134. Madam President, kindly accept, through me, the warmest
congratulations of the Government of Dr. François
Duvalier, President for Life of the Republic of Haiti, and of
the brother people of Haiti on your unanimous election to
the presidency of the General Assembly of the United
Nations, one of the highest bodies in the world.
135. Liberia was one of the first countries of Black Africa
to establish diplomatic relations with Haiti, through the
exchange of ambassadors, and the visits to my country of
your great President, Mr. William S. Tubman, and more
recently of one of your Foreign Ministers and one of your
Vice-Presidents, still live in the memory of our countrymen.
136. We welcome your election, Madam President, as that
of a representative of a sister nation; but in our eyes and
those of our brothers by race it is also symbolic.
137. A little over a century and a half ago Haiti won its
independence through the tears and blood of its sons, and
almost a century and a half ago your ancestors, having left
America in search of a new fatherland, founded the
Republic of Liberia, where they succeeded in merging the
newcomers and the tribes already there in a happy
symbiosis. My country and yours were for a long time the
rare regions of the world where the negro had the right to
walk with his head held high.
138. Now you are presiding over the Assembly of the
peoples of the world only a few years after another African,
Alex Quaison-Sackey of Ghana, so presided.
139. This is a happy symbol of the great brotherhood of
man, of the advent, perhaps not far off, of an era in which
all peoples, without distinction as to race or colour, will
walk side by side towards the achievement of a better
destiny, at one in the great civilization of the masses of the
people, where general well-being will cease to be a vain
delusion or a mere crumb of comfort for the underprivileged
peoples of the third world.
140. Before concluding these words of congratulation,
may I pay a heartfelt tribute to the memory of Mr. Emilio
Arenales, a diplomat of rare quality, a brilliant orator with
a diversity of talents, a man of uncommon courtesy, one of
the most outstanding men of our Latin America, who
presided with tact and authority over the work of the
preceding session of the United Nations General Assembly
and whom the merciless reaper took from his country and
from us all in the fullness of his genius.
141. And to you, Madam President, I renew my wishes for
a successful and fruitful leadership.
142. We are almost at the end of the First United Nations
Development Decade; the Preparatory Committee for the
Second Development Decade has already drawn up the
programme of work and calendar of meetings, in conformity
with General Assembly resolution 2411 (XXIII),
concerned essentially with defining the main elements of
the international development strategy and with establishing
an order of priority for the questions to be
considered: the rate of growth, financial and economic
assistance to developing countries, the world demographic
situation and several other equally important points.
143. According to the annual report of the Secretary-General
of the United Nations, His Excellency U Thant [see
document A/7601, p. 105], the world economic and
financial situation showed a distinct improvement during
the year 16 June 1968 to 15 June 1969, indicating some
progress over the previous year. The analysis of a number of
indicators in the field of personal income, consumption and
welfare and the extent to which, by means of investment
and institutional adaptation, the productive capacity of the
developing countries has improved were considered to be
encouraging signs.
144. According to the same report [ibid., p. 106], industrial
recovery in the Federal Republic of Germany and the
continued rapid industrial growth in Japan helped to raise
the rate of increase in world manufacturing (outside
mainland China) to above 7.5 per cent, about 3.3 per cent
higher than in the previous interval. Vigorous industrial
expansion was also recorded in some of the developing
countries of eastern Asia: China (Taiwan), Hong Kong, the
Republic of Korea and, to a somewhat lesser degree, the
Philippines, raising the region’s rate of growth in manufacturing
production to 10 per cent, about three times as
high as in.1967. A marked recovery was also registered in
some countries—notably Argentina and Brazil.
145. The only shadows on this bright picture, in which no
reference is made to the developing countries of low
productivity in Africa and Latin America, are the constant
disequilibrium in the reserve currency countries, the
marked deterioration of balance in the European Economic
Community and the relatively vulnerable external position
of France, the United Kingdom and the United States.
