The annual gathering of representatives of
virtually all the sovereign nations of the globe,
and of affiliated or interested international
institutions within the framework of the regular
session of the General Assembly of the United
Nations is always a source of great satisfaction
and moral comfort to us. We see therein the signs
of that ideal of tolerance which is inscribed in
the Charter and which inspires us all, despite
the different views we may hold about the various
events which are at present rending the world. We
also see therein the demonstration of our
willingness to discuss our differences, not to
say our divergences of opinion, and to seek
together ways and means to solve or eliminate
them.
That ideal of tolerance and dialogue could hardly
be symbolized more fittingly than by the gesture
of the unanimous election of Mr. Hollai as
President of the Assembly. Crowning his long
diplomatic career, that choice constitutes a
well-deserved tribute to his country, Hungary,
for its positive contribution to mutual
understanding among peoples and the strengthening
of co-operation among States. Certainly, the
reins which our President has taken over from Mr.
Kittani of Iraq are difficult to hold firm. But
we are convinced that his long and rich
experience of world affairs, particularly in the
United Nations system, will allow him to
undertake the difficult task with the same
wisdom, determination and efficiency as his
talented predecessor, to whom I should again like
to express the appreciation of the delegation of
the Niger.
The thirty-seventh session of the General
Assembly is opening in an international context
which is heavy with threats for all mankind, so
true is it that the course of affairs of our
world and the spirit guiding it remain dreadfully
marked by violence, injustice, egoism, and
ignorance or disregard of the principles and
noble ideals which the United Nations adopted in
its Charter in order to establish a world of
peace and progress for all. Such a situation is
likely, if care is not taken, to do serious and
lasting harm to the credibility of the
Organization—a credibility which is, moreover,
increasingly being challenged by international
public opinion, which is disturbed and anguished
because of the results achieved by United Nations
action in areas as vital for mankind as those of
disarmament, development and the maintenance of
peace and security.
Each of our peoples aspires to live in a world
free of wars and conflict, where hunger, sickness
and poverty are unknown. The events of today seem
to indicate that this prospect is further away
than ever, consequently revealing the inability
of the Organization, and of the system of
international relations as a whole, to respond
effectively to the political and economic
challenges which confront us.
In the political arena, that failure is even more
serious because it relates to problems which are
at least as old as the United Nations itself and
which the international community has assumed a
direct moral and historical responsibility to
resolve. I refer here to the problems of
Palestine and the Middle East and the question of
Namibia. To be sure, the United Nations has
formally recognized the legitimacy of the
struggle for self- determination of the peoples
of those countries by granting observer status to
their legitimate representatives, the PLO and the
South West Africa People's Organization. But the
fact remains that any mention of Palestine and
Namibia results in flagrant and unpunished
violations of international rules and customs,
brutal oppression, the denial of the rights of
peoples to self-determination and the invasion
and occupation of neighbouring States.
With regard to the question of Palestine, it
should be noted that the international community
as a whole has now finally accepted that the
Palestinian problem is at the head of the drama
which is tearing the Middle East apart, and that
any solution to that conflict must necessarily
involve the restoration of the inalienable rights
of the Palestinian people.
The great majority of the States of our community
recognize the PLO as the sole legitimate
representative of the Palestinian people, as well
as recognizing the absolute right of those people
to self- determination and to the creation of a
sovereign State on their own territory.
There is also reason to recall that at the
seventh emergency special session the General
Assembly adopted by an overwhelming majority
resolution ES-7/2, an important resolution
reaffirming the inalienable rights of the
Palestinian people to self- determination without
foreign interference, as well as to independence
and sovereignty, and stressing their right to
create a sovereign State on their own national
territory.
Similarly, the international community has on
many occasions, within the United Nations as well
as in other international forums, condemned the
continued occupation of Arab territories by
Israel and, on the basis of the principle of the
inadmissibility of the acquisition of territories
by force, has called for its total and
unconditional withdrawal.
But we must today note that the international
community has not been able to take any specific
action to ensure that the Palestinian people can
exercise their inalienable legitimate rights, to
restore to Arab sovereignty the territories
illegally occupied by Israel, and to guarantee
the independence, sovereignty and territorial
integrity of Lebanon. Thus far no action has been
possible to halt the policy practised by Israel
of systematic negation of the inalienable rights
of the Palestinian people and the rights of the
Arab and Lebanese people to peace and calm within
their borders.
It is a fact that Israel remains deaf to the
disapproval, the constant appeals to reason and
the condemnations of the international community.
On the contrary, guided by hatred, blinded by
military power, day after day displaying its
growing for the decisions of the United Nations,
Israel has adopted and is carrying out in an
outrageous manner an unbridled policy of
Judaization of Palestinian Arab lands through the
modification of their geographic, historical,
sociological and religious characteristics.
