56. Mr. President, as this is my first speech of the present session, allow me to congratulate you, on behalf of the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic, on your election to this high office.
57. Like the representatives of other countries who have already spoken, the delegation of the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic considers it necessary to express its views on the main aspects of the present-day international situation and to discuss the problems facing; the United Nations in the light of its conviction that the main objective of the United Nations is the strengthening of peace and international security.
58. Seventeen years have passed since the end of the Second World War and the signing of the United Nations Charter at San Francisco. As everyone knows the nations of the whole world put high hopes in the United Nations and expected it to take positive and effective action in the cause of peace. Unfortunately, however, the United Nations has clearly failed to fulfil such hopes. From the very first days of the practical functioning of the United Nations, it became clear that the Governments of the United States of America, the United Kingdom, France and other Western countries were ignoring the most important provisions of the Charter. Setting their voting machine in motion, they brought to nothing many highly important proposals intended to strengthen the security of nations. It is for this reason that, the United Nations has so far been unable to solve such grave problems as disarmament, the banning of atomic and thermo-nuclear weapons and various other burning questions. The peoples of all countries would like to have grounds for hoping that the present session of the General Assembly will take active steps to solve those problems, which are fraught with the danger of war.
59. The representatives of the socialist countries and also of many neutralist countries have, of course, striven and are still striving energetically at the United Nations for the adoption of real decisions designed to reduce international tension, avert war and increase the authority of the United Nations. By contrast, the aggressive NATO bloc, under the leadership of the United States of America, is trying to turn the United Nations into a dismal replica of the League of Nations. We must not tolerate such a thing. We must do everything in our power to ensure that all States, regardless of their social and political structure, may work together successfully within, the United Nations in the interests of peace and the well being of nations. We must give a decisive rebuff to those who cast doubts on the only way in which mankind can be saved from catastrophe, namely, peaceful coexistence, which is resolutely supported by the whole of progressive mankind.
60. Lord Home, the United Kingdom Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, speaking from this rostrum on 27 September 1962, said that peaceful, coexistence was "political warfare backed by force", by which it was "the communist intention to impose their system on the rest of the world" [1134th meeting].
61. It is clear that the representative of the United Kingdom is vainly trying to discredit the idea of peaceful coexistence, which has been approved by the majority of countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America. As far as the assertion about the “communist intention to impose their system on the rest of the world”, is concerned, its propagandist nature has been unmasked on various occasions by the Soviet Union and other socialist countries. Mr. N. S. Khrushchev, the Head of the Soviet Government, emphasized once more from the lofty platform of the World Congress for General Disarmament and Peace that "the policy of unleashing a world war to bring about the victory of the communist ideology is completely foreign to the Soviet Union".
62. Lord Home's statement shows that he, like the representatives of the other Western States, is only in agreement with the kind of world in which nations do not struggle against the arms race and against dependence on imperialistic monopolies, do not overthrow the infamous colonial system and do not demand changes designed, to raise their material and cultural levels.
63. In his speech here on 20 September. 1962, Mr. Stevenson, the representative of the United States of America, vainly tried, though not for the first time, to create the impression that the socialist countries are responsible, for the heightening of international tension [1125th meeting]. He carefully avoided a realistic appraisal of the most important aspects of the international situation and deliberately kept silent about the fact that it was the United States itself which was violating the principles of the United Nations and creating, by its actions, a threat of the outbreak of a thermonuclear war. The United States Press, in typical propagandist manner, tried to represent the matter as though ,the statement of the United States representative was "conciliatory" and was designed to reduce international tension. This undisguised falsification is nevertheless obvious to all who have appraised the statement of the United States representative in an objective manner. The representative of the United States has not made a single concrete proposal to solve the vexed international questions and has hence done nothing to create an atmosphere of co-operation at the present session.
64. The United States representative's utterance on Cuba was particularly startling. Mr. Stevenson said: "The Government of Cuba, with moral and material support from outside, carries on a campaign of subversion and vituperation- against its neighbours in the Western Hemisphere." [1125th meeting.]