146. Let us hope that these facts, which show the other
side of the picture, do not portend an economic crisis on a
world scale like that of the 1930s, a recurrence of which
according to the experts, would be quite impossible in view
of the precautions taken and the new criteria adopted.
147. But leaving aside the results of the year June
1968-June 1969, which were quite brilliant in some
respects, has the United Nations Development Decade
achieved all the objectives it set itself? It may be doubted.
148. Here we are in the ninth year of the First Decade.
Having nearly run the whole set course, can we really see on
the horizon any glimmer of hope for a better future?
149. The reply must apparently be in the negative. The
demographic dynamism of the developing countries, reluctantly
resigned to practise a family planning policy
restricting the growth of available manpower—sometimes
condemned through under-employment to expatriation but
despite everything a possible factor of progress and source
of foreign currency earnings—the policy of many States to
decrease financial aid, either in order to ward off the danger
of monetary crisis or to slow down an economic expansion
that has become a real cause for concern for certain
Governments, the difficulty of finding sources of international
financing—all these are disquieting signs for the
deprived countries of the third world.
150. Are not the conclusions put forward in 1966 by
Mr. Philippe de Seynes, Under-Secretary for Economic and
Social Affairs, still valid today? “It must be clearly noted”,
he said at that time, “that the flow of capital towards the
third world has not increased in a period of exceptionally
rapid growth, and we can imagine what it will be if we are
to enter a period of less rapid growth”—a period that,
despite optimistic conclusions, the above-mentioned facts
might well usher in.
151. Basing himself on a study by the Hudson Institute,
Mr. Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber, in his book The
American Challenge, which is not without some attempt at
sensationalism, stated that within some thirty years, subject
to “unforeseen changes“ (perhaps a simple stylistic precaution),
the classification of nations would be as follows:
“The post-industrial societies will be, in this order: the
United States, Japan, Canada, Sweden. That is all.
“The advanced industrial societies that have the potential
to become post-industrial include: Western Europe,
the Soviet Union, Israel, East Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia,
Australia and New Zealand.
“The following nations will become consumer societies:
Mexico, Argentina, Venezuela, Chile, Colombia, South
Korea, Malaysia, Formosa, and the other countries of
Europe.
“The rest of the world—China, India, most of South
America, the Arab countries and Black Africa—will not
even have reached the industrial stage.“
152. Thus is announced cold-bloodedly to the countries of
the third world their long-term condemnation to certain
poverty as a result of some irreversible determinism.
153. These same reasons explain the moving appeals of the
Heads of State of the developing countries, who are
alarmed to see that the development of the economy of
countries with meagre resources has proved difficult and
that the gap between the economies of the affluent and the
poor countries continues to grow, so that the rich countries
daily become richer and the poor countries poorer.
154. We, the developing countries of Latin America, have
heard, in the inter-American system, the successive promises
of Operation Pan-America, proposed by Brazil, the
Bogota Charter, the first meeting at Punta del Este and,
finally, the Alliance of Progress.
155. The results have been so disappointing that the
present United States President, Mr. Richard M. Nixon, felt
it necessary to send Mr. Nelson A. Rockefeller, the
Governor of the State of New York, on a tour of the Latin
American countries for a complete review, in all sectors, of
United States policy vis-a-vis its Latin American partners.
156. The choice of the Presidential emissary was a happy
one. It was thought that Mr. Nelson A. Rockefeller, who
belongs to the liberal wing of the Republican Party and was
for some time at the State Department in charge of United
States relations with Latin America, could count on many
friendships in the countries he was to visit, and he had in
addition a large number of business contacts.
157. In his visits to the various Latin American countries
he met with varying receptions. In Haiti he was received
with that cordiality, that sense of hospitality, that respect
for the foreigner that are characteristic of our race, which
“nourishes no hatred in the heart against anyone”.
