1. Once again this year the delegation of the Kingdom of Cambodia comes here to take part in the work of the General Assembly in a mood of despondency and low spirits in the face of the tragic turn of world events over the past twelve months. I trust that the distinguished representatives of the States Members of the United Nations will forgive this rather blunt opening to my statement. But we feel it more necessary than ever that we should cease to cling desperately to illusions and admit at last that the spirit of wisdom which hovered over the Organization when it was founded is no longer anything more than a wistful memory. In spite of eagerness to look on the bright side, one speaker after another at this rostrum has confirmed, if confirmation were needed, that the future outlook is more gloomy than it has ever been since the end of the Second World War.
2. We are well aware that the voice of Cambodia will be drowned out be the clamours of the great Powers, which look down at what they regard as a "pocket kingdom". It is nevertheless our duty, as a people with an ancient civilization, a people which has learnt much from the lessons of 2,000 years of history, to put forward our views both on the problems which affect us directly and on those which concern us all. Those who have yielded to the arrogance of power would like to camouflage or distort these problems as a pretext for settling them by force of arms. Our own purpose, as Cambodian Buddhists, is solely to recall that there is such a thing as truth.
3. Cambodia is a peace-loving country, and its love of peace has a rational rather than a traditional foundation, for the Angkor Empire to which it is the heir was a State whose stability rested on the organization and the valour of its armies. Why then, in this second half of the twentieth century, when peace and respect for international law are the popular catchwords, should we find ourselves compelled, like so many other peoples, to fight for our right to be independent, indeed merely to live?
4. I would remind you that for several years past, and almost daily at present, hundreds of my compatriots are being murdered in cowardly fashion or are falling in battle defending their country, their families, their villages and their rice paddies. Have we ever threatened the security of the United States and the lives of American families? Yet the United States is dispatching its planes to drop bombs on our frontier villages, sending its soldiers and its mercenaries from Saigon to attack the harmless people of our country, and egging on its Thai protégés to mine our roads, our railways and even our farmlands. The United States is also arming and financing the so- called free Khmers, installing them on our frontiers and inciting them to sow discord and death among their compatriots.
5. I realize, of course, that the representatives of the United States will go on denying the truth of these facts, however patently corroborated, that they will argue that it is all a mistake or accuse Cambodia of false neutrality and of backing Viet-Namese resistance against the American invader. Neutral we certainly are, militarily, as is recognized by all foreign observers, Americans included. But it is no doubt comforting for the American leaders to blame Cambodia for the bitter pill it has had to swallow in South-East Asia and to affirm, in the face of clear evidence to the contrary, that North Viet-Namese divisions are encamped in Khmer territory and are supplied with weapons and munitions through the Cambodian port of Sihanoukville.
6. Our military neutrality is quite genuine, and the International Control Commission in Cambodia has constantly testified to the fact. Let me repeat: there are neither bases nor foreign troops on our soil, nor is there transit of arms across our territory. Yet, according to certain official American statements, the United States is not unlikely in the near future to take additional measures such as the occupation of the eastern provinces of Cambodia by their armed forces. To put it another way, the criminal, confident that he will go unpunished, is now announcing the murder he intends to commit. But we must make it clear that Cambodia will not be content with meek protestations — for we know in advance, unfortunately, what that achieves — but, with the infinite re source sofa people's war, we will oppose any invader who tries to impose his will on us.
7. At the same time, we must express our astonishment at the type of argument advanced by the United States Government in justification of its plans for escalation against Cambodia. Its information services know perfectly well that an attack against my country would have no effect whatever on assistance to Viet-Nam. The logical step for the aggressive imperialism of the United States would be, in fact, for the United States Air Force to destroy the actual sources of supply of the Viet-Namese combatants — in the Soviet Union, in China and in all the socialist countries.
8. Imperialism has, of course, its own peculiar rules. We see the proof of this in the attitude of the United States and the countries controlled by Washington in the question of recognition of our national frontiers. Cambodia has a common frontier with Thailand, South Viet-Nam and Laos. The Khmer-Thai demarcation line was fixed by international treaties and agreements confirmed in 1962 by the findings of the International Court of Justice judgement in the Preah Vihear case. But the Bangkok Government has consistently refused to indicate its acceptance of this frontier, thus demonstrating that its policy of territorial annexation, applied between 1940 and 1945 with the assistance of Japan, is still being pursued in 1967, but this time with the assistance of the United States.
