1. Let me first of all express the heartfelt condolences of all members of my delegation to our Ceylonese friends on the irreparable loss they have sustained in the death of their great Prime Minister, Mr. Bandaranaike.
2. We were also extremely sorry to hear about the heavy loss of life and properly in Japan caused by the recent typhoon there. We extend our deepest sympathy to our Japanese friends.
3. Mr. President, I should now like to extend to you the warm felicitations of His Majesty's Government of Nepal and my own congratulations on your election as President of the fourteenth session of the General Assembly. We have no doubt that, with your long and distinguished record of service in the United Nations and in international conferences generally, you will discharge the heavy responsibilities of this high office with distinction.
4. At the same time, I should fail in my duty if I did not take this opportunity to express my Government's deep appreciation of the Work of Mr. Charles Malik of Lebanon, who guided the deliberations of the Assembly in difficult times last year.
5. We have been in the United Nations for a little more than three years, and during these three eventful years we have sought to work to the best of our ability, both nationally and internationally, for those principles and practices which in our opinion would strengthen world peace and security.
6. In the domestic field we have believed that political, economic and social progress within our country is in itself an important contribution to world peace. In other words, we are firmly convinced that if we want to really serve the cause of world peace we must direct our energies towards the political and economic progress of the people even more than to the problems of the world outside. And, actuated by this belief, we have set up for the first time in our history a liberal government freely elected on the basis of universal adult franchise responsible to the people and responsive to their aspirations. His Majesty King Mahendra has happily associated himself with this great experiment in democratic evolution. In this new political set-up, our Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, Mr. B. P. Koirala, would personally have liked to come and participate in the work of the United Nations, but pressing work at home, especially because our Government has been just recently installed, has prevented him from doing so.
7. For the past three years we have expressed on different occasions our point of view on many international questions. We have not only declared our faith, our unqualified faith, in the aims and purposes of the United Nations Charter, but we have actually tried hard to work and live in reality in accordance with the spirit of the Charter. Our faith in the United Nations, and as a matter of fact, the faith of all the smaller countries in this world Organization, has been strengthened by the fact that in times of great crisis the United Nations has not satisfied itself with the mere passing of pious resolutions, but has actually taken actions which have often proved adequate to meet the situation, as for example in Suez, Laos, and other areas. Thus, on different occasions, the United Nations has succeeded in saving the world from the imminent threat of war.
8. We have taken an unequivocal stand against imperialism or colonialism in any shape or form and have maintained that every step toward the independence and freedom of dependent countries is a step toward progress and peace. We have, therefore, watched with special interest, sympathy and even pride the growth of nationalism in Asia and Africa, and have been happy to welcome from year to year many new Members into the United Nations, as a result of their attaining full statehood. We welcomed the Federation of Malaya last year and we are happy to welcome the Republic of Guinea this year. We hope and believe that we will have the opportunity to welcome many more Members into this august world body in the future.
9. The growth of nationalism and of movements of resurgence in Asia and Africa is a great creative process. The United Nations has reflected in positive terms, as in a mirror, this great creative work of building a new world order that is going on around us in the form of a search for new values, new attitudes and new centres of gravity and interest, but it has unfortunately reflected also the negative and destructive aspects of this great process. On the negative side there are still many countries which have yet to become free. The bitter struggle for national independence that is going on in Algeria and other parts of Africa comes to mind, and we appeal to the colonial powers to respond more adequately to the nationalist aspirations of these countries.
10. We believe that the policy of non-alignment which we have pursued in relation to rival international power groups is a policy dictated by the acceptance of present international reality. The two Power groups, in our view, are a reality and it is also a fact that they have been coexisting for almost a decade and a half in peace though it has been a kind of uneasy peace. Besides, there have been, in. the course of the last fourteen years, certain periods when one or the other group has appeared to possess an over-all military superiority over another, and has yet refrained from actually plunging the world into war. This being the case, we hold the view that in the present world situation, which is likely to continue for quite a long time, total war does not appear to us to be probable and we still put trust in the basic wisdom of the world's statesmen.
