1. Let me first of all extend to the President the hearty and sincere congratulations of my delegation on his election to preside over the twenty-second regular session of the General Assembly. We are pleased to see him in that high post. We are confident that he will succeed in discharging the responsibilities of his office, for which he is eminently qualified. That the General Assembly should for the first time be presided over by a representative of a socialist country is not only a sign of changing times, but is above all a mark of the maturity of the United Nations. We wish him well.
2. I also wish to pay tribute to Ambassador Pazhwak of Afghanistan, his predecessor, who successfully piloted the world body through one of the most trying phases in its history. His patience and resoluteness did much to ensure the inevitably limited success which attended the twenty-first regular session and the special sessions on South West Africa and the Middle East.
3. As this twenty-second regular session opens, the settlement of major questions of peace and war continues to be a pressing necessity if destruction of human life and prosperity is to be averted. Greater and honest efforts will have to be made if words such as "understanding", "co-operation" and indeed "peace" are to be made more meaningful. The bloody war in Viet-Nam, the endless conflicts in the Middle East, the civil war in Nigeria and the continued persecution of a majority of human beings by a small privileged minority in southern Africa, let alone endless disputes between nations — all these constitute in varying degrees very dangerous threats to the peace of the world.
4. Most of these problems continue to plague this Organization today. That more lives have been lost and more guns have boomed in the senseless destruction of human life with all the misery that it entails is a regrettable manifestation of the lack of progress in our search — in the search of this Organization — for a formula for the avoidance of physical conflicts, We have failed once again to secure peace and security for ourselves — for mankind. The progress man is making in science and technology is threatened by a complete lack of understanding of himself: by a lamentable failure to grasp the wider implications of the growth of the international community; by a tragic failure to get to the root causes of the problems which have confronted this Organization since its birth; by the dishonest and selfish approach, and the tendency to place expediency before principles which guide the international society in its ceaseless march into an unknown but unfolding future.
5. If I may say so, there is too much talk in the United Nations, but very little action, if any, on issues that really threaten world peace and security. Too many nations have been content with general statements of policy, with voting for resolutions, but they have later either refused to implement either their declarations or the resolutions calculated to remove not only the conflicts, but also the root causes of these conflicts, which have been the causes of stagnation and deterioration in the progress we are making in economic, social and technological development.
6. The real source of trouble in this world is that man, while capable of talking eloquently on various problems, is still not honest with himself; he is too parochial, selfish and egotistic. Values and principles are too readily overpowered by instincts of self- interest, self-preservation in the narrow sense, and expediency. The moment principles are overpowered by expediency then the guiding light is lost; where there is no light there is darkness; where there is darkness, the objectives are readily lost. A society that loses its objectives has no future but destruction. Too many nations pretend to adhere to the principles of the Charter and indeed, in this very General Assembly, we have been called upon by a representative of the South African Government [1565th meeting] to turn to the Charter of the United Nations "for inspiration". I repeat, " for inspiration". This is a call by one of the worst offenders among the Member nations, by a representative who in all honesty and justice should not be here. This is what constitutes the greatest source of the Organization's weakness — dishonesty and selfishness.
7. The success or failure of this Organization is a function of our honest, selfless and realistic approach to life; it depends in a large measure on what Member States do or omit to do either on the grounds of principle or of expediency mistaken for principle, The ideals and principles embodied in the Charter of the United Nations can only be preserved if we, the Member States, individually pursue our polici.es and our national interests with the objective of ensuring the success of the Organization. The United Nations is what you and I make it. What do you want it to be?
8. Let me now turn to the specific areas of our failures and successes. In the first instance, the current conflict in the Middle East is an obvious and dangerous threat to peace and security. The efforts which the peacemakers are making are welcomed with the greatest appreciation. Peace will not come to the Middle East, stability and economic progress will never be assured, unless Israel withdraws from the Arab territories occupied by it since the end of the June war. There can be no understanding and cooperation among States in that area, there can be no reduction of tension, no peace for the world and for this Organization in particular, if Israel is allowed to retain and annex territories by conquest. Such a step would not be a solution but a further complication of the situation and an additional cause of future threats to peace and stability in the Middle East.