9. As regards the Khmer-Viet-Nam frontier, this was only a domestic administrative demarcation line within the former French Indo-China, drawn by France to the detriment of Cambodia. In the interests of conciliation and good neighbourliness, we did not insist on our rights over the Cambodian territory wrongly handed over to Viet-Nam, and we accepted the legacy of the French administration. But the dictator Ngo Dinh Diem and his successors, set up by the United States at the head of the pseudo-Government of Saigon, have ceaselessly laid claim to almost all the islands off our coast, and with full support from the Americans they are trying to force us to engage in talks about a new frontier. In fact, the United States has already published maps in which our coastal islands, and villages and lands that have always been Cambodian, are marked as under the sovereignty of Viet-Nam.
10. However, the Government of the Democratic Republic of Viet-Nam and the National Liberation Front of South Viet-Nam, that is to say the genuine representatives of the people of Viet-Nam as a whole, have solemnly proclaimed that they recognize the existing frontiers of Cambodia. Thus we are able to state here and now that there is no longer any territorial Khmer-Viet-Namese dispute, and that the common frontier between the two countries is demarcated for good, by agreement between the parties concerned.
11. I may also mention that our frontier with Laos is likewise permanently fixed; this was confirmed in a letter from the Foreign Minister of Laos stating that his country had no territorial claim on Cambodia.
12. We have therefore requested all countries to let us have a statement intimating that they recognize the territorial integrity of Cambodia within its present borders. All the socialist countries and several Afro-Asian countries, namely Indonesia, the United Arab Republic, Algeria, Yemen, Senegal, Singapore and Israel, have responded positively to this request. Of the Western nations only one — France — has taken an unequivocal stand on the question. On behalf of the Khmer Government and people, I would like here, once again, to express to those countries our gratitude for this act of justice.
13. But the Governments under the domination of American imperialism have not seen fit to make known their views regarding the present frontiers of Cambodia. Where they have done so — as for example Australia — it was to specify that they were prepared to respect those frontiers that were not delimited. That too is part of the peculiar logic of the imperialists.
14. As we see it, the attitude adopted by this or that country with regard to the frontiers of Cambodia represents a test case. Those who refuse to recognize our existing frontiers are thereby betraying their connivance with the American imperialists and their satellites at Saigon and Bangkok and expressing their contempt for the rules of international law. Our Chief of State, Prince Norodom Sihanouk, has therefore informed the Governments of those countries that Cambodia gives them three months to think it over, after which Cambodia's diplomatic, and in some cases, friendly relations with them would henceforth be on a purely formal basis only. We shall draw our conclusions from their refusal to recognize that Cambodia is a State with legally fixed borders.
15. My country does not accept any compromise where its independence, its neutrality and its territorial integrity are at stake. Its people, under the leadership of Prince Norodom Sihanouk, enjoy the régime of their choice and are profoundly devoted to their monarchic institutions, their Buddhist religion and their age-old traditions. Foreign ideologies of whatever kind do not tempt them in any way, because they have always found Buddhist socialism to be the most effective path to economic and social development and the way most in keeping with their particular aspirations. We threaten no one and we do not belong to any military organization or alliance.
16. Yet apparently our one ambition — to live in freedom within our borders, to work without having recourse to international charity, and to maintain friendly relations with, all countries on the basis of reciprocity — is not acceptable to the great imperialist Powers,, In a dozen years we have virtually eliminated illiteracy, we have provided schooling for the youth of the country and built universities, increased our communications network, created industry, developed agriculture and endowed the country with an infrastructure of harbours, airfields, hotels and modern administration. In short, at the cost of great sacrifice we have made rapid progress in our Kingdom and we have raised the standard of living of the people. The outcome of these efforts has been growing hostility on the part of the imperialists. We are guilty of rejecting American colonialism in all its forms. We are guilty of denouncing the savage aggression of the United States army in Viet-Nam and elsewhere. We are guilty of proclaiming our solidarity with all the countries and all the people of Asia, Africa and Latin America who are struggling heroically to evade oppression by the United States and the Governments it imposes. Our crime has been to stand up to American hegemony and to want all countries to live in freedom like Cambodia.
17. Our crime is the crime of fidelity to the spirit and the letter of the United Nations Charter.
18. I now come to the most tragic issue - one which casts shame on the whole of the civilized world: the American aggression in Viet-Nam or, more precisely, the deliberate destruction of an Asian country and people by a Power which dares to wave the banner of civilization and freedom.
19. We have heard the representative of the United States at this rostrum trying to justify the crimes committed by his country. He has convinced no one, not even those who have given him their support. I would not insult him by suggesting that he himself can have a clear conscience when he vindicates the cruel war his country is waging against the people of Viet-Nam.
