40. Mr. President, it gives me great pleasure, on behalf of the Government and delegation of Lebanon, to congratulate you on your election to the Presidency of the twentieth session of the General Assembly. Italy and Lebanon are bound together by long-standing ties of friendship and history. The waters of the Mediterranean which wash the shores of both our countries have witnessed the common endeavours of our peoples for human progress over the last 3,000 years. Both our countries have participated in the great movements of men, and of ideas, in search of a community of interests and cultures that could serve as a true basis for peace and a better world order. The quest for peace now takes place on a universal scale. Following the great traditions of your country and people, you are eminently qualified to preside over this Assembly of nations. I am confident that your well-known experience and capacity and the high qualities of leadership you have shown in your own Government will contribute greatly to the success of our deliberations.
41. I take this opportunity to express my appreciation and that of my delegation for the valuable contributions which my friend and colleague Ghana's Foreign Minister, Alex Quaison-Sackey, made as President of the nineteenth session, in a period of crisis for the United Nations. His capable leadership and patient efforts were crowned with success in the decision to resume normal procedures in the Assembly. In spite of the abnormal situation prevailing at our last session, Mr. Quaison-Sackey's presidency will always be remembered as a landmark in the history of our Organization.
42. The United Nations is twenty years old. This is a time for stock-taking. It is also a time for self- examination and soul-searching by those of us who have been closely associated with the world Organization as well as by leaders of Member States who bear the heavy burden of responsibility for its future performance.
43. The United Nations has had its successes and failures during the last twenty years. I will not attempt to draw up a balance-sheet of the credits and debits of its activities. I will simply indicate briefly the highlights of its impact on world affairs so as to draw conclusions and lessons which may be of help in the improvement of its future work.
44. The most important successes of our Organization were achieved in the field of decolonization. The principles and provisions of the Charter furnished a powerful basis for debate and action, giving the needed impetus to the historical transition of many countries from colonial rule to independence. The necessity of eliminating all forms of colonialism was given eloquent expression by the historic Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples in General Assembly resolution 1514 (XV) of 14 December 1960. Under United Nations prodding, guidance and assistance, a rapid and far-reaching change has taken place on the international scene with the emergence of the new nations of Africa and Asia as independent and sovereign States which are now Members of our Organization. I take this opportunity to express a hearty welcome to the three latest of them: the Gambia, Singapore and the Maldive Islands.
45. Some might say that colonialism was crumbling in our post-war world and the national liberation movement was destined to succeed with or without action taken to give effect to the principles and provisions of the Charter. That is quite true, for the revolutionary forces could not be defeated and the rising tide of national freedom from colonial rule could not be stemmed. But the contribution of our world Organization remains immense. For, acting as the midwife of history, the United Nations facilitated the birth of new nations so that their emergence to independent life was accomplished with less violence and suffering than might have been the case.
46. The influence of the new nations on our Organization has been profound. Some fifty States Members of the United Nations were not independent in 1945, when the Charter was signed in San Francisco. Their accession to sovereignty and their admission to United Nations membership have changed the character of our Organization. The African and Asian States now constitute more than half its membership. This has brought about a new balance of power and influence in United Nations affairs. No longer can it be said that the world Organization is dominated by one great Power or group of Powers. It has become truly universal and now reflects the diversity of cultures and peoples that inhabit our planet. The stage has been reached and set for genuine international co-operation among sovereign States on a basis of equality and mutual respect, with a view to building a peaceful and progressive world order.
47. But the task of the United Nations in eliminating colonial rule is not yet completed. Colonialism is not yet altogether dead and buried. There are still several territories in Africa, Asia and Latin America whose peoples are struggling for their right to self-determination and independence.
