153. As I am addressing the Assembly for the first time, I should like first of all, on behalf of the delegation of the Republic of Guinea, to associate myself with previous speakers and to convey the warmest congratulations of the Government of Guinea to Mr. Fanfani on his election to the high office of President of the twentieth session of the United Nations General Assembly.
154. Mr. Fanfani's human qualities, his qualities as a statesman, his profound knowledge of international realities and his long parliamentary experience, are, in the opinion of the delegation of Guinea, a sure guarantee that he will guide the work of the Assembly with enlightenment, competence and impartiality. We shall value his qualities still more highly, since the very heavy agenda of the twentieth session is of particular importance because the present session is opening after the failure of the nineteenth session, which was paralysed by controversies, the meaning of which was often not clear, over the application of Article 19 of the Charter.
155. In the settlement of this crisis, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ghana, our friend and brother Alex Quaison-Sackey, played a role, as President of the nineteenth session, which deserves our gratitude and our warmest thanks because of the tenacity, intelligence and insight which he displayed and which do honour both to his country and to Africa.
156. For its part, the delegation of Guinea most sincerely welcomes the end of this crisis, which affected the operation and the mainspring of the United Nations, and almost jeopardized its very existence. This crisis, which has euphemistically been called a "financial crisis", but which actually was a political and constitutional one, may prove to have had some beneficial aspects despite its apparent adverse effects and the bitterness it may have created. It may have shown the urgent need to adapt our Organization — which in its present form is no more than a reflection of a specific world situation at a particular time in history, namely, the situation following the Second World War — to present-day world realities.
157. While welcoming the settlement of a situation which had become intolerable, the delegation of Guinea believes that peace-keeping operations must be based on a legal foundation which will support them and prevent them from becoming merely a means of applying a policy formulated outside this forum and in conditions of which we are unaware.
158. The Government of Guinea is aware of the part which the small Powers must play in seeking these new ways and means of ensuring that the Organization can fulfil its primary responsibility, which is the maintenance of peace.
159. We do not underestimate the leading role of the permanent members of the Security Council. However, we should like to see the residual power of the General Assembly, the only truly democratic organ of the United Nations, strengthened and out to use whenever the Security Council proves unable to fulfil its obligations, as has been the case with the South African Government's policy of apartheid.
160. We are convinced that, whenever the Security Council is paralysed in its efforts to maintain peace, the General Assembly should be called upon to make recommendations to the Security Council, where necessary, in the hope that the Council will take due note of international public opinion as thus expressed.
161. Furthermore, the General Assembly should be able, like the Security Council, to supervise the proper application of its decisions concerning peace-keeping operations, which would be financed by all Member States with pro rata contributions based on criteria established and accepted in advance. In this connexion, I should like to stress the particularly constructive role of the Afro-Asian countries in solving the recent crisis over Article 19. It was finally the formula proposed by those countries which made it possible to solve to the satisfaction of everyone this crisis, which almost led to the collapse of our Organization.
162. Adapting the United Nations to new realities can give it new life, help it to meet its ever-mounting obligations and forge it into a more effective instrument of international peace and stability. This is both desirable and possible, if we all wish it together and if we all move together towards that objective.
163. In this connexion, Africa, aware of its international responsibilities, indissolubly and irrevocably united to further its economic and political liberation in its regional organization, has chosen its course once and for all. Indeed, the Charter of the Organization of African Unity reiterates the lofty ideals of peace and freedom of the United Nations Charter. It reaffirms the fundamental principles of the latter, such as the sovereign equality of States, non-interference in their domestic affairs, respect for their sovereignty and territorial integrity, and for their inalienable right to an independent existence, and the peaceful settlement of international disputes. The adoption of this Charter in May 1963, at Addis Ababa, was an act of faith of the new Africa, an act of faith which is renewed by each of its States in the bright future of the United Nations.
164. However, as its members are well aware, the Organization of African Unity can only achieve its goals if the African continent is delivered from all the evils that beset it: colonialism, racism and economic under-development.
165. In this inspiring and pitiless struggle, the African peoples expect from the United Nations not only generous understanding, but also efficient and effective support, without bargaining or strings attached; for to struggle against colonialism, racism and economic under-development is also to contribute to the strengthening of world peace and, in the final analysis, of the United Nations.
166. In adopting the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples [resolution 1514 (XV)] at its fifteenth session, which set up the anti-colonialist committee known as the Committee of Twenty-Four, and by later establishing a Special Committee on Apartheid [resolution 1761 (XVII)], the General Assembly was well aware that the United Nations bore a serious responsibility to deal with the extremely important questions of colonialism and racism.