20. For at this very moment women, children and old people are being blown to pieces by fragmentation bombs and burnt up by napalm and phosphorus dropped by American aircraft on Viet-Nam. At this very moment men are being tortured or summarily executed by the "soldiers of liberty". At this very moment poor peasants are fleeing their scorched villages, abandoning their paddy fields rendered useless by poisonous chemicals, and being machine-gunned by planes and tanks. We know what this means because among these martyred people are thousands of our own kith and kin, members of the Cambodian minority who have succeeded in finding asylum in our country. The tale of the atrocities they have suffered baffles the imagination.
21. The American generals shrug their shoulders: "War is war". At Oradour, Lidice, Warsaw and Coventry also, "War was war". In Viet-Nam the Oradours, the Li dices and the Warsaws have been lost count of. The communiqués actually announce with great satisfaction that a record tonnage of fire and steel has been poured upon the Viet-Namese villages and cities.
22. The diplomats of the State Department proclaim without a blush that their soldiers are "repelling the aggression" or, better yet, that they are "defending the freedom of the Viet-Namese people". I leave you to judge whether this is cynicism or callousness.
23. The United States is the aggressor. That is a truth which will go down in history despite the distortions of American propaganda. The United States Government undeniably violated the Geneva Agreements on the very morrow of their signature when in 1955 large quantities of arms and thousands of military "advisers" were disembarked in Viet-Nam. Then the popular uprising against the bloodthirsty and tyrannical régime of Ngo Dinh Diem, which came to be more and more controlled by Washington, was countered by the Americans with the "special" war in which they supplied the officers for the forces of repression, herded the people into camps which they called strategic villages, and so on. When this special war failed utterly, the United States began its escalation by sending in its own combat divisions. It was then only that the Democratic Republic of Viet-Nam furnished direct aid to the National Liberation Front in the south. Finally, the United States Government claimed that Hanoi was the aggressor and had to be punished. It was then that the terrorist bombings of North Viet-Nam began.
24. What the United States Government is saying is that the 500,000 men of its expeditionary force should be free to massacre the people of South Viet-Nam, who have arisen against the invader, and to impose their will on a country which has been fighting for its independence for twenty-two years. Is there a single country in the world where part of the population would passively look on at the extermination of those of its own race and blood separated by an imaginary line which was to be drawn for a short time only? For Viet-Nam is a single nation and a single people — a point which certain lines of propaganda would have us forget.
25. The Americans claim that they have obligations towards the Viet-Namese people they are destroying. Admittedly in their eyes this people was at the outset personified by the dictator Ngo Dinh Diem, who was assassinated after he had tried belatedly to limit the American invasion. Since then the Viet-Namese people signifies some general or other installed at Saigon through the good offices of the occupying forces and thrown out as soon as he ceases to be in their good graces. The grotesque and shameful comedy of the elections of the Thieu-Ky combine, organized by the American administration, has succeeded only in making it still more obvious that South Viet-Nam is regarded by the United States as a colony and its so-called Government as a screen to fool the Organization and a docile international public opinion.
26. The truth is that, as that great statesman General de Gaulle says, the Viet-Nam affair is a battle by a national resistance against foreign armed intervention. Even the fiction of the assistance given by the United States to the South Viet-Namese army of Saigon can no longer be sustained, since for practical purposes that army no longer takes part in the fighting.
27. What is American aggression in Viet-Nam? It is what we, the Members of the United Nations, have sworn never again to tolerate; war in its most cruel form against a peace-loving people. I know that the Government of the United States protests its good intentions and claims that it has no colonialist ambition. But the colonialists of the past were infinitely less barbaric. They imposed their will, exploited our resources, our riches and our labour. But the American colonialists are engaged in genocide — human, cultural, moral, religious genocide. They are destroying all national and traditional values, replacing them with violence, corruption in all its forms, and organized destitution. The struggle of the Viet-Namese people is legitimate, as is or will be that of the Asian, African and especially the Latin American peoples against aggression, domination or imperialist tutelage. What we are all concerned to defend is the dignity of man, the right to absolute independence, the right of all peoples to live in freedom and to develop according to their wishes.
28. The settlement of the Viet-Nam question is a matter for the Viet-Namese and the Viet-Namese only. The United Nations has no right whatever to intervene as an arbitrator, as the American Government seems to wish it to do. It is not, after all, a question of arbitration between two parties in conflict where the responsibilities can be apportioned. The Viet-Nam affair is simply the case of a small country attacked and invaded by the armed forces of a foreign Power. Hence the only contribution which the United Nations can make is, in accordance with the Charter, to call upon the United States to end its aggression.