48. In Africa, the Portuguese colonies of Angola, Mozambique and the so-called Portuguese Guinea should be granted their independence without delay. Likewise, the territories of Aden, Southern Arabia and Oman, where the struggle for self-determination goes on unabated, must be freed from the shackles of colonialism. The Lebanese delegation strongly deplores the recent action of the United Kingdom in suspending the Constitution of Aden. This action flouts the authority of the General Assembly as expressed in its resolution 1949 (XVIII) of 11 December 1963, which was adopted by an overwhelming majority. This resolution recommended that the people of Aden "should be allowed to exercise their right to self-determination with regard to their future, the exercise of that right to take the form of a consultation of the whole population, to be held as soon as possible on the basis of universal adult suffrage". It also called on the administering Power, inter alia, "to repeal all the laws which restrict public freedoms" and "to cease forthwith all repressive action against the people of the Territory". Not only has the United Kingdom Government failed to implement the provisions of this resolution, but by its recent action it has done the exact opposite, by abolishing constitutional government and abrogating the political and legal rights of the people of Aden.
49. The delegation of Lebanon will continue to give its full support to the Special Committee which is charged with the implementation of General Assembly resolution 1514 (XV) in its efforts to achieve the objective proclaimed in that resolution, namely, "bringing to a speedy and unconditional end colonialism in all its forms and manifestations".
50. However, the success of the United Nations in furthering the political liberation of peoples has not been matched with similar success in the promotion of economic and social liberation from the bondage of poverty, ignorance and disease. Political emancipation is not enough. It must be followed by economic independence in order to produce its full fruits in wellbeing for the people as a whole. In spite of the valiant efforts of the United Nations in the field of technical assistance and preinvestment, the impact on the under-developed world has been very slight.
51. While we have always appreciated and supported the services of the Expanded Programme of Technical Assistance and the Special Fund, we have always insisted that these services, useful as far as they go, are woefully inadequate. Together with other developing countries, we have called for greater United Nations responsibilities and participation in the greatest enterprise of our time, which is the global co-operative effort to raise living standards of peoples everywhere. This must be essentially a United Nations effort undertaken in the interests of all nations, whatever their wealth, their stage of development, their size or their economic and social system. The wealthy industrialized nations have failed to respond to our call.
52. The United Nations has been excluded from the field of capital and financial assistance to the developing world. The developed countries have rejected the projects, unanimously supported by the developing countries, of the Special United Nations Fund for Economic Development or the United Nations Capital Development Fund, as it was later designated. They have not heeded the appeal repeatedly made to channel more economic aid through the United Nations or other agencies and thus to make that aid more multi-lateral and less bilateral. They have done nothing to correct the patterns of trade, which have been detrimental to the exporters of primary commodities and have resulted in a steady deterioration of the terms of trade of the developing countries. Dozens of resolutions unanimously adopted by the General Assembly on trade and development have received scant attention from the Governments of the industrialized countries and have remained unimplemented. The United Nations Development Decade is now halfway through — but little, if any, progress has been made in the fulfilment of its targets. As a result, there is increasing frustration of the high hopes entertained when it was first proclaimed.
53. The first United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, of which I had the privilege of serving as Rapporteur, represented a landmark in international co-operation in the interests of world economic development. It was a new beginning, a stepping-stone in the difficult climb to the higher ground of an interdependent, mutually profitable and prosperous economic association of the developed and developing world. Last December, an otherwise paralysed General Assembly found harmony and unanimity in its decision to establish the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development as an organ of the General Assembly and to endow it with its own machinery and an independent secretariat [resolution 1995 (XIX)]. It remains to be seen how well the Conference will be able to accomplish its task. For it must succeed if division and conflict between rich and poor nations is to be avoided and if international economic co-operation conducive to world prosperity and peace is to prevail.
54. The United Nations must lay the solid foundations for a durable peace. It is not sufficiently recognized, though the proposition is often repeated, that the causes of war lie in social and economic discontent leading to despair and enmity, The wars of our time are nothing but the surface manifestations of deeper revolutionary forces erupting into violent conflict, internal as well as international,
55. In our time the line between civil and international war cannot always be easily drawn. The one infringes on and merges into the other. For the peoples of the under-developed world have been aroused and their imagination fired with the prospect of a better life. They have nothing to lose but their misery and they will rise against national or foreign obstacles to their progress towards a life of decency and human dignity. The peoples of the developing countries demand justice and an equal chance to live as human beings.