158. Dr. Francois Duvalier, President for Life of the
Republic of Haiti, handed him a memorandum for the
President of the United States, in which he vigorously
stressed the urgent need for close co-operation in all sectors
and the responsibilities of the leader of the Latin American
countries towards those countries. In it he stated:
“We should like to express the hope that the United
States of North America, which we have always recognized
as the leader of the Western Hemisphere, will
remember that we have stood by it ever since the
memorable battle of Savannah, ever since the magnificent
dialogue between Toussaint Louverture and John Quincy
Adams, right up to the days of the present President for
Life of the Republic who, always desirous of pursuing the
dialogue, pointed out again and again to many American
friends and American Ambassadors the danger that the
disappearance of General Fulgencio Batista would
represent....But the leader of the world’s first black republic
was not heeded.
“The United States of North America has assumed the
leadership of the continent.
“I have expressed the view that it is, desirable to
recognize and appreciate the burdens carried by a great
Power and the nature of the difficulties it encounters
when it assumes the responsibilities of leadership. That is
why I have always sought the attentive and enlightened
understanding of the Heads of Government of your
country, or of its high officials, without, let us say quite
frankly, the desired success. The leader of the world’s
first black republic was not understood. He himself has
known only lack of understanding and vacillation on the
part of our great neighbour, vacillation and lack of
understanding which go back to the first Pan-American
Conference at Panama in 1826 and up to the various
conferences at Punta del Este. Nevertheless, despite
vacillation and lack of understanding, Haiti continues to
solicit the attention of its great neighbour, the leader, the
United States of North America, for the safeguard of its
own security, which is linked with that of the entire Latin
American sub-continent and of all other Caribbean
countries. With the historic obligation of mutual assistance
that was sealed with the blood shed by my ancestors
on the plains of Savannah for the conquest of the
freedom and independence of the United States of North
America, I have, in all sincerity, sought the establishment,
on such foundations, of a firm, frank, loyal and brotherly
friendship; I have sought the establishment of a broad,
genuine and effective co-operation with a view to assisting
the Haitian nation, the Haitian people and my Government
to be ready to participate in the destinies of the
United States of North America in particular and of the
continent in general.”
159. The grave political crises that might hurl mankind
into the abyss are the logical consequence of the division of
the world into the wealthy and the underprivileged countries
and of the lack of international co-operation. They
also stem from the manifest desire of the dominant Powers
to monopolize the sources of raw materials that guarantee
material and intellectual well-being, whether they be
sources of energy like the petroleum deposits of the Middle
East, distant plantations of so-called allies, or mines that
provide them with strategic metals such as nickel,
ciromium, aluminium, manganese and copper, to say
nothing of uranium—some of them essential to the steel
industry and the successful operation of steel foundries,
others for the manufacture of deterrent weapons.
160. If we wish to trace back the basic causes of the crises
in the Middle East, in Biafra and in Viet-Nam, and of the
events in Czechoslovakia, we could analyse them as follows,
against a horizon on which it is impossible to say whether
the spectre of nuclear war, of an apocalyptic destruction of
our civilization, looms near or far.
161. With regard to Viet-Nam, we are advancing stealthily
towards what has been called, in a happy euphemism, the
Viet-Namization of the war, in other words, confrontation
of the dominant Powers through third parties.
162. To satisfy national public opinion, the United States
Executive first, under the Democratic administration,
ended the bombing of North Viet-Nam; then under the
present Republican administration, it effected the withdrawal
of a number of United States units, more and more
of which are to be withdrawn as the forces of President
Thieu become able to take over the responsibilities of the
war.
163. The first operation, carried out with consummate
skill or, shall we say, diplomacy, with olive branch held out
and the desire of the American people for peace well in
evidence, aroused a real wave of enthusiasm throughout the
world. Thousands of messages of encouragement were sent
to President Johnson, among them that of President
Duvalier, which I had the honour of reading from this
rostrum last year [1679th meeting].
164. The second operation ordered by President Nixon
was also interpreted as a demonstration of the will for
peace of the great American nation.
