary democracy. There will be a gain to the United Nations from the participation of that nation in our future activities.
130. As for the other territories of the former West Indian Federation, my Government understands that arrangements suited to each territory's circumstances are being worked out which will enable all the islands, if they wish to continue in a form of association with the United Kingdom. Our information is that the arrangements are acceptable to the political leaders in those territories, who, let us remember, are all leaders elected in the free exercise of a popular franchise and enjoy the full confidence of their own people.
131. At the other end of the Caribbean Sea is the territory of British Honduras, which is soon to enter the community of independent nations. Many of its people are linked with the people of my country by ties of kinship. My Government is concerned that the citizens of that territory should not be denied any of the means of self-determination winch are internationally recognized as their inalienable right since resolution 1514 (XV) was adopted by the Assembly. It is essential, in our view, that no arrangements should be Imposed upon them which are dictated by interests other than their own; and we welcome the firm assurance the United Kingdom has given us that no settlement of their future will be reached which is not in accordance with the wishes of the people of British Honduras.
132. Our Caribbean region is an area of growing importance in the political, strategic and economic affairs of the Western Hemisphere, and the former British territories will have a powerful influence on the direction which the political' evolution of this region eventually takes. Our non-racial societies and our belief in the superiority of the democratic way of life are elements of genuine stability in a world in which stability is at a premium.
133. In order to play the part we can in the political evolution of the region, however, we must find real solutions to our internal economic problems which, though not very grave when compared with those of many other countries, are nevertheless real. Jamaica welcomes the interest which the economic organs of the United Nations have now begun to show in the needs of the Caribbean region. These organs and agencies of the United Nations must now do for our region what they have done successfully for other parts of the world and must enlarge and intensify those programmes which are aimed at improving the general level of social and economic development in the Caribbean area.
134. Uppermost in our minds at present is the urgent problem which has been presented to the Security Council and to us by the Secretary-General's intimation that he is unwilling to be available for a second term of office. Soon after his decision was announced, our Prime Minister, speaking in the name of our Government, personally urged the Secretary-General, in the interest of world peace and of the future strength of the United Nations, to reconsider this decision. My Government continues to associate itself with the warm expressions of confidence which, formally and informally, have reached the Secretary-General in recent weeks and with the insistent though delicate pressure being exerted upon him from all sides to consider serving for a further period.
135. At the same time, we cannot close our eyes to the fact that the considerations which have influenced U Thant's decision were not entirely personal. He has made it clear that his view of his functions is different from that of a section of the membership, and that he had experienced increasing restrictions on the legitimate prerogatives of his office. He was careful to stress, it is true, that we ought not to assume that if certain conditions were met he would be able to change his decision. One thing however is obvious: the Secretary-General can scarcely be expected to permit our entreaties and expressions of confidence to persuade him to serve on, if they are not accompanied by assurances in regard to the future functioning of Ms office. There are no small or middle-sized States which would wish to restrict the Secretary-General in his diplomatic and political initiatives. None of us among the small States would wish to place restrictions on the legitimate exercise of the functions of his office. I refer to this matter, therefore, with the object of exhorting my colleagues, the representatives of small and medium-sized Powers, to recognize the responsibility which rests upon us to see to it that the restrictions of which he has complained are removed.
136. If U Thant is not persuaded to continue in office, there is a very grave risk that his successor will have to take these restrictions as part of the normal conditions in which the functions of his office must be discharged in the future. I need not add that those who would lose most by any such development would be the small and medium-sized Member States. If we act concertedly, we have the means to ensure that the Secretary-General is indeed left free to take whatever initiatives the Charter permits or authorizes him to take, and that there is no interference with his administrative or executive responsibilities. I am confident that we shall be sufficiently alive to our own interest to give positive support to the Secretary-General in his determination to maintain the Independence of his office.
137. In the sphere of international political relations and the maintenance of peace there are two questions on which my Government considers It desirable at this time to state or re-state its position. I shall refer later on to one of these subjects: the grave situation in Viet-Nam. The other question, a domestic matter, is fraught with even more fateful consequences for the peace of the world and the future existence of our Organization. I refer, of course, to the present disagreement about the respective powers of the Security Council and the General Assembly in the maintenance of international peace and security. This disagreement is still not resolved and it is important, in my Government's opinion, for the Assembly to recognize that the current impasse is in fact a situation of crisis. As the impasse continues without being resolved, it is alarming to note how dramatically our general expectations about peace-keeping have diminished between the seventeenth session, when the Assembly, by its resolution 1854 (XVII), accepted the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice on certain expenses of the United Nations, and the present time. The whole United Nations is being rapidly enfeabled, and it is already being taken for granted in some quarters that the Assembly will not dare to order another peace-keeping operation either now or in the future.