9. The Viet-Nam war goes on unabated and continues to escalate to dangerous proportions. The United States has reaffirmed its intention to fight the war to victory, and a threat of a nuclear strike on China has been voiced. The People's Republic of China has discounted the threat as nuclear blackmail, and the Soviet Union has promised more military aid to North Viet-Nam. There can be no greater demonstration that this is a conflict of great Powers. But who are the sufferers? They are the innocent civilians who desire nothing but peace and quiet for progress in their limited way. While we debate here on ways and means of ending the war, while the show of strength continues, while some Member nations experiment with new methods of warfare, death and destruction dog every Viet-Namese family and individual every day, every hour, every minute and every second. But provided we are safe, provided we can make merry and celebrate the victories scored by a particular side in this senseless war, we are contented.
10. The four million people of Zambia look at the murder in Viet-Nam with horror and disgust. We believe the Viet-Nam war is not a mere military conflict; it will not be resolved by military victory. In our view, it continues to be a political problem, and it requires a political solution. Victory, peace and stability for Viet-Nam lie in winning the hearts and minds of the Viet-Namese people who, in the final analysis, like you and me, must determine the destiny of their country, the future of their own children who are suffering the ravages of the current war of depopulation.
11. There can be no peace unless there is the desire and the will to work for peace. Peace can come to Viet-Nam today or tomorrow, provided those concerned genuinely feel the urge for and marshall their will-power and energies to make peace. The 1954 Geneva Agreements, in our view, still form the best basis for a lasting and satisfactory solution.
12. My Government will continue to give every possible support to the United Nations. In this troubled world, the strength and effectiveness of this world body, its successes and failures, will depend largely on the attitudes and actions of the Member States; for, as I have said before, the United Nations today is what all of us, great and small, old and young, powerful and weak, rich and poor, make it.
13. At this point, let me reiterate the firm view of my Government on the necessity for the admission of the People's Republic of China to the United Nations. China is a nation of more than 700 million people. These people will continue to influence the course of world events, not only in Asia, but elsewhere on this globe. Antagonism is not the answer. Accommodation and co-operation will provide a satisfactory solution. There will be no stable peace unless conditions for the removal of hostilities are created. Unless China takes its lawful place in this assembly of nations, in which, unfortunately, some minority Governments are entertained, the success of our peace-keeping operations will continue to be severely limited.
14. There are a number of other failures in the operation of the machinery of the United Nations which are a source of concern to us. There are too many problems which are left either half-solved or not solved at all. Resolutions have been passed but have not been implemented. This is a source of weakness in the Organization. If it continues, we cannot hope to accomplish anything significant enough to influence the future positively so that posterity may enjoy more peaceful and stable conditions. The failures of the United Nations manifest themselves in part not only in Viet-Nam and the Middle East, but also in South West Africa, Rhodesia, South Africa, the Portuguese colonial territories and other fields of peace-keeping operations. One debate after another has been conducted; resolutions have been adopted; men of good will have offered their services individually or in groups, and others have sacrificed their own lives in the search for right and lasting solutions.
15. The failure of the United Nations in the political field, in peace-keeping operations, stems from us, the Member nations. We have not given enough support to the Organization; we have not honoured our obligations. We are too ready to dissociate ourselves from those resolutions and operations which affect individual interests, even when those interests are purely selfish or contrary to the ideals and principles of the Charter, indeed even when the result is disastrous.
16. How many resolutions have been adopted but not implemented? There are numerous resolutions on decolonization, on apartheid and on South West Africa, to mention but a few subjects. Some Members, great Powers among them, have ruthlessly frustrated the implementation of important resolutions for their selfish ends. The United Nations will never be effective unless we implement policy decisions made in the General Assembly and various other United Nations agencies. The great Powers must lead in order to strengthen the Organization, in order to revitalize its machinery for peace, stability and progress.
17. However, my delegation wishes to record its appreciation of the great successes scored in the fields of economic and technical co-operation. The United Nations programmes concerned with trade and development, the activities of such agencies as the Economic Commission for Africa, the United Nations Children's Fund and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, to mention just a few, give meaning to the practical steps taken to bridge the gap between the developed and the developing nations, to increase international co-operation and to promote the economic and social transformation of the international community, and also to the efforts calculated to combat the deadliest of man's enemies — hunger, poverty, ignorance and disease. They give meaning to our untiring efforts to remove the root-causes of conflicts in the world.