165. But, to be objective, it must be recognized that the
Paris talks have made very little progress, North Viet-Nam
and its ally, the National Liberation Front, having declared
their determination to continue the struggle until the
departure of the allied troops and the elimination of what
they call the puppet government of President Thieu. If,
therefore, the latter manages to hold out, with the help, of
course, of advisers and the supply of the necessary arms,
the action threatens to go on for some time to come.
166. It is to be hoped, however, that the Viet-Nam phase
of the war will be of short duration and will end in a
compromise. The struggle has already produced too many
innocent victims and has offered to the eyes of the civilized
world such a display of calamities and horrors that any kind
of peaceful solution, however lame, has become desirable.
167. The war in the Middle East, following Israel’s victory
after six days of fighting, has degenerated into a war of
attrition carried out against the victor by the coalition of
Arab countries, and into a disguised holy war following the
unfortunate burning of the Al Aqsa Mosque.
168. But here, too, the Powers concerned are watching
jealously over the maintenance of the balance of power.
The armed forces of the United Arab Republic, having been
put to a severe test when the first blow was struck, with
their air force destroyed on the ground, have been carefully
built up again and trained by qualified experts, while Israel,
with the delivery of new combat aircraft, has regained all its
striking power. Newspaper headlines stress the will to battle
of the adversaries. “Israeli jets”, says a newspaper of 13
September, “launched a devastating raid along the Gulf of
Suez at Ras Zafarana and at Ras Ghareb”; “Fire and the
holy war“, says another paper; “One with the nation, the
Israeli army exerts a decisive influence“, states a widely
read monthly publication. All this adds fuel to the fire.
169. I could not fail to applaud once again this year the
noble efforts of the Secretary-General to restore peace in
the Middle East. He deserves full credit for having brought
the four great Powers, permanent members of the Security
Council, together on the Middle East problem. After having
enjoined the four great Powers, in an appeal on 12
September, to intensify their efforts to restore peace, the
secretary-General made arrangements for a working dinner
on 20 September for the four Foreign Ministers present in
New York. May it produce good results!
170. Another irritating problem that has for a good many
years defeated all United Nations efforts is that of the
apartheid policy of South Africa, to which have been added
the problems of South West Africa and of the Rhodesia of
the rebel Ian Smith.
171. South Africa’s policy of apartheid, a system of
out-and-out racial segregation enforced upon 12 million
blacks by a white minority of scarcely 3.5 million, imposes
upon its victims restrictions that would have been inconceivable
even in the slave societies of the past: they are
forbidden to move about freely within their borders or to
go beyond them, they are forbidden to go about after a
certain hour, they are required to live in places appointed
by the white authorities, their right to education is limited
and they are completely segregated from the dominant
group, which uses the black man only for the labour which
it finds repugnant.
172. The system displays a proud prosperity and reference
is constantly made to a rich South Africa, when its wealth
is the fruit of the most shameful exploitation of man by
man.
173. The wishes of the various United Nations bodies, and
the resolutions adopted by them under the vigorous urging
of the Committee on Apartheid, have remained dead
letters.
174. About six years ago, the Prime Minister of the
Republic of South Africa initiated the hypocritical policy
of the bantustans, which are nothing more than reservations
separated from the areas occupied by individuals of the
superior race, the two races being allowed neither to see nor
to communicate with each other.
175. That, according to Pretoria, is a progressive liberalization
of the system, a step towards a certain degree of
autonomy granted to the blacks, towards the setting up of a
sort of commonwealth in which the Republic of South
Africa would be the nerve centre and the various black
reserves satellite republics. But good care has been taken
not to indicate when the period of evolution would end.
Will it come about in sixty years, in three hundred years?
No one knows. The system, it is to be hoped, will lead to
numerous ambiguities and risks for its creators.