65. It is amazing that such words can be spoken at a time when the United States Government is carrying on an unbridled campaign against Cuba and is calling on the Latin American countries — as was demonstrated by the meetings of, 2 and 3 October 1962 of the Foreign Ministers of the countries belonging to the Organization of American States — to take part in a new anti-Cuban conspiracy. The United Stated colonialists are dreaming of restoring their lost supremacy in Cuba and of turning Cuba into a sugar-supplying appendage of the United States economy.
66. It is impossible to disregard the statements made by President Kennedy and by members of the United States Congress to the effect that the United States would make an armed attack on Cuba if it seemed to it that Cuba might threaten its interests and cause what they call the "Marxist-Leninist Cuban regime" to penetrate to any other Latin American country. Who can possibly believe that the Cuban nation of 7 million inhabitants is a threat to its neighbours in the Western hemisphere, who amount to over 400 million people? The groundless commotion over Cuba's aggressive intentions is vital to the United States ruling circles so that they ban mask their own aggressive intentions against revolutionary Cuba. It is clear from press reports that, in addition to the armed forces stationed at the Guantánamo military base, powerful United States naval forces are assembled near the coast of Cuba and are ready at any moment to take part in military action against Cuba. A list has been published of over twenty military bases in countries such as Guatemala, Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic, Panama, Haiti and Puerto Rico from which an attack on Cuba is planned. It is dear that the military preparations, which have been made against Cuba are also directed against the national liberation movements of all Latin American countries.
67. Not mere words, but numerous indisputable facts bear out the assertion that the anti-Cuban campaign in the United States is not an isolated phenomenon but rather a reflection of the dangerous foreign policy of the United States consisting in the preparation of preventive wars against countries whose social system does not please United States ruling circles. It is permissible to as to who gave such people the right to prepare aggressive action against countries which refuse to bow down before the United States. Who gave them the right to encroach on the sovereignty of nations which spurn the American way of life? Nobody gave them any such right at all.
68. In the widely-known statement distributed by Tass on 12 September 1962, the Soviet Government drew the attention of the international community to the extremely dangerous and provocative nature of the aggressive propaganda being carried on in the United States of America against the Republic of Cuba. This statement was as follows: "We have said, and we repeat, that if war is unleashed — if an aggressor attacks any State and that State turns to us for aid — the Soviet Union has the means of providing aid from its territory to any peace-loving State, and not merely Cuba, And let no one doubt that the Soviet Union will give such aid, just as it was ready in 1956 to give military aid to Egypt at the time of the Anglo-Franco-Israel aggression in the Suez Canal area."
69. The Soviet Government has clearly and unambiguously warned the hot-heads that actions which threaten the peace and security of the whole of mankind will not go unpunished; and that he who sows the wind will reap the whirlwind.
70. The Cuban nation has more than once affirmed its inflexible will and determination to defend its homeland and its revolution, its unshakable unity and its revolutionary Government headed by Fidel Castro, The Cuban nation is not alone at this difficult time; the whole of progressive mankind is on its side.
71. The Byelorussian people, too, is filled with determination to do all it can to defend the interests of the Cuban nation. The United Nations should not stand aloof at a time when, by the preparation of aggressive acts against Cuba, the United States is violating the very bases of international law and throwing down a challenge to the principles of peaceful coexistence, that is to say, to the principles on which the structure of the United Nations itself is based. The United Nations should roundly condemn such a policy.
72. It is impossible to ignore the aggression which the United States of America is likewise carrying out in another part of the world — in South Viet-Nam. Our delegation, like other delegations, has received a note from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Democratic Republic of Viet-Nam, addressed to the President of the seventeenth session of the General Assembly, in which attention is drawn to the dangerous situation that has arisen as a result of United States military intervention in South. Viet-Nam. It is pointed out in the note that at the present time over 10,000 United States officers and men, together with the armed forces of the Ngo-dinh-Diem Government, are carrying on an "undeclared war" against the people of South Viet-Nam. Hundreds of people are perishing every day as a result of the military operations, and thousands of inhabitants are doomed to torture in concentration camps known as "strategic villages".
