105. Mr. President, first may I congratulate you on your election to the responsible post of President of the twenty-first session of the United Nations General Assembly, wish you every success in guiding the work of this session and confirm our favourable attitude to the suggestion that the Secretary-General U Thant, continue his efforts as Secretary-General tor another term.
106. The present session of the Assembly has before it numerous questions of vital importance for the fate of the world and affecting the interests of every people on the globe. Relying on the initiative and experience of the peace-loving countries, the General Assembly can and ought to find the right solution to these problems in conformity with the purposes of the United Nations Charter, to work out effective measures for the maintenance and strengthening of peace and cooperation among peoples and to develop and strengthen those good principles laid down in a series of resolutions adopted on previous occasions.
107. At its last session the General Assembly took a number of positive decisions, which had the support and approval of peace-loving peoples. The Declaration on the Inadmissibility of Intervention in the Domestic Affairs of States and tin* Protection of Their Independence and Sovereignty [resolution 2131 (XX)] was proclaimed. The Eighteen-nation committee on Disarmament was charged with the preparation of a trinity closing all loopholes which might lead to the dissemination of nuclear weapons. Also of great significance was the General Assembly resolution containing an appeal to the colonial Powers to dismantle the military bases installed in colonial Territories and to refrain from establishing new ones [resolution 2105 (XX)]. The implementation of these resolutions would unquestionably contribute to the strengthening of peace.
108. Unfortunately, this has not happened. On the contrary, the world is to-day witnessing a further exacerbation in international affairs, brought about by the expansion of United States aggression in Viet-Nam and United States aggressive actions against the peoples of Laos and Cambodia. The United States is continuing its provocations against Cuba. The imperialists and colonialists, using both old and new methods, are carrying out a policy of ruthless oppression against national liberation movements, democratic freedoms and the sovereignty of the peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America. Dangerous to the cause of peace are the growing revanchist aspirations of the West German militarists, who enjoy the support of ruling circles in the United States of America.
109. Less than a year ago the United Nations Declaration on the Inadmissibility of Intervention in the Domestic Affairs of States and the Protection of Their Independence and Sovereignty was adopted unanimously. But the resounding applause with which that Declaration was greeted in the General Assembly Hall was drowned by the explosions of American bombs and the salvos of American artillery sowing death and destroying the fruits of the peaceful labour of the freedom-loving Viet-Namese people. The American militarists have ignored the solemn obligations contained in the Declaration, obligations accepted in the name of their country by its representative in the United Nations.
110. Does this not indicate that certain States Members of the United Nations, while paying lip service to the will of the majority, are in fact continuing crudely to violate the United Nations Charter and pursue a policy fraught with serious danger to the cause of peace? How worthless, for example, are the hypocritical statements, spread about by United States politicians, concerning "peaceful ways" of settling the "Viet-Namese problem" which they themselves have created. "Peace talks" can hardly be reconciled with the American bombing of the Democratic Republic- of Viet-Nam, the constant expansion by the United States of its armed forces in South Viet-Nam and the extension of its military and punitive operations. Consider once again, gentlemen, the scale of the aggressive war waged by the United Stales of America against the Viet-Namese people. At present there is one American interventionist in South Viet-Nam to roughly every forty local inhabitants, including old people, women and infants. No sooner had the United States representative finished his statement at this session of the (General Assembly (1112th meeting), a statement which included a so-called new "peace initiative" than the United States increased the number of its troops in Viet-Nam by 7,000. The tonnage of American bombs dropped in Viet Nam in 1966 will, according to a report in the United States journal Foreign Affairs of October 1966, exceed the total tonnage dropped by American aircraft throughout the entire Pacific campaign in the Second World War. Even so, the United States Government does not conceal its intention of further greatly increasing the number of its troops in Viet-Nam and continuing the escalation of the war.
111. The Government of the United States of America is flagrantly trampling on the Geneva Agreements on Indochina. Moreover, using every level of political and economic pressure, it has involved in its criminal adventure the South Korean puppets, Australia, New Zealand and the Philippines, which have already sent troops to South Viet-Nam, as well as certain other Asian countries which are continuing to use the American military bases located on their territories for the intensification of aggression in South East Asia.
112. Having found themselves powerless to bring the freedom-loving Viet-Namese people to their knees, the American interventionists have set themselves the aim of paralyzing life in the Democratic Republic of Viet-Nam and in those regions controlled by the South Viet-Namese patriots in South Viet-Nam. They are systematically destroying industry, irrigation and reservoirs, crops, hospitals and dwellings, nor do they stop at the killing of innocent and peaceful inhabitants. In doing this they are using such barbarous means of destruction as napalm and poison gases, the use of which was condemned and prohibited by the Geneva Agreement of 1925.
