1. Madam President, your election
to the Presidency of the twenty-fourth session of the
General Assembly is a fitting recognition of your exceptional
contributions as a diplomat of your country and as an
untiring and devoted worker for the cause of the United
Nations. During a distinguished service, spanning a period
of fifteen years, you have acquired rich and varied
experiences from which, I am sure, the Assembly will
greatly profit. That the second woman President of the
General Assembly should be found in your person, an
illustrious daughter of Africa, is a source of great pride to
all of us.
2. Having had the opportunity of working with you in the
various halls of the United Nations, you may well understand
how happy I am that a friend of long standing, as well
as a great friend of my country, should be in the Chair
today as I speak.
3. May I also avail myself of this opportunity to extend
the sincere condolences of my Government to the family of
Mr. Emilio Arenales, and to the Government of Guatemala,
in whose untimely death they have sustained a great loss.
4. The year 1969 will go down in the history of mankind
as an important watershed. Future historians will, no
doubt, record that by first setting foot on the moon, man
not only realized an age-old dream, but also, with that
achievement, opened up entirely new horizons for his
imagination. It will also be said that that achievement
dramatically transformed man’s perspective of himself.
5. If it has been true in the past that man has made
progress by constantly holding out visions of his future and
by acting out those visions, it should now be clearer than
ever that never before in human history has man’s future
looked brighter, his challenge nobler, his means greater. If
we were thus to be led today by our past, we should have
every reason to be optimistic about our future. Can we,
however, in point of fact, look to the future with such firm
optimism?
6. The paradox today is that we have entered a qualitative
new age, in which our past has become increasingly
irrelevant to our future. Up to very recently man never
possessed the technical capability to commit mass suicide.
So long as he had not reached that point man was capable
of seeing his future without the spectre of total destruction
impairing his vision or limiting his imagination. Now that
that point has been passed, a dark shadow has been cast
over man’s imagination; a sort of terminal point to his
vision seems to have been reached.
7. Above everything else, the extraordinary feat of man’s
landing on the moon has vividly underscored the dramatic
scientific and technical achievements mankind has made in
all areas and on all fronts of knowledge. The latest
achievements of man should leave no-one in doubt that
man has now the means to eradicate from the face of the
earth his age-old Nemesis of ignorance, poverty and hunger.
If man does not soon do away with those evils which still
plague two thirds of mankind, it certainly will not be for
lack of know-how but for lack of will, and the inability to
organize and order his efforts and goals.
8. The other side of the picture is not, however, so
hopeful. The same scientific and technical capability which
put men on the moon can also be used for total
self-destruction. Thus, in that sense, man’s landing on the
moon was as much as demonstration of the frightening
power he has acquired for self-destruction as it is of the
many promising things these latest achievements hold out
for mankind. Even as we rejoice and marvel at man’s
fantastic voyage to the moon, the lesson of what it all
means should not be lost on us. More than ever, it should
now be clear to us that, in the interest of the survival of
mankind, the destructive uses to which these dramatic
scientific and technological achievements can be put should
be controlled, and their application for economic and social
development accelerated.
9. This brings me directly to the two important questions
which we have debated for many years here at the United
Nations. These are, first, the question of disarmament, and
second, the problem of economic and social development.
10. The Secretary-General is quite right when he says with
respect to disarmament that “the world is standing at what
may be regarded in the perspective of history as one of the
decisive moments in the grim challenge of the nuclear arms
race” [A/7601/Add.1, para. 26]. Yet, we must all agree
that the choice available seems to be very clear, nor should
the present situation require unusually sophisticated understanding.
There are at least two States which have enough
power to destroy each other and, in the process, the rest of
the world. In pursuit of an illusory concept of superiority
those same countries have unleashed a feverish arms race.
They are also acquiring at an alarming rate “over-kill
capacity”, that is, the capability to destroy each other
several times over. The end result of this process has been
graphically described by the Secretary-General in the
following terms: “As the spiral of the nuclear arms race
goes up, the spiral of security goes down.” [Ibid., para. 28.]