56. One of the greatest failures of the United Nations is the denial of justice to the Arabs of Palestine. This failure is all the more deplorable as the United Nations itself must bear the major responsibility for the injustice done to this people. Contrary to the principles and provisions of the Charter, the General Assembly took the unprecedented decision on 29 November 1947 [resolution 181 (II)] to partition the country against the wishes of the majority of its peoples. Countries have been partitioned as a result of war or by agreement between the parties representing the opposing sections of the population; but the United Nations ignored the rights of the Arabs of Palestine, who constituted two-thirds of the population, and divided the country into an Arab and a Jewish State, ignoring the principles of the Charter, foremost among which is the principle of self- determination of peoples.
57. The far-reaching consequences of this tragic blunder are still with us and will continue to disturb the peace and stability of the Middle East until justice is restored. The United Nations, the world Organization charged with the maintenance of international peace and security, thus wilfully created a situation which constitutes a permanent threat to the peace and security not only of the Middle East, but of the world as a whole.
58. The origins of the Palestine tragedy go back to the First World War, when an unholy alliance was formed between Zionism and Western imperialism which found its expression in the Balfour Declaration of 2 November 1917. Zionism planned to establish a Jewish State in Palestine and Western imperialism sought to create a bridgehead and a base for the colonial domination of the Arab world, with its strategic geographic location and its rich oil and other resources.
59. It is perhaps difficult for an Arab to be objective when speaking of Palestine, but I shall try to be as objective as possible on this emotion-charged problem by giving first the basic facts.
60. In 1918, at the end of the First World War, the territory now called Israel was inhabited by a population which was 93 per cent Arab and 7 per cent Jewish. Today it has a population which is 90 per cent Jewish and 10 per cent Arab, What an amazing transformation! In 1947, when the United Nations adopted its fateful resolution on the partition of Palestine, the country was still two-thirds Arab and one-third Jewish in population. In 1948, one year after that tragic decision, most of the Arabs, who included 45 per cent of the population of the so-called Jewish State, terrorized by the armed forces of Zionism, were expelled from their homeland and became refugees living in misery on the territories of the neighbouring Arab States.
61. Today, seventeen years after the creation of Israel, the Arab refugees continue to languish in their wretched camps dependent on United Nations charity administered by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees In the Near East (UNRWA). Paragraph 11 of General Assembly resolution 194 (III), of 11 December 1948, and repeatedly reaffirmed since that date, has not been implemented. That paragraph states:
"... that the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property which, under principles of international law or in equity, should be made good by the Governments or authorities responsible".
62. Could anyone expect the Arab world of one hundred million people to accept this grave injustice done to their Palestine Arab brothers and to submit to the presence of an aggressive expansionist Zionist base in the heart of the Arab homeland? Could anyone expect the Arabs of Palestine to give up their ancestral homeland and submit to the fait accompli of Zionist armed force? Such expectations can be called only naive wishful thinking.
63. The Arabs of Palestine have fought for their rights to self-determination and independence in their own homeland ever since the diabolical Zionist imperialist conspiracy was hatched during the First World War. Under the leadership of their Palestine Liberation Organization, and supported by the whole Arab world, they will continue to fight against imperialism and racialist Zionism and for their right of self-determination in their usurped homeland. If there is ever to be peace and stability in the Middle East, the United Nations must shoulder boldly its responsibility of undoing the grave injury and injustice inflicted on the Arabs of Palestine and reestablishing the conditions of a just and peaceful settlement essential to the economic and social advancement of the peoples of that important area of the world.