113. If the United States of America really wanted to stop the war in Viet-Nam it would have to accept the proposals of the Government of the Democratic Republic of Viet-Nam and the National Liberation Front of South Viet-Nam, since those proposals for settling the Viet-Namese problem are fully in accord with the Geneva Agreements. Rut the United States of America is not taking this path. It wants to confirm for itself the perfidious right of the aggressor to dictate the conditions of settlement. The statement by the United States representative, Mr. Goldberg, of this session of the General Assembly is particular proof of this. His proposal amounts to this: that the United States is allegedly prepared to stop bombing the Democratic Republic of Viet-Nam, but on condition that the patriotic forces of South Viet-Nam capitulate to the aggressor. Mr. Goldberg went on to announce that the United States was prepared to withdraw American troops from South Viet-Nam in proportion as the troops of other countries were withdrawn. But the whole world knows that in South Viet-Nam, in addition to the United States troops, there are units belonging to their collaborators in aggression and that withdrawal of those troops from South Viet-Nam depends entirely upon the United Stales.
114. We note with satisfaction that many representatives, reflecting the will of their peoples, are taking up the position of censuring the United States aggression in Viet-Nam and are calling for its speedy cessation.
115. We note with regret, however, that some who have spoken in the general debate have not been consistent in their evaluation of the events in Viet-Nam. The representative of Thailand shewed himself in an invidious light when he tried to defend the American aggressors, whitewash the hostile actions of his own country in the Indonesian Peninsula and justify the utilization of his country's territory by the United States for aggression in Viet-Nam.
116. The Government and people of the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic add their voice to tile demands of all peoples in the world for the immediate and unconditional cessation of the bombing of the Democratic Republic of Viet-Nam by the United States Air Force and for the withdrawal of all troops of the United States and its allies from South Viet-Nam, so that the necessary conditions can be created for the Viet-Namese people to be able to settle its own internal affairs as it sees fit.
117. The complex international situation brought about by the constant interference of imperialist Powers in the affairs of other peoples calls for the adoption of measures which would bar the way to anyone who does not want to abide by international law, the provisions of the United Nations Charter and the positive resolutions of the General Assembly.
118. In our view the proposals of the Soviet Union, contained in the draft resolution on the status of the implementation of the Declaration on the Inadmissibility of Intervention in the Domestic Affairs of States and the Protection of Their Independence and Sovereignty [A/6397] fully answers this purpose. The General Assembly must warn those States which, in violation of the United Nations Charter and the aforementioned Declaration, are carrying out armed interference in the domestic affairs of other States and peoples that they are thereby assuming responsibility before all peoples for the consequences which may result from their action, including consequences for those States themselves.
119. Also important and urgent is the Soviet Union's proposals for renunciation by States of actions hampering the conclusion of an agreement on the nonproliferation of nuclear weapons (A/6398). The Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic is a co-sponsor of this proposal. Despite the resolution adopted at the last session of the United Nations General Assembly [resolution 2028 (XX)], the Committee on Disarmament has been unable to prepare and draft an agreement on the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons. This is due primarily to the attempts of United States leaders to include in an agreement on the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons provisions which would in fact leave loopholes for the West German revanchists to have access to nuclear armament. This is sometimes admitted in the United States itself. Indicative in this respect was the speech made by Senator Joseph Clark, who on 15 July 1966 said he was sure that, if the State Department were to permit the American representatives in Geneva to accept the Russian condition that the West Germans should not have access to nuclear armament, there would be a real possibility of signing a treaty on the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons.
120. The importunings of Bonn for nuclear weapons are directly connected with its territorial pretensions. The Federal Republic of Germany is increasingly becoming a focus of war danger, for it is the only State in Europe which openly calls for revision of the results of the Second World War and proclaims its pretensions to the territories of other States. The spirit of revanchism permeates the whole foreign and domestic policy of the Federal Republic of Germany.
121. In the ten years following the entry of the Federal Republic of German into NATO, between 1955 and 1965, the West German Government spent more than DM 150,000 million on the creation and perfecting of its military machine and increased the numerical strength of the Bundeswehr tenfold. The budget of the Federal Republic of Germany for the current year makes provision for military expenditure almost five times in excess of the Bonn Government's allocations for social security and health. The equipment of that State's armed forces with rockets and aircraft capable of delivering atomic bombs is in full swing. The Bundeswehr, according to a statement by its former Inspector-General, Trettner, has now attained the striking force of Hitler's Wehrmacht.
