148. Mr. AMMOUN (Lebanon) (translated from French): The Arab Peoples, who are both Asian and African — they represent the geographical and human bridge between Asia and Africa — are highly pleased, Mr. President, at your election as President of this Assembly. We are impressed by the unanimity with which you were chosen, for it was a tribute to your exceptional ability and a reflection of the opinion of delegations representing peoples from five continents; it augurs well for the conduct of the work of this session, which is opening in an atmosphere of profound anxiety for the whole world.
149. When the United Nations was founded, nearly seventeen years ago, it held out the prospect of building a new world, united in peace, subject to the rule of law, living under the authority of a world organization which was itself based on the principles of liberty, equality and justice.
150. The attention of nations was turned towards the Charter, which embodied those principles for all time. Some of those nations, still suffering from two world wars, relied on the new concept of collective security to avert another war, which would be more terrible and destructive than ever before. Others, still bowed under the yoke of colonialism or suffering from economic and social injustice, saw in the United Nations the dawn of liberation and equality together with respect for human dignity. If that was the new order on which all hopes rested, why were the peoples dissatisfied with it? Why have nations felt the need to come together at other places, in Asia, Africa and Europe, and to reach agreement outside this forum? Why, after San Francisco, which fulfilled the whole world's aspirations, has there been Bandung, why has there been Belgrade? And why Brazzaville, Casablanca and Monrovia? The events of today supply us with new answer to that question.
151. However, the Conference of African and Asian nations held at Bandung in 1955 was not just the expression of the aspirations of Asia and Africa. The spirit of Bandung is the spirit of our Charter. The principles and objectives of Bandung are those of the United Nations, or at least, what the principles of the United Nations should have been in international practice.
152. It was because those were not being applied or were taking a dangerously long time to implement that the African and Asian nations met at Bandung, where they served as spokesmen for the oppressed and abandoned peoples of all continents. They were the voice of all who sought peace in the world.
153. It is common knowledge, however, that the Bandung Conference, which had been viewed initially with some apprehension, soon was welcomed in many different quarters. The resolutions it adopted, far from marshalling the coloured peoples against the West, proclaimed their adherence to the Declaration of Human Rights and their support for the principles and purposes of the United Nations, which aim to preserve peace based on justice and national and racial equality. The principle of international cooperation was embodied in the resolutions on economic and cultural questions. It is true that the peoples of Africa and Asia gained most by the meeting. However, is not that perhaps because they were the most disinherited, to the point where the Charter principles did not seem to have been conceived with them in mind?
154. Be that as it may, twenty-five nations of Asia and Africa became Members of the United Nations five years after Bandung, and we have just admitted another African country. Thus, the United Nations was indebted to the Conference of the countries of Africa and Asia for giving effect to the long-neglected principle of universality.
155. However, the task is far from completed. More than one country is still fighting for its freedom and waiting for the day when the doors of the United Nations will be opened to it. Others are fighting to defend their territorial integrity or to free themselves from the last vestiges of colonialism and racial discrimination.
156. If the historic resolution condemning colonialism [1514 (XV] adopted by the General Assembly at its fifteenth session had been rapidly implemented, if it had been greeted by all the Powers to which it was addressed with the same understanding and good will, the Conference of Non-Aligned Countries held at Belgrade in September 1961 would not have had to deal with the problem again and would have confined itself as some would have preferred, to the tragic problem of war or peace.
157. But, so long as the bloodied land of Africa still carries the seeds of colonialism, so long as racial discrimination has not been stamped out wherever it has roots, the struggle must go on and the Belgrade Conference could not fail to take up the problem again,
158. It was raised there again with greater emphasis and in broader scope. Intervention and discrimination in any region of the world were severely condemned. The solidarity of eastern and western peoples that yearn for freedom and equality was strengthened as a result.
159. Like Bandung, Belgrade satisfied a general, universal need, a need which the United Nations should have satisfied without either Conference having to remind it. Is it not the responsibility of the General Assembly at this session and of all the nations here represented, without exception, to put an end to a long and painful episode in the history of mankind?
160. If so much patient and unremitting labour over a long period is required to achieve an objective of the United Nations involving the most fundamental principles of the Charter and the fundamental rights of peoples, should we not ask ourselves why?
161. Shall I tell you why? The tragic death of the Secretary-General of the United Nations provides us with the answer, an answer from beyond the grave.
162. The other day, we all listened attentively, despite the emotion we felt, to one hundred funeral orations for Mr. Dag Hammarskjold, who died 'for the very cause we are defending, the cause of freedom.
