Because Tunisia, together with France, has, as it were, held us over the baptismal font at the United Nations, we rejoice unreservedly at the well-merited success just achieved by President Mongi Slim. On behalf of our Government and of the Congolese people we congratulate him most warmly and sincerely. The fact that this fervent defender of African causes is filling the highest post in our Organization will be a firm guarantee of the impartiality of the debates of the sixteenth session of the General Assembly, which will be of exceptional gravity when compared with the debates of the preceding years.
66. We bitterly regret the void left as a result of the brutal disappearance of our Secretary-General, Mr. Dag Hammarskjold, whose presence at this Assembly would certainly have reinforced the moral authority which the President will need to maintain intact this edifice upon which rest all our hopes for peace and salvation. May the name of Dag Hammarskjold, engraved in the marble of the Meditation Room, remain to us all an abiding example which will aid us to overcome the obstacles that have Accumulated for some time past on the great and universal road to peace.
67. Berlin, we know only too well, remains the burning problem.
68. The Republic of the Congo (Brazzaville) which stands solidly with the peace-loving nations who are devoted to the ideals of the Charter of the United Nations, could not remain silent and disinterested before the problems of Berlin' and the reunification
of Germany. Our Government has followed with great concern the recent military preparations which bode no good. The least that can be said, in this cold war climate, is that these preparations are certainly making the peace, which all of us here seek, more remote.
69. Yet we, who have placed all our hopes in the Charter and who often ponder the meaning of its Article 1, continue to believe that, by virtue of the sacred principle of self-determination, the German people should be called upon to choose its destiny without further delay. When we look at the special problem of Berlin, which at present occupies us most of all, we have the impression that everything is going on as if the German people did not exist. We have even had speakers at this Assembly who have said that the German people had settled its fate in 1949 and that to speak of self-determination today was nothing but a mockery. Why not simply admit that the German people exists? Why, when faced with this reality, should the advocates of a divided Germany not agree, in the future, to let the entire German people speak, as it is entitled to do under Article 107 of the Charter, rather than spend their time in threatening each other and in furbishing their cold war weapons, which the merest spark might transform into a mighty conflagration?
70. Since we believe in negotiations above everything else, we rejoice in advance at the efforts which will always be made by some for the resumption of talks between people of good will who are firmly resolved to settle the problem of Berlin and of Germany in general, even if this should take many weeks, even if the talks are suspended or postponed or their resumptions delayed. For what we must do when faced with such an issue is to make proposals, hold discussions, express views, and talk and go on talking.
71. In the immediate future, in view of the realities that cannot be removed at the stroke of the pen, of the difficulties and the obstacles that will have to be overcome if a modus vivendi is to be found for mankind, why not abide by the agreements which bind the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the United States, France and the United Kingdom? Why not, as a sign, of obvious good will and in order to maintain the status quo ante, destroy forthwith the hateful barriers which make the inhabitants of Berlin feel, regardless of the side they are on, that they are shut in an accursed ghetto?
72. Faced as we are with this flagrant danger to the whole of humanity, and more particularly to the young nations which, like us, need many decades to develop, we say to the great nations of the world: do not, we beg you, wage war because of a peace treaty; you can do better than that if you look around you.
73. Before turning to the problem of disarmament, I should like to speak about the dispute between the Arab States and Israel.
74. The wish has often been expressed here than an end should be put to the regrettable conflict ravaging the Middle East. Here again, we think that what is needed to bring about a clear-cut and peaceful solution is direct and frank negotiation between the Arab States and Israel. The whole of Africa is particularly interested in the maintenance of peace in this area, for any local conflict might be transformed into a world conflagration.
75. After listening for several weeks to the statements of the heads of delegations on the threats weighing on our unfortunate world, I think that everyone in this
Assembly will agree that world general disarmament should be advocated as a matter of the utmost urgency. When we consider the potential of destruction which is being accumulated month by month in the arsenals of the world and the increasingly amazing progress of the technique and aiming precision of guided missiles, which one among us here does not fear the miscalculation, the mistake, weakness or folly of even the most careful technician?