18. My Government reaffirms its fullest support for United Nations programmes designed to extend the scope of economic and technical co-operation among Member nations.
19. Let me now turn very briefly to the Importance of co-operation between the United Nations and the Organization of African Unity (OAU), Thirty-eight members of OAU are also Members — active Members — of the United Nations. The success of OAU will have a positive impact on the United Nations; its failure could have tragic consequences for world peace. There must therefore be close co-operation between these two organizations. In this connexion, my Government welcomed the presence of the United Nations Secretary-General at the recent Fourth Summit Conference of OAU held at Kinshasa, the most successful yet. The world cannot ignore the continent of Africa any longer, just as Africa, in its struggle for unity and economic progress, must be aware of and take into account the developments outside the continent, so that unity and economic progress may be fostered in peace between and among nations. African support for the United Nations is as invaluable as the world body's support for the unity of Africa.
20. Talking of United Nations support for African unity brings me to the problems of Africa. Disputes and differences among member States of OAU are nothing strange; NATO has them, the Organization of American States has them, the socialist nations have them. In any organization, regional or international, there are as many problems as there are members — often more. African leaders are tackling these problems with sincerity and frankness, and with all the candour they can command. There may be dissidents on certain matters, but we are united in our desire for unity amidst economic, social and political problems of considerable magnitude. We shall win.
21. But between us and this victory for unity lies the problem of racism, colonialism and fascist minority rule in southern Africa. There, south of the Zambezi, lies a belt in which racial discrimination, exploitation and oppression of the majority by the minority find sanctuary. In Rhodesia, South Africa, South West Africa, Angola and Mozambique the white minorities have defied world opinion with impunity. They have violated and continue to violate even the most elementary principles of democracy, freedom and other rights embodied in the United Nations Charter. Today, all the speeches made, all pleas for action in accordance with the resolutions of the General Assembly and the Security Council read like fiction. It is regrettable that sensible men and women, professional politicians and diplomats, leaders of society and experts in all fields of life must spend their time for several years discussing a situation whose development they consider dangerous and even disastrous, but then take no action to create the necessary conditions for peace and stability through and with justice.
22. The real obstacles to peace in southern Africa, to the extension of democratic government, and to the exercise of the birthright of some thirty million human beings in this area are to be found in the Member nations of this Organization.
23. Look at Rhodesia, for example, a British colony with which the Republic of Zambia shares a long border. Here, as you know, a small clique among 200,000 white people declared this British colony independent for the sole purpose of maintaining white authority and dominance over more than four million black human beings. It is common knowledge that Rhodesia under the minority rebel regime is a police State; that oppression of the four million is the declared policy of Smith and his colleagues; that democracy is only for the white people, who are determined to follow a policy of segregation, political oppression, economic discrimination and exploitation of the nonwhite majority by force of arms, police dogs and other coercive means. It is common knowledge that an unholy alliance exists between Lisbon, Pretoria and Salisbury for the purposes of military and other support to maintain white minority rule in southern Africa. The tremendous suffering and humiliation of the African people beggar description; they have been described from time to time here and elsewhere in international forums. That the rebels in Rhodesia continue to enjoy their so-called independence contrary to the ideals and principles of the Charter is a challenge to the United Nations; that the four million people remain voiceless, are arrested, detained, imprisoned, tortured and murdered by men who call themselves civilized and Christian is the full responsibility of the British Labour Government, whose colony Rhodesia still is — at least this Is what the British Government claims.
24. The Smith regime has not hidden anything from the British Government about what it intends to do nor its determination to subjugate the majority for all time, if possible. Despite the full knowledge that the British Government possesses about the fate of Africans, it has done nothing; indeed, it has refused to take effective measures for the discharge of its obligations under the Charter.
