79. I am happy to fall in with the admirable tradition of this Assembly and begin by extending to you, Mr. President, my hearty congratulations and those of my delegation on your election to the Presidency of this twenty-second session of the General Assembly. I welcome the event, as previous speakers have done, for what it denotes and it signifies, namely, a welcome development in the attitude of the major forces in the world today in the direction of rather less mistrust and rather more sense of brotherhood in their mutual relations.
80. In my country's view, this is an important juncture. For the first time, after twenty years of stalling, the General Assembly has a representative of a socialist country at its head. Only a few months ago, the Head of State of Cameroon, El Hadj Ahmadou Ahidjo, paid the first official visit of a Cameroonian to the oldest, historically, of the capitals of socialism, Moscow. Both these events represent a great breach in the wall of misunderstanding, a decisive step taken towards the inescapable development of man in the direction of greater confidence, understanding, in short, co-operation.
81. May this happy augury crystallize and grow, so that by the time we end our work, results may be achieved which will give all mankind the incentive to believe, to love and to have faith in their future. This cannot be regarded merely as a pious wish, if we pause for a moment, as we should at the beginning of every session of the General Assembly, to consider the political outlook for the world as a whole.
82. The outlook is, undoubtedly, one of relative calm. The conflagration in the Middle East has been brought temporarily under control. The fire brigade of the Security Council and the sirens sounded by the great world Powers have been in action. The flames have subsided, but the fire is still alive, latent, intense and explosive. Nothing has really been settled.
83. In Viet-Nam, the sky is still red with murderous, destructive bombings. There, a small country has been suffering martyrdom since 1940. Pain, suffering, desolation and destruction are part and parcel of everyday life, like food and drink. The psychologists and sociologists of the future will study this case and tell us the extent of the unprecedented moral trauma suffered by the Viet-Namese.
84. Elsewhere, the barometer records neither calm nor set fair. Guerrilla warfare, silent, ruthless, goes on, inexorably gnawing away at the nations which are its victims, like a cancer undermining the patient's health.
85. In Africa, apartheid has gained strength, and is advancing like a steam-roller, not slowly any more, but headlong, in what is called the Republic of South Africa, crushing the poor, defenceless indigenous Negro population with such ruthlessness as to warrant extreme concern about its future, unless we prefer, sanctimoniously and hypocritically, to wait for the battle to end, as in Le Cid, for lack of soldiers — in other words for the Pretoria regime to succeed in its genocide of all the non-whites in the Territory.
86. Colonialism too has made headway. The General Assembly did adopt the historic resolution calling for the immediate granting of independence to all dependent countries and peoples [1514 (XV)]. But what has actually been done? Well, the Territory of South West Africa, which was under the Mandate of the League of Nations and later inherited by the United Nations, has been for practical purposes removed from the jurisdiction of the General Assembly under our very noses and leaving our conscience seemingly untroubled about our common responsibility.
87. In the face of such an admission of impotence, is it any wonder that the Ian Smith clique should feel itself completely at liberty to go on building and consolidating, with Great Britain uttering threats in a Pontius Pilate manner. Selective economic sanctions? They remind one of the washing of hands ritual — which did not prevent Christ from being crucified.
88. At this late stage in the general debate, it would serve no purpose for me to refer to all the items on our agenda, or even those concerning my part of the world. All these problems have already been analysed with the eloquence and the pertinence characteristic of statements made in this forum. My delegation will therefore try very briefly to outline its views and define its position on some items of the debates in which, for various reasons, it was not able to take part.
89. I think it might be useful, indeed necessary, first of all to point out the general impression of disenchantment and lethargy which pervades this whole Assembly. It is vital that this should be analysed if we are to avoid a situation that would be fatal for the Organization, namely apathy and inability to react. "We will not stand for it" should be our password and motto to offset any inclination to let things slide onto the dangerous downward path of the forces of evil, which work relentlessly till the damage is irreparable.