11. In this situation, the choice that the two super-Powers
will have to make is not the classical dilemma of the lesser
of two evils: they will either have to give up their nuclear
weapons entirely and place under effective control the
development of science and technology for weapons purposes,
or they will immeasurably enhance the risk of total
destruction and the sense of insecurity to the point where,
even if one day the big Powers wanted to, so complicated
would be the problem of inspection that they would no
longer be able to reduce their nuclear arsenals. This is not
idle speculation; already we see the handwriting on the wall
with plans for anti-missile defence and missiles with
multiple warheads. If science and technology have, throughout
history, found immediate application in weapons of
war, the present rate of application is unprecedented. With
every advance, man’s chances of controlling the use of these
weapons has gradually diminished to a point where a totally
uncontrollable stage will soon be reached.
12. This problem seems to be even more urgent with
regard to chemical and bacteriological weapons. For one
thing those weapons are cheaper than nuclear weapons to
develop and one can more effectively conceal their development.
Secondly, more countries, about thirty by the latest
estimate, have the potential to develop chemical and
bacteriological agents into lethal and uncontrollable
weapons of war.
13. The Secretary-General’s report on this aspect, drawn
up with the assistance of fourteen eminent scientists,
confirms our worst fears. The report stated: “Were these
weapons ever to be used on a large scale in war, no one
could predict how enduring the effects would be and how
they would affect the structure of society ... in which we
live.”
14. Unless the international community, and particularly
the super-Powers, summon their last effort of will, the
chances for mankind’s winning. the race for time will be
soon out of the question. At any rate, there does not seem
to be very much time left; considering the alarming rate of
scientific and technological development, at the most we
only have ten years.
15. It is thus with an apprehensive understanding of what
has been often described as the “mad momentum” of the
ever escalating arms race that my delegation enthusiastically
welcomes the Secretary-General’s proposal that the seventies
should also be declared a Disarmament Decade. We also
agree with him that, similar to the exercise presently under
way to establish goals and specific objectives for common
action with respect to economic and social development in
the decade of the seventies, specific objectives and
timetables should be established in the field of disarmament.
16. Science and technology are also exerting a decisive
influence on economic and social development. The growing
scientific and technological gap between the developed
and the developing countries is the root cause of the
widening disparity in their development. The present
unequal sharing of the benefits of international trade
between them, a factor which the developing countries
consider one of the most restrictive to their economic
development, can, in large measure, be explained by the
uneven distribution of the benefits of modern science and
technology. New scientific advances have enabled many a
developed country to produce comparable, even at times
better, substitutes for some of the commodities which they
have traditionally imported from the developing countries,
and their ability and efficiency in this regard has also
increased.
17. The impact of science and technology on agriculture
in the already developed countries has been so spectacular
that many of them find it today cheaper and more
convenient to produce their own food and other agricultural
commodities which they can use for industrial purposes.
In many a developed country the agricultural revolution
not only preceded the industrial revolution but, in fact,
made their industrialization possible. Except for a handful
of countries, the result of this historic development has
been to make the developing countries uncompetitive
vis-a-vis the developed countries in the production of
almost every agricultural commodity and industrial product.
In the few instances where the developing countries
have still preserved certain advantages, it has not been
because of any advantages resulting from efficiency of
techniques or organization, but from such factors as climate
and unusually generous gifts of nature. Those exceptions
are countries which produce some tropical agricultural
products which are needed in the industrialized countries,
rare countries which dispose of such valuable wealth as oil
or other precious minerals which are in short supply in the
developed countries themselves.
18. The application of science and technology in production
also means, in the immediate sense, capital and trained
manpower — two resources which the developing countries
have in such pitifully limited supply. However, the fact that
there is not enough capital or trained scientific and
technical manpower, severely limits the development of
science and technology in those countries. Whereas countries
which are at an advanced stage of scientific development
have an increasing ability to develop their science and
technology at a much higher rate, the developing countries
are caught in a vicious circle. The net result of this
phenomenon is to make the importation of scientific and
technical know-how into the developing regions exorbitantly
expensive. Even more serious, because of the disparity in
the level of their development, and therefore in their
problems, the development of science and technology in
the advanced countries is turning away from the needs of
the developing countries.
19. We have today reached a stage where even if the
developing countries were to do all that they should in
order to develop with optimum efficiency — which they are
not doing for reasons which must be obvious—they simply
cannot go anywhere, for such external factors as the
widening technological gap, the unequal division of the
benefits of trade over which they have no control, have a
more decisive influence on their economic development
than the decisions that they themselves can make. To
assume, on the other hand, that the developing countries
will be doing all that they can or to demand that they
should do all that they must, is an idea bordering on the
unrealistic. It should be obvious that the fact that the
developing countries are under-developed means in a large
measure that they simply do not have the ability to do
things right; if they had that ability, they would not be
under-developed countries in the first place.