73. Attempts to justify this scandalous state of affairs, for which the United States must bear the responsibility, have been made by the representatives of the Philippines (Mr. Peláez), Australia (Sir Garfield Barwick) and Malaya (Mr. Ismail Rahman). Twisting the facts, they talk about a so-called "invasion of South Viet-Nam from the north", but the objective observers, even in the United States, admit the absurdity of such assertions. Thus, The New York Times of 25 July 1962 contained an article by correspondent Bigart, who had spent half a year in South Viet-Nam and who stressed that the Viet Cong was not an alien organization but a movement supported by the mass of the people of South Viet-Nam. The interference by the United States in the internal affairs of South Viet-Nam’ with the aim of suppressing the national liberation movement must be roundly condemned.
74. The Byelorussian delegation considers that the United Nations should compel tile United States Government to respect the principles of the Geneva agreements on Viet-Nam, cease its armed aggression in South Viet-Nam and immediately withdraw its armed forces.
75. There is no more burning and urgent question at the present time than that or preserving peace. The efforts of all States and of all Members of the United Nations should be directed towards preventing the outbreak of war and banishing war for ever from human society. The only sure and reliable way to do this lies through general and complete disarmament. All people know that methods of preserving and strengthening peace have been proposed by the Soviet Union, which has consistently recognized, and continues to recognize, the necessity and possibility of the peaceful coexistence of States with different social systems.
76. For the Soviet State, which was born into the world at the same moment at which V. I. Lenin issued his decree on peace, the task of strengthening peace and ensuring the security of nations is not a question of tactics or diplomatic manoeuvring, as our enemies falsely assert, but is the backbone of its foreign policy. The Soviet people prize peace not only because they know full well the tragedy that war brings with it — in the words of the poet; In every humble dwelling, from the wall Looks down the face of one who gave his all. War is the last thing that the Soviet people want also because they are engaged in the gigantic creative task of building a Communist society. How could the people of Byelorussia want war, when every hour of peace brings them additional palpable benefits? The plans for the economic development of the Byelorussian SSR over the years 1960-1980 provide for more than a ninefold increase in industrial production. In the current Seven-Year Plan alone, the investment in capital construction in the Byelorussian SSR will be great as in the whole of the previous forty years.
77. The representatives of many countries — including Brazil, Afghanistan, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Burma, Cambodia and others — who spoke before me in this discussion rightly gave considerable attention to the Report of the Eighteen-Nation Committee on Disarmament which sat for nearly five months at Geneva. The importance of solving the problem of general and complete disarmament is clear and obvious to everyone, but it must be observed with some bitterness that international discussions on this problem have been going on for the past sixteen years without producing any positive results.
78. As everyone knows, the Soviet delegation came to the Conference of the Eighteen-Nation Committee on Disarmament with a detailed draft "Treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict international control". It should be noted that almost all the delegations of the neutralist countries hailed the Soviet draft Treaty as a concrete, complete and all-embracing draft designed to bring about general and complete disarmament in the shortest possible time. Although the Soviet proposals provide for the retention, at all stages of disarmament, of the principle of the balance of power of States, the representatives of the United States, the United Kingdom and other Western States gave the Soviet draft treaty a hostile reception. In his Speech of 27 September 1962 [1134th meeting], Lord Home, the United Kingdom Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, tried to put the blame for the failure of the disarmament talks on the Soviet Union, basing his arguments on the fact that the Soviet Union did not agree with the Western proposals for control. But how can anyone agree with these proposals, when their essence is not the setting-up of control over disarmament, but of control over armaments?
79. We consider that measures for control must go hand in hand with measures for disarmament. If you accept the Soviet proposals for disarmament, then the Soviet Union will agree to your proposals for control, as it has stated on many occasions. Moreover, we have ample grounds for asking Lord Home whether he does not think that his insistent calls for general inspection have exactly the same aim as the U-2 aircraft which are now in England. It is also clear from Lord Home's statement that the United Kingdom, like the other Western Powers, does not want the simultaneous discontinuance of nuclear weapons tests in all media. The implementation of the Western proposals would not affect underground explosions and thus would do nothing to halt the nuclear arms race. The statement of the United Kingdom representative is just another proof that the United Kingdom and the other NATO countries are persisting in a negative attitude on the questions of disarmament and the discontinuance of nuclear weapons tests.