163. $ there is any man who deserves to live forever in our memory, is not he the man who, at a decisive stage of our history, personified the ideals of freedom and world peace and bravely went to his death to make those ideals a reality?
164. Let us remember that Dag Hammarskjold was a man of faith and: courage: faith in the oft-forgotten principles of the United Nations and its lofty purposes; courage in the service of those purposes and principles — moral courage throughout all his work, physical courage in the face of death,
165. What greater tribute can be paid to him than to share fully in his faith and courageously to work towards his ideal?
166. The death of Dag Hammarskjold reminds us of the no less painful death of Count Bernadotte whose murder was confessed — or rather proudly claimed — by a powerful political party which is represented in the Israeli parliament. The bullet which struck him in the back not only put an end to his life, but also to his efforts to secure the implementation of United Nations resolutions on Palestine and on the internationalization of Jerusalem.
167. Is not the answer to the agonizing question we have asked ourselves to be found in the sacrifice of those two great men to a great cause, in the face of resistance to United Nations action and to. its objectives?
168. After Bernadotte, after Hammarskjold, will there be men of courage to break that resistance and to devote themselves, as they did, at the risk of their lives, to the implementation of the principles of the Charter and the decisions of the United Nations?
169. For what indeed is the use of the most solemn principles and resolutions if they are not translated into action? By allowing Israel just once to violate the Charter and disregard decisions based on its principles, by leaving unpunished the murder of the representative of the United Nations who tried to give effect to those principles, have we not encouraged similar attitudes on the part of other countries?
170. Have we not in the same way allowed the resolution on decolonization to remain without effect for nearly a year after its adoption, with the result that now we are again confronted with problems like Algeria?
171. If the greatness of a nation is measured by the sacrifices it makes for its independence and freedom, then great is the Algerian nation, which has made tremendous sacrifices for its liberation.
172. Indeed, do we realize that the number of Algerian men and women who died in the struggle for freedom exceeds the losses suffered by more than one great Power in the war to free the world from the menace of Hitler? The United Nations remembers the Korean war in which sixteen of its Members took part. Those sixteen countries together did not lose as many men as Algeria alone.
173. We should bear in mind all those sacrifices and resume without delay the negotiations which have been suspended — the Algerian people have agreed to negotiate for their independence and the protection of their territorial integrity.
174. In other countries, in Angola, Portuguese Guinea, South West Africa, South Africa, the Congo, Palestine — I shall not name them all — blood has flowed freely in the struggle for independence or racial equality or national unity — as freely as that shed, at least once in its history, by every nation represented here, in its struggle for liberation.
175. The clearly expressed will of the United Nations to put an end without delay to colonization in all its forms implied a solution to these painful problems, a solution which brooks no further delay, for the negative attitudes towards the United Nations, beginning with that relating to Palestine and continuing with those adopted with regard to other problems connected with the ending of colonialism must be denounced once and for all.
176. Let us therefore agree to help all dependent peoples to free themselves from their bonds so that justice may reign at last and one cause of insecurity and one danger of war be banished forever.
177. That is the ideal of the United Nations. However, no sooner was the Organization founded both as a symbol of and an instrument for the unity of the world, a world united in peaceful co-operation, than a split occurred which set the great Powers against one another and drew the peoples into one or other camp. The objectives of the United Nations were lost from sight. Instead of adhering to the principles of collective security, the world reverted to the old system of alliances and the balance of forces in which advanced defensive positions and strategic and military bases confront one another. There was no longer any question of disarmament as envisaged in the Charter. Instead of disarmament, we have had an arms race, made more terrifying by the new weapons, to which, if nuclear tests are not immediately suspended, will be added the neutron bomb. The battlefields which were adequate for the greatest conquerors of the past no longer satisfy the ambition of our modern strategists who now include interplanetary space in their plans.
178. In this state of affairs, arising from the division of the world, was it not inevitable that crises would follow one another, each more dangerous than the last for the peace of the world? The renewed Berlin crisis coupled with the problem of Germany, which is pushing humanity to the brink of the precipice, cannot be considered in isolation from the competition which, since the end of 1945, has thus cast its gloomy shadow over the whole globe. Berlin and Germany are both cause and effect. They are the cause of the extreme danger which is threatening the immediate future of mankind and they are the effect of the situation which has resulted from the rift in the United Nations and of the desperate competition which has supplanted the Charter's spirit of co-operation.
179. All the events of our time fit into this picture of division and competition. After the crises in Iran and Greece, after the first Berlin crisis, after Korea and Viet-Nam, after Laos, the Congo and Cuba, it is once again Berlin. It is the fire smouldering incessantly under the ashes, periodically releasing sparks which may set fire to the whole world and the sky above it.
