87. Madam President, my delegation is happy to add its voice, with all
the warmth and sympathy of a member of the Afro-Asian
group, to the mounting chorus of tributes and compliments
addressed to you on your unanimous election to the
presidency of this session of the Assembly. In the great
honour paid to you today, my delegation sees a well-deserved
tribute to your devotion to this Organization, to
your talents, to your qualities of heart and mind, and to the
personage that you are in your own country; and so,
through you personally, we honour your country itself
today. We are convinced that, under your enlightened
presidency, our discussions will proceed with all the desired
justice and objectivity.
88. At the beginning of this twenty-fourth session of the
General Assembly, our thoughts naturally turn also towards
the delegation of Guatemala, homeland of Mr. Emilio
Arenales, the eminent President of our twenty-third session,
who was suddenly snatched away from our friendship and
affection at the very time when he was able to give most of
himself, his knowledge and his ability to the common,
universal cause.
89. Since we have the opportunity, my delegation is also
pleased to express once again to U Thant, the Secretary-General,
our admiration for all his efforts to promote peace
and for the overwhelming and difficult responsibility he
shoulders in our Organization.
90. It has become an established fact that for many years
at every General Assembly session the various countries,
through the authorized voice of their representatives, draw
attention to the difficulties of our Organization, its
inability to ensure respect for and implementation of its
most serious decisions, and the consequent impunity
enjoyed by certain States guilty of reprehensible acts.
91. In the face of the equanimity displayed by some
States in violating the Charter, in the face of the levity with
which they contravene its provisions, in the face even, in
some cases, of the premeditation of such offences, it is
natural that a breath of disappointment and frustration
should pass over our Assembly.
92. When the Charter came into being twenty-five years
ago, all hearts were uplifted by a great hope, especially in
countries such as my own which have no trained armies to
impose respect, no thermo-nuclear bombs to induce fear,
and which rely on the goodwill of others to be able to live
in peace and to forge their future in accordance with the
aspirations of their people.
93. In that document, the Charter, which represents the
fruit of the widest collaboration of men and nations, and
the drawing up of which was inspired by the horror,
disasters and incalculable consequences of the last war, it is
stated in Chapter I, dealing with the purposes and principles
of the United Nations, that the United Nations must be
“a centre for harmonizing the actions of nations in the
attainment of these common ends”, namely, friendship,
co-operation and the maintenance of international peace
and security.
94. Despite that solemn declaration, to which all Members
of the United Nations, large and small, great Powers and
developing countries, have subscribed, the spectacle we are
witnessing today is deeply disappointing.
95. Many fires of war are being kindled or continue to
burn in many areas of the earth, despite the lessons of
history and despite the firmest declarations, unqualified
promises and duly recorded signatures. Whether in Europe,
the Middle East, South-East Asia or South Africa, tense and
explosive situations exist. The list of victims and of acts of
destruction grows longer with each passing day.
96. My delegation appeals to the conscience of all countries
to put an end to these deadly combats, this immense
waste of life and property, so as to bring about a return to
international morality and to peace and security.
97. Not long ago, all mankind acclaimed man’s first
landing on the moon. There can be no denying that this
represents an unexampled scientific exploit. We feel,
however, that it would be vain to conquer space as long as
the Powers which have the means to do so still do not
possess the morality or real determination required to bring
about the rule of order, peace and security on earth.
98. I have thought it necessary to make this lengthy
preamble before describing to you the situation in my
country, the Kingdom of Laos, where for more than twenty
years a deadly and devastating war has been waged—a
“forgotten war“, in the words of our Prime Minister, His
Highness Prince Souvanna Phouma.
99. This term “forgotten war” should not be misunderstood
to mean a war undeserving of attention. On the
contrary, the ravages of the war are great and out of all
proportion to the resources of the country and to the size
of its population.
100. It is “forgotten” because such is the will of the States
which are involved in it and which have provoked it.
101. Those responsible are well known to you: first, the
Democratic Republic of Viet-Nam; secondly, all who
support and assist it in its reprehensible acts; and, thirdly,
all who solemnly undertook to defend and guarantee the
neutrality and sovereignty of Laos and who have broken
both their oath and their signed word.