80. As everyone knows, the Soviet Union is taking further steps to meet the Western States half-way over questions of disarmament. The prime example of this is the Soviet Union's agreement to leave a strictly limited number el inter-continental and other rockets at the disposal of the Soviet Union and the United States during the first stage of disarmament, thus removing the slightest grounds for propagandist assertions about the possibility of one-sided military advantages. The latest Soviet proposals can and must be the basis for a solution of this most critical question of our time, provided that the Western Powers finally show some understanding of the interests of mankind.
81. Mr. Stevenson, in his statement of 20 September 1962 [1125th meeting], said that the arms race, gathering momentum every day, was the "biggest obstacle in the path" to peace. That is true. We agree. But why does the United States representative fail to say that it is precisely the United States which began the arms race and is daily and recklessly quickening its tempo? While under the Eisenhower Administration military appropriations in the United States averaged $42-43,000 million a year, the United States military budget for the financial year 1963 has already reached $51,640 million.
82. In other words , in two years the Kennedy Administration has increased military expenditure by approximately $10,000 million. And if to this we add the funds which it is planned to expend on atomic energy-work, the creation of strategic reserves and outer-space projects having direct military significance, then the total appropriation for military purposes in the 1962-63 financial year amounts to $55,700 million. According to information in the United States Press, the United States plans to spend on military account, during the, next twenty to twenty-five years, more than $50,000 million annually.
83. It is common knowledge that at the basis of the arms race which the Western Powers are conducting lies the thirst of monopolies for profits and super-profits. As was stated in the newspaper The New York Times of 12 January 1962, the hundred largest American ‘corporations received 76 per cent of all military orders in 1961. The over-all profits of all corporations, are expected to increase in 1962 to more than $55,000 million. The main part of this increase comes from military orders.
84. The post-war arms race has led to the creation in the United States of America of a monstrous military- industrial machine. This machine, which every year absorbs tens of thousands of millions of dollars in military appropriations, has gradually come to control the country's financial and industrial life. Even former President Eisenhower noted this with some concern, in his farewell address of 17 January 1961. United States militarists, allied with businessmen, have more than once artificially created a war psychosis in the country, in the Government and in Congress.
85. Joseph Barry, the Paris correspondent of the New York Post, wrote last year in this connexion that if the Berlin crisis had not arisen it would have had to be invented, since the United States Government had committed itself to the thesis that more than anything else it needed a more powerful military machine, such as was justifiable only in circumstances of crisis.
86. Senator Flanders in the Senate expressed the view that the arms race in the United States of America was forcing the country's pattern of life into that of a garrison State. Such is the unattractive picture presented by the militarization of the United States.
87. In reply to the historic decisions taken by the Twenty-second Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, which laid down a genuine programme of peace and peaceful construction, the White House has worked out a new strategic concept, just as unrealistic as, the previous one but fraught with the most fatal, consequences for mankind.
88. By means of a stepped-up arms race, planned to continue for many years, the White House purposes not merely to preserve in the world the atmosphere of the "cold war" which is advantageous to it, but also to make it more difficult for the Soviet Union to carry out its vast plans for communist construction, which if executed would raise the Soviet Union to first place in the field of industrial production and would ensure for the Soviet people the highest standard of living in the world.
89. United-States ruling circles cherish the idea that, by forcing the Soviet Union to incur additional defence expenditure, they will wreck its programme of economic assistance to, the Under-developed countries. The United States continues to rely on a policy of "positions of strength". As before, it nurses the secret but vain hope of gaining military advantage over the Soviet Union at some stage in the arms race and of wiping out the socialist camp by the use of military force.
90. The delegation of the Byelorussian SSR hopes that the General Assembly will at its present session make a real contribution in the matter of the discontinuance of nuclear weapon testing. The Byelorussian people, like the peoples of all peace-loving countries, demands the signing of an agreement for the discontinuance of nuclear weapon tests of every type and in every medium.
91. We are deeply convinced that the most recent proposals of the USSR for the prohibition of nuclear tests in the atmosphere, under water and in outer space, coupled with the simultaneous imposition, in the agreement, of an obligation on the countries to continue negotiations for the discontinuance of underground tests provide precisely that basis on which it will be fully possible for this question to be solved. Naturally, while negotiations on the discontinuance of underground tests are proceeding such tests should not be held. Clearly it now depends on the Western Powers alone whether the black clouds of nuclear explosions will continue to form over the earth or whether the world will once and for all be rid of atomic rumblings.
