1. Mr. President, on behalf of my Government and the delegation of the Republic of Singapore, I should like to associate myself with the congratulatory remarks made by preceding speakers on your election to the high office of President of the General Assembly at this session. Permit me to recall that during the visit of Your Excellency to Singapore in May this year we discovered an identity of views regarding the principles which should form the basis on which relations between States should be built In keeping with the realities of present-day international life. These principles are the respect of nations for the independence and sovereignty of one another, their adherence to the belief in the non-interference in the internal affairs of others and the equality of rights of nations regardless of size, political systems or other factors. These principles are also embodied in the Charter of the United Nations, and their observance should reduce world tensions and promote harmonious international relations. With such an identity of views it is but natural that we should feel most delighted over your Presidency of this important session of the General Assembly.
2. The present year has been a difficult year for all those who believe in the United Nations, as we believe all those gathered in this august Assembly do. Old issues seem as difficult and Intractable as ever, and an emergency special session of the General Assembly regrettably failed to resolve the consequences of another major outbreak of armed conflict in the Middle East. An air of despondency and frustration has settled over the United Nations shortly after It has come of age. Disappointment has been expressed over the record of the United Nations, but we are not aware that nations have become disillusioned on that account. We are inclined to the view that, but for the new channels of diplomacy opened by the United Nations to international relations, many of the major events of the past twenty-two years would most probably have developed into conflicts of larger and more dangerous dimensions.
3. If international relations have not moved in the direction of a world order as envisaged by the Charter, the United Nations has certainly prevented international conflicts from engulfing the world in wars of global proportions as had happened in the past. The fault lies not with the Ideals of the Charter and the institutions that have grown up to realize them. It lies in the way in which Member States have chosen to use the United Nations. The United Nations is what we collectively make of it; we are responsible for its strength and also its weaknesses. It is historically true, as perhaps it must inevitably be, that big Power politics have dominated and shaped the course of developments in the United Nations. Lacking the sinews of power to give their votes the independence and weight which in theory they have, small nations have been nudged by choice or by circumstances to take positions that have tended to promote division rather than constructive action. And where small nations, of their own volition, have come to act together on matters vital to their interests and aims, their determination to translate their purpose into effective action is nullified by the lack of support from the major world Powers, acting not in unison but for diverse and separate reasons. Such is the outcome of the deliberations of the special session on South West Africa early this year.
4. It is a self-evident truism that there can be no constructive solution to any international problem, inside or outside the United Nations, unless all the parties directly Involved come to the conclusion that there is more to be gained from coming to a settlement than carrying on as at present. Such seems to be the situation with regard to the war in Viet-Nam and the state of affairs in the Middle East.
5. As regards Viet-Nam, my Government has, time and again, expressed deep concern over the dangerous situation in Viet-Nam and the agonies of the war-ridden Viet-Namese. We consider that peace must be sought on the basis of the Geneva Agreements of 1954, ensuring the Viet-Namese people the right to decide its own future.
6. On the Middle East, we have observed that despite the near unanimity on the principle that there, should be no territorial gains by military conquest, to which we subscribe, the issue of withdrawal has so far been intractable because it is linked in a complex manner with certain fundamental principles, the non-recognition of which, it is argued, will undermine any attempt to construct an international order based on law and justice. We believe that the United Nations should continue to make constructive efforts to bring about a solution, and any meaningful resolution must necessarily be acceptable to all the parties concerned.
7. Any reference to the Middle East must inevitably lead us to the question of peace-keeping. We are of the view that the United Nations has an essential role to play in that area, and we concur with the Secretary-General that "the principal obstacles in the way of an improvement in United Nations peace-keeping are primarily political and constitutional, and only secondarily military and financial" [A/6701/Add.1, para. 35], We therefore urge the major world Powers to work towards greater agreement in order to facilitate the employment of peace-keeping as an instrument of international relations in explosive situations.
8. We share the common view that the world will be a safer and better place to live in without armaments. Nevertheless, it must be recognized that warfare is a phenomenon which is as old as human history, and it cannot be banished overnight. But this does not mean that any effort should be spared to move towards complete and general disarmament, and nuclear disarmament in particular. Of necessity nuclear disarmament must occupy special attention because of the destructive capacity of nuclear arms. A nuclear war is fraught with such fatal consequences that the nuclear Powers themselves have seemingly felt that the very possession of nuclear weapons on their part has become a mutual deterrent to their use. An unchecked nuclear arms race continues to absorb enormous resources of the affluent nuclear Powers that would be better spent for greater internal social and economic progress, or, as the developing countries hope will be the case, for aid towards narrowing the gap between the rich and the poor nations of the world.
9. The question of a comprehensive test ban still remains unresolved. Although the Moscow partial test ban Treaty is a step in the direction of total prohibition in testing of nuclear weapons, it has been ineffective, partly because it does not enjoy support on a world-wide basis, and partly because it permits underground testing to go on.
