106. During the very brief previous session of the General Assembly, my delegation did not conceal its anxiety and its concern at the threat of' a complete paralysis of the work of our Organization. It did not seem to us, in fact, that the purely financial difficulties were likely to remain indefinitely insurmountable. It was unthinkable that the international community would jeopardize the existence of so vital an organization because of a lack of resources, which after all could easily be found on either side of the opposing lines. The financial crisis was more the outcome of a political confrontation whose causes and consequences were not confined to the work or to the future of the United Nations.
107. Although untiring efforts were made here at the United Nations to find a reasonable solution to the crisis, it was in the context of wider international responsibilities that the will to co-operate and the urgent need for compromise finally prevailed.
108. The risk of rupture of the United Nations and the absence of any other effective instrument for harmonizing international relations seemed a great enough danger for the mist powerful States to revert to a way of thinking in which political flexibility was given priority over the strict letter of the law.
109. Today, therefore, we cannot conceal our deep satisfaction at seeing the reasons for this crisis and its immediate consequences overcome, and at seeing this new session beginning its work according to the normal procedures and in an atmosphere of manifest willingness to unite in strengthening the United Nations and in restoring more peaceful relations among Member States.
110. Although this was achieved by the continuing efforts of a number of delegations and Governments, it was the Special Committee on Peace-Keeping Operations that, by the variety of approaches it used and by the originality of all its suggestions, made it possible both inside and outside the United Nations to reach this consensus on the willingness to overcome the crisis and on a number of arrangements for solving it in the near future.
111. However, my delegation's tribute is addressed above all to the outgoing President, Mr. Quaison-Sackey, who faced all kinds of difficulties with a courage and skill that we should like to emphasize here in a spirit of friendship and esteem.
112. As regards the prospects for the new work now being undertaken by the General Assembly, the unanimous confidence of Member States has placed its success, Mr. President, in your hands. The words I use in congratulating you naturally reflect the expression of my country's admiration for an Italian statesman who has dominated the national and international life of his country for the last twenty years. They also express the great esteem in which my sovereign, His Majesty Hassan II, holds you and which he had the pleasure to convey to you personally on several occasions in your country and in mine. May I also, since I have the honour to be the Moroccan Ambassador to the Italian Republic, recall with appreciation the friendly welcome that was extended to my mission and the positive support which I had from you as Head of the Government, Minister for Foreign Affairs and leader of a political family whose role remains decisive in your country and in Europe. Your wide experience and your authority are a guarantee of the success of our work, which will not always be easy.
113. To save the best instrument for preserving peace is certainly a worthy result. But to solve all, or at least the most urgent, of the problems threatening world peace is still, even in an apparently more encouraging atmosphere, an undertaking which, it must be admitted, will prove a severe test for our goodwill.
114. Until the last few years, international conflicts of interest were intensified by the intolerance of ideological confrontations and thus appeared to be problems that could not be solved otherwise than by the triumph of different philosophies or ethics. Now, however, the approaches adopted in seeking to resolve such conflicts are based more on national and international realities and are becoming once again much more a search for a balance of power than a struggle between ideologies. It seems to us, therefore! that political skill may readily succeed where intransigence has inevitably led us to failure.
115. This confidence is not the expression of an easy optimism or the feelings of a country which has excellent international relations throughout the world and which would be tempted to minimize the difficulties at present facing the leaders of a seriously troubled world. It is rather confidence in a method that Morocco, which regained its independence scarcely ten years ago, firmly believes in and that it prides itself on having following strictly in dealing with the very complex problems involved in winning back its independence and effective sovereignty, the most serious of which it believes it has solved.
116. Although we have to accept the fact that occasionally we are misunderstood or even criticized, it still remains the fundamental law and basis of our relations, even where our vital interests are at stake. Our position in the Arab community, as in the African community, with which our moral and material ties are developing very rapidly, has always been based on this method. The ever-growing esteem and friendship which is shown to us in different parts of the world encourage us to persist in this line of conduct.
117. Wherever we have to take part in some activity, we range ourselves with the party which gives priority to the peaceful solution of the problem. This is still the policy of Morocco in dealing with the acute and chronic conflicts which confront us today. I should like to express briefly the views of my country concerning a number of those conflicts whose developments are increasingly poisoning relations between neighbouring countries or which are degenerating into international conflicts.
118. A certain section of international opinion, manipulated by skilful propaganda, seems to lose interest in a conflict which takes on the aspect of a chronic crisis and turn its attention to conflicts the gravity of which seems to be determined by their topicality. The events convulsing Asia, although connected with problems stemming from long-standing situations, undoubtedly merit the attention they are now receiving from the entire world. But whereas their development depends on factors which are sometimes external to the problems themselves and is mainly determined by their effect on the Interests of great Powers, there are problems whose chronic nature should not be allowed to hide the fact that they are a serious and constant source of danger.