90. Our agenda has of course been dealing with the same problems for the last twenty years. It may be, indeed it is certain, that we have not found final solutions for most of the problems, or in fact solutions of any sort. The memory is only too vivid and depressing of the impasse reached at the last emergency special session of the General Assembly. The efforts of the Secretary-General, forceful and valiant though they were, met with so little understanding that in his Report he stripped away the garb of decency and presented the bare facts in all their most gloomy nakedness.
91. All this may of course be discouraging, but it is not new. As regards the Secretary-General, we anticipated him last year [1412th meeting]. We made it clear that the work of the United Nations was being paralysed by the notion embodied in the Charter that there was a breach of peace only when the danger brought the great Powers into conflict. At the time, the Secretary-General was threatening to quit us. Recalling the death of Mr. Hammarskjold and his imminent departure about that time, we gave a word of warning against the wastage of these eminent and highly gifted men. Under pressure from all of us U Thant, in an admirable spirit of self-sacrifice and will to serve, remained at his post. But a year later, we find him more disillusioned than ever and fearing the worst. Yes, like causes will always produce like effects. There was no point in paying this collective tribute to the Secretary-General and asking him to stay on unless we gave him the tools duly sharpened for use. Let me repeat what we said last year: what is needed is a genuine renewal of the Charter. It must be dynamically and intelligently adapted to today's world. This Charter, born in 1945, and now in the full flower of youth — over twenty years old — must not be kept still wearing its first communion dress.
92. Peace will not be safeguarded until it is understood in the minds of all, as defined by Jean Jaurès, i.e. as "integral, total and final" and the definition is applied to every breath of the peace, even if the Powers involved are small or medium-sized.
93. The notion of a sincere agreement between great Powers is fallacious in principle and impossible in practice. It is fallacious because power changes. From the Memphis of ancient times to the Washington of today, the goddess of power has roamed the earth, making her sojourn for varying periods in many other capitals. But while everyone wishes to join the great- Power club, no one willingly leaves it. During the war people spoke of the "Big Two" or the "Big Three" — or more, according to the capital they were in. The Security Council has its permanent members. But as everyone knows, some of them are already being challenged. It is therefore useless to think in terms of the great Powers of 1945.
94. Agreement is impossible in practice, because greatness means having clients and having influence. Among the great Powers, sharing does not mean giving anything away. Nobody gives; nobody concedes; they only take. That is why the great Powers will not agree among themselves and it is useless to hope for world peace based upon "agreement among the great Powers".
95. Failing a change in the ethical outlook, we must unfortunately fight with the means at our disposal - moderation, tolerance, discussion — in the hope each time of striking a note of pacification and reconciliation. One of the principles of Moral Rearmament, an institution very fashionable some time ago, is that when there is a conflict, one should not seek to establish who is wrong and who is right, but rather what is just.
96. What is just for Viet-Nam, for example, is that the bombings and all acts of war should cease, because that nation has suffered over much. It is a question of humanity. I will not even call it a question of morality; it is a question of fair play. North Viet-Nam is certainly greatly at fault for wanting to lead South Viet-Nam astray against its will. But did it start doing so by bombing? It is not fair play to use a sledge-hammer or a tank against an adversary fighting with bare fists.
97. It is an elementary principle of justice that so far as possible the punishment should fit the crime. Even in politics, when intervention is not proportionate to the initial act, assistance or self-defence rapidly takes on the look of provocation as a pretext for aggression. This is not, I think, the wish or the intention of the United States; nor is it the desire of South Viet-Nam. That the latter should seek and obtain assistance to secure self-determination vis-à-vis or against the North strikes me as normal and legitimate. For just as it is normal for North Viet-Nam to wish to be socialist, so it is for South Viet-Nam to wish not to be. But it must show similar zeal and prove that its convictions are genuine. The fight must be carried on with the same weapons — conviction by both sides.
98. A just solution to the problem does not mean big guns booming, napalm and air squadrons. Experience has already proved that, and all circles at Washington, including the Pentagon, admit it and are still unable to determine when it will all end, even with the colossal forces at present deployed in the operation. The Charter stipulates the settlement of disputes by peaceful means. This is more urgent than ever once conventional weapons have failed. No one need ask why we are in favour of the conference table, official or unofficial: obviously it is because we are faithful to the Charter. Hence what we say is: let the air squadrons return to their bases, and let the talking begin.