25. The British Government has not just failed to bring down the Smith regime, it has refused to do so, thereby causing considerable misery and suffering to millions in the whole of southern Africa. Everything that the British Government has been doing since November 1965 has been mere shadow-boxing and window-dressing, calculated to buy time for Smith and Vorster. The groundwork has now been completed, and Mr, Wilson has now announced that British policy has not succeeded in bringing down the Smith regime; in the meantime, his Foreign Secretary immediately took the opportunity in his address to the General Assembly to deplore the courageous decision of the four million people of Zimbabwe to resort to arms in the fight for their freedom and for their birthright, which it is the duty of the British Government to restore. Instead of condemning South Africa's military assistance to the rebel Smith, the British Government has joined the minority regimes in labelling the Africans fighting for freedom as "terrorists", and yet those poor people have made the highest form of sacrifice in blood and with their own lives to secure a just solution, to secure for the voiceless majority conditions for a more decent and dignified life in freedom and independence.
26. It has taken the British Government almost two years to realize the folly of its policy. It was advised to crush the rebellion by force immediately after the unilateral declaration of independence; it refused and still continues to refuse to take this action. The Foreign Secretary of the United Kingdom repeated this to you last week [1567th meeting]. It tried voluntary sanctions combined with persuasion; it failed. It reluctantly accepted selective mandatory sanctions with the support of the United Nations; those have failed lamentably.
27. Mr. Wilson's recent admission that his policy on Rhodesia has failed amounts to surrender in Rhodesia. If the British do not bring down the Smith régime, what is the alternative? What next? We understand it is negotiations; we further understand that the basis of such negotiations is the Tiger constitution. If Smith rejected the provisions of the Tiger settlement — which is one of the most iniquitous documents in British colonial history—in December 1966, then the basis for new negotiations acceptable to Smith and the agreement to be reached now or in future will amount to a legalization of the rebel regime in the name of a "negotiated settlement". That is the "honourable settlement" which has now been Britain's refrain for a long time. It certainly is neither honourable nor a settlement. It is a surrender by Britain of the four million people to the domination of a minority and to power-hungry authoritarians.
28. Let me emphasize that my Government believes that there can be no peace in Rhodesia and no honour for Britain in a settlement which goes even beyond the terms of the Tiger settlement. That settlement itself symbolizes a breach of faith on the part of the British Government, a betrayal of the interests of the majority in favour of a lunatic fringe of racialists for whom human rights have no meaning and no place in their midst except as they affect the safety of the white people alone.
29. The British Foreign Secretary, in his address, referred to his country's proud record of decolonization in which 750 million people gained independence. I say that colonialism and slavery are among the worst blots on human history; they will leave one of the deepest scars in the international community. That we had even to struggle to be free and independent from Britain — whose citizens enjoyed freedom in their own country whilst oppressing others abroad — is shameful enough. That Britain, an adherent to the principles of the Charter, makes extravagant promises to act in Rhodesia, but never acts, is the tragedy of our age.
30. In his attack on the Committee of Twenty-Four — to which, along with the United Nations International Seminar on Apartheid, Racial Discrimination and Colonialism, it was our pleasure to play host recently—Mr. Brown advised the General Assembly on the formula for granting independence. In handling what he referred to as "these grave matters", Mr. Brown said that "we must all ask two questions". The first question was: "What is best for the people?" The second question was: "What do the people want?"
31. I ask the British Government, in all fairness and honesty, to answer these questions exactly as counselled by Mr. Brown recently, in respect not of Gibraltar or the Caribbean alone, but of Rhodesia too. If the formula is good for Gibraltar, it is good for Rhodesia. The majority in Rhodesia, as in Gibraltar, wants to choose its own leaders and shape its own future. I suppose the only problem is that in Rhodesia the British Government has to define which people.
32. What is best for the people of Rhodesia is not the Tiger constitution or the modification of it in favour of Smith; it is not the promise of independence "in the long run", whatever that means in terms of years; it is not meaningless guarantees of majority rule. What is best for the people of Rhodesia is what is best for the British people: a democratic government; a government of their own free and unfettered choice; a government that will protect their interests and promote and improve their welfare without discrimination and other institutional impediments.
33. As for what the people want, it is simple. They do not want minority rule; they hate inhuman and humiliating treatment, police dogs, tear gas and other weapons of coercion and oppression. They want the rebellion ended and the traitor Smith and his colleagues sent to the gallows, not the seventy-odd innocent people now awaiting execution for trying to do the job for Britain.