102. At present more than 600,000 people, one fifth of
the total population, have fled the tyranny and privations
imposed by the rebels and their protectors to seek refuge in
more clement areas, under the protection of the Royal
Government. The long list of acts of sabotage and of
destruction of public works and public utilities is endless.
At the end of every dry season, numbers of bridges, only
just repaired, are destroyed, irrigation and hydro-electric
dams are put out of operation and work on many
construction sites is hampered by threats, kidnappings and
assassinations. And this has been the situation for more
than twenty years.
103. In these circumstances it is easy to imagine the
immense difficulties facing the Royal Government in its
determined efforts to promote the economic progress of
the Kingdom and to overcome its great backwardness in
relation to the modern world.
104. The war in Laos is, without any doubt, an unjust,
amoral and unwarranted war, from whatever angle it may
be viewed.
105. It is unjust because it was not the Laotians who
provoked it. My country is well aware of its military
strength, or rather weakness; it cannot be a threat to
anyone. It has neither a political ideology to spread or to
impose, nor any annexationist designs, nor any desire to
engage in intrigue for anyone’s benefit. My country has
been known from the most remote times for its devotion to
peace and tranquillity, for its great tolerance and for its
Buddhist philosophy.
106. We are also aware of our geographical situation at the
cross-roads where antagonistic ideas and systems come face
to face. It is at cross-roads that accidents occur—we are well
aware of that and we have not failed to observe the utmost
severity in our conduct.
107. In this spirit we have pushed our scruples to the very
limit. We know that a State, a Government worthy of the
name, will never look kindly on the installation on its
flanks of a systematically hostile régime with which there
would be neither room for negotiation nor possibility of
coexistence. We have always refused to adopt any tandem
position, despite advice, manoeuvres, pressures or the
tempting offers dangled before us.
108. The reason why we are neutral—as we have solemnly
proclaimed, demonstrated in our institutions and translated
in our actions—is that, in the first place, neutrality accords
with our nature, with the aspiration of our people for a
harmonious order without diktats and without undue
prohibitions, and that it conforms to the expression of our
religious beliefs and to our behaviour in social life.
109. The reason why we are neutral—we went to Geneva
in 1954 and 1962 to have that status conferred on us in
accordance with our wishes—is also that we wish to avoid
any confrontation, on our soil and to our detriment, of
foreign forces, in order not to have to take sides in a
combat which bodes only ruin and mourning for our people
and to remove any reason for distrust or suspicion based on
connivance, complicity or alliance with one party or the
other.
110. Despite all these measures, aimed at preventing war
and resulting from the state of war, what do we see in
return? North Viet-Namese troops whose numbers exceed
40,000 men are occupying our territory and providing
officers to the Laos rebels to harass, attack and besiege
Government posts. A motor road, misnamed the “Ho Chi
Minh trail”, constructed, maintained and guarded by Hanoi
soldiers, uses several hundred kilometres of Laotian territory
to enable Hanoi to carry to other regions and
countries the seeds of war and subversive intrigue which it
has initiated.
111. We have hoped, and we continue to hope, that our
country might play the role of a buffer, a neutral
framework where the antagonists, abandoning their distrust
and their extreme demands, would begin to contemplate a
peaceful coexistence. Unfortunately, this principle of
peaceful coexistence, which everyone agrees should be the
main pillar of modern international life, is far from being
established in Laos or anywhere else in the world.
112. This war in Laos is amoral because the Democratic
Republic of Viet-Nam abuses its military and demographic
power and because it shamelessly denies what is self-evident.
No denial can hide the actual existence of the Ho
Chi Minh trail. No communiqué, however adroit, can
conceal the presence of those soldiers in Laos, because the
hundred-odd prisoners whom we have captured can at any
moment bear witness to their presence.
113. It is amoral because certain States or Powers which
are signatories of the Geneva Agreements of 1962 and
guarantors of the neutrality and sovereignty of Laos refuse,
either through complicity or calculation, or simply through
negligence or lack of interest, to honour their promises and
their signatures.