99. As far as the Middle East is concerned, there too we shall be guided by our concern for a lasting truce. Who is right and who is wrong? What does it matter? Nobody is ever 100 per cent wrong or 100 per cent right. With regard to the historical background, as far as we know, until the Diaspora in 70 A.D., the land was occupied by the Jews, certainly for several thousand years. Since the Diaspora, it has belonged to the Arabs for almost two thousand years. Actually, they were neither the Jews of today nor the Arabs of today. And that is where racism is stupid and vicious. It was a mistake to establish a so-called Jewish State and equally to turn this into an Arab problem. When the British colonizers left, a single state of Palestine should have been established, multiracial, like those of the rest of us, where all could live together without discrimination as to race or religion, with only one objective: the building of the nation and its economic and social development.
100. What is unjust is that minor frontier incidents with the United Arab Republic or Syria were followed by a violent outbreak over the whole length of the Mediterranean, from the Persian Gulf to the Atlantic. What is equally bad is that former inhabitants of this land have been reduced to abject poverty while appeals were being made to Jews scattered over the earth to come and colonize the country. As Mr. Bechin Ben Yarned wrote quite rightly in an editorial in the newspaper Jeune Afrique, and Heaven knows I do not always agree with what he writes:
"The Arab leaders have proved themselves incapable of winning a victory in the struggle with Israel; on the other hand, Israel has proved itself incapable of making peace with its neighbours.”
101. Thus since both sides are equally to blame, all that remains is compromise. First of all, there must be a return to the situation as it was before the hostilities of 5 June last, which means the withdrawal of Israel troops from the occupied territory and freedom of navigation in the Gulf of Aqaba, and then a general settlement at an international conference convened specifically to deal with the problems of the region. Without the necessity for anyone to recognize anyone else, Arabs and Israelis sit peacefully in this hall. They vote together on resolutions and they initial international treaties. Since the device works here, it could serve in other circumstances.
102. Acute though these two problems are, the international community cannot ignore others arising elsewhere, particularly in Africa. There is Rhodesia, building and consolidating its position. When will Great Britain finally assume its responsibilities? History tells us only too clearly how it has decolonized — leaving behind problems which at times have brought it back; or when it has not come back — a good thing in itself — there has often been conflict and bloodshed. A great Power must not be one-sided. It must be able to accept great sacrifices, not only in Europe, as it has done, but wherever the thirst for power has caused its flag to fly. Great Britain must measure up to its responsibility in this matter.
103. Why should South Africa change its policy towards South West Africa or apartheid? How can Portugal be expected to change its attitude towards Angola and Mozambique, if they see from the example given by Great Britain in Rhodesia that the principles of freedom and justice do not count where Africans are concerned? The meeting on the Tiger will go down as a sad day in history when a Prime Minister had a meeting on a warship — a warship, mark you! — with a rebel who came not to surrender but to reaffirm his rebellious intentions and to bear away the honours.
104. Perhaps people resign themselves to this, because it is not war. But it is not peace either; and such situations, repeated up and down the world, intensify the pervading atmosphere of despondency which already marks the beginning of a general acquiescence in what seems irreparable. Small wars here, there and everywhere will lead to the conviction that a large-scale war is inevitable. That is what is worrying us.
105. Like the slowing down of decolonization, the hardening of apartheid and the falling back on regionalism, the deterioration of economic relations between rich and poor countries is the first sign of disenchantment, which is the forerunner of despair and therefore of all that is evil. Political justice and the brotherhood of man are inseparable from economic justice, which must allow every man, every human being in this day and age his fair share of the happiness won through twentieth century progress.
106. What is surprising at first sight is the way in which the world seems to be alive to the urgency and magnitude of the problem; yet there is no sign that it is resolutely taking adequate measures to begin to solve it. There are virtually no political, religious, scientific, let alone technical or industrial figures any more who fail to stress, from any platform, this problem of the development needs of the backward countries.