34. Like you and me, they want freedom and the restoration of their human rights as defined in the United Nations Charter; like you and me, they want peace through justice in the pursuit of their individual and national objectives; like you and me, they want full participation in the progress of the land of their birth and in the shaping of its future destiny; like you and me, they are determined to prepare a better and more progressive future for their children. Economic progress is their goal, as it is that of anybody else in this world. Like you and me, they want a voice In Rhodesia, in the Organization of African Unity and in the United Nations.
35. The four million people of Rhodesia deserve to be heard and have made this clear by action. For two years they have waited for Britain to restore their rights; for two years Britain has shown no determination to do this. They will not sit idly by any more; they will not wait for Britain to free them. No pleas for patience from Britain and its supporters, no political sedatives, will slacken their determination to fight for freedom and independence. They will win.
36. Now the chips are down for Britain in Rhodesia. It must choose between the African majority, democracy and the United Nations Charter on the one hand, and the minority authoritarian oppressors on the other. Let it be known that with the South African military intervention, and Portugal's continued assistance, in support of the rebels, the British Government cannot come out of Rhodesia with peace and honour. Britain, and indeed the United Nations, cannot and will not solve the Rhodesian problem by mere declarations, with which we are so familiar, but by action. We are past the stage of declarations and pledges. We are at the stage of action. Rhodesian rebels have acted; South Africa and Portugal have acted; and the freedom fighters have acted. Only Britain, the supposed defender of freedom, has refused to act. It is now doing all it can to dissuade and to prevent everybody else from taking action, except South Africa and Portugal. The British Government has condemned the freedom fighters and their supporters in Zimbabwe, who have now no other alternative but to take it upon themselves to rid their motherland of foreign domination and extend the light of freedom and justice into the racial darkness south of the Zambezi.
37. The experience which my Government has had with the British Labour Government since the illegal seizure of independence by the Smith clique, and a few months before that, through all our discussions and correspondence, through pledges made and broken, leads us to conclude that the British policy on Rhodesia is "phoney" misleading and dishonest. It is disastrous. My Government has declared elsewhere, and I wish to repeat in this Assembly, that if the unilateral declaration of independence was not a design of the British Government, then it is now its intention to legitimize the illegal act through the "gimmick" of a "negotiated settlement". I want to repeat what I have said earlier, that such a solution, if a solution it be, would be neither honourable nor a settlement. It would be an invitation to terror, misery and death, the consequences and extent of which would be hard to envisage, but certainly regrettable for this world body.
38. Mr. Brown recently told you that:
"The ordinary Briton feels puzzled, indeed resentful, when he hears that we of all people are being attacked about our attitude towards the great issues of freedom and independence" [1567th meeting, para. 74].
The British people must be resentful because their Government has put Britain in a position inviting ridicule and attack. Their Government's policy towards Rhodesia and southern Africa is incompatible with the principles of freedom and independence and democratic government as they have been brought up to understand them.
39. The British people must be puzzled because they have been misled by the British Government about its Rhodesian policy for the last two years. My Government, with a number of sincere Britons, is agreed that the Labour Government's policy has been marked by duplicity and contradiction. It is no wonder that they are puzzled.
40. The United Nations must now act to save the situation before the crisis turns into a wider conflict. The people whom Britain has let down are prepared to take up arms, to rise against the rebels and to do the job for the British Government. The immediate obstacle is the Vorster minority regime. The continued presence of South African security forces in the British rebel colony is paradoxical. The British Government's diplomatic protest has left South Africa completely undaunted.
41. That Britain should merely protest to South Africa against military intervention in its colony, while at the same time condemning the freedom fighters, is the story of the year; that the Vorster regime has told Britain in no uncertain terms that South Africa will act anywhere where it is allowed to do so and that it will not have Britain dictate to it over its security forces in Rhodesia, which will remain there for as long as necessary, and that Britain has done nothing to have them physically removed, all amounts to abdication by Britain from the discharge of its responsibility for four million people in Rhodesia. The South African security forces are still in Rhodesia today. If this is not connivance with minority regimes, what is?