10. Long, acrimonious debates and negotiations have marked the efforts towards nuclear disarmament. If the achievement of this objective is not within sight, we are at least somewhat encouraged by the hopeful signs of development in the area of nuclear nonproliferation. Such a development is the denuclearization of Latin America, made possibly by the conclusion of the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America, signed at Mexico City in February this year [see A/6663], Another significant development that may eventually result in a meaningful movement towards nuclear disarmament was the submission by the Soviet Union and the United States of a joint draft treaty on non-proliferation, on 24 August. It is our view that any treaty that is finally adopted should be in accordance with the principles laid down in United Nations General Assembly resolution 2028 (XX), providing for mutuality of obligations and non-discrimination as between nuclear and nonnuclear Powers, Such a treaty should also provide for the development of nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.
11. The much publicized United Nations Development Decade has entered its last quarter of existence with its objectives falling short of attainment. While the productive capacity of developed nations has continued to increase, that of developing countries has actually declined. Last year, the rate dropped from the level of 4 per cent in 1965 to 3 per cent. Almost 95 per cent of the world's industrial output has come from countries with less than one third of the world's population. The transfer of one per cent of the gross national product of the developed countries to the developing countries to bring about a growth rate of 5 per cent as envisaged in the Development Decade has not occurred. As each year goes by we see the gap widened between the affluent nations of the socialist and non-socialist camps and the newly- emerged countries of Afro-Asia, leading to a growing division of the haves and have nots on global racial lines, between the Whites and the non-Whites.
12. Aid from the affluent nations has been decided mainly on cold-war considerations, and a substantial proportion of foreign aid has gone towards subsidizing armies in developing countries, with the result that the developing countries have to divert scarce national resources from essential economic and social development in order to maintain crippling, non-productive, foreign-equipped armies. Such a trend of development, if continued unchecked, may lead ultimately to global class-war of a kind which is too horrible to contemplate.
13. It is our belief that it is in the interest of the affluent nations, of the left as well as of the right, to provide aid that is adequate to enable the developing countries to achieve a growth rate of at least 5 per cent. We expect a certain degree of enlightened self- interest in the offering of aid, for the enjoyment of wealth on a continuous basis becomes illusory in a situation of international strife in which the affluent nations are compelled by the realities of life to be involved. Whatever the motivations, aid must be for the benefit of the developing countries. Concerted international action on aid will be an important step in the right direction.
14. But aid by itself will be self-defeating if it is not accompanied by the opening of the markets of the developed countries to the products of the developing countries. We concur with the general consensus that the Kennedy Round of negotiations has, as a whole, benefited the economies of the developed countries more than it has the economies of the developing countries. It is our earnest hope that during the forthcoming second session of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development to be held at New Delhi, the developed countries will adopt a more positive and helpful attitude so as to enable the developing countries to move towards a reduction of the present disparity, and help the developing countries to stabilize their economy and improve their participation in world trade.
15. But neither aid nor markets are adequate for the promotion of economic growth. In the last analysis, the effort must be made by the recipient countries themselves. A satisfactory growth rate has to be preceded and sustained by an effective programme of modernization. The latter unavoidably demands hard work, sacrifice, discipline, and appropriate economic, social, and political institutions. It demands an attitude of mind that is receptive to new ideas and challenges. In all these fields the Governments must themselves provide the necessary political leadership and stability. It is not difficult to cite examples where developing economies have disintegrated as a result of policies which are inappropriate to the exacting demands of economic development.
16. At this point it is appropriate to point out what some south-east Asian countries, including Singapore, have initiated recently in the area of regional cooperation. We have always held the view that the scale of modern technology has made economic nationalism utterly anachronistic, and that, if pursued to extreme limits, it would result in economic suicide. The formation of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, ASEAN for short, comprising Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Singapore, has encouraged us to believe that an important framework has been laid in the direction of substituting economic nationalism for economic regionalism.
17. In the field of decolonization, we reiterate what remains a cardinal feature of our foreign policy, our support for the eradication of colonialism. We deplore the intransigence of Poetual before world opinion with regard to its policy of suppressing independence movements. As regards South Africa, we find its apartheid policy morally repugnant and deserving of the condemnation of the Afro-Asian world. South Africa's attitude and response towards the demands of the United Nations with regard to South West Africa amount to nothing less than a flagrant flouting of both world opinion and the moral authority of the United Nations. In Southern Rhodesia, selective mandatory sanctions have, regrettably, not brought about a capitulation of the illegal Smith régime. The intransigence of Portugal, South Africa, and Southern Rhodesia, if continued unchecked, must lead to revolutionary violence as a means of achieving justice, violence possibly escalating further to wider conflicts.
18. This august Assembly has debated the question of the admission of the People's Republic of China for almost twenty years. Nothing that has been said has deflected us from the view that the United Nations cannot continue to ignore the inherent right of 750 million people, one-fifth of the human race, to be represented in this Organization.
19. Before we conclude, our delegation would like to take this opportunity to place on record our deep appreciation of the invaluable services rendered by His Excellency Ambassador Abdul Rahman Pazhwak when he presided over the eventful Assembly sessions of the twenty-first year of the United Nations.