92. As we know, President Kennedy of the United States said in March 1962, during an interview with the American correspondent Alsop, that "in some circumstances [the United States] might take the initiative" in a nuclear conflict with the Soviet Union.
93. Later, the United States Government confirmed the reliability of that report, which in essence means that the United States Government considers itself entitled to strike a first nuclear blow against the Soviet Union and instigate a new war.
94. A. A. Gromyko, the Chairman of the Soviet delegation, in his interesting and thoughtful statement of 21 September 1962 [1127th meeting], assessed this militaristic statement when he said that Mr. Kennedy was following the dangerous course of his predecessors in making threats against the Soviet Union.
95. There is a wise Arab proverb which says: "Before you strike someone on the back of the head, look at the head." The warning given by the Head of the Soviet Government to the "knights of the big stick" must be borne in mind. N. S. Khrushchev, speaking on 19 May 1962 at a meeting at Sofia, rightly said: "We cannot fail to take into account the statement made by Mr. Kennedy, since it brings us to a new point in the relations between our countries … Is it wise to threaten someone who is at least equal to you in strength? To press the button and take 'the initiative in a nuclear conflict with the Soviet Union' would be tantamount to committing suicide. Anyone who dared to start such a military conflict would receive - a crushing retaliatory blow, in which all the most modern means of war were employed. The Socialist camp, including the Soviet Union, possesses all these means inadequate quantities."
96. From an acknowledgement of the admissibility of a preventive war it is only a step to actual aggression. The leaders of the United States Government understand that their preparations for a preventive blow against the Soviet Union are condemned by all honourable people throughout the world. That is precisely why the United States Secretary of Defense, Mr. McNamara, in his statement at the University of Michigan on 16. June 1962, hypocritically called for the drafting of a new code for the conduct of nuclear war. He proposes that agreement should be reached on the use of nuclear weapons only against important military objectives. But is it not clear that McNamara's proposals are completely absurd? These proposals by atomic madmen, which divert the efforts of mankind from a fundamental solution of the question of war and from general and complete disarmament are designed to prepare people's minds for the unleashing of atomic war, for death in the flames of a military conflagration.
97. In such circumstances, the adoption by the General Assembly of the resolution on "Condemnation of propaganda favouring preventive nuclear war", the draft of which has been submitted by the delegation of the Soviet Union [A/5232], would be a highly constructive step. The delegation of the Byelorussian SSR supports this draft resolution and calls upon the General Assembly to take the necessary measures for the cessation of propaganda favouring preventive war, which is indirect conflict with the purposes and principles of the United Nations Charter.
98. For the overwhelming majority of the world's people, the possibility of reaching an agreement on disarmament is a possibility of liberation from poverty and ignorance. Economic experts have calculated that during the first fifty years of the twentieth century expenditure on armaments amounted to more than $4 million. Great benefits could be derived from general and complete disarmament by all countries, the industrially developed as well as the industrially less developed. If, for example, 20 per cent of the sums spent annually for military purposes throughout the world were devoted to assistance to the under-developed countries during the next twenty-five years in those countries it would be possible to construct power stations with a total output of 230 million kilowatts, to establish, metallurgical works producing 185 million tons of s, ;>1 a year, to irrigate more than 100 million hectares of land and to execute many other useful and important projects.
99. The delegation of the Byelorussian SSR welcomes the draft "Declaration concerning the conversion to peaceful needs of the resources released by disarmament", which [A-/5233] has been submitted for consideration at the present session by the Chairman of the Soviet delegation. We believe that the adoption of this declaration would help to expedite the solution of the problem of general and complete disarmament and would make it possible to employ the resources released by disarmament in the most effective way.
100. The delegation of the Byelorussian SSR shares the view of many other delegations in regard to the importance of the question of a peaceful settlement with Germany, since failure to solve this problem during the past seventeen years constitutes one of the greatest obstacles to the restoration of normal relations between a number of the most powerful States and is a prime source of menace to peace in Europe and throughout the world. It is entirely abnormal that a German peace treaty should not yet have been signed and that a military occupation regime, artificially maintained for NATO aggressive purposes, should be perpetrated in West Berlin.