167. Unfortunately, while it is reassuring to note that progress has been achieved in decolonization, since the adoption of the Declaration, it is all the more disgusting to see that the attitude of the Portuguese colonialists, who have forgotten nothing of their former practices and have learnt nothing from the recent history of decolonization, has not changed.
168. Portugal, a backward country from every point of view, is maintaining the most retrograde and most barbaric form of colonialism ever known. Mr. Salazar and his proconsuls are following a blind and inhuman policy of colonialist oppression in the territories of Africa, in defiance of all the principles of the United Nations Charter. Worse still, the Lisbon authorities treat all the resolutions of the Organization and the unanimous expression of international condemnation with the utmost contempt.
169. Portugal is becoming more and more deeply committed to its thoughtless policy of making so-called Portuguese out of the Africans in its colonies and is engaged in a dirty colonial war which can only lead to the liberation, not only of "Portuguese" Guinea, Mozambique, Angola, etc., but also of Portugal itself, that unfortunate country which has stagnated for so long under the heel of the savage medieval Salazar dictatorship, Which spares no one, not even its exiled adversaries, whom it has murdered by its criminal accomplices.
170. These colonial wars, which are encouraged by the NATO allies and accomplices of the Portuguese murderers, will — and there can be no doubt of this — finally, after spreading terror in Africa, create a gulf between the African peoples and the so-called "free" world which will be difficult to bridge. The Portuguese adventurers will then have succeeded in discrediting all their accomplices, willing or unwilling.
171. However that may be, the peoples of Guinea, Angola and Mozambique have exhausted all the peaceful means of dealing with the Portuguese colonial adventure and have chosen the only remaining path, the path of armed struggle and war in all its forms to regain their freedom, which has been usurped for five centuries by a civilization which, when all is said and done, has proved to be the most backward and the most foolish that Europe has ever produced. However much the covert defenders of the Portuguese colonial policy may dislike it, no normal and impartial observer could call the armed struggle — this war for freedom and independence — contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.
172. The enslaved peoples of the Portuguese colonies have taken up arms to free themselves because democratic channels, so dear to certain accomplices of the Portuguese assassins, do not exist in the Portuguese colonies any more than they do in Portugal itself.
173. The responsibility of all of us is to help these peoples in every possible way to throw off the Portuguese colonial yoke. It is futile to utter pious wishes and to proclaim principles in which one does not believe because they are impossible to apply. Very many States Members of the United Nations, including some Latin American countries, have had to resort to arms to free themselves from colonial oppression. Why then should Africans be begrudged this inalienable right particularly by those who so loudly claim to be Africa's kinsfolk and who identify themselves to a great extent and, it seems, with pride, to its race, culture and traditions? For our part, we shall not rest until the unhappy colonies of Portuguese fascism are liberated. All the African States in the Organization of African Unity have proclaimed this and no effort will be spared to regain the freedom and independence of Africans on the African continent.
174. Africa is now counting the number of its friends, to whom it urgently appeals for open support in achieving the rapid elimination of Portuguese colonialism. It is also counting the number of Portugal’s friends both covert and overt. The Portuguese aggressor will soon be thrown into the sea: he must be thrown into the sea with his accomplices and his hidden supporters.
175. The ambition of Mr. Ian Smith, that self-styled Prime Minister, is to establish in Southern Rhodesia a replica of the present situation in South Africa, by setting up a regime similar to that of apartheid.
176. The appeals launched by the United Nations in support of the African population of Southern Rhodesia have evinced no response from the settler Government. Quite the contrary, that Government's threats of a unilateral declaration of independence for the sole benefit of the white minority are becoming more and more insistent. In the face of such threats, we should at this stage denounce the — to say the least — ambiguous attitude of the Labour Government, whose coming to power in London had raised so many hopes in Africans. Her Britannic Majesty's Government must realize that by preventing a unilateral declaration of independence by every possible means, including force, it would merely be fulfilling one of its key obligations in the matter of decolonization. Be that as it may, the African peoples cannot forgive its purely passive attitude and pure complaisance, which can only be interpreted as a betrayal of its own electoral programme.
177. If the United Kingdom Government can suspend the constitutions of its self-governing colonies at will, as it did recently in British Guiana and Aden, then it is hard to see why it should not do the same for Southern Rhodesia, unless the reason is one which it cannot admit, namely, that in that country it is dealing with its blood brothers, if not its own citizens, that is to say the 250,000 white settlers.