64. Another failure of the United Nations is disarmament — an understandable failure in view of the complexity of the problem. It may be said that disarmament is the business of the Great Powers, and disarmament negotiations have been conducted outside the United Nations. But the responsibility of the United Nations is unquestionable. For twenty years, debates on this subject have been held in the General Assembly, and many resolutions have been adopted. The only measure of disarmament achieved is the partial test-ban Treaty signed in Moscow on 5 August 1963, which banned the testing of nuclear weapons in the atmosphere, in outer space and under water. It is a valuable measure as far as it goes, but it has neither arrested nor reversed the nuclear arms race, and it is still to be extended to underground testing. The Treaty is in itself a very important first step and it was hoped that further steps would follow from the negotiations conducted in the Eighteen-Nation Disarmament Committee. In particular, the necessity of preventing the dissemination of nuclear weapons is a matter of top priority. Unfortunately, no progress has been made yet in this field. My delegation recognizes the dangers of proliferation and the need for limiting the membership of the so-called "nuclear club" to the five nuclear Powers which, not surprisingly, are the original permanent members of the Security Council. But we have to admit that the concept of a "club" does not really apply, since its members have not agreed among themselves on any rules to regulate their conduct.
65. The Eighteen-Nation Disarmament Committee has the full support of my delegation and Government for the valuable negotiations and technical work it is carrying out. But we have the impression that the Eighteen-Nation Committee has a tendency, which is perhaps natural, to get bogged down in technical details and lose sight of the urgency of achieving the broad objectives of disarmament. It tends to fix its sights on the individual trees and neglect the broad view of the forest of disarmament. Let us not forget also that the absence of France and the People’s Republic of China puts definite limitations on the work of the Eighteen-Nation Committee.
66. For this reason, my Government joined in the unanimous adoption of the proposal to hold a world disarmament conference by the Second Conference of Heads of State or Government of Non-Aligned Countries held in Cairo in October 1964. The Lebanese delegation whole-heartedly supported the recommendation adopted by the Disarmament Commission in June of this year for the convening of a disarmament conference to which all States would be invited. We hope that the General Assembly will approve this recommendation and that the conference will be held under favourable conditions to give new vigour and direction to the disarmament negotiations with a view to achieving steady progress on general and complete disarmament.
67. We feel strongly that this is the most urgent and important task of the United Nations. Unless disarmament — and, in particular, nuclear disarmament — is carried out, there can be no stable and durable peace. The mad arms race must not only be arrested, but also reversed, by a peace race on the road to a disarmed and peaceful world. The great Powers say that they must arm to defend their national security. But has the arms race accomplished this purpose? On the contrary, the continued accumulation and development of nuclear weapons capable of destroying the whole world have reduced their national security and have placed in ever greater mortal danger their very existence as nations and the survival of the human race.
68. Moreover, it is the height of folly to maintain the present incredibly high rate of expenditure on armaments. The immense resources which continue to be wasted on piling up weapons of mass destruction should be devoted to economic and social development in the interest of all mankind. If these resources are so devoted, the wonderful achievements of science and technology can quickly transform the world. Age-old poverty can at last be conquered, and a better life of decency and dignity can be assured for all peoples everywhere.
69. We have watched with fascination and admiration the glorious exploits of the Soviet Union and the United States in the exploration and conquest of outer space. A new space age has begun which will bring great benefits to all mankind. We will continue to applaud the achievements of the two space Powers as long as they keep their promise to explore and use outer space for peaceful purposes only.
70. The United Nations has had both success and failure in its peace-keeping operations during the past twenty years. The constitutional and political controversy over the application of Article 19 of the Charter should not blind us to the fact that peace-keeping is an essential function and responsibility of our world Organization. We all recognize that the Security Council has primary responsibility in this field, but the effectiveness of the Council in fulfilling this responsibility depends on the unanimity of its permanent members. Much could be done by the Council in carrying out this essential task in accordance with the provisions of the Charter. But it must be recognized that the Charter did not foresee all the situations which might call for peace-keeping operations in our changing world. It must also be recognized that the unanimity of the permanent members of the Council cannot always be achieved. Should the United Nations then fold its arms and remain passive and impotent while international peace is threatened or disturbed? Should it allow small or limited wars to go on, running the risk of their escalation to more general and destructive conflagrations?