101. The Byelorussian people is vitally interested in a peaceful settlement of the German question. Unlike some of the speakers who have preceded me here — such as the Guatemalan representative, for example — our people knows what the Second World War was and does not wish any other people to experience anything like it. During that war, in the struggle with the German-fascist invaders, more than 2 million people out of the Republic's total population of 10 million were killed. The material losses sustained during the war amounted to more than half of Byelorussia's national wealth.
102. One of the principal sources of international tension is West German militarism and revenge-seeking, the growth of which the United States and other aggressive Countries are fostering by every possible means. According to facts quoted in the magazine U.S. News & World Report in its issue 23 April 1962, the United States alone — not counting other Western countries — has in the post-war period given the Federal Republic of Germany and West Berlin $5,200 million in so-called "aid”. Not only have the Western Powers, violated the Potsdam Agreements on the demilitarization and denazification of Germany, but they are also actively contributing to the resurgence of militarism and revenge-seeking in West Germany. At the present time, the key posts in the administration of the Federal Republic of Germany are held by former followers of Hitler. West German generals have assumed key positions in the armed forces of NATO. According to a statement in the French weekly Vie Ouvrière. there were 330 representatives of West Germany in the executive organs of NATO in 1959, 650 in 1960, and 1,350 in 1961. Thus, in two years their number has increased almost sixfold. These are the people who are now in command of NATO!
103. The official policy of the Government of the Federal Republic of Germany has become a policy of revenge. That Government does not conceal its intention of taking over the German Democratic Republic, the latter having come into being against the wishes of the imperialists, just as against the wishes of the imperialists dozens of new sovereign States have arisen in Africa and Asia. The Federal Republic of Germany makes no secret of its designs on the territory of other States. It rejects all proposals for the signing of a German peace treaty, and announces its flat rejection of the "Rapacki plan” for the creation of an atom-free zone in Central Europe.
104. The Federal Republic of Germany already has at its disposal an army of almost half a million men. The demand by the leaders of the West German Government that the Federal Republic of Germany be supplied with atomic weapons is well known to all. The ruling circles of the United States, France and the United Kingdom are obligingly equipping these revenge-seekers with the most modern means of war. “Let us put Germany, so to speak, in the saddle; you will see that she can ride" — thus spoke Bismarck in his time. We are now witnessing how the allies of the Federal Republic of Germany in NATO are presenting their backs so that the West German militarists can climb into the saddle more easily. And when this has been achieved, who can guarantee that the revengeful German rider, holding the atomic stick, will not first gallop off towards London and Paris, as he has already done more than once in the course of his career? No one can give such a guarantee.
105. According to what the Associated Press agency stated on 13 December 1961, Eleanor Roosevelt said: "I am horrified at the thought that we might give atomic weapons to West Germany. We created her economically, and 80 per cent of the officials there are former Nazis."
106. Within the Federal Republic of Germany, a psychological manipulation of the people is being vigorously carried out with a view to preparing them for a new war. More than one thousand militaristic organizations are preaching revenge and calling for a new war. At the same time, those in the Federal Republic of Germany who struggle against fascism and militarism are being persecuted by every possible means. More than 200,000 people in that country have been subjected to repression and persecution for political reasons, and 14,000 of them — fighters against militarism and preparations for an atomic war — have been sentenced for their activities. As before, the Governments of the NATO countries continue senselessly to cling to the military occupation regime.in West Berlin, trying to keep that city as a NATO bridge-head for aggression against the Soviet Union. All the world well knows that West Berlin has been converted by the NATO bloc into a centre of provocation and aggression against the German Democratic Republic and the other countries of the socialist camp. For those who wish to acquaint themselves with the details of the prevailing situation in West Berlin, we recommend reading of the Book of Facts on West Berlin, published in Moscow in l962.’