178. It is in fact a kind of ingrained racism which is restraining the United Kingdom country from dealing with the Rhodesian adventurers. The only acceptable solution in Southern Rhodesia is one based on the consent of the Rhodesian people, and that implies first the suspension of the Constitution imposed in 1961, which gives legal sanction to all the arbitrary actions, all the crimes and all the atrocities committed by the illegal minority government of Ian Smith. This solution also implies the unconditional release of all political prisoners, without exception, and the holding of a round-table conference of all Southern Rhodesian political parties,
179. Racism in Africa is not of the Africans' own doing. It is an imported product which the white settlers brought with them when colonization began. Naturally, the Africans will throw it out of their continent. In these circumstances, the question arises whether it would not be wiser for mankind to spare itself a new war, a war more terrible than all those it has ever known: the war of the races.
180. The attitude of the Rhodesian and Portuguese colonialists finds an echo in that of the neo-Nazis of South Africa, who are deliberately and wilfully violating our most sacred principles and our most unanimous resolutions, and are persisting in their ill-conceived, infamous and inhuman policy, which degrades thirteen million Africans and Asians to the level of animals, for the benefit of a minority of three million people of European origin, who are living under the illusion that they enjoy a certain security and in the tragic and mistaken belief that a political regime based on brute force in its purest form and on racial hatred can continue and survive for ever and ever, in defiance of the conscience of all mankind.
181. Wherever we turn, we are forced to note with bitterness that the reason why Portugal, the minority regime of Rhodesian settlers and the Union of South Africa persist in their arrogant attitude is that they feel that they are supported by white Western nations including, paradoxically, France, which declares itself to be such a friend of Africa, and an Asian nation, Japan, which prefers material profit to all the virtues which are the foundation of Afro-Asian solidarity.
182. We invite these nations to ponder the very wise, realistic and generous words spoken in this forum one week ago [1347th meeting] by the spiritual leader of Christianity, the Sovereign Pontiff, Pope Paul VI. These words, which have reached the four corners of the earth and are still resounding in the halls of our Organization, should make them realize their obligations in face of the gigantic task of freeing men and nations and establishing their equality.
183. In any event, let these nations realize clearly that Africa will no longer allow itself to be deceived, and that it will no longer accept high-sounding declarations of principle which are never put into practice.
184. This explains why the Security Council, which has long had these questions before it, has still not succeeded in finding any solutions to them. The Council should, however, shoulder all its responsibilities. Otherwise, the General Assembly should relieve the Council of these responsibilities and consider the questions from a new angle, namely, with a view to taking decisions such as those called for in cases where the Security Council is obviously incapable of dealing with a clear threat to peace.
185. The truth is that apartheid and colonialism are permanent sources of tension likely to lead to a further and dangerous breach of the peace. We believe that the United Nations must not just sit by politely and wait until this breach of the peace actually happens before taking any action. We believe that it must take the measures necessary to prevent that breach of the peace forthwith, because the role of maintaining peace, vested in the Organization by the Charter, must not be merely static and remedial but also and principally dynamic and preventive, as soon as the actual conditions in a given situation indicate that a breach of the peace is likely.
186. Everything about colonialism and racism has already been said and said again. All kinds of resolutions have been adopted by the Assembly, from the most conciliatory to the most comminatory. The work done by the Committee of Twenty-Four and the Special Committee on Apartheid deserves our commendation and our thanks to all concerned. However, despite all our efforts, neither Portugal nor South Africa wish to listen to reason. It is time for the United Nations to find a different approach to the problem. We believe that it is time for the United Nations to resort to the enforcement action provided for in Chapter VII of the Charter by deciding to adopt economic sanctions against these recalcitrant criminals. It must be repeated that we cannot deny the sacred right of those Africans who are still oppressed to defend themselves by taking up arms to drive racism and colonialism out of Africa.
187. The fact that South Africa and Portugal are Members of the Organization merely emphasizes still further the flagrant injustice which is being committed against the greatest State in the world: the People's Republic of China. The Republic of Guinea, since it became independent, has maintained diplomatic and reciprocally valuable relations with the People's Republic of China, based on sincere friendship and mutual respect. Guinea has reason only to welcome these relations since — and this must be stated from this rostrum — the People's Republic of China has never attempted to interfere in our domestic affairs. And our people has the greatest admiration for the spirit of sacrifice, the unselfishness, modesty, dedication and initiative of its technicians.