Pursuing its expansionist policy, Israel has
successively annexed the holy city of Jerusalem
and the Golan Heights, before launching its army
upon the conquest of Lebanon, a large portion of
whose territory is today occupied. At the same
time, populations living in the occupied Arab
territories are pitilessly subjected to ferocious
repression which nothing can justify.
Recent events in Lebanon, which in fact represent
only a single episode in the strategy of conquest
pursued by the Israeli State, prove—if any proof
were needed—that neither vehement protests nor
energetic condemnations are enough to thwart a
genocidal undertaking which discredits the action
of the United Nations as much as it makes guilty
by omission almost the entire international
community.
In the light of this holocaust of our time, faced
with this great tragedy, it demeans the
international community that its representatives
continue to cling to their well-known positions
and to conduct byzantine discussions on the texts
of resolutions which, when adopted, remain dead
letters. The memory of thousands of Palestinian
martyrs and of the innocent victims of Sabra and
Shatila cry cut to us, and call for decisive
action from us to restore the usurped rights of
the Palestinian people.
Against that background, the Organization of the
Islamic Conference, whose thirteenth session of
the Council of Ministers for Foreign Affairs the
Niger was greatly honoured to host, urges all the
States which love peace, liberty, justice and
progress to work collectively within the United
Nations for the adoption and implementation by
the Security Council of a new resolution
requiring in precise terms the Israeli withdrawal
from all occupied Palestinian and Arab
territories, including the holy city of A! Quds,
and the guaranteeing of the inalienable national
rights of the Palestinian people, namely, their
right to return to their homeland, Palestine;
their right to determine their own fate without
foreign interference; and their right to
establish an independent State on their national
territory, under the leadership of the PLO.
Furthermore, we believe that a sincere use of the
way courageously opened by the Twelfth Arab
Summit Conference, held at Fez in September of
this year, will allow the international community
to restore its image in the eyes of the
Palestinian people and of history. We say that in
the hope that the constructive peace proposals
unanimously adopted at Fez will be accepted by
Israel and will not suffer the same fate which
South Africa dealt to the United Nations plan for
Namibia—another situation which persists and
seriously concerns my Government owing to the
threats it represents for the security of the
African continent and for world peace.
The situation prevailing in Namibia is known to
everyone. It is a situation which is clearly
illegal and exceptionally painful for the
Namibian people which is enduring it and fighting
for its freedom; it is painful for the front-line
States which, because of their support for that
liberation struggle, expose themselves to
repeated acts of aggression by South Africa; and
it is painful for the United Nations, which has
an historic direct responsibility for Namibia.
Inspired both by its own foreign policy and the
principles of the Organization of African Unity
of the Niger intends, just as all of independent
Africa, to draw attention once again to that
situation and to the proposal of a rapid solution
for the Namibian problem. It does so in the name
of law and legality, in the name of morality and
justice, and for the benefit of peace and
international security.
The hope raised by the United Nations plan for
Namibia has still not been realized. In spite of
information showing notable progress in
negotiations for the implementation of the
provisions of Security Council resolution 435
(1978), we note that five years after the
adoption of that plan by the United Nations the
electoral system has not yet been defined, the
composition of the United Nations forces has not
yet been agreed upon, and the cease-fire has not
yet been decreed.
During this time South Africa has, with impunity,
continued its illegal occupation of Namibian
territory, its pillage of its natural resources,
and its outrageous acts of aggression against
neighbouring countries. Through manoeuvres which
now no longer deceive anyone it is attempting to
promote the establishment of institutions and
bodies which would alter the authenticity of
Namibia's independence into something artificial.
The racist minority regime of Pretoria,
strengthened by solid complicity, continues to
flout and defy the international community under
fallacious pretexts and with unreasonable
demands. Therefore the United Nations is
confronted with a deadlock in Namibia,
responsibility for which lies entirely with South
Africa—and no consideration, in particular one
related to Angola's sovereignty, can hide that
fact which was emphasized on 4 September at
Lusaka by the heads of State and Government of
the front-line States.
The Government of the Niger reiterates most
energetically its condemnation of the illegal and
continued occupation of Namibia by South Africa
and its repeated acts of aggression against the
front-line States. We hope that the international
community will display the necessary upsurge of
political will to lead Namibia to independence
and thus allow the surrounding countries to work
for their own economic and social development. In
this context, it is important for the United
Nations to think about establishing a massive aid
programme for those countries which today are
heroically bearing the burden of the unjust war
imposed upon them by the racist regime in
Pretoria.