107. West Berlin has become a nest of spying and subversion conducted by agencies of, the Western Powers. Fascists and political adventurers of every description deliberately provoke armed conflict between the nuclear Powers. What is astonishing is that there are persons ready to defend this rabble and to shed tears because the Government of the German Democratic Republic has firmly closed its frontiers against their acts of provocation. One such active defender is Lord Home, who has told us of his "emotions" on seeing the so-called “Berlin walls". We should indeed feel upset, but not for the reason which causes the United Kingdom representative to shed his crocodile tears. The blood spilt from time to time along the frontiers of the peace-loving German State is spilt through the fault of those who are preventing the solution of the German problem. Those really responsible for the tense situation along the border with West Berlin are the Western Powers, including the United Kingdom, and no hypocritical sighing about the so-called "Berlin wall" will alter that fact.
108. The Soviet Government which is deeply concerned for the maintenance of peace, has been and is repeatedly stressing the urgent need for a peaceful settlement in regard to Germany. To reject the Soviet proposals for a German settlement is to display stark madness, for the signing of a peace treaty constitutes the only chance of eliminating dangerous tension in Central Europe and thus of safeguarding world peace. Furthermore, a peaceful settlement of the German question can be achieved without detriment to the interests or prestige; of any country or group of countries. The signing of a German peace treaty, the termination of the occupation regime in West Berlin on the basis of such a treaty, the withdrawal of the troops of the NATO military bloc from West Berlin, the recognition of the two German States and their admission to membership in the United Nations would create the necessary conditions for the normalization of the international situation.
109. The Government of the Byelorussian SSR wholeheartedly supports the proposals of the Soviet Government concerning a peaceful settlement with Germany and, if the Western Powers fail to display the necessary realism and due understanding of the urgent need for a solution of this problem, is ready to join the Soviet Union and other interested countries in signing a peace treaty with the German Democratic Republic.
110. Nearly two years have elapsed since the General Assembly, on the Initiative of the Soviet Union, adopted at its fifteenth session the historic Declaration on the granting of independence to colonial countries and peoples [resolution 1514 (XV)], That was a great victory for progressive mankind as a whole. In the meantime the heroic Algerian people, whose seven years of struggle for freedom and independence have borne remarkable fruit, has embarked upon the road of independent development. The Byelorussian delegation is glad to welcome the admission of the Democratic and Popular Republic of Algeria to membership in the United Nations, and we fully support the Security Council’s recommendation on this question. We also salute the admission to membership in the United Nations of Rwanda, Burundi, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago.
111. As was to be expected, however, the colonial Powers continue to sabotage the Declaration, with the result that the question of its implementation is today as pressing as ever. The colonizers are stubbornly hanging on to the shreds of their colonial empires. More than seventy territories, with a total population of approximately 50 million, are still under the colonial yoke. On the great continent of Africa we still find twenty-four colonial territories, in which 36 million Africans are living under the most cruel colonial oppression. The United Nations is in duty bound to help all the peoples still fettered by colonial thraldom to attain their freedom and independence. We think in the first place of the long-suffering peoples of Angola and Mozambique that are defending their human rights from encroachment at the hands of the Portuguese colonizers, and of the other peoples whose heroism we salute and whose success in their struggle for early national liberation we earnestly desire.
112. The Byelorussian people is concerned over the continuing abnormal situation in the Congo. We join the numerous countries which demand the immediate ending of imperialist interference in Congolese affairs and of the attempts to dismember the country and turn its richest parts into raw-material-producing appendages of imperialist monopolies.
113. Lord Home has tried to convince us that the crux of the Congolese problem is a "reconciliation of interests between the provinces and the centre" [1134th meeting]. In that case, why is the character of such a "reconciliation" being determined in Washington, Brussels and London? The crisis in the Congo is the work not of the Congolese but of the Governments of the United States, Belgium and the United Kingdom, which are defending the interests of the monopolies that exploit the Congo's wealth. If you really care for the Congolese people's interests, stop interfering in its internal affairs and give it the chance to solve its problems on its own.
114. That the colonialist forces have not yet been smashed is confirmed by the irresponsible statement made by the South African representative from this rostrum on 24 September 1962 [1128th meeting], in which he again defended the barbarous practice of apartheid. It is noteworthy that, while making his racialist declarations and attacking the authority of the United Nations, Mr. Louw sang the praises of the Western countries, from which he expects further support for South Africa's racialists.
