115. Mr. President, I would like, first of all, to tender to you the warm and sincere felicitations of the delegation of Burma, and my own, on your election as President of the twenty-second regular session of the General Assembly. At a time when the Assembly has come to serve more and more as the principal forum and the focus for the differing views and the divergent currents in the affairs among nations, and to reflect increasingly the hopes of the community of man and, indeed, its frustrations, we are confident that your wisdom and perception will stand you in good stead in the discharge of your heavy responsibilities. Your election as President also serves to give effect to the principle of equitable geographical rotation, and the delegation of Burma is hopeful that your assumption of this high office will bring with it a new mood of harmonious co-operation among the various groups with different political affiliations. I am confident that with your wise guidance and able counsel the important issues on this year's agenda will be discussed in a most constructive spirit, and that the deliberations in the General Assembly will take us a step forward in the interests of international peace and harmony.
116. I should also like to express our sincere gratitude and appreciation to His Excellency Ambassador Pazhwak, whose unfailing vision of the road that we as a corporate body must travel has served to guide us during the difficult moments in the year that has just passed.
117. If we approach the General Assembly in a sober mood, then, it is because this is indeed a time for sober thought for all of us here. The fresh cries of anger and anguish that have beset our ears in the months just passed serve also to remind the Assembly that today there are mounting pressures in more than one part of the world that may imperil the peace of the entire world.
118. The plight of the people of Viet-Nam continues to plague the conscience of the world community, and the delegation of Burma cannot but express its grave concern that developments in Viet-Nam involve increasingly the risk of widening the conflict. I would like to express once again the hope that all concerned will make greater efforts towards finding a just solution which will secure to the Viet-Namese people their inherent and legitimate right to determine their own future free from all outside Interference and pressure and thus help to establish a lasting peace in that country.
119. The recent events in the Middle East, which called for urgent consideration by the General Assembly at an emergency special session, will continue to occupy the most serious attention of this Organization, As the representative of a country which has long-standing ties of friendship with the Arab nations, as well as cordial diplomatic relations with Israel, I should like to express our sincere desire that a just and equitable solution may be formulated which will be acceptable to all the nations in the region. This just and equitable solution, to have a lasting effect, will of necessity have to embody the basic principles of the Charter of the United Nations that International disputes shall be settled by peaceful means and that all nations shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any State. It follows from those principles that the legality of territorial changes achieved by the use of military force cannot be recognized. The violence of the recent tragedy and the rigid positions assumed by the parties may, however, seem to indicate that an acceptable solution is not within easy reach. However, we believe that a realistic approach to the problem will make it obvious to all parties that there can be no real positions of strength in this recurrent tragedy, but only positions of shifting weakness. We are therefore confident that a realistic approach to the problem will facilitate the eventual formulation of a reasonable, just and equitable solution which will ensure a stable and durable peace in the region.
120. It will be appropriate if I refer here to the question of peace-keeping. As the representative of one small country among the many small countries which make up the majority of the United Nations membership, I should like to reiterate our long-held desire that the United Nations should be developed into a really effective instrument for the prevention of war and for the active maintenance of peace between nations. The Security Council has the primary responsibility under the Charter for the maintenance of international peace and security, subject of course to the will to act constructively by its permanent members. The delegation of Burma holds the firm view, however, that where the Security Council is unable or unwilling to initiate peace-keeping operations then the General Assembly, as the body on which the entire membership of the United Nations is represented, has the duty and the responsibility to seek alternative ways and means of taking effective measures to keep the peace and repress aggression. The delegation of Burma further holds the view that peacekeeping costs should necessarily be the responsibility of all Member States and that certain Member States, including the permanent members of the Security Council, which have substantial private or public interests in the area concerned, should assume correspondingly higher responsibility in the financing of peace-keeping operations. It is our hope that a satisfactory formula can still be devised which will permit all Member States, in a spirit of co-operation and conciliation, to share equitably in the cost of peace-keeping.
121. I should like to refer here very briefly to the question of the ever-mounting budgetary expenditure which the world Organization faces. The Organization's financial position — one of continuous and growing deficits — is also a matter for concern. The Secretary-General has again called our attention to the well-nigh unmanageable proportions of the burdens imposed on the Organization by the steadily mounting number of meetings and documents, The delegation of Burma holds the view that one way of conserving the resources available to the United Nations would be to adapt the establishment of United Nations departments and the frequency of conferences and meetings of the United Nations, or those held under its auspices, so as to make them commensurate with the resources available to the Organization.
122. I should like to touch here again on the need, which has long been denied, for assuring universality of membership in the United Nations and its specialized agencies. The effectiveness of the United Nations in maintaining international peace and security, and in obtaining the goodwill and co-operation of all nations, would lie in assuring that its membership was truly universal. This lack of universality imposes a severe and unwarranted handicap on the United Nations and limits its authority. The world's most populous nation, the People's Republic of China, continues to be excluded from its rightful seat in the different organs of the United Nations. The delegation of Burma considers that discussions of world problems would be more realistic and solutions reached more lasting if the People's Republic of China were to be a party to them as a Member of the United Nations.