122. In the Federal Republic of Germany hundreds of leagues, organizations and societies of openly Nazi, militaristic and revanchist stamp are busily at work. They enjoy the demonstrated support, in the political, moral and material sense, of Government organs and highly placed personalities in the Federal Republic of Germany. The poison of militaristic and revanchist ideas in the Federal Republic of Germany permeates school curricula, literature, the Press, the cinema and television. The officers and generals are nurturing the Bundeswehr troops on the diseased ideas of revanchism.
123. All these facts cause well-founded anxiety among the European peoples, who well understand how dangerous are the aspirations and revanchist pretensions of the West German militarists. Twice in the lifetime of one generation has German aggression been unleashed upon many countries of Europe, causing them monstrous destruction and irreplaceable human losses. Our people can never forget that, upon the territory of Byelorussia, the fascist invaders during the last war massacred more than 2.200,000 people and that 380,000 sons and daughters of the Byelorussian people were herded into concentration camps in fascist Germany. In the three years of their occupation the fascists pillaged and destroyed over half the national wealth of the Republic.
124. The Byelorussian people, along with other peace-loving peoples, warmly supports the broad programme for the solution of European problems — a programme corresponding to the interests of all peoples — formulated by the countries signatory to the Warsaw Treaty and set out in the Declaration on the Strengthening of Peace and Security in Europe, adopted at their Bucharest Conference this year. It is essential to do everything possible for the implementation of the measures set forth in that Declaration.
125. Knowing as we do the wolf-like habits of German militarism, we firmly call for an end to the creeping aggressive designs of the Bonn revanchists, and demand that all ways to their acquisition of nuclear weapons be barred. In order to achieve this we must urgently adopt the draft resolution on the "Renunciation by States of actions hampering the conclusion of an agreement on the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons" and do everything necessary' for the rapid conclusion of an agreement on the non-proliferation of such weapons.
126. One of the sources of international tension lies in foreign military bases, those strongpoints for the aggressive probings of imperialist States. They are used to put down national liberation movements, for direct or indirect interference in the affairs of other States and for the maintenance of colonialism. Not only are these bases a constant threat to neighbouring countries, but even now some of them are being used for aggressive purposes.
127. Nor can the States on whose territory' foreign military bases are situated feel themselves secure, for the peoples of those countries may well be drawn into military conflict on the decision of a foreign Government.
128. The abolition of foreign bases on the territories of other countries would not only bring to the people of those countries security for their future, but would also guarantee that no accidentally lost American hydrogen bomb would fall upon their territory. Further, the populations of those countries would have at their disposal the vast tracts of fertile land now occupied by military bases, launching pads and other military facilities.
129. The abolition of military bases would be of immense importance also for those countries which own them. It would release considerable sums, which could be used for the welfare of their own peoples and for giving aid to developing countries.
130. In view of what I have said, the delegation of the Byelorussian SSR supports and calls upon all other States to support the proposal of the USSR on the elimination of foreign military bases in the countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America [A/6399]. The first, important step towards the solution of the problem of the complete abolition of all foreign military bases on foreign territories would thus be taken and this in turn would unquestionably constitute an important landmark on the road towards general and complete disarmament.
131. The General Assembly must also pay attention to the question of the prohibition of underground nuclear tests. This problem should be solved on the basis of utilizing national means of detecting such explosions.
132. At the present session of the General Assembly the nuclear Powers should be called upon to accept the obligation not to be the first to use nuclear weapons. This would create an important prerequisite for the adoption of a convention on the prohibition of the use of nuclear weapons.
133. Of great importance are the proposals of the socialist countries regarding the creation of nuclear-free zones in various parts of the world; the initiative of the German Democratic Republic on the repudiation of nuclear weapons by both German States and the refusal to have them on their territories; the proposal of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic regarding strict compliance with the prohibition of the use or threat of force in international relations and the right of peoples to self-determination [A/6303 and Corr.1], the proposal of the Ukrainian SSR regarding the prohibition of flights by aircraft carrying nuclear weapons beyond their own frontiers (1436th meeting) and other proposals on these matters.
134. If these partial measures in the field of disarmament were taken, if the question of calling a world conference on disarmament at a specified time were no longer shelved, then the peoples of the world would be convinced that the United Nations was going over from words to deeds and genuinely showing concern for the peace and security of peoples.