76. None of us, who knows himself to be mortal, fears for his own life which in the end will count for so little in the great history of humanity. But everyone is afraid of a total conflagration of our planet, the brutal extermination of millions of innocent people who have a right to life, and the large-scale and irreparable destruction of the ancient treasures of civilization accumulated by man as a result of patient researches. That is why general and complete disarmament must no longer remain a myth, a slogan for Utopian hopes, or worse still, be advocated as a hypocritical ruse; it must become an honest and tangible reality.
77. For example, the sweet voices of reason clearly raised in this hall of peace during the last few days must not make us forget already the rumblings of the recent nuclear explosions, which were carefully being prepared for a long time in the necessary conditions of secrecy.
78. We know, because we have often been told so, that every owner of the secrets of the atom maintains that he has good and even peaceful and beneficial reasons for carrying out nuclear tests and experiments. This may be true or it maybe false, but in the meantime the bombs are exploding and the radioactivity in the air is increasing. This is undoubtedly a dangerous reality.
79. We can understand the genuine pride of scientific nations which have successfully engaged in the space race, but we, representatives of a tiny nation which will not, for a very long time to come, have any possibility of exploring the moon, we are endeavouring, when we see all these experiments, to keep our feet On the ground and to solve objectively all problems which must ensure our survival and that of humanity as a whole, threatened as it is by science.
80. When the President of the United States comes to the rostrum of the General Assembly [1013th meeting] to propose the signing of an agreement for the prohibition of nuclear weapons, to be followed by the cessation of the production of fissionable materials and then by the gradual destruction of nuclear weapons, we can only fully concur with this proposal.
81. We think too that those who are of good will and want to achieve a total peace, and are endeavouring neither to avoid the problem, nor to complicate it, nor to shirk their responsibilities, must be able to engage thoroughly and simultaneously in the control of armaments and of disarmament. As the President of the United States has said, there is less risk in disarming than in engaging in a frenzied armaments race. We small nations of the non-aligned world have everything to gain from total, general and rapid disarmament, starting with our peace of mind.
82. If we no longer had to think of the threat of war we should be able to devote ourselves entirely to the economic development of our countries. Instead we are today compelled, like all our colleagues, to face political problems imposed by the perpetual cold war
and consequently by our obvious desire to give the great nations the moral guarantees of peace and of the universality of man.
S3. If, as we dare to hope, a Disarmament Commission is soon set up and if, as the USSR delegation wishes, the neutral group is invited to it, I would express the hope that the concept of neutral should be clearly defined, so that the conference should not become bogged down at the outset, for, as the Minister for Foreign Affairs of Senegal has said [1012th meeting], none of us can be neutral.
84. We believe for our part that, in the case of a problem as important as that of peace, if there must be blocs, there can be only two, namely the bloc of those who are convinced supporters of peace and the bloc of those who have to be convinced. There should even be no more mention of Western, Socialist or neutral Powers. We are all Members of the United Nations, and if we have really united so that the just cause of peace should triumph, there can be no question of blocs or factions. If this is not the case, then these ideological blocs will persist, as at present, and there will never be a United Nations, but at most nations which have joined and are seeking more or less openly some agreement of minds to safeguard the peace of the world.
85. The Republic of the Congo (Brazzaville) wishes to enter its name already in the camp of the resolute advocates of world peace.
86. I now come to the great problem of decolonization, which is also a factor, and not a negligible one at that, in the peace of the world.
87. For us, situated as we are in the heart of Africa, the daily problems of our Congolese brothers remain a reality which is as threatening to the stability of the world as a whole as is the Berlin issue. What good would it serve that our Congo was a land of asylum and peace, if along our easily penetrated frontiers, as a result of baneful influences, fires continued to smoulder, disorder still prevailed and poverty gained an ever-stronger foothold? We are deeply affected and perturbed by the distress of our brothers.
88. But we must not despair, for all is not lost and we have faith in them and in their rulers. Nothing more will be lost if the representatives of the United Nations in the Congo scrupulously carry out the duties assigned to them under the Charter, as we have so often asked.
