We have convened for the seventh annual session of the United Nations General Assembly in these new, elaborate and magnificent structures provided and dedicated for the benefit of the United Nations to serve as edifices in which, by our united efforts, the propagation of world peace, goodwill, equality and human rights among men may be realized.
24. Our appreciation is due to the Government and people of the United States, within whose territories these buildings have been constructed, to the donor of the land upon which this permanent home of the United Nations has been made possible and to all those who have contributed in any way towards this laudable effort.
25. The members of the Liberian delegation have come to assist in the common effort of creating and prolonging the era of peace. We are resolved to support measures designed to achieve and maintain international peace, freedom and liberty, not only for nations, but for individuals.
26. While it is gratifying that this great world Organization meets with Member nations not engaged in a deadly global war of arms, and while it is incontrovertible that it has been the mighty influence and effort of the United Nations since the end of the Second World War, when this institution was organized, that has served as a deterrent of another world war, speaking candidly, every one of us can truthfully admit that the attitudes of Members of the United Nations have not been and are not reasonably appropriate to this name, style, objective and purposes for which the United Nations was instituted and intended to represent.
27. Most Member States appear to be divided into two separate camps — admittedly so by ourselves — to which we give the appellation Eastern and Western blocs, and relationship between these two separate groups of nations has developed into what we call a cold war. This state of affairs has continued for almost seven years, and the tension, antagonism and estrangement among us have become so sharp and desperate that we have reached a point where even the fine art of diplomatic parlance in discussions, the rules and niceties that used to attend and relate to the exchange of divergent points of view in diplomacy between civilized States seem to be ignored and abandoned.
28. On the floor of the meetings halls of this very Organization, Member States attack each other in language most harsh; over radio broadcasts we have indulged in the selfsame practices. With the immense, amazing and tremendous advancement that man has made in science and invention, it is alarming to note that he seems to have retrogressed in culture and refinement by his conduct. The great statesmen of yesterday, of the nations represented here today, could easily, if they could speak to us, declare themselves ashamed of our conduct and behaviour.
29. The ultimate aim of the United Nations is to achieve and maintain peace and goodwill among nations and men by just and fair treatment and regard one for the other. We can never achieve peace and goodwill if we persevere with our present trend of hate, suspicion, selfishness, individual nationalism and greed. We cannot achieve peace and goodwill on earth by force, power and might; peace cannot be achieved by the United Nations or any other organization by mighty air forces, navies, armies and atomic or other weapons — I mean universal and permanent peace — but peace can be attained by love, national unselfishness and international unity.
30. There must be a halting point somewhere to the present bitter feelings and strained relationships among the nations which have subscribed to the Charter of the United Nations; we must live and practise the principles laid down in that sacred and immortal document subscribed to by us, and which was intended to be the sheet-anchor of this Organization in its struggle to win world peace. There is need for conciliation and possibly reconciliation between East and West and West and East; and the Liberian Government, represented by its delegation to the General Assembly, appeals to and implores you, one and all, to alter fundamentally the present attitudes and make use of the many conciliation or reconciliation commissions set up by this Organization in getting at the root of the evil that keeps the Member nations of this Organization apart, and find a solution for the reunion of friends with friends so long divided,
31. The human race, the nations of the earth, men, women and children, the wealth of the world, civilization, culture, religion, the earth itself and even nature, pleads for it, as none of them can endure such a conflict as another war, with the destructive implements of war possessed by the nations, will impose. Humanity speaks to us most clearly and demands it of us. If we fail to take these factors into account, to follow the dictates of our consciences and put an end to the cold war that must inevitably lead to a universal bloody war that might destroy civilization, culture, the human race and all that we have striven to develop and preserve through the centuries, we, the leaders of the world of today in politics, in science and in culture, will be responsible for the vandalism and annihilation that such a holocaust will involve.
32. Several questions have time and again appeared on the agenda of the sessions of the General Assembly; they have been lengthily discussed and no solutions have been arrived at, simply because the laudable spirit of compromise has been distinctly conspicuous by its absence m our deliberations. As long as one State or group of States feels that its views on any subject must in all respects and at all times prevail, there can be no solution to such problems.
33. In the pursuit of peace, if the world is to be consolidated, if it is to be prepared and able to prevent or meet aggression, from whatever source it comes, the leaders of the United Nations must be bold enough to recognize without reservation the natural and inalienable rights of men and women of all races to equality, liberty and freedom. We must realize that people will not continue to strive to preserve a politico-social structure in which they themselves are denied the freedom and liberty of such a structure, yet whose preservation they are called upon to defend.
34. It is gratifying to all of us liberty-loving peoples, and especially to us in Africa, to note that, under the action of the United Nations, another independent State has come into existence under the name and style of the United Kingdom of Libya.
35. It is well known that the old theory still persists among certain States that certain peoples, for one reason or another, cannot be raised in the society of nations to the rank of independent and sovereign States. It is our ardent hope that the United Nations will preserve and continue to exert pressure on the colonial Powers to loosen their grip in the colonial orbit, where the urge for self-government and independence has assumed considerable proportions. We hope that the aspirations of these people will continue to receive the sympathetic consideration of the General Assembly in their-struggle.
36. The policy of the Government of Liberia in respect of this basic, all-important question, was clearly and forcefully outlined by the President of the Republic on 7 January 1952, when he said, inter alia: “With the firm belief and steadfast faith in the axiom that all men are created free and independent, and therefore entitled to the benefits and privileges of self-determination and the natural right to conduct their own political affairs, we shall seek to co-operate with all democratic and freedom-loving peoples and nations, through the aegis of the United Nations Organization, to adopt measures whereby the teeming millions of mankind inhabiting most of the under-developed areas of the world who, because of their peculiar circumstances, are considered unprepared presently to assume the responsibility of full sovereignty and independence, may be able to do so in common with us in the shortest possible period of time. “This is the ultimate objective of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which we, in conjunction with a majority of Member States, have unreservedly adopted. The sacred fulfilment of all of the propositions of this Declaration is not only, a just challenge to the United Nations, but seems to me to be the bastion of understanding and the surest pathway to enduring, universal peace and happiness”
37. This is the spirit and the principle by which the Liberian delegation will be guided in its approach to all issues affecting the destiny of the peoples which may be brought up for consideration at the present session.