1. Mr. President, the delegation of the Republic of Chad salutes your impressive election to the Presidency of the twenty-second session of the United Nations General Assembly.
2. The reputation of Romanian diplomacy, of which you are one of the leading representatives, is well known in Chad, even though our two countries do not as yet maintain diplomatic relations. The significance of your election was highlighted by you yourself in your statement of 19 September 1967, when you said:
"The General Assembly’s decision to elect the representative of a socialist country as President of the current session is a recognition of the need for equal participation by the various regions and systems in the work of the United Nations.” [1560th meeting, para. 61.]
3. Your personal experience of international life is common knowledge; and in spite of the disenchantment characteristic of the twenty-second session, the delegation of Chad trusts that under your Presidency the United Nations will spotlight more closely the major, burning issues confronting all mankind, with a view to resolving them in the interests of the whole world.
4. During the past twelve months, the Organization has met three times in General Assembly, and Mr. Abdul Rahman Pazhwak, the outgoing President, to whom my delegation pays a tribute for the competence and patience with which he guided the wide variety of deliberations, speaking at the opening of the present session, pointed out the significance for the world of these additional labours placed on the shoulders of the United Nations in the following words:
"Few, if any, calamities in our time have befallen the world without some advance notice from the collective utterance from this rostrum." [Ibid., para. 7.]
And a little further on in his statement, Mr. Pazhwak added:
"The failure of Governments to heed them [the warnings] is another matter. This is often and wrongly referred to as 'the shortcoming of the United Nations'. It would be more accurate to state that it is the shortcoming of Governments which have failed to bring the deliberations of this supreme organ to their peoples." [Ibid., para. 9.]
5. What international diplomacy in all its ramifications has been unable to achieve during these twelve months, weapons and shootings are equally incapable of achieving. This is the situation with which the nations of the world find themselves confronted at this twenty-second session. The confusion which reigns today is such that nations large and small are caught up in a kind of bewilderment and lassitude. The prospects for peace are receding further and further, to the point where calm has given way to a kind of frenzy of diplomatic acrobatics.
6. As U Thant, the Secretary-General, who has done so much and given so much to help the Organization, put it with admirable lucidity:
"When force and military competitiveness displace co-operation, negotiations, law and diplomacy as the natural elements of the relations between States, the nightmare of a third world war comes steadily nearer to the world of reality." [A/6701/ Add.1, para. 151.]
7. But in the face of this pessimistic view, we ask ourselves what contribution the Republic of Chad can make to the cause of peace when everything has been said and re-said without any of it bringing the slightest glimmer of hope to the world. The essential and constant contribution of the people of Chad, of its party and its Government, is its stronger and stronger allegiance to the Charter of the United Nations and its unbounded faith in the Organization. We cannot help but feel that, whatever fate has in store for the world, such survivors as there may be from a general conflagration will realize better than anyone ever did the need to achieve and strengthen the idea of universal organization which our generation was able to bring to fruition.
8. The paralysis and demise of the United Nations would mean war. And we know that our weaknesses and our vacillations would be to blame. When certain influential Members of this Organization countenance the crimes perpetrated by South Africa against mankind; when they have acquiesced in Portugal's deliberate violations of the decisions of the United Nations; when they have accepted, and at times assisted, the Government of the racist minority in Southern Rhodesia; when the Fifth Special Session of the General Assembly on South West Africa ended in indecision and non-commitment, it is only logical to expect that other United Nations decisions will be trampled underfoot from one day to the next.
9. The crowning irony was when the news agencies gave out on 2 October 1967 that the Portuguese Foreign Minister, Mr. Nogueira, had sent a letter to the President of the Security Council in which the Portuguese Government claimed compensation under Article 50 of the United Nations Charter for the damage suffered by the economy of Mozambique as a result of the implementation of the Security Council resolution imposing economic sanctions on Rhodesia.
10. This attitude calls for no comment, but it is a definite sign that a kind of confusion and discouragement hovers over the Organization. International justice and morality are fading and the spectre of war looms larger. Thus U Thant was right in stating in the introduction to his annual report that
"We now again see violence, threats, incitement, intimidation and even hatred being used as weapons of policy in increasingly numerous areas of the world." [Ibid,, para. 150.]
11. The truth is that the Organization stands at the crossroads, that is to say nothing is as yet beyond recall, and there is an urgent need to restore international morality: the colonized and oppressed peoples must be released from their shackles; permanent and just norms must govern the mutual relations of nations, and safeguard their interests.
12. This is not beyond the capacity of the great Powers — the ones referred to in this context — for the same is true of nations as of men: the more powerful and wealthy they are, the greater their obligations towards the community. Narrow selfishness does not befit great Powers. It might even be said that it diminishes their greatness and gradually whittles it away.
13. In the light of these hasty considerations, the delegation of Chad points out that its vote in favour of the Latin American resolution at the fifth emergency special session of the General Assembly was based on its abiding will to respect the Charter of the Organization and to help the Member States to find a more or less enduring solution to the problem of the Middle East. The people of Chad believe that when hot passions have cooled, it is reasonable to hope for a permanent restoration of peace in the Middle East, based on the goodwill of all the States in the region.
14. With regard to Viet-Nam, the lesson to be drawn from the situation there is that if the United States Government were to stop the bombing of North Viet- Nam at once, unilaterally, and return to the 1954 Geneva Agreements as a basis for the solution of the problem in that region, the United States would win prestige and hold out to the coming generations of Americans a future free from dilemma and rancour. That at any rate is the deep conviction of my delegation.
15. Meanwhile the African States continue to be the victims of the conflict, official or unofficial, of powerful vested interests. Subversion takes a variety of forms. Zones of influence are well defined. We often hear of subversion, but it is hard to unmask the perpetrators. Some African countries have in fact allowed themselves to be beguiled by the pipe-dream of becoming in their turn neo-colonialist Powers. But all this is merely the aftermath of long years of brainwashing and exploitation.
16. Peace, as we have said, is still possible. But in saying this we also had in mind the urgent need to eliminate all possible sources of conflict. The problems of divided nations and countries should be accorded special attention by the Organization.
17. World economy is a source of possible friction over the short or long term, because of the grave injustice it engenders. It must be rethought out on new foundations. Despite past efforts, the results to date are meagre.
18. A final concern of the Government of the Republic of Chad is disarmament, and on several occasions we have spoken in this Assembly denouncing the proliferation of nuclear and thermo-nuclear weapons, and the arms race.
19. If, after much hesitation, the delegation of Chad has spoken in this great Assembly, it is because it sincerely believes that its statement, modest though it is, is a contribution to the cause of universal peace.