114. We have kept the relevant organs of the Geneva
Conference informed of each of the many violations and
hostile acts committed. We cannot but realize, however,
that our representations have almost always been in vain.
Because of the undisguised ill-will of one of its members,
we have encountered virtual immobility on the part of the
International Supervision and Control Commission responsible
for supervising the implementation of the Agreements,
recording violations and establishing responsibility.
115. As far as the co-Chairmen, the highest authority of
the Geneva Conference, are concerned, we have always
been disappointed at not finding the understanding that we
have a right to expect. To this day we have not succeeded,
through the joint authority of the two co-Chairmen, in
having the various signatories of the Agreements notified of
our appeals and protests.
116. Lastly, it is amoral to connect the war in Laos with
the Viet-Nam conflict. It is an entirely arbitrary act to link
the destiny of a people with the outcome of a conflict to
which it is totally alien. We are convinced that no legal
system in the world could ever justify that.
117. The war in Laos is, moreover, unwarranted because
as is well known, Laos has no military bases from which
attacks are made against the Democratic Republic of
Viet-Nam and because Laos has never harboured troops
fighting against the Democratic Republic of Viet-Nam.
118. True to its word, as specified in paragraph 4 of the
Declaration on the Neutrality of Laos, the Royal Laotian
Government has not acceded to any military alliance or any
agreement of a military character and does not recognize
the protection of any alliance or military coalition, including
the South East Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO).
119. Certain frankly partisan spirits claim that the hostilities
in Laos are conducted exclusively by the Pathet Lau,
the rebels against the Royal Government. In this connexion
I should like to refresh the memories of representatives and
recall that the Pathet Lao is nothing more or less than a
creation of the Democratic Republic of Viet-Nam, which
invented the whole thing for its own ends in 1954. The
leaders of the Pathet Lao are former members of the Issara
movement, the initiator of Laotian independence, who
were expelled from the group with good reason, because
they blindly served the subversive and annexationist designs
of their protectors in Hanoi. From a strength of approximately
2,000 partisans in 1954, the Pathet Lao has
increased tenfold in fifteen years through the systematic
kidnapping of young men from the rural areas by Hanoi,
which instructs and indoctrinates them and then sends
them to carry out their shameful task, its purpose being to
undermine and destroy the independence and sovereignty
of their country.
120. Others, no less partisan, criticize us for having tried
to obtain weapons and launch counter-attacks. As will be
seen, this is a matter of self-defence, of our survival as a
people and a nation. In the face of marked aggression, our
handicap is not sufficient reason for not defending our
country, weapons in hand, and with all the.means that the
situation demands.
121. Some States and Governments in the international
political arena sympathize with the Democratic Republic of
Viet-Nam, while others criticize and condemn it. I do not
wish here to attempt to pass judgement in favour of the one
Side or against the other. What my Government wishes to
point out above all else, at this twenty-fourth session of the
General Assembly, is the attitude of the Democratic
Republic of Viet-Nam to my country. The facts are
eloquent and irrefutable; they speak for themselves. I am
sure that your judgement will be only the logical consequence
of those facts.
122. For more than twenty years, North Viet-Namese
soldiers have occupied part of our territory, using it to
dispatch men, material, weapons and supplies to other
fronts. How can such acts be described except by saying
that their perpetrators and Government are guilty of
flagrant territorial violations?
123. During the same period, the Democratic Republic of
Viet-Nam, which created the Pathet Lao, has directed,
aided and supported it in its ambition to seize power by
force of arms, by illegal and unconstitutional means. In
everyday terms as well as in the political vocabulary, is not
this known as interference in the affairs of a country?
124. In order to dispel any misunderstanding, I hasten to
add that the Pathet Lao representatives have abandoned
their posits in the Government of their own will, in order to
resort to armed struggle in accordance with the directives of
their protectors. Whatever their argument, whatever the
skill of their protectors in disguising the truth, they will
never be able to find any justification or basis for their
conduct or their acts, since even today their places in the
Government are still marked, and discussions and negotiations
could begin there at any time on any matter on which
they are opposed to the other parties in the Government
coalition.