11. Therefore, when we say that we follow the policy of non-alignment, we mean that there are two groups of Powers in the world today, and that their existence is a reality which we cannot ignore. To act as if one or the other group does not exist or exists only to be militarily conquered is, in our opinion, extremely dangerous because it ignores, in the event of military conflict between the two Power groups which that concept implies, the certain prospect of annihilation that humanity faces. The policy of non-alignment is, therefore, nothing but a recognition of existing international realities and has nothing to do with the concept of neutralism which is often ridiculed in interested quarters and which implies a lack of response to basic questions of international life. Therefore, the policy of non-alignment does not, as we have repeatedly made clear, mean that we are neutral on many international .questions, and neutral towards different ideologies that prevail in the world. It means that we decide each issue on its own merits, and do not commit ourselves beforehand to the position of either of the two Power blocs by joining either group of military alliances in the form of military pacts, and that we retain our freedom of judgement.
12. Coming to the question of United Nations membership, we believe that, if the United Nations is to be made into an effective instrument of peace, it is necessary to ensure universality of membership. It is for this reason that we have felt happy at the addition of each new Member, and the expansion of the United Nations membership from fifty-one to eighty-two has been a matter of deep satisfaction for us. We have, however, been disappointed when the question of the representation of the Central People's Government of the People's Republic of China is postponed year after year, because this postponement has not only deprived the United Nations of universality, but also made it a less efficacious instrument of peace. If, unfortunately, it becomes established that all important international conferences having a vital bearing on world peace have to take place outside the United Nations, as has been the increasing tendency so far, the United Nations may go the same way which the League of Nations did. We believe that all will agree when we say we must prevent this from happening. Political maturity, in our opinion, requires the acceptance of such a great reality as China, not escape from, nor evasion of, such a reality. We have, therefore, pleaded on previous occasions and during the present session of the General Assembly [800th meeting], for the restoration of the real China to her legitimate place in the comity of nations.
13. It may not be out of place here to refer to the events that have occurred in our part of the world involving the Peopled Republic of China, and which have disturbed people in different parts of the world. What is our attitude — and our reaction — to these developments? Our attitude is as follows: We have tried to foster and develop the best of relations and friendship on the basis of the Pancha Shila, with the People's Republic of China for the past so many years: and as far as we are concerned, we intend to continue to pursue this policy. Again, it is well known that we have had long, intimate historical, economic, religious and cultural ties with Tibet, and our religious and cultural ties have been particularly profound. The recent developments in our immediate neighbourhood have made us very worried and anxious. For this reason, we deeply regret the unhappy events in Tibet which have led the Dalai Lama to leave his own country and which have led to some misunderstanding being developed between India and China, our two great neighbours. We sincerely hope that the border dispute between India and China, if it arises, will be solved in the way in which it was said at the 1955 Bandung Conference that such disputes would be solved, by negotiation, not by force.
14. In so far as Laos is concerned, His Majesty's Government in Nepal welcomes the decision of the Security Cornell [S/4216] and hopes that the report of its Sub-Committee will prove useful for suggesting measures for the restoration of peace in that area.
15. I think that the keynote of the international political situation for the coming year was struck in this Assembly by the representatives of three great Powers. All these three statesmen — Mr. Khrushchev [799th meeting], Mr. Herter [797th meeting] and Mr. Selwyn Lloyd [798th meeting] — have laid special emphasis on the need for disarmament. We believe — and we have made this clear on previous occasions — that the Soviet and Western points of view have many common elements among them, and we welcome any progress in the direction of disarmament, whether this progress takes place within or without the United Nations.