138. We keep on saying to each other that the impasse concerns not really a financial but a political disagreement. Unfortunately, this is not the whole truth. It is both financial and political; which means of course that it is all the more serious. A determined effort is immediately required on the part of all Member States to revive the strength of our Organization and infuse new life into its peacekeeping functions; and the evidence suggests that only concerted action by the small and the middle-sized States offers airy hope of setting this effort in motion.
139. Earlier in this debate, as we pondered over the financial stringencies in which the Organization now finds itself, my delegation listened with keen anticipation to the addresses of the Foreign Ministers of France and the Soviet Union. I confess that we were profoundly disappointed to discover that they had no announcement to make about voluntary contributions towards the budgetary deficit. Was this the understanding on which the consensus was reached so that the nineteenth session could resume normal business? Were the voluntary contributions to be made only by those countries which had already paid up their assessments in full? My Government hopes that all countries which have not yet contributed may find it possible to reconsider their refusal and to help the United Nations to dispose of this unfortunate deficit.
140. On the question of jurisdiction and the relative powers of the two main organs of the United Nations, the issue which goes to the root of the impasse, I believe it is useful that my Government should once more state its position. Essentially my Government's views are the following:
(a) There is no essential conflict between the powers of the Security Council and the General Assembly in regard to the maintenance of peace and security. The powers were Intended to complement each other;
(b) In Article 24 of the Charter, it is laid down that the Members of the United Nations confer on the Security Council "primary responsibility" for the maintenance of international peace and security; and "primary responsibility" ought not to Ire construed — indeed it cannot be construed — as though it had the same meaning as "exclusive responsibility";
(c) This primary responsibility was conferred on the Council for a purpose — and that purpose was specifically set out "in order to ensure prompt and effective action by the United Nations". The Council is accordingly accountable to the general membership for the promptness and effectiveness of its action in this field;
(d) This account should be rendered to the general membership through the Council's annual report to the Assembly, and the Assembly ought to consider and to debate this report;
(e) The Council has the power under Article 45 of the Charter to apportion amongst allies who participate in a military enforcement action the tasks which each should undertake and the facilities which each should provide; but this power should not be confused with the power of the Assembly to make financial assessments on the whole membership in order to defray the expenses of an operation for the maintenance of international peace. This taxing power of the Assembly is in fact exclusive. This is a summary of my Government's views on this issue.
141. As this general debate now draws to its close, the immediate question which confronts the Assembly is what should be done at this twenty-first session about this difficult problem of peace-keeping operations. It is tempting to conclude that, as events have shown, the time is not ripe to pursue this matter further; it is tempting to conclude that, left for a while, things will work themselves out and to take the attitude that the Organization has survived other crises and will weather and survive this crisis also. My Government disagrees with this line of reasoning. In our judgement it is essential that the whole subject should be kept alive and under continuing analysis and examination. We conclude with regret that the Special Committee on Peace-keeping Operations, composed as it is, is unlikely to reach agreement on any aspect of the problem. So we believe that the time has come to widen and break down the subject and to revise our machinery for the conduct of our study, giving to each of a number of smaller committees one or two aspects of the problem to examine. The subject should be broadened to cover any aspect of "the maintenance of international peace and security", and separate study should be devoted to such aspects as the arrangements envisaged under Article 43 of the Charter; planning for the use of such facilities and forces as may be held at the disposal of the United Nations; the command of United Nations forces; the relationship of the Assembly to the Council in matters of peace and security; and the financing of operations undertaken in the maintenance of international peace and security.
142. My delegation will co-operate In committee with those delegations which, like ourselves, see the claims being advanced by certain Member States as a serious threat to the system of collective security through the United Nations and to the effectiveness of the General Assembly, and which believe it is unwise to postpone for any period the further study of the problem.
143. I have dealt at some length with this Important Internal Issue affecting International peace and security. But peace cannot prevail in a world where a few wealthy countries can continue to spend every year on weapons of war almost as much as all the goods which the poorer countries together can manage to produce. Nor can we expect that the purposes of the Charter will continue to be fulfilled as its authors Intended when the trend of developments and the practical result of all the measures we can summon up the courage to adopt Is only to widen further the gap between the economically advanced and the developing countries. It is time for the highly developed countries to take practical measures in order to adapt their economic relations with the less advanced countries to accepted changes In world opinion.
144. No one disputes that the ultimate responsibility for economic and social progress In the developing countries rests with these countries themselves, but it is equally to be recognized that low income leveLs set rigorous limits to the rate of growth which developing countries can at their best achieve by their own unaided efforts. The rising expectations of their own nationals would not tolerate the rigid limitations on consumption that they would be obliged to Impose. Moreover, developing countries must give high priority to social Investment which is not productive in the short run and which can have little effect In terms of immediate expansion In the national income.