89. We wish to emphasize once again in this hall the fact that the Congolese problem, tragic though it may be, concerns first and foremost the Congolese who are strongly imbued with the sense of their duties and are always doing their utmost to find a solution appropriate to their status of free men.
90. The Government of the Republic of the Congo (Leopoldville) requested the United Nations, on 12 and 13 July 1960, to send a force to deal with external threats and to safeguard human lives. The mission of the United Nations in the Congo, our mission, was therefore clearly defined. Today the United Nations Force is still in the Congo, with the full consent of the Congolese because it has to comply strictly with the tasks entrusted to it under various resolutions of the Council. It is our firm hope that this Force will not
Official Records of the Security Council, Fifteenth Year. Supple-gent for .July, August and September 1960, document S/4382.
relinquish its obligations and will always faithfully carry out our decisions.
91. If we may express a hope, it is that the heavy sacrifices accepted for over a year by the Congolese people have not promoted selfish ends.
92. We should also like to prevent any recurrence of such acts; like many of our friends, we fear that Africa - may become a hunting-ground for certain ideologies or counter-ideologies whose protagonists are now turning towards the non-aligned countries, towards the young independent nations of Africa whom they consider to be an easy prey.
93. All that we ask today, if we are truly to seek peace in Africa, is that material interests should give way so that moral interests may triumph, and that behind the scenes there should be no more pulling of strings— always for selfish ends—strings which only those who pull them cannot see. If economic interests can for a while yield pride of place to humanitarian interests, all the rifts between our brothers will be healed. That is the dearest wish of my Government.
94: I want to say too that our country is following the other decolonization problems with all the interest they deserve.
95. We appreciate and wish to encourage all efforts made by the President of the French Republic, General de Gaulle, to bring about the self-determination of the Algerian people.
96. The question of apartheid in South Africa cannot be a matter of indifference to my delegation, particularly as the main victims of that most reprehensible policy are Africans.
97. The Pretoria Government has always spurned the principles of justice and freedom throughout, the Republic of South Africa when those concerned were not Afrikaners.
98. The delegation of the Republic of the Congo (Brazzaville) voted for the motion of censure against the Government of Mr. Verwoerd [1034th meeting] because it wishes to identify itself with the peoples struggling for the abolition of extortionate and unjust policies in Africa, for the dignity of Africans, and because it wants in particular that the inalienable right of non-Afrikaners to a free and independent life on a soil, which, to the best of our knowledge, is not the true homeland of the Boers, should be recognized. Since the Afrikaners will do nothing to mitigate their uncompromising and ruinous policy, my delegation will join with other delegations which want to take the necessary measures to eliminate the racist Pretoria Government from our Assembly.
99. In the course of his declaration [1033rd meeting] a few days ago, the South African representative made some kind of attempt to show the Members of this Assembly that if there does exist a black man's paradise in Africa, that paradise is in South Africa. But we, the African people of independent countries, tend to regard South Africa as a hell, a veritable concentration camp, in which our Bantu, Zulu and other brothers live. Mr. Verwoerd has himself declared, when interpreting in his own way a verse 6f the Bible, that the non-Afrikaner in South Africa was created by God to serve the Boer. I am waiting to hear a denial of this statement from the representative of Pretoria.
100. I do not know what led the Permanent Mission of South Africa recently to address a propaganda
publication to my delegation in which the South African racist Government endeavours to convince public opinion that non-Afrikaners, and blacks in particular, enjoy a standard of living unknown in other parts of the world. My delegation cannot be deceived by this comedy. We have seen other such pamphlets and illustrated booklets published by certain Governments whose aim was clearly to delude public opinion. Mr. Verwoerd's Government is not going to make us believe that South Africa is the true) home of freedom and justice by publishing and disseminating fanciful illustrated booklets..
101. The life of the non-Afrikaner is so wonderful that periodic and sporadic manifestations are constantly . occurring during which Africans are killed Whose only demand is to be given decent treatment.
102. It is a fact that in South Africa all non-Afrikaners must have a. pass to go from one place to another and that any kind of privilege granted to a Boer must be systematically refused to the Bantu.