The African peoples also expect of the
international community in general and from the
United Nations in particular energetic action to
eradicate the apartheid and racial discrimination
that are rife in the southern part of the African
continent. They fervently hope and wish for the
establishment in South Africa of political
conditions that would allow everyone, without any
consideration as to race, sex, language or
religion, to participate in the building of a
multiracial community like the one which is today
being built in Zimbabwe, a country which formerly
suffered from the evils of racial discrimination.
The achievement of such conditions will allow the
African countries to devote their efforts to the
improvement of the living conditions of their
peoples at this particular juncture in the
international economic situation when things are
already particularly difficult and continue to
worsen.
The world economy is today in a critical state of
disruption which many meetings held in various
parts of the world on the question have not been
able to prevent. Those stages—New York, Geneva,
Vienna, Paris, Cancun, Versailles and many
others—have been glimmers of Hope quickly dashed.
The disintegration of the economy has reached
such levels that any prognosis today would be
daring or haphazard. No one is attempting to do
that, neither Governments nor even international
financial and economic institutions. Everywhere
in the world one envisages the future with
pessimism. In this climate of gloom, concern and
almost panic, the fate of developing countries,
and especially the poorest among them, is
particularly alarming.
As channels for a limited group of export
commodities, developing countries today are
facing a marked deterioration in their terms of
trade—an evil which they have fought for many
years now without success. They are therefore
facing a catastrophic dwindling of their export
revenues. At the same time, high interest rates
on the main international financial markets and
the rise in the value of the dollar have
increased their loan and debt-servicing costs.
They can only watch as the standard of living of
their peoples drops sharply owing to galloping
inflation.
Their export revenues have plummeted, the cost of
borrowing and servicing the debt has soared; they
have been compelled to slow down the pace of
implementation of their development programmes—or
to make agonizing revisions. In some cases that
has led to the cancellation of those programmes;
in others, such as Chad, the effects of a long
and disastrous war, added to those of the
economic crisis, have created an even more tragic
situation which only a vast international
programme can remedy.
That is the very similar picture which we find,
with varying degrees of intensity, in the world
economy today, from North to South, East to West,
in the countries of the periphery as well as
those at the centre. The destabilizing effects,
internally and internationally, of such a
situation can be easily foreseen. In this
connection and stressing that this difficult
situation largely stems from the fact that
international financial and economic structures
have not adapted to the demands of the present
world, President Seyni Kountche said the
following at the thirty- sixth session of the
General Assembly:
"We shall spare the world from a very damaging
economic confrontation only if together we
overhaul North-South relations and work together
for a more unified approach to the development of
the world and for the well-being of mankind."
The wealthy countries should become aware of that
requirement and, although they, too, are affected
by the crisis, they must understand that the
recovery of their economy for which their
citizens long require decisive action in favour
of developing countries. The modalities of such
action e been laid down by representatives in
various international forums from Cancun to
Toronto; but, for various reasons, the proposals
that have been made have not been completely
taken into account. People continue to maintain
that a considerable increase in the capital of
the two main international financial institutions
is not needed. Some even continue to advocate
limiting the relevant credit facilities for
deprived peoples. There is certainly a basically
negative and selfish attitude involved; it is
embodied in the position of those who prevent ail
progress towards the establishment of a more just
and equitable new international economic order.
The various economic conferences held in recent
years, both within the framework of the United
Nations and in other international bodies, have
all shown the need for a reorganization of the
present international economic and financial
structures. In the light of the serious crisis
which is shaking the world economy today, a
restructuring of the present order has become a
categorical imperative if we wish to spare
mankind painful turmoil. We must accept the fact
that no nation represented in this Hall, however
powerful it may be, can reasonably think that it
can do without the others. Attempts to seek
isolated solutions to the serious economic
problems of our world today are unquestionably
doomed to failure. The concept of the
interdependence of nations is today more than
ever before of special significance.
In this connection we find in the report of the
Secretary-General on the work of the Organization
relevant comments on the development of United
Nations action along such lines, because no organ
is better able than this one, despite its
insufficiencies and limitations, to offer the
possibility of fostering a spirit of harmony,
interdependence, solidarity and co-operation
among nations.
I should like to pay a well-deserved tribute to
the Secretary-General for the clear and
courageous manner in which he analysed the
deep-rooted causes of the disorder in the present
system of multilateral relations and set out
certain guidelines which could be used as a basis
for innovative action on the part of the
Organization to establish a world order capable
of meeting the aspirations of the peoples to
peace, justice, freedom and economic and social
progress.
We are ready to play our part in this major
battle, because we are aware that this is a
question of saving the world from the cataclysm
which lies in wait. As for the Niger, as has been
stressed here by President Seyni Kountche "we are
ardent supporters of peace, tireless workers for
good-neighbourliness and fervent apostles of
dialogue and understanding among nations".