135. This is the sixth year since the General Assembly adopted the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples. In that time our Organization has substantially increased its membership through the admission of countries that have obtained their independence. We are happy to greet a new Member of the United Nations this year: Guyana.
136. In the course of these years the United Nations had adopted a good many new resolutions, in which colonialism, the apartheid policy and all forms of racial discrimination have been declared a threat to international peace and security and a crime against humanity; the legality of the struggle waged by a people under colonial domination has been recognized, together with the right to extend material and moral help to national liberation movements in colonial Territories; the colonialists have been called upon to dismantle military bases in their colonies and to refrain from establishing new ones; they have been forbidden to extend help to the colonialists of Portugal and South Africa.
137. Despite all this, however, colonialist and racist regimes are being maintained in various parts of the world. The peoples of Angola, Mozambique and so-called Portuguese Guinea, South West Africa, Aden, Oman and other Territories are still under colonial domination. Their national liberation movements are being cruelly suppressed. The racists of South Africa and Southern Rhodesia, enjoying the support of the colonialists, are quite at ease. The Western Powers and even the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development — one of the specialized agencies of the United Nations — continue to provide assistance to Portugal and the Republic of South Africa, In United Nations bodies the colonial Powers hypocritically expatiate upon their alleged preparation of the peoples in the colonial Territories for independence, while at the same time the western monopolies intensify their pillaging and exploitation of the dependent peoples and plant their own puppets at various points in the local administration.
138. We consider that the General Assembly should use upon the colonialists all forms and methods of persuasion at its disposal, strictly censure them for their failure to carry out United Nations decisions and require them immediately to implement the recommendations expressing the will of the majority of United Nations Members.
139. In this connexion special attention should be paid to setting specific dates for the abolition of colonial domination in each particular Territory, so that 1867 may be the year of the total and final end of colonialism.
140. It has also become necessary that the General Assembly should propose to the Security Council that it take under its control the implementation of United Nations decisions on these matters. The Security Council must apply to colonial Powers and regimes which fail to implement United Nations decisions on colonial matters all the measures provided for in Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter.
141. The importance of the economic and social questions under consideration by the United Nations and its organs increases with every year. In our opinion, however, not all these questions are solved in the interests of developing economic, trading, scientific and technological co-operation among States. The greatest shortcoming is that positive decisions — for example, decisions concerning the principles of international trade — are not put into effect. Such important matters as the inalienable sovereignty of States over their natural resources, land reform, the conversion of the Special Fund into a capital development fund and the solution of many other problems connected with co-operation in the development of the national economies of Asian, African and Latin American countries — these questions are left to stagnate and are shifted from one organ to another.
142. Certain questions are considered, and sometimes even settled, without due allowance for all aspects of the problem. We may take as an example the transformation undergone by the assistance programmes. The Expanded Programme of Technical Assistance was originally established as a means whereby, on the basis of voluntary contributions, technical assistance could be provided to developing countries.
143. The Byelorussian SSR has participated in this Programme every year and has twice increased the amount of its voluntary contribution. But at the same time the regular budget of the United Nations, under the so-called regular programme of technical assistance, has rapidly increased. The lion’s share of this expenditure, however, has gone not to assistance, but to the maintenance of a bureaucratic machinery and, in part, to activity incompatible with respect for the sovereign rights of developing countries.
144. In 1951 the idea of creating a capital development fund, known at the time by the name SUNFED, was advanced by the developing countries. The purpose of the fund would be to provide assistance for industrial and other economically important projects in the developing countries. We supported this proposal of the developing countries, but a few years later the Western Powers, as a result of the inconsistent position adopted by a number of the developing countries, substituted a spurious version of this idea and the United Nations Special Fund was created — although, admittedly, with the stipulation, in a United Nations resolution, that the Special Fund was to be converted into SUNFED.
145. On the assumption that the Special Fund would be converted into SUNFED and would deal with investment activity, we contributed to it and then increased our annual contributions to it. But what in fact has happened? The Special Fund has not turned into SUNFED, but has been merged with the Expanded Programme of Technical Assistance under the United Nations Development Programme. Since the merger, as before, all activity has been mainly concentrated on pre-investment, on compiling surveys and carrying out studies and on establishing a so-called infrastructure.
146. The delegation of the Byelorussian SSR considers that the General Assembly should, as provided under many resolutions of the United Nations and the Conference on Trade and Development, take a decision to start investment activity within the framework of the Development Programme — especially as unused and free resources are available.