176. The Pretoria authorities have applied the same policy
in the Territory of South West Africa, considered by
Pretoria to have been annexed by right cf conquest after
the iniquitous judgement of the Court of The Hague,
which, ruling on form rather than on substance, decided in
1966 that Liberia and Ethiopia, Members of the former
League of Nations and duly commissioned by the Organization
of African Unity, had neither a right nor a juridical
interest in the subject of their request.
177. And the same system is gradually taking root in
Southern Rhodesia, despite the sanctions which have
greatly shaken its economy and which will ultimately, at
least this is the hope of all free men, ruin it completely.
There again, as in the case of the Middle East, the solution
to the problem lies in the hands of the four great Powers,
the permanent members of the Security Council.
178. But no social system based on iniquity is viable.
Nothing can halt the march of history. The struggle of
peoples for freedom will go on gaining in intensity and
sooner or later will come the collapse of the hideous system
of apartheid, inaugurated in South Africa and extended to
South West Africa—now Namibia—and Southern Rhodesia.
The prosperity of rich South Africa will be but a sad
episode in the annals of the history of man’s inhuman
cruelty.
179. Many other questions, of equal importance and of
vital interest for mankind, have still to be settled; general
and complete disarmament, a problem that has been
discussed at Geneva for years; the urgent need to suspend
nuclear and thermonuclear tests; a comprehensive study of
the whole question of peace-keeping operations in all its
aspects.
180. Let us point out, however, that at the noble initiative
of Mexico, with the support of the whole Latin American
group, the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in
Latin America was concluded in Mexico [see resolution
2286 (XXII)], and that instruments of ratification have
been deposited by all the signatory States. Let us also point
out that a convention held recently in the Aztec capital,
under the chairmanship of the Under-Secretary of State for
Foreign Affairs of Mexico, studied the ways and means of
implementing that Treaty. May that example be followed in
the interest of the protection of the third world!
181. As far as my country is concerned, the analysis for
the year 1967-1968 made by the competent service for the
various sectors—agriculture, mining, quarrying and construction,
manufacturing, electricity and drinking water,
transport and communications, trade, banking, insurance
and real estate, housing government and services—
contributing to the establishment of the national product
has, in the face of the ever-growing population figures,
shown a slight drop in per capita income.
182. This situation may be explained in part by the low
rate of investment in the private and public sectors and by
the fall in export earnings owing to a contraction in the
volume of exported raw materials as a result of the
devastating effects of hurricanes Flora, Cleo and Inez,
whose after-effects are still being felt.
183. Faced with such a situation, the great leader of the
nation, Dr. Francois Duvalier, President for Life of the
Republic of Haiti, having considered that the Duvalier
revolution had achieved its administrative and organizational
objectives during its first decade, in full accord with
the values and concepts of his own ancestral heritage,
decided that the second decade of the Revolution should be
devoted to the promotion of the Haitian economy.
184. He expressed this with force and authority in his
message of 13 August 1968, entitled “The Haitian road to
planning“. I quote:
“The call to adapt or perish applies to all nations, large
or small, developed or developing. One of the most
edifying tasks of the age is to build a more harmonious,
more humane and more just society, in freedom and
self-determination and not as a reflect on or model of
societies that are proposed or that it might be desired to
impose. The refusal in this regard is clear and positive.
“My struggle for the past ten years has been to build a
sure and stable socio-political structure that can provide
support and protection for the tasks of the decade of
organization and adaptation in the specific Haitian
context. A Government that does not constantly watch
over the adaptation of men and of structures, a modern
writer has said, is a bad manager, just as an engineer who
lives only on past knowledge is a bad technician.
“You must remember—if the Executive Secretary, my
Minister of Finance, has not already said the same—the
options and priorities that must prevail in the drawing up
and implementation of the 1968-1969 plan of action:
“I. First and foremost, the Francois Duvalier hydro-electric
power station in Péligre, the symbol of our
forthcoming economic independence;
“II. The Southern Road, which unquestionably
demonstrates the expertise of the Haitian technician in
ensuring the movement of goods and persons inside the
country, as the magnificent poem in stone and concrete,
the Francois Duvalier International Airport, has done in
the case of foreign communications;
“III. An agricultural programme in which projects
must be selected according to the extent to which they
are able to meet our needs for foreign currency and to
raise the purchasing power and general level of living of
the rural masses, which constitute the national majority.”