119. The fate of Southern Rhodesia now seems to have been left somewhat casually in the hands of Mr. Ian Smith alone. The threat of a unilateral declaration of independence by Southern Rhodesia to the benefit of a foreign minority that is colonialist in origin is becoming more and more apparent. For several years the African delegations have taken seriously and voiced their concern at the steps taken by the white Government of Salisbury to attain this objective. At African meetings, at the Afro-Asian conferences, at every anti-colonialist gathering, here in the United Nations General Assembly and on many occasions in the Security Council, Africans have raised this problem in one way or another, showing ever more clearly the direction in which the white minority was heading and denouncing what they rightly regarded as the impotence or indifference of the successive London Governments.
120. I have chosen to deal with this problem first, because I propose to demonstrate later, in connexion with other problems, that their beginnings can be traced back to international situations in which indifference or acceptance of the fait accompli seemed, to the Powers then in a position to influence events, to offer a solution more in line with their own interests or, at best, with what they believed to be the interests of peace.
121. Mr. Michael Stewart, who addressed the Assembly just now, might very well be able to convince many of us that particular circumstances sometimes
made it necessary for him to remain silent; but we very much hope that in London he will be able to make Her Majesty's Government understand the reasons for our continuing concern.
122. The African countries, whose Heads of State are holding a conference in a few days' time, are aware that they will be meeting either on the eve of a courageous decision by the British Government, or on the morrow of an irreparable decision by Mr. Ian Smith. They have already indicated that they have great hopes for the former, but that they are ready to take up the challenge of the latter.
123. Mr. Smith's recent contacts with South Africa and Portugal reveal even more clearly the plan for a triple alliance, which if formed would sow in Africa the seeds of an inevitably painful future.
124. South Africa has been encouraged in the last few years by the indifference of the great Powers, and Portugal, even today, is encouraged by their complicity.
125. Most of the crises now occurring in two or three continents can be traced back to such attitudes, which were particularly to be found at the end of the Second World War.
126. The division of Europe and of Germany, which tore a nation apart and separated the peoples of a single community, was a result of this negative form of realism. In Europe, however, where the interests of the blocs have long seemed to be at the root of this two-fold mutilation, a movement which is beginning to look like the end of an era is giving rise to, and in some cases even fulfilling, the hope that the free will of the peoples will be able, when the interests of the great Powers once more coincide, to restore the unity that has for so long been destroyed. In Asia, on the other hand, where the destiny of the newly-established States and the future of a number of its peoples seem to have counted for little in the calculations of certain great Powers, artificial divisions have for nearly twenty years been creating a cleavage which has almost put an end to all hopes of peace.
127. Since 1940, the Viet-Namese people have been fighting against successive conquerors. In the former French Indo-China, an international war gave way to a perhaps even more murderous war of liberation. Yet the end of that war and the proclamation of independence did not bring to that intelligent and courageous people the peace for which they had sacrificed more than any other people have done in the last twenty-five years. In fact, those who had welcomed the Geneva Agreements of 1954 — and we were among them — were unable to conceal their fears at the division of Viet-Nam, even a temporary division guaranteed by agreements freely accepted by all parties. Those who in recent years have taken the initiative, both inside and outside Viet-Nam, in seeking that unity which both parts of the country equally desire, but who have used violence instead of the legal means that had been established, have made a tragic mistake which the entire Viet-Namese population is paying for today in a war in which its true interests have been lost sight of or have become
closely linked with problems of regional or international antagonism.
128. The military effort undertaken by those who are politically or morally responsible for the present situation has reached incredible proportions. If it is agreed that the present violence is not likely to lead rapidly to a solution, it is also generally agreed, and rightly so, that a return to strict observance of the 1954 Agreements, and even of the 1962 agreements as well, could lead to the restoration of peace in Asia and possibly elsewhere as well. I take this opportunity to pay a tribute to the Secretary-General for the direct and discreet action which he has been taking in different ways in an attempt to secure recognition, in the five great capitals of the world, of the need for such a solution.