29. The representative of the United States has affirmed once again that his Government is ready to sit down at the negotiating table. But the plan he proposes for bringing peace to Viet-Nam offers nothing new and does not in any way suggest that the United States has renounced its plan to maintain its domination over Viet-Nam through the military junta in Saigon, after crushing the national resistance of the South Viet-Namese. It is nevertheless strange to hear the United States representative cite the 1954 Geneva Agreements, which his country has consistently violated, and actually ask that its right to continue to violate them be recognized; for that is what is involved when assurances are sought from the Government of Hanoi before the bombing of North Viet-Nam is halted.
30. As was pointed out recently by Prince Norodom Sihanouk in a message to Mr. Bebler, "The solution of the Viet-Nam problem lies in the unconditional cessation of American aggression from the air against North Viet-Nam and the undertaking by the United States to withdraw its troops from South Viet-Nam where they are stationed without any right".
31. Any American proposal for negotiation which does not take this into account is doomed to failure, since it will quite rightly appear to both the Democratic Republic of Viet-Nam and the National Liberation Front of South Viet-Nam, which is the only genuine representative of the people of South Viet-Nam, as an obvious attempt to bamboozle them.
32. If the American Government really wants to return to the Geneva Agreements, it must sincerely accept the four points of the Democratic Republic of Viet-Nam and the five points of the National Liberation Front of South Viet-Nam, which are in accordance with the letter and spirit of those Agreements. In that connexion Cambodia would like to see all the signatories to the General Agreements condemn the United States aggression and call on the United States to put an end immediately to its violation of the texts it has signed, and to respect the terms they embody. Clearly the first step would be the immediate cessation of the terrorist bombing of North Viet-Nam, as called for even by some of the United States' allies. But — and we must be under no delusion about this — the South Viet-Namese people will fight for ten years, twenty years if need be, against the American army of occupation for the right to settle its internal affairs without foreign interference or intervention.
33. But what would happen after we had left? Ask the American leaders. Our answer is that that is the concern of the Viet-Namese themselves and that no country in the world can usurp the right to intervene in their affairs. The State Department is acquainted with the political programme of the National Liberation Front; it does not constitute a threat to the security of the United States and it is in line with the aspirations of the South Viet-Namese people. If the clique of fascist generals in Saigon wish to oppose that, let them; but let them do so alone. The South Viet-Namese are at liberty to choose the régime they want and to decide their own future, since the Geneva Agreements have never stipulated that this or that form of government would not be allowed in South Viet-Nam. For us Cambodians, non-intervention and non-interference in the affairs of others are sacred principles, and we can never accept the idea of any foreign Power whatsoever imposing its own régime or ideology by violence or by any other means.
34. I have dwelt on the question of Viet-Nam because it concerns a neighbouring, fraternal country and also because the imperialist policy of the United States is preparing other Viet-Nams in our Third World. Tomorrow the American Government, applying the same theories as in Viet-Nam, Cambodia and Laos, will send its marines to Bolivia, Venezuela or Colombia and its bombers to Cuba. Unless the United Nations strenuously opposes the United States policy of world hegemony there will soon be three or four Viet-Nams in Asia, Africa and Latin America, with the inevitable prospect of a world war.
35. As every year, the General Assembly will have to examine the question of the representation of China in the United Nations. As every year, Cambodia will ask that the People's Republic of China be invited to resume its place usurped by the representatives of Chiang Kai-shek, whose presence here is a scandal that has gone on too long.
36. We know very well that the representatives of the United States will assert once again that China is a threat to world peace, especially since it set out to equip itself with nuclear weapons. And the Governments under the thumb of Washington will, as always, obey the directives for the maintenance of the status quo.
37. But if China is propagating its ideology, the United States is imposing throughout the world its military bases, its armies of occupation, its "local" wars, its fascist Governments resulting from coups d'état instigated by the Central Intelligence Agency.
38. If China has become a nuclear Power, it has solemnly undertaken never to be the first to use its atomic weapons, whereas the United States at every opportunity wields the threat of its prodigious arsenal of atomic and hydrogen bombs against any country which resists it. Who is threatening the peace of the world?