185. As a result of these specific instructions and of the
mobilization of all the vital forces of the nation, the Péligre
hydro-electric power station began to take shape. Not only
did the civil engineering work, which was carried out with
rare competence by Haitian technicians, make it possible to
bring into operation the heavy equipment necessary for
completion of work on the plant, but the work on the
Southern Road was pursued with vigor.
186. On 3 January 1969, extolling the profound truth of
the Revolution, President Duvalier made known to the
people that the sacrifices they had made had not been in
vain. He said:
“Tomorrow, my dear fellow citizens, I feel—and, why
should I not say so, I know—that you will come to offer
your sorrows, your tears, your blood, your sacrifices and
your courages, in the achievement of the Francois
Duvalier hydro-electric power station at Péligre, so that
light may burst forth and shine like sunlight into the
smallest cottages and in the spirits of men.
“Thus tomorrow, 3 January 1969, Haiti is making its
second payment of $517,000 required under the contract
signed on 3 May 1968 in respect of the turbines to be
delivered to Péligre in March 1969.
“In the vast infrastructural sector, the year 1968 saw
considerable advances. Construction work on the
Southern Road, of which 200 kilometres have been
completed, continues with the same vigour. The bridges
at Carrefour and Petionville, as well as educational centres
and dispensaries, have been inaugurated. The construction
work on the bridge at Momance and the maintenance
work on the Plaisance-Limbé, Saint Marc, Pont Sondé-Péligre
and Morne to Cabrit Mirebalais roads are well
advanced.
“In the general field of culture, letters, the arts, the
sciences and technology, the National inheritance has
been enriched by powerful and useful works.”
187. In this respect, the Mémoires d’un leader du tiers
monde by Mr. Francois Duvalier, is still the book of the
year for Haiti. In that work, the President for Life of the
Republic has given a lively and detailed description of the
negotiations that were to lead to the setting up of a Haitian
episcopal hierarchy: an archbishop, one of the youngest in
the world, and three bishops. This was the necessary
consequence of the socio-political revolution inaugurated
more than ten years ago by the Chief of State of Haiti; it
marked the recognition by Rome of the spiritual maturity
of the Haitian people and the Haitian Church.
188. A French critic has paid a well-deserved tribute to
the literary and historic value of this work:
“The very title of the work which Dr. Francois Duvalier
has just had published by Hachette conveys the dominant
idea of the policy which he proposes for the consideration
of Haitian youth and of the peoples of the third
world.
“There can be found in it the essential points of his
militant doctrine for what he calls the black homeland,
for which, in the manner of Charles Péguy, he says he
feels physical love.
“His faith in the civilizing mission of the Church, the
education that he received in the family and in the sugar
plantations of Carrefour and Cold River, have been
strengthened with the years, especially since, according to
Ernest Lavisse, one must never believe in the uselessness
of history to the point of trying to separate scientific
work from the moral and social education of the citizens
of a democracy.“
189. Thus the programme from September 1967 to
September 1969 was carried out for the Haitian people,
whose heart has never ceased to beat in unison with that of
its leader, in the midst of all manner of difficulties and
sacrifices voluntarily accepted to ensure the future of the
country in the hope—to use the words of Mr. Jean-Jacques
Servan-Schreiber, already quoted—that some “unforeseen
change“, but one fervently desired by the Haitian nation,
will help it to move from a certain phase of development
where the “rest of the world” now finds itself to a more
advanced stage.