180. However, we must not minimize the efforts being made by men of good will to find a solution to each incipient conflict, whether those efforts are made inside or outside the United Nations. The United Nations sets about this Sisyphean task year after year. It is preparing to do so at the present session. But there is a danger that every effort will be vain or lead only to a provisional solution so long as we do not tackle the initial cause of all these conflicts, culminating today in the Berlin crisis through which we are living so dangerously, so long as we do not tackle the basic cause which is common to them all and which lies in the contradiction between two worlds.
181. For ten years we have been talking about peaceful coexistence. Any why should peaceful coexistence not be the remedy for the evils created by this division? Why should it not be the panacea for these crises which break out at different places and at different times but which all stem from a single cause?
182. It is true that peaceful coexistence certainly needed to be rehabilitated in the eyes of certain people who regarded it with apprehension, if not with mistrust, probably because the idea had been advanced by one of the parties at issue. But have these apprehensions not subsided since the concept of peaceful coexistence has gone round the world, so to speak, having been adopted by the Colombo Powers, the Bandung and Belgrade Conferences and, finally, by the representatives of States of the Monrovia group, like Senegal? And has not the Secretary of State of the United Kingdom just given it his Government's support? We recall in particular the fine analysis of peaceful coexistence made by the distinguished Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Senegal at the 1012th plenary meeting, which could have found ready support, I think, among the non-aligned countries of Belgrade or of the Afro-Asian group.
183. Whatever hope we may place in peaceful coexistence as a blanket solution to the problems whose persistence continues to disturb the world, it remains a long-term solution which does not exclude a positive examination of each of these problems. We are of course in favour of negotiated solutions, provided neither law nor principles suffer in the process. In the past year the United Nations has looked to negotiation as a means of securing general disarmament, and twenty-five heads of State or Government leaders of non-aligned countries, responding to the present crisis, have urged negotiation upon the leaders of the two great countries which hold in their hands the keys to war and peace. You will agree that the effect of such an appeal will be considerable and that it. will bear fruit sooner or later, for it is an unambiguous expression of the ardent desire of all peoples for peace. We "believe, moreover, that it meets the wishes of the leaders of the great Powers concerned, who did not conceal this fact in the statements they made to an attentive and highly interested Assembly.
184. But if the question of Berlin and of Germany is amenable to negotiation — and we hope we may look forward to fruitful negotiations on that subject in the near future — the problem of disarmament, which is likewise negotiable, appears on the agenda of this session with new prospects of success. We were glad to learn from the address by the President of the United States [1013th plenary meeting] as well as from the statement by the Soviet Foreign Minister [1016th plenary meeting] that they were agreeable to the participation of the non-aligned countries in the negotiations which were envisaged. These statements were encouraging on two counts: the prospect of negotiations, which was thus accepted by both parties, and the objective participation of the non- aligned countries. The admission of this neutral element is likely to create an atmosphere of confidence, to temper the discussions, to avoid conflicts and to help in the search for practical solutions free from all special interests, provided the neutral countries entrusted with this delicate mission realize its full importance and carry it out with an efficiency and impartiality matching the good will by which they are animated.
185. I now want to digress for a moment and speak about the economic aspect?* of the question, and about the proposals tying economic recovery to population growth. I am one of those who are painfully surprised by the proposal on the Assembly's agenda to link two problems, economic development and population growth, with the clear intention of limiting the latter by birth control.
186. In order to justify the linking of these two problems, they are both described as "social factors". The birth of a human being is not a mere social factor. There is a spiritual and moral element in the birth of a man, it even has something of the divine. Humanity, if I may say so, is not a herd whose rate of growth can be fixed according to the pasturage available. Moreover, Malthusianism is a way of explaining the cycle of wars and epidemics, and a dubious one at that. In any event, it cannot be used to justify a new kind of massacre of the innocents, or an attack on God's work.
187. The problem of the sacred rights of man, whether born or unborn, can best be stated by asking: how can we increase production in order to meet the needs of humanity?
188. In the present world situation, which is that of a world arming to the teeth, the solution does not lie in birth control but in control of armaments. Above all, the curbing of the population must not be allowed to supply the policy of general armament with fresh means. That would mean killing the embryo to obtain the means of killing the man.