42. Two obstacles stand between peace and freedom through justice and the people of Zimbabwe. They are the British Government and the Vorster regime. I have dealt with the British policy of prevarication and duplicity at length. I hope I have also demonstrated the need for urgent action by the United Nations, since Britain has tried to dump the issue on the scrapheap of other resolutions on Southern Africa.
43. South Africa, on the other hand, has a minority regime representing the selfish interests of three million white people to the exclusion of twelve million other human beings. The regime's representation in this Assembly is a pure accident of history. It is a mockery of the Charter of the United Nations. Its status as a minority Government, its oppressive policies based on race and colour, its violation of human rights and all that the Charter stands for, completely disqualify the so-called representatives of South Africa. The policies of the South African Government, its practices — a compound of nazism, apartheid, militarism and adventurism — constitute an act of aggression against the twelve million people of South Africa who deserve to be heard; they constitute an act of aggression against mankind. Its military intervention in Rhodesia against Africans is especially dangerous and is a challenge to Africa and to the United Nations.
44. The solution is to he found in a change of attitude on the part of the great Powers, particularly in the West. If tension is to be reduced, if racial conflict is to be averted so that all races the world over can live in peace together, sharing nature's fruits, then Britain, the United States, France, Canada, West Germany, and indeed others like them, and we, the
African Members of this Organization, must reexamine our policies towards South Africa and towards human rights. We believe that for these Western countries, having influence over South Africa, it is more honourable to help the twelve million on the road to emancipation than to appease the three million. We believe it to be the duty of independent Africa to help others in southern Africa to liberate themselves, just as we did.
45. The real obstacles to the solution of the South African question are to be found, firstly, in Western capitalism; secondly, in power politics and strategic considerations that are not South African in nature; and thirdly, in financial and economic self-interest on the part of those who are being invited to participate in the creation of conditions for peace, stability, justice and freedom.
46. South Africa will not move alone. Its new diplomacy is a calculated step to hoodwink independent Africa. If the Vorster regime has no respect for blacks in South Africa, it cannot have respect for them outside its borders. At the moment it is helping the Smith regime to kill Africans in Rhodesia in order to maintain minority dominance in the region.
47. My Government welcomed the formation of the United Nations Council for South West Africa. As a member of that Council, Zambia will do all it can within the limits of its resources to discharge its obligations to the United Nations and the people of South West Africa.
48. The only stumbling block to the accomplishment of our noble task of putting the South West Africans on the road to self-determination and independence is the minority regime in Pretoria. Appeasement will not alter the claims made by this régime over South West Africa as an integral part of South Africa. Once again this is not a matter for polemics, but for action. We must implement last year's resolution [2145 (XXI)] without delay. It is for the great Powers, particularly those Western Powers with influence on that intransigent regime, to take the lead in removing South Africa’s administration from South West Africa.
49. To the west and east of Zambia lie territories under Portuguese colonial rule. Earlier I referred. to colonialism as a blot and a deep scar on human history. Portugal is a Member of the United Nations, but it has defied the resolutions of this world body with impunity. Those of us who at onetime or another were freedom fighters know well what sacrifices the people of Angola and Mozambique are making to achieve their freedom and independence. It is only right and proper that this world body should extend to them every possible support. They deserve to be free, as you and I are.
50. The rebellion in Rhodesia and the British policy of sheltering the rebellious regime, apartheid in South Africa, the annexation of South West Africa and colonialism thus all together constitute a very grave and dangerous explosive situation for the United Nations. Such is the problem of southern Africa.
51. Southern Africa is a challenge for the West because by a historical association the leading members of that group of nations have financial, trade, economic and even military interests in the area, That group of nations can influence the policies of the Vorster regime for better or for worse.
52. Southern Africa is a challenge to independent Africa, whose declared policy is the total liberation of the continent and its ultimate unity through cooperation and through the machinery of OAU. We Africans have an obligation to discharge that role. The existence of minority regimes south of the Zambezi is incompatible with our objectives.