188. We will not. therefore, believe that the malicious accusations made against that country are well-founded. We will also not believe that to keep the People's Republic of China outside the United Nations serves either the cause of the United Nations or the cause of peace. That is why the Republic of Guinea this year, in association with other friendly delegations, has requested the inclusion in the agenda of the item entitled "Restoration of the lawful rights of the People's Republic of China in the United Nations" [see A/5971 and Add.1 and 2]. In so doing, the delegation of Guinea expresses its deep conviction that more than 700 million human beings, who make up a nation which is scoring the greatest successes in every sphere every day, has the right, like all other peoples of the world grouped together in States, to participate actively in settling the affairs of a world of which they are such an essential and integral part.
189. Those who are rather afraid of restoring to the People's Republic of China its legitimate rights in the Security Council and the General Assembly should simply remember that, as long as China is kept outside the United Nations, it will exercise a permanent veto in all the basic questions with which we are constantly concerned, because none of these questions can be properly solved without its participation and endorsement.
190. One of the questions which demands an urgent solution because of the enormous development of nuclear weapons and weapons of mass destruction is disarmament. My country firmly believes in general and complete disarmament. It remains convinced that, as long as this is not achieved, mankind will always run the risk of becoming engulfed in an apocalyptic holocaust. In this connexion, it is a matter for regret that the Disarmament Commission, despite its numerous and patient meetings, has not been able to make any substantial headway. Moreover, even if any result had been achieved in that Commission, it would be to no avail as long as we continue to close our eyes to realities and to maintain that the People's Republic of China, a nuclear Power, is not part of the world.
191. All countries, whether nuclear Powers or not, developed or not, large or small, have a stake in disarmament and peace, because, even if they do not possess nuclear or thermonuclear weapons, they will be affected in just the same way as the nuclear Powers in the event of a general atomic catastrophe. That is why the Government of Guinea has constantly and tirelessly striven for the convening of a world disarmament conference which would not be merely a meeting confined to a few initiated participants. That is also why it believes that it is essential scrupulously to respect principles likely to guarantee peace in international relations.
192. One of these cardinal principles is that no one has the right to interfere in any form in the domestic affairs of sovereign countries. No country or Power has the right to arrogate to itself the unenviable role of an international policeman, intervening in all countries where a popular revolution attempts to throw off the cruel yoke of the dictator, the oppressor, the tyrant or the puppet. Such interventions are unbearable and intolerable manifestations of arrogant imperialism. In this connexion, the Government of Guinea fully supports the proposal made by the Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, submitted as a Declaration, during the general debate on "The inadmissibility of intervention in the domestic affairs of States and protection of their independence and sovereignty" [see A/5977].
193. Another crisis, as serious and dangerous as the threat of a general war, is becoming more and more alarming for mankind since, because of its size and its scope, it affects the most elementary daily needs and — why should it not be said? — the dignity of two- thirds of the world's population. As you will have guessed, I am referring to the disturbing and crucial problem of under-development. The economic imbalance in international relations creates and aggravates social tensions, leading to conflict between men and between States. I need only quote a few figures here to show how well-founded are the anxieties of all the developing countries.
194. It appears that exports, which had risen by 8.4 per cent in the period 1950 to 1955, dropped to 6.6 per cent in the period 1955 to 1960. At this rate, according to the statistical experts, this increase will come to a full stop between 1978 and 1980. Hence, it is easy to foresee the future which awaits the developing countries, a future which is inexorably^ linked to the development of international trade. Furthermore, it is a commonplace to emphasize the constant fluctuations in primary commodity prices. Actually the price index for these commodities, which are the principal source of foreign exchange for the developing countries, is constantly falling. Generally speaking, the deterioration in the terms of trade is estimated to represent for the developing countries the colossal loss of 38,000 million dollars since 1955, a sum which far exceeds all the aid received by those countries.
195. Because my Government is convinced that the historic United Nations Conference on Trade and Development is a positive step towards more democratic economic relations among all States, it has continually given the Conference its closest cooperation and fullest support. Guinea believes that the Final Act of the Conference, which proposes solutions suited to the different problems of the developing countries, can be considered as the charter of economic co-operation and it is the duty of each Member State, in a spirit of responsibility and solidarity, to implement properly the Geneva decisions, which are the most striking manifestation of the desire of all to end the tragedy of under-development. In order to do so, we must all accept as a historical fact — and therefore as something which should be binding upon all — what was worked out with such care and such difficulty at Geneva in June 1964.
196. It is true that the developing countries, which are principally concerned, have their share of responsibility and it is indeed a large share, as far as the Geneva decisions are concerned, and we believe that all the measures recommended for the developing countries in the Final Act should be only a supplement designed to buttress their efforts in this uplifting task of economic construction.