189. We must remember that over $120,000 million a year is being spent on armaments by the two camps. We must also recall, for example, that the combined national income of the whole of Africa is $20,000 million, which means an average per caput income of $100. What does this mean? It means that if the military budgets of the two blocs were spent on assistance to Africa, they would raise the African's income by 600 per cent. In other words, the annual, per caput income in Africa would immediately rise from $100 to $600 and would thus equal the figure for Europe.
190. In the circumstances we should speak not of reducing births but of reducing armaments. Whatever may be done through birth control can be matched only by the reduction or abolition of armaments. The latter is in any case inevitable, but we must immediately set about smoothing the path of negotiations leading towards it.
191. Each passing day, particularly since the resumption of nuclear tests, increases the danger that the new weapons will spread, until they are in the hands of even the smallest countries.
192. Although we voted for a separate discussion on the question of the cessation of nuclear tests, any of the parties is free to ensure that the negotiations on this subject and on disarmament go forward together and if the disarmament discussions make no progress, the discussions on present testing can be held up.
193. The danger of these tests lies perhaps less in the developing knowledge of the nuclear Powers themselves than in the possibility that other States may- seek and acquire the same knowledge. Does not the real danger lie in a more wide-spread possession of nuclear weapons?
194. While we continue our efforts to conclude a treaty providing for the banning, under effective control, of the testing of such weapons by certain great Powers, all States possessing reactors, theoretically for peaceful purposes, should immediately be brought under some control. This control could be the responsibility of the International Atomic Energy Agency at Vienna, which is an agency of the United Nations. Any country not complying with such a decision would thus afford adequate proof of its lack of good faith, and could then be deprived of any supplies and any aid in this field. This control of the nascent nuclear Powers should be established without delay.
195. Lastly, I should like to raise a matter about which we are all anxious and on which Members of the Organization should unite, instead of creating another open split, because it concerns one of the strongest pillars of the United Nations: I refer to the question of the Secretary-General and of the succession to Mr. Hammarskjold.
196. Throughout this statement I have referred to the unity which prevailed when the United Nations was established, the unity which existed among the founders of the Organization at San Francisco and which had already been lost the following year at London and the year after that at Flushing Meadows. We deplored the division and the split which occurred in our ranks and dominated our work, and we called for the restoration of this lost unity.
197. It is true that unity has sometimes been achieved in support of certain causes the justice of which was so obvious that none could ignore them who was not moved by wrongly understood self-interest or by outdated ideas belonging to the past. This was the case at the time of the bloody conflicts of Suez and Bizerta. Almost complete unanimity was achieved or restored, to the honour of the United Nations, in these two cases which raised questions of general principle for all nations. But our Organization has suffered from a disastrous disunity since its foundation, particularly towards the end of this year.
198. Following the painful loss we have suffered, we must preserve the unity which is still embodied in the person of the Secretary-General, the only survivor of the shipwreck of our first illusions, and we must cling to it with desperation*
199. It is, in fact, a question of choice. Until now the small nations have been called upon — first Norway and
then Sweden. The field of choice has become wider since appearance of the non-aligned nations, and by non-aligned nations I do not mean only those which went to Belgrade.
f200. I should like to remind you that the search for a definition of non-alignment was a rather delicate matter when it was taken up in Cairo. Non-alignment is as hard to define as aggression, or even law, and jurists and diplomats who have exercised their best wits for dozens of years have not been able to agree on definitions of those terms. However, I am quite willing to adopt the excellent definition of non-alignment given by the Minister for Foreign Affairs of Senegal, and I infer from it that the countries which attended the Belgrade Conference are not the only non-aligned countries. They themselves declared, in fact, that they held no monopoly. What is even better, they expressed the hope that their numbers would increase. The influence of the non-aligned countries can thus only tend to increase and serve more effectively the interests of peace.
201. A Secretary-General worthy to succeed Mr. Hammarskjold and agreeable to the two conflicting parties may therefore well be found in one of the non-aligned nations, in the widest sense of that word. Have not these two parties already agreed that the non-aligned nations should take part in the solution of a problem which is vital to each of them and to the whole world — the problem of disarmament?
202. I should like to add that I fully share the opinion expressed this morning by the Guinean Minister for Foreign Affairs on the participation of all nations of Asia and Africa, as the equals of every other nation, in all bodies of the United Nations. This is necessary in the interest of the United Nations itself.
203. If, therefore, we can settle the question of the Secretary-General rapidly in the spirit of co-operation and confidence which we all desire, we shall have taken a step to strengthen our Organization so that it may once more become an instrument for peace and for the unity and progress of mankind. This is the hope expressed, on behalf of my country, as this session of the General Assembly opens in one of the most critical phases of history for the destiny of man and of human civilization.