107. In its Encyclical Populorum Prògressio, the Holy See, which traditionally uses moderate language, saw fit through the lips of Pope Paul VI to use vehement tones to describe the problem:
"Today the principal fact that we must all recognize is that the social question has become worldwide .... Today the peoples in hunger are making a dramatic appeal to the peoples blessed with abundance."
108. And as if in echo, Mr. Raul Prebisch, the Secretary-General of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), assessing the achievements of the Development Decade at Geneva on 15 August 1967, stated:
"No one is any longer in doubt that the so-called United Nations Development Decade may turn out to be a decade of frustration. Very few developing countries have managed to exceed the minimum growth rate of 5 per cent per annum which was set as an objective of the Decade. Most of them have barely attained extremely modest rates representing a slight increase in per capita income."
109. These two quotations alone suffice to depict the plight of the developing countries not only in the face of activities carried on abroad to bring the problem home to the world, and at home, at the cost of heavy sacrifices, with a view to playing their full part in the process, but likewise in the face of the end results, which in the long run leave them little or no hope.
110. I am sure we may venture to make this appeal to the socialist countries, with the anniversary of the great October Revolution only a few days off. We often hear them state — I still hear them saying it at Geneva in 1964 during the First United Nations Conference on Trade and Development — that since they had never had colonies they do not admit any responsibility for the backwardness of developing countries and therefore have no special responsibility to help those countries. They may be correct, historically speaking, but certainly not objectively speaking.
111. Under-development today has become an anachronism, an endemic disease like smallpox or yellow fever, which any doctor in the world will fight against without having to feel that he has any specific responsibility for their eradication. The fight must be automatic, and everybody's business. Each and every one of us is involved in the solidarity of a society which the triumphs of science and technology are driving at a headlong pace towards unification.
112. It could even be argued — I hope the socialist countries will forgive me — if one is really ambitious for socialism, that because its principles are by definition altruistic it ought to intervene in the world market to get rid of its retrograde mercantile aspect and in a novel and enriching gesture, infuse it with an element of aid to development. This has become all the more essential in that the political liberation of the Third World is already being followed by market tendencies to a sharing of economic dependence. Vertical compartment ideas are already creeping into the multilateral and global system of international trade. For the developing countries that would undoubtedly be the kiss of death.
113. I am from an African country which is associated with the European Common Market. The distinct advantages we enjoy in respect of quantitative or other preferences in no way make us forget the overriding need for general world change. In any event, the association is limited in terms of time and very soon we shall have to negotiate another association agreement. But I must state emphatically that the association is temporary and is justified by the unequal degree of relative under-development among us. In my humble opinion, it would be unfair for the developing countries to engage in wholesale recriminations against the well-to-do countries if, in the process of the efforts to bring about equalization, no account was taken of the inequalities existing at the outset. The medicine must always be prescribed according to the severity of the ailment.
114. Hence in our view, the role of the socialist countries, assuming that socialism is idealistic and is concerned to play a decisive role in the evolution of the world, should today take the form of bold intervention in world trade so as to bring about, with the opening up of its closed markets, a quantitative acceleration of consumption of commodities, accompanied by an organization of the market for those commodities on the basis of prices geared to development.
115. All eyes are now turning towards New Delhi, where the world's conscience will have the opportunity once again to reflect on this problem. For the developing countries, the expression of grievances centres essentially not on aid, which can only be an extra, but on the fundamental issue of support of the prices of raw materials whose fluctuations affect their earnings from exports to the markets of the developed countries.
116. We know the classic law of this machinery: either prices increase nominally and the producing countries sell less in volume, or prices drop and they earn less for a greater volume, while the cost of manufactured goods continues to rise steadily. The principle followed is cleverly and deliberately to maintain structures which will enable the industrialized countries to derive bigger and better advantages.
117. We have calculated that in our own country of Cameroon alone, the loss in revenue between 1960 and 1965 on sales of agricultural exports because of the drop in prices was over CFA francs 20,000 million, or nearly $100 million.