71. Together with other small countries that must depend for their security on the effective discharge by the United Nations of its responsibility for peacekeeping, Lebanon believes that the General Assembly must exercise its authority under the Charter for the maintenance of international peace and security. If the Security Council fails to act, the Assembly has the power to recommend measures both to the Council and to the Member States to take whatever action may be needed, individually or collectively, to keep the peace. No nation, whether it be a great or a small Power, has the right to prevent the undertaking and financing of peace-keeping operations by the General Assembly. The Security of small countries is at stake. For, unlike the great Powers, they must depend on the United Nations for help if they become victims of aggression. My delegation does not favour the application of sanctions to those Member States which might, for valid reasons, refuse to participate in collective action for keeping the peace. But we expect those Member States not to block or prevent peace-keeping operations undertaken by the General Assembly to defend and protect its weaker members from aggression, We view with sympathy, therefore, the consideration of the item inscribed on the agenda of our present session on this subject, and welcome the initiative taken by the Irish delegation in submitting a proposal for discussion [see A/5966/Rev.2].
72. Where does the United Nations stand in our troubled world on the eve of the twentieth anniversary of the coming into force of the Charter which we will be celebrating soon? The Security Council deserves our gratitude for the cease-fire, however uneasy It may be, which it has brought about between India and Pakistan, thus putting an end to the fratricidal armed conflict between two of the most respected nations of the Afro-Asian world. This is a triumph which augurs well for the future effectiveness o£ our Organization in performing its task of the maintenance of peace in the world. I wish to record on behalf of the Lebanese delegation a special tribute to Secretary-General U Thant for his contribution in achieving acceptance of the cease-fire by the two parties. As a friend of both India and Pakistan, Lebanon would urge them to prevent outside forces from dividing them and to settle their dispute over Kashmir peacefully, in accordance with the principles and decisions of the United Nations.
73. On the other hand, the war goes on in Viet-Nam, continuing to wreak havoc and devastation and death and suffering on a country and people who have not known peace for a quarter of a century. We In the United Nations watch their agony with a sense of frustration that our Organization is unable to assist them in re-establishing peace and the conditions under which they could exercise their right of self-determination and shape their own destiny without outside intervention.
74. We are gratified that the crisis of the nineteenth session has been overcome and that the General Assembly has resumed Its normal procedures and is beginning the present session with new vigour and hope. In spite of the lamentations of the prophets of doom, the United Nations is alive with a new spirit of responsibility for the great tasks that await it in its future work. We look forward with enthusiasm to the visit next Monday of His Holiness Pope Paul VI whose faith in the United Nations and the brotherhood of man has prompted him to make this arduous one-day pilgrimage in the cause of peace. The Holy Father's address to our Assembly should be the occasion of a new dedication on the part of all nations to the high principles and purposes of our Charter: peace, economic and social progress and respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms.
75. At the age of twenty the United Nations, though still young, has shown evidence of surprising maturity. It is not too young for wise self-examination and self-criticism and not too old to learn from its mistakes, to reform its methods and to venture on new and more imaginative roads in the attainment of the purposes of the Charter.
76. One thing is certain in the view of my delegation. There is no substitute for the United Nations as an instrument of peace and economic and social progress. If it had not existed, it would have had to be created. It provides us with the tools with which to fashion a more peaceful and a more prosperous future for mankind.
77. The United Nations is no better and no worse than its Member States and can achieve no more than they want it to achieve. If they seek to use it for the attainment of selfish national interests and aims, it will fail to accomplish the noble task for which it was created. Such failure in our present dangerous world would be disastrous for individual nations as well as for humanity as a whole. There is no alternative to peace in our nuclear age. The path of war would lead to the destruction of human civilization. We must, therefore, abandon the pursuit of selfish national interests and purposes and co-operate loyally in the achievement of the common purposes of mankind. These are embodied for us in the Charter. We must dedicate ourselves anew in this twentieth year of our United Nations to the cause of peace and the construction of a better world for all mankind.