16. Since we met here a year ago at the thirteenth session of the General Assembly, there have been certain developments which have resulted in international tension being considerably reduced. We welcome these developments, though most of them have taken place outside the United Nations. We are glad to know that progress is being made in Geneva regarding the discontinuance of nuclear weapons tests. Then again, we welcomed the Four-Power Foreign Ministers Conference convened at Geneva to meet the worsening Berlin crisis, which was part of a wider, constructive diplomatic activity in which the statesmen of the world have been seriously engaged for some time, and which we hope may well culminate in real understanding between two power groups. Moreover, mutual exchange of visits between Western and Eastern statesmen, concrete proposals for disarmament, and a meeting or meetings of the Heads of Governments may lead, we hope, to a welcome permanent relaxation of tension in the international field.
17. The United Nations has before it the report of the Secretary-General on the question of the continuation of the United Nations Emergency Force [A/4210]. Now, UNEF was created in 1956 at the time of the Suez crisis, when the shadow of a third world war seemed to loom very large indeed. At that crucial moment in the history of the Middle East, UNEF played a most worthy role in keeping and supervising peace along the Arab-Israel border, and has continued to do so until today. It is difficult to pay a really adequate tribute to UNEF, in view of the excellent work it has done. Again, the United Nations Observer Group in Lebanon, to which my own country made some humble contribution of its own, did a really wonderful job along the Syria-Lebanon border last year, and thus not only arrested the worsening of the situation in the area, but was also responsible for restoring the normal situation that obtains there today. In the light of experience, during the fourteen years of the United Nations existence, it may be claimed that there has been a need for such a force on various occasions, for meeting a sudden and unexpected threat to peace. Therefore, His Majesty’s Government in Nepal, in taking up the report of the Secretary-General, reiterates the stand which it took at the thirteenth session of the General Assembly [745th meeting] that a small force, even if to be used merely for non-combatant purposes, should be available to the United Nations, and this force should be maintained by Member States to be employed at the behest of the United Nations. It has been amply proved by our experience that a small but efficient United Nations force will be necessary on a permanent basis if the United Nations is to fulfill its great responsibility of keeping peace in the world.
18. Although, because of the interlinked character of the modern world, we cannot quite ignore the events which take place in the international arena, we realize that we can do very little indeed to influence the course of world events. We are immensely interested in peace, but we know that there are forces beyond our control that actually decide the issues of war and peace. In these circumstances, we believe, as I have already indicated, that the forces Of peace will be strengthened if, through proper political and economic progress, we are able to remove the stresses and tensions of poverty and under-development that exist within our own country.
19. We believe, therefore, that the activities of the United Nations should be oriented increasingly towards the economic rather than the political or military aspects of the problem of international peace. It has been almost universally admitted that world peace is no longer a closed military problem. Do We not see the military solutions in different parts of the world to keep either internal order or international peace proving inadequate? Hence, even more than a military problem, international peace is an economic problem. His Majesty’s Government in Nepal welcomes the increased attention being paid by the United Nations to the economic development of under-developed countries but considers that what has been done so far is not enough.
20. We believe that the United Nations could provide a more effective leadership in this area, in which there is almost unlimited scope for creative and constructive work. It is for this reason that we have watched with special interest the role played by the various specialized agencies of the United Nations, including the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in economic and technical development of various countries, and have welcomed the decision made at the thirteenth session [resolution 1240 (XIII)] to set up a Special Fund for the development of backward and under-developed countries. However, in the opinion of my Government, this Special Fund cannot take the place of the Special United Nations Fund for Economic Development, and we hope that the United Nations will take the necessary measures to bring SUNFED into being as soon as possible, in view of the great interest and enthusiasm shown in it by the Smaller under-developed nations when the idea was first mooted.
21. During the past year, the Secretary-General made an extensive tour of several Asian countries, including Nepal, and at the conclusion of his tour, in a meeting [1085th meeting] of the Economic and Social Council, he made an appeal to the advanced countries to dedicate themselves even more vigorously than in the past to helping the development of the underdeveloped countries in Asia, Africa and South America. The Secretary-General is universally respected for his wisdom and imagination, and we hope that the United Nations will pay adequate attention to his words of wisdom in relation to the development of the under-developed countries.