53. Southern Africa is a challenge to the world and to the United Nations in particular. The sum total of the inhuman policies and laws of the South African Government, its practices and objectives, are a negation of the principles and ideals of this world Organization. They are utterly incompatible with the objectives of establishing a decent world order as envisaged in the Charter of the United Nations. Member nations are faced with a narrow choice in this matter of human rights — a matter of life and death for about thirty million people. Either we renounce the Charter of the United Nations in favour of minority governments, or we continue with double standards in settling disputes — as between Gibraltar and Rhodesia in the case of Britain — or we reaffirm our adherence to the Ideals and principles of the Charter in its entirety and act accordingly. That is the test before us in this year, 1967.
54. Southern Africa is a particular challenge to Zambia and its philosophy of humanism. Our human approach to political and economic development, our approach to social and cultural development, our attitude to religion, and our policy of non-racialism are all incompatible with racial discrimination and the non-democratic practices in minority-controlled areas in southern Africa. The foundations of our nation are firmly built on the importance we attach to each and every one of us in the nation and in every section of our community. We shall not allow prejudice and racial bigotry to destroy the edifice which even the international society is having to struggle to establish.
55. You will understand the reason for the strength of the feelings and anger of the Zambian people. Our people and its Government have endured hardships of considerable magnitude for almost two years now. That has not deterred us, however, from doing all we can to fight and stamp out injustice.
56. What can we do to prepare for the International Year for Human Rights, 1968? What is each representative's contribution, both as an individual and as a representative of a Government that believes in the freedom of man — of all men, women and children, regardless of race, nationality or colour? What is each one's contribution to the welfare of the millions in southern Africa, in particular?
57. To the British Government, I want to reiterate the plea of my President: show us the man to whom you are prepared to entrust the leadership of and the responsibility for the welfare of four million people — the man to whom you want to give the responsibility for shaping the destiny of not only 200,000 people, who now seem to be the only people who matter, but of all human beings. Your choice will indicate your attitude to human rights.
58. For our part, we in Zambia made our pledge on attaining our independence to support firmly those struggling to liberate themselves from minority and oppressive rule. We shall continue to do so in OAU and in the United Nations. As a country whose independence and nationhood are a product of struggle, as a nation determined to honour its obligations arising from our membership in the United Nations, we shall render every possible assistance to thousands of political refugees from minority-controlled areas. Thanks to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, we are able to discharge our obligations more competently. Indeed, opportunities are given to refugees in Zambia who wish to do so to take technical courses at the International School for Refugees in our country. That is apart from the provision of settlements in which refugees can live their lives in peace and quiet and in freedom.
59. In conclusion, let me say that the question of Rhodesia and southern Africa as a whole is a matter of conscience; it is a matter of conviction and moral principles. In these matters, neither our geographical location as a land-locked country and as a neighbour to those iniquitous regimes, nor our poverty, nor our new independence, nor any other factor related to our status as a developing nation, will ever deter us from fighting the evils of racial oppression, colonialism and apartheid.
60. In matters of principle we shall yield to no one; we shall be subservient to no nation. We shall struggle, together with other peace-loving and freedom-loving nations, to bring honour to mankind. That honour resides in genuine peace, not imposed by all sorts of coercive instruments, but peace which has its foundation in the hearts of men, women and children; that honour resides in freedom and justice — that is, in the full and uninhibited exercise of our birthright by you and me, by each and every one of us on this globe. Pledges and declarations will not achieve the objectives of the United Nations in southern Africa; but action will.
61. Human rights are not negotiable. They were not negotiable either in the First World War or in the Second. They are not negotiable in Rhodesia and other Territories in southern Africa. The United Nations must take appropriate action to stop conflict which has already started. It may look small now, but if nothing is done it will one day be too late to prevent a wider catastrophe. What is needed is a war-avoidance action, not a war-stopping action. This is the hour for action in southern Africa. It would be dangerous for the United Nations to wait for any further warning signs, for delay may cost the world a fortune in blood and property.
62. In southern Africa lies the key to the unity of the continent of Africa. In southern Africa lies the real test of international understanding and co-operation across racial barriers. The future of mankind depends almost entirely on the evolution of relations among men of all races and colours. The minority regimes are the source of a dangerous virus which could upset the total body politic of the United Nations. This must be prevented and the virus ruthlessly removed. The task is yours and mine. So let us act.