20. Given the present historical circumstance and the built-in
and widening technological gap, there is no substitute for
well-ordered and mutually beneficial international co-operation,
based on the understanding that we have reached a
point in history where the action of one country not only
affects others indirectly, but also that the actions of the
rich and industrialized countries vitally affect the destinies
of the developing countries; so much so that for many a
developing country what the advanced countries choose to
do or not to do at a given moment spells the difference
between economic development or stagnation.
21. It is against this background that we should approach
our task of elaborating specific goals and objectives for the
Second United Nations Development Decade. Unless we are
able to agree on what the developing and the developed
countries should do separately or jointly for the fulfilment
of certain mutually agreed minimum objectives on this
uphill and difficult road of economic development, we
might not only be cancelling the benefits which may come
about from the efforts of each one of us, but we could even
be working at cross-purposes. It seems to my delegation
that before we can hope to establish a framework for
collective action for the Second United Nations Development
Decade, we must learn how far the world has become
interdependent. There should be a profound understanding
of that basic truth, which for the first time in history has
posed urgent problems. Now that mankind has begun to
share a common destiny, a solution to the development
problem should be foreseen, not on altruistic motives but
on the enlightened self-interest of all members of the
international community.
22. Changing the call for international co-operation in the
economic and social field from one of appeal to humanitarian
instinct to that of a plea for enlightened self-interest
in which the benefits to all concerned would be emphasized,
will, however, require a fundamental change of
attitude. In this regard, the United Nations has a useful role
to play in shaping man’s new conscience for this historically
unprecedented age. Member Governments, in particular,
should take it upon themselves to inform their peoples of
the advantages that they could have from an effective
system of international co-operation.
23. Obviously, the United Nations does not have the
means to undertake, in this respect, a massive campaign on
all fronts. However, it seems to us that a limited but
effective campaign to reach opinion leaders in the Member
countries, through their universities, Press, business and
public life, especially in the advanced countries, is indispensable
if the Second United Nations Development Decade is
to achieve anything.
24. I now wish to turn my attention to some of the
outstanding political problems that are before us.
25. A candid appraisal of the record of the United Nations
in these troubled times inescapably leads one to the
conclusion that the United Nations is undergoing a “crisis
of confidence”. Our diagnosis may, differ but today no one
can seriously deny that fact. There seems to be a general
weakening of idealism. People everywhere simply do not
believe any more that the promise which the Charter of the
United Nations held out for mankind will ever be realized.
In recent times, even those of us who are fortunate enough
to work in diplomacy, in these halls and elsewhere, have
had difficulty to come up with anything that we can call
progress, even to satisfy our self-esteem.
26. Various reasons have been advanced to explain why
this has come about. One school of thought, which has
gained wide acceptance in certain well-known quarters,
holds the Afro-Asian countries responsible. By making
impossible demands which they know that the United
Nations cannot meet, these critics assert that the Afro-Asian
countries are slowly wrecking the Organization and
they contend that the Afro-Asian countries are relying
more on their mechanical majorities rather than on serious
negotiation.
27. Another school of thought attributes the prevailing
ineffectiveness to the fact that the United Nations, particularly
the General Assembly, is too idealistic an Organization
to really reflect in its actual working the realities of the
world; it cannot, therefore, be expected to act responsibly
and realistically. Yet to another group the United Nations is
an Organization designed to maintain the status quo of a
world which in 1945 was emerging from the holocaust of a
devastating war. Hence, according to this point of view, it
cannot now be expected to accommodate the revolutionary
changes that took place in the last quarter of a century,
thus making the present contradictions and deadlock
inevitable.
28. No one, of course, can claim that he and he alone has
the correct diagnosis for this malaise of the will. All these
explanations may have, in their own ways and in varying
degrees, something of the truth. We must all agree,
however, that whatever is said of the United Nations, no
one can seriously suggest that something is wrong with the
principles which inspired the Charter; the weak point has
always been in the realm of implementation of those
principles by Members of the Organization.
29. It should be clear in this respect that if all of us, as
Members of the United Nations, were to accept a certain
amount of responsibility for having made the United
Nations less effective than it is capable of being, it should
be equally obvious that some Members would, in this
regard, assume more responsibility than others.