145. Low export prices for the commodities we of the developing countries have to sell set limits to our farmers' Income and limits on our workers' earnings. At low wage levels, agricultural employment grows every day less and less attractive. The drift of population to our urban areas is accelerated, creating new overcrowding and new urban unemployment with all their attendant problems. The rate at which these problems accumulate puts an Intolerable strain on our meagre capital resources. While the prices of the commodities we sell are declining, developing countries are obliged to buy capital goods, heavy equipment and machinery at prices which keep on rising. For example, the average price of a certain type of farm tractor we buy was Cl,500 in 1960; it required sixty tons of sugar at the free world market price to pay for that machine at that time. At the prices prevailing now — for both tractors and sugar, however — it would require as much as 131 tons of sugar to pay for a tractor of that same type. This is a frustrating and untenable situation for developing countries and is full of danger to stable International relations.
146. It is useful to remember that two Important principles underlying the body of recommendations by the first United Nations Conference on Trade and Development — recommendations endorsed by all States Members represented in this Assembly — were, first, that steps had to be taken to expand the export earnings of developing countries, and second, that the flow of Investment resources to these countries must be stimulated, the Investment moving on terms they can afford to pay. The most important of these two principles was the need to expand export earnings. Although the great nations which dominate world trade know the crucial significance of such earnings to developing countries, they have paid that principle little more than lip service. Two years have passed since the Conference dispersed. And what do we find? What positive steps can we point to as having been taken by these advanced countries to help sustain the purchasing power of exports from developing countries? Not a single new international commodity agreement has in fact been negotiated In the interval. We have failed up to now, for example, to work out an agreement on sugar, concerning which the problems of organizing an International agreement, if not the least Intractable, are certainly the most fully analysed and widely understood. In short, we have managed to do little towards securing a guarantee of steady market prices for sugar, for cocoa, for citrus products, for bananas — to name some commodities my country produces — or for any of the commodities on which our countries depend for the maintenance of their export income. Steps have yet to be taken to stabilize and guarantee the import purchasing power of developing countries.
147. The conditions of trade in goods other than primary products are even more difficult. The industrially advanced countries cannot claim to be helping our development effectively if at the same time they frustrate our attempts to expand production in simpler industries such as textile manufacture and food processing, by keeping their markets closed against us and by accelerating substitution with synthetics. If they wish to stimulate the long-term growth of the whole world economy, they must carry out structural changes and adopt a new orientation in their industry. They ought to be willing to shift the
emphasis in industrial expansion to capital-intensive industry, leaving to us, the developing countries, the fields where the units of capital required are smaller. It is my hope that the advanced countries will recognize their moral obligation to our people and will agree to forego a small part of the benefit which the size and strength of their economies could bring them if market forces were allowed free play.
148. They all know that we must have a continuing expansion in our export earnings; they know that this expansion cannot be assured us except at some small conscious sacrifice on their part; and it is time that they let their own people know that these are the realities of international trade and development in our decade, We expect them to come to the second Conference prepared to make effective concessions. We expect them to agree upon a global trade policy involving a lowering of tariffs on a selective basis and a removal of restrictions on imports from our countries which will allow our producers, so long as they are efficient, to compete in their markets on terms approaching equality.
149. With problems of such gravity demanding attention in the sphere of trade, it is distressing to observe that the international flow of investment funds is stagnating despite the expanding capacity of developed countries to supply such funds. What is 1 more, the terms on which investment capital is moving into the developing countries are becoming most rigid and burdensome. It is time that the capital-exporting countries were prepared to get together to contain the rise in international interest rates. It seems to my delegation that the best prospects of securing a general containment of this rise lies In expanding the supply of capital on a multilateral basis and in a willingness to explore new and imaginative means of limiting the influence of internal market movements on the price of international in-
vestment capital. It is our hope that serious attention will be given to these problems by the Economic and Social Council, by the United Nations Industrial Development Organization, by the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development and by the International Monetary Fund. I trust that the tenor of the discussion in the appropriate Committee at this twenty-first session of the Assembly will be such
as to impress upon these organizations the urgent need to find acceptable solutions.
150. This world community, with Member States proud in the achievement of almost impossible feats of scientific endeavour, is demonstrating a conspicuous lack of ability to deal with these practical, day-to-day problems of human existence. Although it professes the knowledge that the existence of our peoples depends on the rewards for their labours, there is a chronic incapability to act together in maintaining or improving their condition. I submit that the situation calls for increased concerted action on the part of countries in dealing with the problem of the economic development of the emerging nations as their collective responsibility. This collective responsibility does not end with the creation of new bodies, the holding of special meetings and conferences to define the problems, and suggestions for measures to cope with the problems. Mere talk without action is meaningless. As we prepare for the second United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, these are the things we should bear in mind, and they should condition our attitude so that the next Conference may be fruitful in yielding positive decisions for immediate implementation. It will be no great achievement if the decisions are of a type which leads merely to further negotiation.