123. The situation prevailing in certain parts of southern Africa, where colonialism, a system by which one nation enslaves and exploits another, still thrives in significant dimensions, Imposes a challenge to the effectiveness of this Organization. Appeals for freedom and independence for the peoples in southern Africa still under colonial rule remain unheeded. The delegation of Burma regrets that, in spite of all the peaceful efforts made within the United Nations, colonialism has not yet been eradicated from southern Africa nor have the aspirations of the indigenous African peoples been furthered significantly. As a nation which has itself secured independence from colonial rule shortly after the end of the Second World War, Burma has consistently supported and continues to support the aspirations of ail peoples struggling for freedom from colonial domination and exploitation.
124. An equally unhappy manifestation is the prevalence of racial discrimination as a matter of official policy in parts of southern Africa. The policy of apartheid has been universally condemned and is a policy which is doomed to fail in this day and age. It is a matter for deep concern, therefore, that apartheid has not merely persisted in parts of Africa, but that the open and contemptuous defiance of the world's moral indignation with which it has been possible to apply this policy against the indigenous African population in one part of southern Africa has encouraged the maintenance and furtherance of racialist policies in other parts of southern Africa also. The delegation of Burma truly fears that this tragic trend, if not checked in time, could become a potential for a racial explosion in southern Africa leading to more violence, more brutality and more wars.
125. I shall now turn to the subject of disarmament which has exercised the minds of statesmen and nations before, between and in the period following two of the most devastating wars in human history. In the nuclear age the urgent need for effective disarmament cannot be overemphasized, and though movement in this field has indeed been dishearteningly slow, we have, along with most other nations, welcomed what small gains there have been in the direction of disarmament.
126. We therefore share the view of the Secretary- General that the tabling on 24 August 1967 by the Soviet Union and the United States of America of identical draft treaties on the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons was an event of great significance and that it marked the culmination of years of patient efforts to narrow and remove the differences between them [A/6701/Add.1, para. 12]. We have been particularly encouraged by the fact that the presentation of the drafts to the Conference of the Eighteen-Nation Committee on Disarmament represents a welcome departure in procedure from that of the previous partial nuclear test ban treaty, in that a wider cooperation and consensus is being sought. We regret, however, that a very essential element, since the effectiveness of the treaty depends on its wide acceptance, has been omitted from the draft; namely, the element of balanced mutual responsibilities and obligations as between the nuclear and the non-nuclear Powers. This important omission, when taken in conjunction with the fact that there is as yet no comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty, a fact marked, as the Secretary-General has pointed out in the introduction to his annual report on the work of the Organization [A/6701/Add.1, para. 17], by the accelerated pace of nuclear testing by the major nuclear Powers, raises some doubt in our minds as to whether the forward step represented by the two-Power agreement in drafting the non-proliferation treaty may not, in fact, have been counteracted by several retrograde steps in other directions. This feeling of doubt has been reinforced by our fear that a new race may be developing between the two major nuclear Powers in anti-missile missiles.
127. While on this subject, the delegation of Burma would like to congratulate the States of Latin America and welcome their signing at Mexico City, on 14 February 1967, of the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America. This Treaty, which provides for the creation of a nuclear-free zone in Latin America, was conceived and negotiated entirely by the States of Latin America and marks an Important milestone on the road to disarmament, providing an example and a stimulant for progress in other disarmament measures.
128. It is with a feeling of restraint also that we have welcomed the signature, in January of this year, of the Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies [see resolution 2222 (XXI)]. As evidenced by its signature of the Treaty, the Government of Burma Is in favour of the advancement of space exploration and research for the benefit of mankind, though Burma itself has not yet embarked on space activities and is not, therefore, in a position to collaborate practically to any extent in this field. Burma, nevertheless, believes that the Treaty is a valuable contribution to the lessening of international tension and to the strengthening of peace. We are hopeful that when the specific elements contained in the provisions of this Treaty are spelled out and applied., there will be no loopholes which will permit any part of outer space to be exploited for any warlike purposes whatsoever.
129. I should like at this point to turn from disarmament to the economic problems which confront the world today, since the peace and harmony of the world community depends to a preponderant degree on the ability of nations to solve their economic problems together.
130. The United Nations Development Decade continues to disappoint expectations, and meanwhile the gap between the developing and the developed countries continues to grow. While the increasing inequality in wealth between the developing and developed countries is a cause for dismay to the world community, little that is effective has been achieved on the international level to correct the imbalance between the rapidly growing population in the developing countries and the lack of industrial capacity in these countries to absorb the population growth. There is an obvious long-term danger in this situation, and the establishment of organizational machinery, such as the United Nations Industrial Development Organization, may not be enough in view of the vastness of the problem. Trade patterns between developing and developed nations continue to operate against the interests of the developing nations, and remedies for this situation, such as may be sought during the second United Nations Conference on Trade and Development to be held early in 1968, may prove to avail but little, until goodwill between groups of nations at different levels of economic development make possible a more effective co-operation between these groups, while yet permitting the developing nations to control and dispose of their natural resources in conformity with policies and programmes of their own choice.
131. Before concluding, the delegation of Burma on behalf of the Government of the Union of Burma would like to reaffirm its unswerving dedication to the ideal of peace, friendly relations and co-operation between all nations based on international justice and morality, and to reiterate its wholehearted support for and its complete faith in the purposes and principles of the United Nations as embodied in its Charter.