30. Let us, for example, review the record with respect to
colonialism. Although the Charter of the United Nations
held out the promise of self-determination to all subjugated
peoples, the Organization did little about decolonization
until the beginning of the sixties. The failure to involve the
United Nations in the decolonization of most of South-East
Asia, North Africa and other parts of Africa led, as we all
know, to bloodshed which conceivably could have been
avoided. The record of the United Nations in the field of
decolonization in the first fifteen years of its existence can,
in fact, be summed up appropriately as one of a string of
missed opportunities. On the part of some influential
Members, their records amount to a complete abdication of
their responsibilities and obligations under the Charter.
31. What we are today witnessing, with respect to the
remaining colonial questions in Africa, is the continuation
of the same pattern; a group of countries which have either
been invested by the Charter of the United Nations with
great responsibility for the fulfilment of its principles, or
which circumstances have given the power to effect
improvement in all critical colonial situations, still persist in
their refusal to live up to the full measure of their
responsibility.
32. Be it with respect to the Portuguese Territories in
Africa, or to Rhodesia or the question of Namibia, or
apartheid in South Africa, any prospect of evolving
satisfactory solutions through persuasion or negotiation is
ended. The record shows that in most cases for over ten
years, all the available means of United Nations diplomacy
have been used to that end repeatedly, but to no avail. If
one were to be candid in one’s appraisal of this record, I
cannot see for a moment how one could still harbour the
hope that somehow the colonial régimes in southern Africa
will be persuaded to change their policies. Under the
circumstances, the only conclusion that logically presents
itself is that those who still entertain further hope on this
score are either indulging in wishful thinking, or simply
trying to justify their failure to act in a manner required by
their responsibility.
33. It should be clear by now that we have reached a
position in which, if any plea for a change of course is to be
addressed, it should be addressed not to the colonial
régimes in southern Africa — for we know they cannot
hear — but to a handful of Governments whose failure to act
forthrightly and in accordance with their responsibility has
made it possible for those colonial interests to persist in
their defiance of the United Nations.
34. It should surprise no one, therefore, that no improvement
has been seen in any one of the critical colonial
situations in southern Africa. The colonial wars which
Portugal is waging in Angola, Mozambique and Guinea
(Bissau) have increased in savagery and in repercussions; yet
the world seems to hear little or nothing about them. Those
Member States whose generous gift or sale of arms has
made it possible for Portugal to sustain those wars have
lately intensified their efforts so as to increase their share of
the spoils of war by helping Portugal to tap the resources of
those Territories. In this respect the long-term implications
of the massive influx of South African and Western capital
into Angola and Mozambique should not be lost on anyone.
35. With respect to Rhodesia, even the most optimistic
advocates of mandatory economic sanctions should see by
now that those measures which have been in force since
June 1968 have failed to bring down the illegal rebel régime
of Ian Smith. The reports that have been submitted by the
Security Council committee on the implementation of
sanctions have proved demonstrably that those sanctions
are not in general being complied with. If the sanctions
were fully implemented, a small country such as Southern
Rhodesia, which depends entirely on import and export for
its life sustenance, could not possibly have survived such a
severe punishment to its economy.
36. On our part, we have never had any illusion that South
Africa and Portugal would co-operate in this respect with
the United Nations despite the fact, of course, that under
Article 25 of the Charter they have an obligation to abide
by the decisions of the Council. What has surprised us,
however, is what the reports of the Security Council’s
committee have shown by implication; that is the fact that
a number of countries, while giving the formal appearance
of implementing the sanctions, have not prevented some of
their nationals from buying and selling to Rhodesia through
intermediaries.
37. In this connexion the fact that some important
members of the international community are still maintaining
consular representation in Rhodesia should not be overlooked.
38. Assuming that their hope has always been genuine, to
those who have hoped against hope that by some miraculous
process the Salisbury régime would be prevailed upon
to change its course, the imposition on the Territory of a
system of apartheid and the increasing repressive measures
which that régime has taken against the freedom fighters
should now be the last straw. By those actions the régime
of Ian Smith seems t have burned all the remaining bridges
that linked it to the international community and those
who had persisted in giving it the benefit of the doubt.