151. It is a source of personal satisfaction to me that the Secretary-General, in the introduction to his annual report [A/6301/Add.1], could refer to the increasing interest being shown in the protection and promotion of human rights and fundamental freedoms as one of the most encouraging developments of recent times. My Government is pleased that the proclamation of 1968 as the International Year for Human Rights is serving to encourage Member States to intensify their efforts and undertakings in the field of human rights. As for the measures and activities which will be carried on in celebration of the twentieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Assembly now has before it the report [A/6354] from our Preparatory Committee for the International Conference on Human Rights which has the full support of the Commission on Human Rights and the Economic and Social Council. I am confident that each Member State will find in that report interesting ideas that may influence the form which its national celebrations will take. My Government is pleased that preparations are proceeding apace for the International Conference on Human Rights in 1968, and I renew my appeal to the Members of this Assembly to make this Conference a signal contribution to the cause of promoting respect for, and observance of, human rights. Having taken the decision that the Conference should be called, we should allow no trifling considerations to stand in the way of its success.
152. Last year in the debate on the restoration of the lawful rights of the People's Republic of China, the Jamaican delegation expressed its considered views on the question of the representation of China in the United Nations. We urge that the issue be not resolved by a margin of numbers in the hazards of a final vote taken after lengthy and acrimonious debate. Rather, we considered that a concerted effort should be made to achieve an understanding about the future of China's participation in the work of our Organization.
153. In the period since the twentieth session of the General Assembly, Jamaica has observed no effort to proceed on the course commended to the Assembly by my delegation. There has been no effort by those nations which bear the major responsibility for the present situation, those nations from which an initiative in the right direction would be most likely to meet with success. Instead, the People's Republic of China is today perhaps more isolated from the international community than it was a year ago — isolated by its own actions, it is true, but also by our inaction. So long as China's relationship with the rest of the community of nations remains unsettled, all hopes for peace and stability in Asia are unreal, and the capacity of this Organization to function in accord with its Charter is gravely impaired.
154. My delegation will be prepared during this session of the Assembly, if the circumstances are favourable, to enlarge on the ideas we expressed at the twentieth session of the Assembly. Should it be clear, however, that Members are in the main concerned only to reaffirm unyielding positions, and to vote on resolutions which fail to take into account differences that are genuinely held, then my delegation will be compelled to adhere to the position it adopted last year until more favourable developments encourage it to join in initiatives that are likely to be well received.
155. I said earlier that I would state my Government's position on the war in Viet-Nam, which carries a heavy share of the responsibility for the recent revival of international tension, and I will now do so in closing this address. This widening struggle is poisoning relations among the great Powers, damaging the prestige of the United Nations, and frustrating the efforts to enlarge the membership of our Organization further towards the goal of universality.
156. Humanitarian considerations, if no other, impel my delegation to express in this forum our deep concern with the sad plight of the people of Viet-Nam, of both North and South, who have suffered the horrors of war for over a generation, whose national assets are being daily destroyed and for whom torture and other inhumanities have become events of everyday occurrence. My Government deplores the continued fighting in Viet-Nam, and appeals to all those engaged in the present conflict to agree, in the interest of the suffering people, to negotiate their differences without pre-conditions. In the view of my Government, the solution to the problem in Viet-Nam can be sought most profitably within the context of the Geneva Agreements of 1954. My Government therefore appeals particularly to the Soviet Union as Co-Chairman of the Geneva Conference to co-operate with the United Kingdom in an Immediate initiative towards the convening of a new Geneva conference.
157. My Government accepts as genuine the United States Government's expressed desire to put an end to that conflict. I would appeal to the Government in Washington to go a few steps further and to name a date and a place at which it proposes that the conference should begin, and to name the period within which the withdrawal of its forces would be carried out if the progress of the conference proved satisfactory.
158. I would appeal to the Government in Hanoi to discard its suspicions of American intentions and, on its side also, to agree to come to the conference table. It was a great European statesman of a past generation who said:
"It is an error to suppose that the wisdom of statesmen can discover a magic recipe for the maintenance of peace; whereas peace can in fact be assured only if one or more of the interested Powers will make concessions to each other by lowering their demands or discarding their mutual suspicions."
159. The Jamaican people have a vital interest in the United Nations and are concerned to see this Organization achieve and maintain the highest level of effectiveness as an instrument of international peace. My delegation takes this opportunity to renew our resolve to co-operate with other delegations in the effort to ensure that this session of the Assembly will contribute to the easing of international conflicts and to the building of a world in which justice and prosperity will prevail.