118. The President of the Federal Republic of Cameroon last summer visited the European Economic Community, where he spoke of these same problems, which arise even within the framework of our association, though admittedly in a slightly less acute form. El Hadj Ahmadou Ahidjo, with his characteristic love of the truth, especially in talking to his friends, said:
"Three points in this connexion cause us the utmost concern: stagnation in the volume of our exports to your Community, deterioration in the terms of trade, and difficulties in marketing goods derived from the processing of agricultural products.
"We are greatly worried because in the present situation we sell comparatively less to you; we earn less from the sale of our products, while we pay more each year for the manufactured goods we buy from you; and when we try to place on your market goods processed from our agricultural products we come up against an unexpected customs barrier. We sell you relatively less.
"In more specific terms, at the present time we hardly sell you any more vegetable oil and coffee than in 1962. We sell you less rice, oil seeds, and cotton; and while we are glad to see that you are consuming more cocoa and bananas from our country, we cannot help noting that the increase in cocoa
imports coincides with the catastrophic drop in prices in 1965, and that the additional tonnage of bananas sold on your markets have in many instances
been sold by dint of incredible difficulties and at rock bottom prices."
119. These friendly criticisms on our part, let me repeat, do not detract from the advantages we derive from our association with the European Economic Community, nor lessen the gratitude, repeatedly expressed, of the African and Associated Malagasy States. They merely show that there is basically a structural weakness in the mechanism of economic international relations which to a large extent cancels out all the efforts made to aid the developing countries.
120. Thus it is this crucial problem of price supports for commodities that the New Delhi Conference must tackle as a matter of top priority. It is reassuring to know that the Ministers of the franc zone who met recently at Dakar considered the problem and that at Rio de Janeiro the question was placed on the agenda, and a decision was taken to study the matter, in the following resolution, which was duly adopted:
"Whereas Governors of the Bank and the Fund for Cameroon, Central African Republic, Congo (Brazzaville), Ivory Coast, Dahomey, France, Gabon, Upper Volta, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal, Chad and Togo have transmitted to the President of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development the following request:
"Considering the decisive importance of the stabilization of prices of primary products at a remunerative level for the economic advancement of the developing countries and the improvement of the standard of living of their populations, the Governors meeting in Dakar request that in Rio study be made of the conditions in which IMF, IBRD, and IDA could participate in the elaboration of suitable mechanisms involving balanced commitments on the part both of the producing and of the consuming countries, and devote the necessary resources thereto.
"And whereas the Board of Governors recognize the importance of this subject in relation to the purposes of the Bank,
"Now therefore, the Board of Governors resolves that the President is hereby invited to have the staff, in consultation with the Fund staff, prepare a study of the problem, its possible solutions, and their economic feasibility, in the light of the foregoing, to be submitted to the Executive Directors who are requested to transmit it with such comments or recommendations as they may have to the Board of Governors for consideration and appropriate decision by the Board, if possible at its next Annual Meeting."
121. In my delegation's view, this is definitely the right course if, as a first emergency measure, both at Algiers and at New Delhi, a solution could be found to the problem of stabilization of commodity prices. If this first step were taken, the rest would follow automatically. Is the world not yet ready for such a task?
122. In conclusion, let me quote what the Head of State of Cameroon also said at Brussels when addressing the European Economic Community:
"Gentlemen, what is true of men is true of States. They must excel themselves, surpass themselves the better to fulfil their role, their mission; and I believe that civilizations begin to decline as soon as they cease to be convinced of this truth.
"The great lesson of our time is this collective, world-wide awareness of our responsibilities, this need felt by us all to get outside ourselves and interest ourselves in others, precisely because they are others, because they are different, because we can give them something and undoubtedly receive something which enriches us in return. As citizens of one and the same world, everything that happens here is our concern. That is why I believe that we would be betraying our century and ourselves if we did not seek to pursue and develop co-operation in the spirit of mutual honesty and confidence which has enabled our association from the outset to proceed in a highly efficient manner."
123. Like my President, I hope we shall refuse to betray ourselves and instead, direct our energies towards saving ourselves and saving our civilization.