115. The delegation of the Byelorussian SSR demands that the colonial Powers put an immediate end to armed action and to acts of repression against the peoples struggling for their freedom and independence, withdraw all their troops, recall their military missions, disband all their military units and dismantle their military bases in the dependent territories. The main task of the United Nations, in the business of eradicating colonialism once and for all, now consists in devising and taking specific, Urgent steps for the implementation of the Declaration which it adopted. The total elimination of colonialism would make an important contribution to the maintenance of peace and would constitute a major step towards the easing of international tension.
116. It is impossible to regard as normal the fact that for twelve years now the representatives of the 650- million strong Chinese people, the representatives of the great People's Republic of China which on 1 October, literally a few days ago, celebrated its thirteenth anniversary, have not been admitted to tire United Nations, The Organization ought to remember that almost one person in four, on this earth, is a citizen of the People's Republic of China. For twelve years now a Chiang Kai-shek marionette from the United States puppet-show has allegedly on behalf of the Chinese people, been voting in the United Nations.
117. In the meantime there has been a considerable expansion in the membership of the United Nations, which now consists of more than 100 States. Yet great China, whose social and political order is not to Washington's liking, still cannot take its seat in this hall. It is the urgent and direct duty of the United Nations to re-establish legality and justice, to eject Chiang Kai-shek's men — those United States puppets — from its ranks, and to restore to the Chinese people's representatives their lawful place.
118. The presence of United States troops in South Korea constitutes a major threat to peace in the Far East. Nine years have already elapsed since the signing of the Armistice Agreement in 1953, and the Chinese people's volunteer forces were long ago removed from the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. The withdrawal of United States troops from South Korea is dearly a sine qua non for the peaceful solution of the Korean problem. Once the United States troops' withdrawal from South Korea has been secured, the Korean people will be well able to settle its domestic affairs peacefully and on its own.
119. The complete renunciation of the "cold war" in international relations would open up unprecedented prospects of economic, scientific and technical cooperation between all countries. This would exert a stabilizing influence on the economic development of the highly industrialized countries of Western Europe and of the United States of America, and would accelerate the economic development of the Asian, African and Latin American countries.
120. The delegation of the Byelorussian SSR wholeheartedly supports the Soviet Government's proposal [A/5219] for the holding in 1963 of an international conference on trade problems. We also welcome the Cairo Declaration [A/5162] which advocates the calling of an international trade conference.
121. Closed trade blocs in effect become neo-colonialism's tools, and instruments of the Western countries' economic war against the neutralist and socialist Stated. Trade must pave the way for international understanding and not serve to fan the flames of the "cold war".
122. We must trade, not fight. The normalization and further expansion of international trade, and the removal of restrictions and discrimination from the world markets, would be greatly promoted by a representative International Trade Organization embracing all countries. The establishment of such an Organization would lead not only, to an expansion of mutually advantageous trade, but also to a better political climate in the world.
123. The continuing inability of the United Nations to exert an effective influence for the solution of many important international problems, including that of general and complete disarmament, confirms the need for a fundamental reorganization of the United Nations Secretariat. Another argument in favour of such a reorganization is the unsatisfactory state of the finances of the United Nations. The facts of life have called for the establishment of a United Nations structure which would ensure equal representation, within its organs, for the three main forces in the modern world: the socialist countries, the neutralist countries and the Western States members of military blocs. Only with such a structure will the Organization's activities reflect the general interests of peace and international co-operation, instead of the narrow interests of a single group of States.
124. I would point out, in conclusion, that the United Nations is still not the kind of international organization for peace and security which it ought to be under its own Charter and which the peace-loving peoples wish it to become. All the peoples of the world now dearly realize that responsibility for today's international tension lies with the Western countries led by the United States of America. These refuse to take account of the historic changes which have occurred in Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America since the Second World War.
125. In such circumstances the task of the United Nations is to redouble its efforts for the strengthening of peace, to urge all countries to be guided in their international relations by a policy of peaceful coexistence and not of "cold war", and to promote the earliest possible solution of the disarmament problem.
126. The Byelorussian people, like every other people in the world, demands of the United Nations that its activities shall be fully consonant with the lofty purposes and principles enshrined in its Charter. May I express the hope that the Organization will fulfil its duty towards mankind as a whole and make its contribution to the strengthening of world peace. The peoples expect from the United Nations not words, but constructive deeds.