39. South Africa has also continued to tighten its hold on
Namibia. Since, at the same time, Namibia is being
progressively integrated into the apartheid system of South
Africa, policies designed to break up the territorial integrity
of the Territory are being implemented. In the meantime
no action has been taken to give effect to the United
Nations assumption of administrative responsibility for the
Territory; all that the United Nations has done over the
past year has been to address several pleas to South Africa
to spare from execution some of the freedom fighters who
have been sent to goal for resisting oppression — please no
sooner made than they were rejected by the South African
régime.
40. With respect to the remaining colonial questions in
southern Africa the following conclusions must therefore
emerge. First, the totally inadequate response of the United
Nations to the defiance of the colonial régimes in southern
Africa has contributed much to dampening enthusiasm for
the United Nations. Secondly, by now it should be clear
that no further pleas would make the colonial régimes
change their course of action. Thirdly, if there is any hope
for improvement in all those critical areas, that improvement
will have to come as the result of the more influential
Members of the Organization taking effective action
commensurate with their responsibility under the Charter.
41. There is also some scepticism, especially among the
small countries, about the United Nations being able to
respond to their security needs. As is well known, because
of the impasse in the Security Council, the hope of
collective security under the Charter has never been
realized. On the other hand, the increasing role of the
United Nations in peace-keeping has been nipped in the bud
as a result of the big Powers’ refusal to share responsibility
with the smaller countries for the maintenance of peace and
security.
42. I regret to say that the Special Committee of
Thirty-three, which has been charged with the task of
studying the various aspects of peace-keeping, has not been
able to tackle the fundamental questions. I believe the time
has come for the General Assembly to examine new ways
of keeping alive the peace-keeping role of the United
Nations which, it must be emphasized, grew, in the first
place, in response to the demands of the smaller countries
of the Organization.
43. In Viet-Nam, the Middle East and Nigeria the guns
have not been stilled; even as we deliberate here at the
United Nations, men are killing one another in all those
places.
44. If there is anything we can call progress, it is the fact
that, at least with respect to Viet-Nam, the Paris talks are
still continuing. There have also been some indications
lately that the level of fighting could be de-escalated. Even
if there have been serious snags in putting into motion a
process of de-escalation which could lead to a cease-fire, at
least with respect to Viet-Nam, the key to the final solution
is very clear. That solution lies in the prospect that the
people of South Viet-Nam will be able to determine,
without foreign interference, the political and social system
under which they wish to live.
45. With regard to the Middle East, I said last year: “It
almost seems as if the preservation of the fragile cease-fire
arrangements is consigned to a blind interplay of incidents
rather than the dictates of international obligations or even
of self-interest.” [1683rd meeting, para. 14.] Since that
time, such has been the extent of deterioration of the
situation that I regret I cannot even repeat those words this
year, for the fact today is that the cease-fire arrangements
have collapsed in many sectors. Instead premeditated,
highly planned and large-scale violations of the cease-fire
have become daily occurrences. Along the Suez Canal and
the Jordan-Israeli cease-fire sector the violations have
assumed the dimensions of continuing warfare.
46. My Government believes that the main impetus for a
solution of the problem of the Middle East should come
from the big Powers within the framework of the United
Nations. The problem in the immediate sense being one of
turning the course of this continuing warfare, the big
Powers have, under the Charter of the United Nations, an
inescapable responsibility to act. Because of the fact that
the big Powers are vitally involved, either economically or
as suppliers of arms to the parties in conflict, and because
of the danger in this situation of big-Power confrontation,
those powers, as permanent members of the Security
Council, also have the added responsibility to act urgently
and forthrightly.
47. The basis for both the intermediate and the long-term
solution to the conflict is contained in the Security Council
resolution of 22 November 1967 [242 (1967)]. As I said
last year, that resolution contains a delicately balanced
mutual set of obligations. The problem has been with
regard to the timing of the implementation by the parties
concerned of the various components of those obligations.
If the big Powers were to give a guarantee under the
umbrella of the United Nations, that problem, we believe,
should pose no insurmountable difficulty.
48. However, time seems to be of the essence in the
situation; the more the solution is delayed the more
intractable will the problem become. Foreign occupation of
a territory cannot be tolerated without also generating
resistance from the occupied people; the longer the
occupation lasts the stronger will that resistance be. The
prolonged occupation is already bringing unpredictable and
uncontrollable elements into the Middle East situation.