190. Despite its financial difficulties, Haiti, faithful to its
Pan American vocation, has not failed to respond to the
appeal of Mr. Galo Plaza, Secretary-General of the Organization
of American States, for the establishment of an
emergency fund to assist struggling countries. Mr. Plaza
stated that $45,000 had been contributed to this fund, of
which $25,000 were allocated from the working capital
fund of OAS, $5,000 given by the Government of Panama
and $20,000 given by the Government of Haiti. Thus my
country, despite its modest means, values the ideals of
peace, solidarity and fraternity which form the basis of the
regional organization that groups the countries of this
hemisphere.
191. All these efforts have been achieved despite the traps
laid for the Haitian people and its leader by a clique of
ambitious men who, in their country of exile, have not
reconciled themselves to having been driven from power by
the just anger of the people or to having lost their selfish
and undeserved privileges as shameless exploiters of the
majority classes.
192. These kings-in-exile have found allies among the hack
writers in the pay of the enemies of all those who do not
belong to the master race, irresponsible journalists who,
having abused the generous hospitality of Haiti, have turned
their poisoned and ill-famed pens against their benefactors
of yesterday.
193. They have even recruited supporters, to whom they
have no doubt promised substantial dividends.
194. For example, on 4 June, despite the strictest rules of
territorial asylum, they sent from a territory adjacent to the
Republic of Haiti a four-engined Super-Constellation air-craft,
the tail and fuselage of which had been painted in
Haitian colours, black and red, and which was loaded with
incendiary bombs. Those bombs were aimed at the National
Palace, the Chancellery building, the school of the Republic
of Venezuela, where nearly 3,000 children were taking
examinations for primary certificates, the Institution of
Saint-Louis de Gonzague, the Sainte-Rose de Lima boarding
school and Bird College, which has over a thousand
students. Fortunately the targets were not hit. There were
one or two fires, quickly brought under control, in some
heavily populated areas of the capital and a few unfortunate
victims, among them a child, the daughter of a
member of the domestic staff of the United States Embassy
at Port-au-Prince. The action lasted less than a quarter of an
hour. As soon as the Haitian fighter aircraft took to the air,
the pirate aircraft flew away and just managed to land at a
military base in a neighbouring island, the fuselage riddled
with bullets and the pilot’s seat half torn away.
195. Shame on these assassins, murderers of women and
children, whose action only strengthens the solidarity of
the Haitian people with its Government.
196. There is no end to the list of acts of banditry against
the Haitian nation and its leader by these power-hungry
people.
197. On 13 January 1969, the police seized a training
camp for Haitian exiles in a great neighbouring country.
198. On 17 August these exiles met on the territory of a
country which maintains normal diplomatic relations with
Haiti. Men of God, forgetting their sacred vocation, spoke
at the gathering and made a collection for the purchase of
weapons.
199. Lastly, plans were made to assassinate the Haitian
Counsul in a large town of the continent; his life was only
saved through the protection of the local police.
200. I suggest that these enemies of the people, if they are
still capable of so doing, should ponder the following words
of the President for Life of Haiti, in his message of
2 January to the Haitian nation—words that have been
taken up by another leader of the people:
“A higher power impels me to an unknown goal. Until
that goal has been attained I shall be invulnerable and
unshakable. Once I am no longer necessary, a fly will be
enough to overcome me.”
201. In concluding my statement, I would offer to my
suffering brethren in Africa these consoling words of the
Sovereign Pontiff, His holiness Pope Paul VI, when he took
leave of Dr. Obote, President of Uganda:
“We carry also in our heart the sufferings of all those
whose voices cannot be heard. For them we shall pray
that peace and fraternal aid will heal their wounds, tend
their sickness and alleviate their sufferings. We address
this appeal to all men of goodwill, and especially to the
Africans, who are better placed to help their fellow
citizens of this continent.”
202. I should like to declare once again the faith of the
Government and people of Haiti in the standards, principles
and noble aims of the United Nations Charter and to
express the hope that, through the action of our Organization,
there may reign upon this earth a little more of the
spirit of justice, peace and fraternity.