147. We do not want to say there is no need for studies or surveys; but this work must be really subordinated to concrete plans for the development of national economies in the interests of the developing countries themselves, and not left as a means of providing a sort of guide to private foreign capital in its search for profitable spheres and ways of investing its funds. We are also in favour of infrastructure; but only the kind of infrastructure that is geared to the national industry and other national purposes, not the kind of infrastructure that would roll out the carpet for foreign interests and caprices.
148. The rightness of our approach to these questions has been put to the practical test. Despite the immense sacrifices and destruction suffered by our Republic at the hands of the Hitlerite invaders, who pushed our economy back to the impoverished pre-revolutionary level, the Byelorussian people, relying on the cooperation of its sister peoples in the Soviet Union and developing economic ties with the countries of the socialist community, has not only restored its national economy, but has also increased the volume of its industrial production more than thirty-fold in the twenty years since the war. During the past seven years alone the volume of industrial production in the Byelorussian SSR has increased by a factor of 2.1 and the mean annual growth rate is 11.4 per cent. We plan to increase the volume of industrial production by a factor of 1.7 during the current five-year period and to achieve a balanced development of all branches of our national economy.
149. We see that many representatives of developing countries have started their acquaintance with our Republic in their own countries, where they see tractors called "Byelorusso", lorries produced by Byelorussian industry on their roads and in their fields, Byelorussian lathes in their factories. Sometimes they ask how we have managed to make such progress in the economic and social fields in such a remarkably short time. The answer is simple: our success is above all due to the advantages of the socialist system, to the inspired and dedicated labour of our workers and peasants and to fraternal cooperation among the peoples of the great socialist family.
150. We did not wait for favours from foreign capital and monopolies, which, under the guise of "assistance" are pumping vast wealth out of the developing countries. According to United Nations data, the developing countries are losing more than $20,000 million annually as a result of plunder and exploitation by these foreign monopolies. Our delegation considers that it is the duty of the United Nations to protect the developing countries from such plundering and to formulate measures for improving the terms of international trade and developing national economies in the interests of raising the people's standards of living. It is essential to help the countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America to free themselves from the bondage of unequal agreements and to eliminate the opportunities for these countries to be plundered by foreign monopolies under the guise of assistance.
151. In this connexion, in our opinion, the United Nations Secretariat should be instructed to prepare a comprehensive report which would show up the methods and disclose the sums which have been used and are still being used by western countries to pump out the wealth from the developing countries, through distorted prices in international trade, super-profits reaped from capital invested, usurious interest rates on loans and credits, high freight and insurance rates and other means. A study should be made also of the brain drain from developing countries into the developed capitalist countries.
152. Such information would confirm the picture we already have of the serious economic position prevailing in the developing countries. It would help the United Nations to find the proper and just solution to the problem of repaying developing countries for the damage and losses inflicted upon them by the colonialists and to work out measures which would favourably alter the trend of economic interrelationships in the world.
153. Our country, together with the other socialist countries, has helped, is helping and will continue to help the developing countries. We do this out of goodwill, guided by the principles of internationalism, equality and mutually profitable co-operation. We bear no responsibility whatsoever for the economic backwardness of the countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America, but we are helping them to solve the problems of economic development with our experience and resources —resources created by the labour of our people and not obtained as the result of plundering and exploiting other peoples.
154. The Byelorussian SSR is consistently in favour of implementing the principle of universality of the United Nations. It therefore supports the Declaration of the German Democratic Republic concerning its application for membership in the United Nations (A/6283 and A/6443). Our Organization would only stand to gain by admitting to its ranks the first workers' and peasants' State in the history of Germany, a State which is conducting a peace-loving policy and is adhering strictly to the principles of the United Nations Charter in its international relations.
155. It is high time to expel from the United Nations and all its organs the Chiang Kai-shek clique, which does not represent the Chinese people, and to restore the lawful rights of the People's Republic of China.
156. It would be of great importance for the strengthening of peace and for the prestige of the United Nations if the proposal, of which Byelorussia is a cosponsor, on the withdrawal of the United States and all foreign troops occupying South Korea under the United Nations flag and the dissolution of the United Nations Commission on the Unification and Rehabilitation of Korea [A/6394] were adopted.
157. The Byelorussian people, like the peoples of the other socialist countries, are profoundly interested in enhancing the role of the United Nations in the struggle for world peace and security. Our delegation will make every effort to see that the twenty-first session of the United Nations General Assembly will contribute, by its decisions, to the relaxation of international tension and the strengthening of cooperation among the peoples of all countries and continents.