39. The lawful representatives of a country of 700 million people are excluded from this Organization in favour of a delegation which is nothing more than the creature of the American authorities in the Chinese province of Taiwan. The absurdity of this is sufficient to demonstrate that in renouncing the principle of universality and bowing to American instructions, the majority of the Members of this Assembly are leading us all along a dangerous dead-end path. There can be no doubt that failing the restoration to China of the province of Taiwan, which is administered without any entitlement by the United States, and failing an invitation to the People's Republic of China to resume its place among us, with all its rights and prerogatives, the United Nations will never be able to play its proper role; on the contrary, its impotence will be confirmed more and more clearly every year.
40. There is another Asian problem which calls for an urgent solution, namely, the problem of the still- divided Korea. There is proof positive of the harm done by the persistent interference of the United Nations in this problem, which must be left to the Korean people to solve. In South Korea under American military occupation, popular resistance continues to grow, especially since Korean divisions began to be used for the American aggression in South Viet-Nam. The domestic situation in that country is definitely heading for another Viet-Nam. We believe that i* is the duty of the United Nations to act before it is too late.
41. The Organization should therefore call for the withdrawal of American troops from the territory of South Korea, and order the dissolution of the United Nations Commission for the Unification and Rehabilitation of Korea, which is clearly serving no useful purpose. It would then be for the Korean people, by themselves and without interference from outside, to seek to reunify their country by peaceful means.
42. The crisis in the Middle East likewise weighs very heavily upon this general debate. Cambodia deplores the armed conflict which has taken place between Israel and the Arab countries, and reiterates that recourse to force only makes the settlement of disputes more difficult. The adversaries today are in an impasse created by Israel's military occupation of conquered Arab territories. Withdrawal must therefore be a prior condition for discussions we would like to see, based on the right of Israel to existence and security, and the right of the Palestinian people to have their legitimate claims satisfied.
43. We sincerely hope that an agreement consonant with international law will be reached between all the countries of the Middle East and Israel, although we believe that such an agreement will only be possible if the great Powers cease to interfere in the affairs of either side. We are of course well aware of the opposing views of Israel and the Arab countries, but we refuse to believe that they cannot be reconciled.
44. The trend of the international situation and the inability of the United Nations to command respect for its Charter do not make for optimism. Imperialist or neo-colonialist ambitions, the arrogance of the great Powers, the widening gulf between overdeveloped and under-developed, and racial oppression, are everywhere causing wars, popular uprisings and brutal repression.
45. As was pointed out by our revered and courageous Secretary-General U Thant, to whom we would like to pay a very special tribute, we are drifting relentlessly towards a world confrontation. Unfortunately, his warnings are contemptuously rejected by irresponsible or criminal leaders, and they find only a very feeble response in this Assembly. Yet the United Nations had and still has the means of removing, or at any rate lessening, the causes of this calamitous drift.
46. Unfortunately, we find the United Nations endorsing so-called economic bodies designed by the great imperialist Powers to impose their will on the developing nations. Thus in the course of the past year Cambodia has been urged to join financial organizations or regional economic co-operation bodies controlled by the United States, either directly or with Japan as intermediary. We have also observed that the Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East and the Committee for the Coordination of Investigations of the Lower Mekong Basin are becoming more and more the instruments of American policy. This new form of imperialism is extremely serious, because it increases the dependence of the Afro-Asian and Latin American countries on the United States and creates a threat for countries which, like Cambodia, are developing and making progress by their own efforts.
47. It is equally deplorable that the United Nations has been unable to end the manifestations of racism which are a disgrace to so many countries. In South Africa and in Rhodesia, the African population is suffering vile oppression by Governments which openly flaunt their racism. In Angola and Mozambique colonialist domination is the order of the day. And how could we forget that the Cambodian minority in South Viet-Nam is still victim of physical, cultural and religious genocide on the part of the American/South-Viet-Namese army and administration?
48. In the United States itself, the desperate struggle by 25 million black citizens to affirm their human dignity and to acquire the elementary rights they are refused deserves our full support, because their struggle is our own, the struggle of all peoples of colour whom certain fundamentally racist Western Powers are trying to maintain under their thumb. We therefore believe that to allow the Headquarters of the United Nations to remain in a country engaged in the extermination of Asians in Viet-Nam and in violence against its own negro citizens is an anomaly which needs to be remedied.
49. The Cambodian delegation therefore trusts that the General Assembly will tackle the grave problems before it at the present session with a determination to seek the bold and just solutions which the peoples of the world await.
50. In conclusion, allow me to say that we were delighted at the election of Mr. Corneliu Manescu as President of this session of the General Assembly. The Cambodian delegation extends to him its warmest congratulations and its best wishes for complete success in the high office entrusted to him.