49. The fact that the Nigerian civil war is continuing
unabated is a matter of grave concern to my Government.
As Chairman of the Organization of African Unity Consultative
Committee on Nigeria, my own Sovereign has
devoted much of his valuable time to trying to find a
solution to that situation, which can only be described as a
great tragedy for the people of Nigeria and of Africa.
Undaunted by the lack of progress, my Sovereign will
continue his efforts until a solution is found to that
conflict.
50. if progress has not been made so far, it is, above all,
because of the deep-seated and delicate nature of the
conflict. The civil war in Nigeria was born of the complications
and frictions that accompany nation-State building.
Such a problem is not uniquely Nigeria’s. In varying degrees
many countries have problems of minorities and nationalities.
Because of the changes and readjustments brought
about by the necessity of creating organizations and
institutions that cut across the old fabrics of tribal and
national loyalties in the newly independent States of Africa
and Asia, this problem has acquired new dimensions, and in
some places has led to intermittent conflicts. Nigeria has to
solve this problem of nation-State building as other nations
have solved it or at least succeed in reasonably holding the
inevitable friction to the minimum. In the final analysis, the
solution to the present conflict will have to be based on a
restoration of confidence in the future of one national
Nigerian body politic, in which the peoples that constitute
that nation must learn to minimize the inevitable friction
that nation-State building involves. The problem will not be
solved if one of the constituent parts chooses to renounce a
common destiny, because in the African context that could
be an endless process.
51. Finally, as the United Nations is approaching the
threshold of the quarter-century mark we have to look
forward. If the forthcoming commemorative session of the
General Assembly is to fulfil a valuable function for the
international community, it should offer all of us an
opportunity for a painstaking assessment of the events and
developments of the past quarter of a century and of the
role of the United Nations in a world which, as I said
earlier, has become, for the first time in history, inextricably
interdependent. The time between now and the next
session should, therefore, be used in our capitals for such a
critical assessment. The planned commemoration should
also provide an opportunity for Heads of State and
Government of Member States of the United Nations to
meet here in order to rededicate themselves to the
fulfilment of the principles of the Charter. Above all, the
commemorative session of the twenty-fifth anniversary of
the United Nations should inspire Member Governments to
come forward with new and bold ideas that could hopefully
answer some of the crying needs of the international
community for security and justice and for economic and
social development.
52. Already a group of Member States of the United
Nations that are not members of any military alliances
have, last week, held a conference, of which I was privileged
to be Chairman, to address themselves to the question of
how Members of the United Nations could effectively
co-operate in solving some of the outstanding problems that
have for long bedevilled the international community. The
participants in that conference have also agreed to hold
meetings in the future at various levels, including a
conference of Heads of State and Government, with a view
to enhancing their contributions in the fulfilment of the
principles of the United Nations Charter; they have also
created a committee which would enable them to contribute
useful ideas towards making the forthcoming commemorative
session a worth-while exercise in stocktaking
and in mapping out new approaches.
53. Speaking of commemoration, I feel it to be quite
appropriate that at a time when we are planning to
celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of the United Nations,
we should also take cognizance of the centennial of
the birth of Mahatma Gandhi, and stop to ponder over the
significance of his life and the examples that he has set. It is
particularly befitting, because in all respects the life of
Mahatma Gandhi was one long struggle for the fulfilment of
the principles which inspire the Charter of the United
Nations. It should also be of particular significance to the
United Nations that Mahatma Gandhi started his fight for
human rights in South Africa where the future effectiveness
of the United Nations still hangs in the balance.
54. Finally, before I end my statement, I should like to
refer to a declaration known as the Lusaka Manifesto on
Southern Africa to which all African Governments have
subscribed and which, in accordance with the recent
decision of the Heads of State and Government of the
Organization of African Unity at its sixth session will soon
be introduced in the General Assembly by the President of
Cameroon, His Excellency Ahmadou Ahidjo, who is the
current Chairman of the Organization of African Unity
Assembly. That Manifesto sets out in poetic majesty the
aspirations and the hopes of the peoples of Africa for
freedom, justice and progress. While aware that those ideals
have not found fulfilment in their respective countries, the
African States have let it be known that they are entirely
committed to their full realization. They have demanded of
the world that there should be such a commitment,
especially with respect to the granting of the right of
self-determination to the peoples of southern Africa. I
believe this is not asking too much.