103. Non-Afrikaners do not know what liberty is; they do not have the right to take any kind of decision that might improve their lot. As to political and civil rights, it is a waste of time to mention them, for the poor African has none.
104. The policy of Mr. Verwoerd's Government is one of the nightmares of the peoples of Africa in the twentieth century. The Afrikaner's policy is a scourge to the true Africa and the pernicious behaviour of this South African racist minority is one of the factors that might endanger peace on the African continent.
105. The moment will come when we shall reveal the complete record of the South African policy of apartheid.
106.. But let this not prevent us from greeting with the utmost pleasure the admission of Sierra Leone into the United Nations, another step forward for African independence,, which will help to chart the course of all dependent peoples towards liberation.
107. We must regret, however, that for almost a year a question of procedure has kept a sister nation, the Islamic Republic of Mauritania, which rightly wants to make its voice heard in the concert of free nations, waiting in the corridors of our Organization.
108. We would be failing in our duty and our obligations towards our brothers of Cabinda and Angola if we failed to express the anguish we feel at the misfortunes unjustly inflicted on a peaceful and genuinely freedom-loving people.
109. We have noted with satisfaction that the question of Angola has been put on the agenda. I hope this will make it possible for the Assembly to examine
110. I am sure everyone still remembers the urgent appeals I made [891st meeting], without passion or bitterness, from this rostrum, to the Head of the Government of Lisbon, during the fifteenth session of the Assembly. I should like to repeat them to its representative who said to us a few days ago that the mission of the United Nations was to develop feelings of brotherhood among men and nations, to cairn passions rather than to inflame them, to promote friendship and understanding between countries rather than to incite them to hatred, to make it possible for problems to be resolved in a legitimate way rather than to complicate them and retard their solution through ill-considered acts [1014th meeting, para. 64].
111. To Whom does this lesson apply, if not to President Salazar?
112. On 6 October 1960, during the fifteenth session of the Assembly, I said:
"Is the Portuguese Government's policy of indifference reasonable? Can President Salazar show himself to be less generous than General de Gaulle has been? Can he show himself to be less generous than the Queen of England, whose African territories are acceding to independence one by one?" [891st meeting, para. 40.]
113. I would today ask the Assembly: What has the Government of President Salazar done since last year, apart from re-conquering a colony?
114. Need I give further details now? Need I recall the extortions, the ignoble activities of the Portuguese soldiers and officers, and the crime of genocide committed by the civil servants of the Lisbon Government?
115. No, I shall hot speak of this today, for there is a time for everything.
116. I wish simply to quote the opinion of a former Portuguese civil servant who, having served for fifteen years as a senior inspector of the Portuguese administration, knows what he is talking about when he addressed the Portuguese Government. This is what he says:
"The results, the real results of your political incompetence and dictatorial whims, un-criticized, uncontrolled and inhuman, have now became apparent. The black populations of Angola and Mozambique are emigrating; they are fleeing in the greatest population exodus in the history of our overseas territories. In Cape Verde a whole population is dying under the yoke of mediaeval rules. You should remember that you sent me specially to Cape Verde to combat a famine which had already killed off a fifth of the population and to study the measures to be taken in future crises, that I have studied the situation, furnished information, made proposals and that my reports and my requests have been duly buried with full honours in the confidential archives of the Ministry. The United Nations and those abroad must learn that the Portuguese people, ruled as it is by force, is not responsible for your mistakes and condemns them. I think it is our duty as Portuguese to say this aloud to our compatriots and to the whole world and to oppose a silence which seems conspiratorial. You protect and defend the officials., who sell the blacks by letting them go unpunished. Thanks to ostensibly Christian laws, you maintain in the Africa provinces a form of forced labour which is in some ways more cruel than slavery. You beheld unmoved the tragic events at Cape Verde and the slave policies of the slave-traders of Sao Tome. The nation is not your accomplice and the whole world must know it in this grave hour when everything is deteriorating and becoming confused. The fault lies with you and with your party and not with the country which condemns you and demands the return to a truly Portuguese overseas policy.