197. But, however great these efforts may be, if they are to be decisive they must necessarily have the goodwill of the industrialized countries, which are at the very epicentre of all the problems of economic development facing the countries of the southern hemisphere, simply because it is they which, for the time being at any rate, direct and control world markets. It is for the developed countries — and it is their duty — to abandon their seemingly negative attitude to the Geneva decisions and to adopt a more constructive approach, which alone can promote sound co-operation; in other words, they should display political willingness to translate the various recommendations of the Final Act into deeds.
198. Only if the efforts of all are pooled in good faith will the new trade and development body be able to make its mark as an effective instrument of international co-operation and thus as an instrument of peace.
199. In striving to build-up its economy immediately after becoming independent, so as to fill the gap left by the abrupt but, when all is said and done, beneficial departure of the colonial Power, Guinea had to embark on a series of economic programmes covering three years. The aim of this modest plan was to survey all our resources, both human and material, in order to launch a more scientific plan.
200. The seven-year plan, the economic battle plan, was conceived in the light of these considerations. The execution of this plan will enable the Republic of Guinea, which has vast natural wealth, to enter the phase of real economic "take-off” towards progress and prosperity.
201. My delegation is glad to state here that the Republic of Guinea maintains excellent relations based on co-operation with various friendly countries which are giving it their support in its grim battle against under-development. The diversified and nonexclusive nature of our bilateral co-operation is in line with Guinea's political and economic tenets which transcend the different ideologies and reflect only the true interests of its people.
202. Today there are in Asia two sources of serious concern and cruel suffering for all mankind: Viet-Nam and Kashmir. In these two countries, the roar of cannons and explosion of bombs have drowned the voice of reason. My delegation considers that it is not possible for a speaker at the rostrum of the world's greatest forum to remain silent about these two serious problems. Many speakers have mentioned them here and in very eloquent terms. I shall limit my remarks on the question of Viet-Nam to a reminder of my Government's conviction that no tenable solution can be found to this vexed question until the bombing of North Viet-Nam by the United States interventionist army ceases and all parties to the conflict unreservedly accept a return to the 1954 Geneva Agreements, non-intervention in the internal affairs of Viet-Nam and strict respect for the independence of that martyred country and for the self-determination of its proud and intrepid people, who will have given the finest lessons of courage to all mankind in their long heroic struggle against foreign aggression.
203. There is fortunately a lull in the Indo-Pakistan conflict, thanks to the cease-fire ending this fratricidal war which cannot benefit either of the belligerents. We feel, however, that we must go beyond this precarious cease-fire and tackle the substance of the problem, in order to find a final solution to this dangerous Kashmir conflict, taking into account the great principles proclaimed in the Charter of the United Nations and the need to preserve and strengthen the Afro-Asian front and heritage, which have already been seriously damaged.
204. Here it is appropriate to pay a sincere and well- deserved tribute to our Secretary-General, U Thant, for his indefatigable, patient and wise efforts in search of peace, in Kashmir and elsewhere in the world. In this quest, in his untiring quest for peace, he can always count on the clear-sighted and friendly support of the Guinean people and Government.
205. Mr. Vice-President, I should be failing in my most elementary duty if, at the conclusion of this statement, I did not offer through you warm and sincere congratulations from the Republic of Guinea to the officers who have the honour and the heavy and difficult responsibility of assisting you in the conduct of our debates.
206. Our warm and sincere congratulations also go to the Gambia, Singapore and the Maldive Islands, which have just gained international sovereignty, thus emphasizing the victory of the peoples of the world over colonialism. Their admission to membership in the United Nations will undoubtedly strengthen in practice the principles of universality to which the United Nations Charter gave pride of place. Their representatives will always have the Guinean delegation's understanding and unreserved support in upholding their just claims and defending their legitimate aspirations.
207. It only remains for me to conclude; and, in the midst of all the turmoil of our age, I shall do so by quoting the words of the Head of State of Guinea, President Ahmed Sekou Touré, who said in this very hall:
"Our confidence in the future is equal to our determination, and we are profoundly convinced that the conscience of man will be able to transcend the contradictions of an age which is coming to a close; that it will be able with determination, realism and clear-sightedness, to enter upon a new age in world history.
"Rather than ask ourselves whether we should die for such and such a cause, we know with certainty that our duty is to live and create." [1148th meeting, paras. 156 and 157.]
208. I should like to take this opportunity to ask you to convey to our President, Mr. Amintore Fanfani, the news of whose accident caused us great distress, the Guinean delegation's sympathy and best wishes for a speedy recovery.