129. In Asia, again, the dispute between India and Pakistan has suddenly jumped out of the low gear, as it were, in which both sides have been trying to keep it for the last seventeen years. The United Kingdom believed in 1947 — sincerely, no doubt — that it could enable the two new States of India and Pakistan to avoid a useless fratricidal conflict, which local conditions, and only the local conditions prevailing at that time, could make particularly serious. The first years of the two countries' coexistence in Kashmir revealed the fragility of this solution, fragile because it was a hasty one and because it was intended to serve as a long-term answer which by its nature it was not. Since then, the Security Council has tried, both during and between crises, to bring the collective wisdom and goodwill of its members to bear on the problem. It has taken certain decisions, which seemed, at times, to have the agreement of the two parties. It remained for the party responsible to restore to Kashmir the rights which the Security Council had recognized for its people. Unfortunately, the attempts made in recent years to make Kashmir's provisional institutions evolve along certain lines and the attempt to integrate them by means of a legal device into the national constitution of India, in violation of earlier decisions, caused a crisis which led by stages to the regrettable events that occurred at the beginning of September. If the situation in Asia now makes it essential for the two parties to listen to the voice of reason, this same situation, which is constantly changing and which contains certain elements that may determine today the future of the continent, would seem to impose upon Pakistan a duty not to let the future of Kashmir depend solely on the hazardous chances of a solution which, though fragile, might give permanence to a de facto situation. The principles which the Security Council put forward at that time and which relate, among other things, to the right of self-determination, seem to the Moroccan Government — and the same view should be held in this Organization — to offer a fair and honest means of granting the people of Kashmir a right which the international community has finally, owing to the untiring efforts on the international scene of India among others, recognized as a right of all other peoples in the world. The friendship which binds us to India and Pakistan and which Morocco has been able to develop — I say so openly — further with India in the organizations and conferences in which we have participated and worked together, leads us today to associate ourselves with any appeals and any action designed to establish fraternity between these two peoples and, without any doubt, to open up a broader prospect for the search for peace in Asia.
130. There seems to us to be another way of moving towards the restoration of peace in Asia and the world. Since 1958, our country has had diplomatic relations and considerable trade with the People's Republic of China. We associate ourselves again this year, as we have done consistently since 1958, with efforts to restore the full rights of the Government of the People's Republic of China in the United Nations.
131. I have just outlined some of my Government's views on certain situations in Europe, Africa and Asia. If I have kept my comment on the Middle East till last because I wished to show, in the light of the problems to which I have just referred, at least the existence of an identical cause underlying all these different crises, namely: the actions of the ruling Power, in the case of colonial problems, or, in the case of conflicts of interest, the actions of great Powers. It is this underlying cause that has determined the nature and rate of development of these conflicts.
132. Exactly the same is true of the question of Palestine. The decision of the great Powers to establish the State of Israel in Arab territory, having as fatal consequence the massacre and the expulsion of the people of Palestine from their country, is the root cause of the continuation of the dispute. It has been deliberately treated, in various places — and here more than elsewhere — as a bilateral issue between the Arabs and the Israelis. We have given on various occasions our views on the long history of relations between the Arab peoples and the people of Israel, but It is in fact a problem between the plundered Arabs and the foreign invader, whose children, gathered from all the capitals in the ports of Europe, have certainly suffered injustices, but have found throughout history a preferred place in all the Arab countries, and particularly in the countries with Moslem communities. While we must remember that there is a confrontation between the Arabs and Israel, it is nevertheless an international problem and we must therefore see it in its original context and recall the various stages of its development, which have been marked by the great Powers' constant support for Israel, by constant reaffirmation of the validity of the tripartite guarantee and the manifest conjunction of interests between certain great Powers and Israel, which was clearly revealed during the Suez crisis. The criteria which the Organization tries to adopt or often does adopt in seeking a solution in countries where national unity has been broken, where part of the national territory has been despoiled, the criteria it has adopted in settling international disputes, are the only basis and the only principle which should apply in the vitally necessary search for an international solution to this problem.
133. The other problems of the Middle East, connected with the maintenance of colonialism in the region, are no different in origin. Created and perpetuated by a colonial Power, they appear always in the form of a foreign desire to dominate. Whether in Oman, where delaying tactics are holding up a solution, or in Aden, where the occupation is backed by a military presence, the peoples of the Middle East are coming together and have found support outside their own community for their insistent demand for a settlement of this fundamental problem and of their problems, which I will call secondary by comparison but the solution of which is also essential for the independence of the peoples of South Arabia and Aden.
134. I have not discussed those aspects of United Nations activities which relate to economic and social development. Since these matters have acquired an exceptional importance in recent years, it seems to me that we could deal with them more effectively in the Committee whose main task is to consider them. I should like above all to hail the efforts made at Geneva at the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development and to pay a tribute to the Special Fund for its increasing activity in the less developed countries. My country has a special reason for congratulating the Managing Director of the Special Fund, who established several years ago a co-operative relationship with Morocco which has yielded beneficial results and which the Special Fund itself describes in its statements and reports as an example of its objective and of successful co-operation between the United Nations and Member States.
135. I should not like to leave this rostrum without addressing my delegation's congratulations to the three new States which, this year, at the proposal of friendly countries, have entered our international Organization. My delegation is glad to welcome Singapore, which was admitted in special circumstances, the Gambia, whose independence was proclaimed at the beginning of this year and whose relations with Senegal, a great friend of Morocco, are an example of co-operation, and the Maldive Islands, of whose existence we have suddenly become aware, but whose new destiny is a source of satisfaction to us, and it hopes to have the pleasure, one day, of granting just as legitimate a place to bigger Powers.