"We have the illusion that we are living at peace, but this peace, like that of Russia and its satellites, is the peace of the herd and of the graveyard, The overseas provinces of Angola and Mozambique are the only territories South of the Sahara in which a
certain number of black intellectuals are not to be found. That was not the case before the miraculous appearance of Your Excellency, the learned university professor,
"In Africa, you have deliberately chosen non-civilization. Without you and your system for the natural development of the spirit and ideas of the pre-colonial act period, Portugal would or could be today a Eurafrican federal republic of Portuguese States or a community of Eurafrican peoples. In fact it is nothing more than a simple metropolitan territory for eight overseas provinces which for more than twenty-five years have been reduced to the juridical status of colonies and have been administered as such."
117. These words were addressed by Henrique Galvao to President Salazar in February 1960.
118. It may be averred that Henrique Galvao is nothing more than an adventurer. This hardly matters, for he is neither a black nor an Angolan; he is a Portuguese and nothing more. There are hundreds like him, muzzled and powerless in Portugal and in the so-called Portuguese territories in Africa.
119. We agree with him when he says that the Portuguese people are not responsible for what goes on overseas. As he has stated so aptly: "Thirty years of political and secret police, censorship, violation of the home and of correspondence, wire-tapping and fiscal extortion have reduced this simple and courteous people to the state of moral wretchedness of the outcast peoples of the totalitarian countries."
120. This is true. We know the Portuguese intimately, for many of them have made our Congo their country of adoption. They have done this because in our country, where liberty and justice prevail, they feel more contented than at home or in Angola. All these voluntary expatriates, who wish only to go on lining and trading in our country, would, if they could talk freely and were not afraid of reprisals against members of their families living in Portugal or these alleged overseas provinces, speak their minds on the deleterious rule of the Salazar Government in Cabinda, Angola, Mozambique or Portuguese Guinea.
121. To the humanitarian appeals for the cessation of the massacre of innocent people which are coming in from all over the world, President Salazar replies:
"We have been in Africa for centuries. We came here with a doctrine, which is not the same thing as disembarking in order to become rich. We are here with a policy, which is not the same thing as abandoning human destinies to the alleged winds of history."
122« This doctrine or policy is undoubtedly being applied in all equality and without discrimination to the unhappy Portuguese people by a Government which Galvao describes as "mediocre men chosen by negative selection, the result of a shameful search for empty minds and the most abject decadence".
123. On 28 August 1961, Mr. Adriano Moreira, the Portuguese Minister for Overseas Provinces, in a speech which he made at Oporto, announced that important reforms were going to be introduced in Angola and Mozambique, with a view to the complete integration of the indigenous population into the Lusitanian nation. The states of "indigenato" would be abrogated
and the political equality of Europeans and indigenous inhabitants would be proclaimed. He-Went on to declare:
"The fact that we are decreeing the unification of political status for all Portuguese does not mean that we think we can give up our responsibilities. On the contrary, we are acting thus because we consider that we have reached a stage in the evolution of our country when the historic task which Ms fallen to us will be made easier by such a unification."
124, This was an implicit recognition of what the Portuguese Government has already denied, that there is still in force in Cabinda, Angola and other territories under Portuguese administration, a status of "indigenato" and political inequality on account of the colour of one's skin. That is the precise reason why the inhabitants of Cabinda and the Angolans are fighting, that is why they have picked up their cudgels which, it is said, are often more eloquent than official complaints or statements.
125, Today political equality, the effects of which the Government of Salazar in any case intends to counteract by more rapid colonization, will not stop the wind of nationalism which is blowing like a gale over the Portuguese colonies in Africa. The African tornado will not stop; the most that can be done is to confine the damage it will cause.
126, The nationalists of Angola and Cabinda have given up all hope of working with the Portuguese Government and want to replace it in order to take up the struggle against illiteracy, infant mortality, racism, poverty and disease.
127, If Portugal had been able to profit in time from the lessons of the United Kingdom and France, they might be able today to impose reforms, which unfortunately seem quite out of date to the new independent States of Africa.
128, The spirit of understanding displayed by France and the United Kingdom will, I am quite sure, bring its rewards. The blind, narrow sectarianism of the Salazar Government, on the other hand, could lead only to war and the horrors that succeed it.