125. Lastly, through the battles which they wage against
Government troops on territory over which they have taken
temporary control, the soldiers of the Democratic Republic
of Viet-Nam have engaged in propaganda whose violence
and hostility to the Royal Government can readily be
imagined, and in indoctrination the basis of which has
nothing in common with Laotian tradition. Is not this what
is called outright aggression and open subversion?
126. Since 1954, since 1962, the Democratic Republic of
Viet-Nam has violated all the restrictions laid down in the
Geneva Agreements guaranteeing the sovereignty, territorial
integrity and neutrality of Laos. Can it be said, after that,
that the Democratic Republic of Viet-Nam respects international
agreements?
127. I do not wish to take up your time by recalling from
the beginning all the armed operations engaged in by the
Democratic Republic of Viet-Nam in Laos. I shall confine
myself today to the attacks it has launched since the last
dry season, which will make it possible for us fully to
appreciate its responsibility, its defiance of laws and
conventions, and all the harm it is doing to my country.
128. On 26 November 1968 three battalions of the
Democratic Republic of Viet-Nam attacked Thateng in
Saravene province. Another attack took place on 13
December, when 80 per cent of the centre was destroyed.
On the morning of 1 March 1969 the Nakhang post was
brutally attacked by combined Pathet Lao and North
Viet-Namese forces. The North Viet-Namese forces, numbering
five battalions, belonged to the 148th regiment of
the 316th Division. The post had to be abandoned and
97,000 refugees had to leave their land. On 12 March 1969
a North Viet-Namese commando unit attacked the airfield
of the Royal City of Luang Prabang. There was no doubt
about the nationality of the three enemy soldiers captured
on that occasion. On 24 June 1969 Muong Soui was
attacked by seven North Viet-Namese battalions. All the
attacking units were identified. They were the 766th doan,
the commanding regiment for the North Viet-Namese
troops in Upper Laos, the 148th and 174th independent
regiments of the 316th Division and the 12th, 34th and
924th regiments. Two hundred defenceless refugees were
massacred at Ban Cat, near Muong Soui. In their offensive
against Muong Soui, in order to prevent the arrival of help,
the North Viet-Namese cut and put out of service the road
from Vientiane to Luang Prabang, the reconstruction of
which had only just been completed after two years of
effort, constant labour and financial sacrifice. Fourteen
metal bridges were destroyed by the North Viet-Namese in
Central and Lower Laos in January alone.
129. That is what happened in a single season, and the
situation has not changed for more than twenty years.
130. It is not out of deliberate egoism that my delegation
has limited its contribution in this general discussion to a
report on the situation in Laos. We wished first of all to
give a full, objective and accurate account to all the
countries that have undertaken to guarantee the independence,
sovereignty, territorial integrity and neutrality of
Laos, and to remind them of their responsibility.
131. There are in this hall representatives of ten of the
thirteen countries that were signatories of the 1962 Geneva
Agreements guaranteeing the independence, territorial
integrity, sovereignty and neutrality of Laos. I solemnly
appeal to them to invite their Governments fully and
sincerely to assume their responsibility under the obligations
they have contracted.
132. in their Declaration on the Neutrality of Laos, the
thirteen signatories of the 1962 Geneva Agreements recognized
and maintained that they were “profoundly convinced that the
independence and neutrality of the Kingdom of Laos will assist...the
strengthening of peace and security in South-East Asia”.
133. It is stated day after day in this Assembly that peace
is indivisible, and that violations of the letter and the spirit
of the Charter must cease everywhere and at all times. It is
the duty of all Members of the United Nations to help to
remedy the situation and to ensure respect for the purposes
and principles of the Charter, as specified in Article 2 (6) of
the Charter, which states:
“The Organization shall ensure that States which are
not Members of the United Nations act in accordance
with these Principles so far as may be necessary for the
maintenance of international peace and security.”