129, Scarcely six months ago, the people of Cabinda, united in their desire for the liberation of the Cabinda enclave, addressed, through the dignitaries, a memorandum to the Minister for Overseas Portuguese Territories submitting "specific solutions which would lead Cabinda harmoniously to political and economic emancipation in peace, concord and friendship with Portugal".
130, This memorandum, which I have available for any representative who may wish to see it, shows the good sense of a people which has no intention whatever of breaking with the Administering Power, but on the contrary wants to collaborate fully with it in order to save the country from progressive stagnation ending in extinction,
131, The Government of Portugal could have seized this occasion to make Cabinda a pilot self-governing territory. This would have enabled it to measure the capacity of the people it administered to govern themselves, while demonstrating the humanity of its political intentions. It did nothing of the kind; on the contrary. The Portuguese authorities replied to the above-mentioned memorandum by the use of blind and brutal force. This is so true that thousands of the inhabitants of Cabinda, our blood brothers separated
from us for more than a century by the hazards of European treaties, are today returning to our lands which are their lands, not daring to put their trust any more in an Administering Authority that knows only the use of force to back what it claims to be the law.
132. The movement for the liberation of the enclave of Cabinda has addressed to the Sub-Committee on the Situation in Angola a memorandum dated 14 August 1961, in which it calls for the liberation of Cabinda from Portuguese oppression and the establishment of a democratic and independent State by means of a popular referendum at the national level, under the supervision of the United Nations.
133. We shall support this memorandum, as we do all nationalist movements for the liberation of the alleged Portuguese provinces, for there can be no peace for us as long as the soldiers of Mr. Salazar engage in man-hunts in Angola and Cabinda even going so far as to violate our frontiers. On 18 September 1961, for the second time in forty-eight hours, armed Portuguese soldiers coming from Cabinda penetrated our territory in the region of Kimongo and at the village of Yanza and arrested and forcibly brought back to Cabinda a refugee from Cabinda and four of our nationals of whom we still have no news. In this not a flagrant proof of the colonialist designs of the officials of the Salazar Government and an odious provocation which we cannot pass over in silence?
134. Faced with such clear cases of aggression, our delegation will unreservedly support any resolution for the rupture by all Members of the United Nations of diplomatic relations with Portugal.
135. I should not like to leave this rostrum without reiterating that the Government of the Republic of the Congo (Brazzaville) rests firmly on the principles of the United Nations Charter, the violation of which it will not tolerate. It remains faithful to a policy which it will untiringly pursue and to which it remains firmly attached. It sets forth through the medium of this representative the guiding lines of its foreign policy and wishes to state clearly its special attachment to paragraph 2 of Article 1 of" the Charter, on the "respect for the principles of equal rights and self-determination of peoples".
136. May I also mention in passing a problem which is of importance to the non-aligned nations—the .principle of international economic co-operation. In this connexion, there is no need to remind the great Powers that we are awaiting their aid, an aid which must of course be unconditional, to enable us to raise the standard of living of our peoples. It is said, and rightly, that we belong to the under-developed nations, but as we are at present under-populated, we should, given the necessary aid and a reasonable amount of time, be able to achieve an average standard. We know that it is not easy to overcome the obstacles in our way, but we think that with frank co-operation, both the great and the small would gain.
137. Furthermore, the principle of economic and social co-operation is clearly stated in Article 55 of the Charter. If applied, as we earnestly hope, to all nations of the non-aligned world, there would within a fairly short period of time be no further problem of under-development.
138. In conclusion, and to respond to the unanimous opinion in this Assembly, I should like to say a few words on the problem of reforming our Organization.
139. If it is true—and each passing day confirms it— that urgent reforms are needed in the organization of the various organs of the United Nations, we should make a start with these reforms forthwith, even before finding a final solution to the replacement of the Secretary-General, if only to safeguard the spirit of the Charter. For we must bear in mind the evolution of the modern world, which is no longer what it was fifteen years ago, and remember that the events occurring in a world of perpetual agitation are imposing ever more complex and delicate tasks upon us. Is this world worth the search for universal peace? I think that all of us without exception agree that it is.