Afghanistan, 1969

1. Madam President, it is

with great pleasure that I congratulate you on your election

to the highest United Nations office, the Presidency of the

General Assembly. You are the second woman, and your

country, Liberia, the third African State, to be so honoured.

The choice is not only a tribute to your personal

qualities and your contribution to the work of the

Organization; it is also a recognition of the emergence of

the great continent of Africa in the community of

nations — and, I venture to think, a symbol of its determination

to finalize its epic of liberation from centuries of colonialism.

2. We are grateful to the temporary President and to the

representative of Peru for giving us all the opportunity of

paying tribute to the memory of the former President of

the Assembly, the late Emilio Arenales [see 1753rd meeting].

3. The delegation of Afghanistan has always participated

in the general debate as a unique forum where high-level

representatives of now more than 100 States annually

convene in the unending search for a better understanding

among nations. In that alone, if in nothing else, the United

Nations has made a tremendous contribution to world peace.

4. But now, in our twenty-fourth session, the debate is

taking a new turn. You, Madam President, and others who

have followed you, have set a keynote for a session of

self-criticism, for deep soul-searching into the extent of our

accomplishments and the dimensions of our influence. Our

small minute of meditation is expanding into weeks of

debate on this theme and this is good. It is completely in

harmony with the series of self-appraisal dominating our

various organs, committees and commissions, on the eve of

the twenty-fifth anniversary of the founding of the United

Nations, which will take place next year. It could be a hope

that this invaluable forum will move away from monotonous

reaffirmations of frozen positions to an institution of

creative and constructive ideas or, preferably, reconstructive

policies, that the cancer of this stale confrontation

will yield to the spirit of compromise and consensus.

5. At this point, however, it seems to my delegation that

we must arrive at a clear understanding of what this

criticism is all about. Is it the purgative of genuine

self-criticism, a scrutinizing examination of our policies

with respect to the world Organization? Or is it, as we

seem to detect, a general onslaught on the United Nations,

its noble aims, its unfolding ideology, its substantial

inventory of fundamental principles which it tenaciously

upholds against abuse and violation of its Charter, its

tireless quest for that peace which has been the goal of all

mankind throughout the centuries?

6. Let us make sure that what was intended to de a call for

a constructive critique in the interest of an improved

Organization is not turned into a campaign of rancid

cynicism, into a dyspepsia of studied disrespect, into an

orgy of pessimism. I think we all recognize that campaign

of ridicule as the familiar device of those whose misguided

policies find themselves in conflict with the Charter, with

the resolutions of the General Assembly and with the

decisions of the Security Council. There is such a campaign

and it sometimes takes on a more subtle view: those who

undermine its authority while tearfully deploring its alleged

impotence damn the Organization with faint praise. Others,

sometimes with good intentions, designate themselves

“defence counsel” in justification of the life of the world

Organization.

7. As far as the delegation of Afghanistan is concerned, we

shall not stand on this. rostrum in any posture of apologia

for the second great experiment in modern times to save

mankind from the great plunge it has taken towards

extinction in. the cataclysms of two global confrontations.

8. Today, in the era of final weapons, we note that the

third plunge will bring about the total eclipse of man on

this planet; and we note that if we have so far avoided this

great tragedy the credit is largely due to the United

Nations, where words of warning and words of reason

somehow broke through the thick fog of blind fear that

gripped the world following the explosion of the first

atomic bomb. Therefore, my delegation, in unashamed

reversal of Shakespeare’s famous line, “I come to bury

Caesar, not to praise him”, must say that we come to praise

the United Nations, not to bury it. For us the function of

our criticism must be the betterment of the Organization

and the first prerequisite for making an institution better is

to see its essential good.

9. Against this background we cannot close our eyes to

the fact that recently the. United Nations has sustained a

considerable loss of prestige in the eyes of world public

opinion. We cannot ignore the obvious diminution of

confidence in many parts of the world in the effectiveness

of the Organization. It is reflected in the petitions, in the

organs of popular expression and in the mass media. It has

slowly corroded some of the most vital projects of the

Organization; it is largely responsible for the mediocre

results of the First United Nations Development Decade.

Public indifference has created an atmosphere favourable to

Governments that defy the Organization with impunity.

10. In our frenzied preoccupation with projects and with

resolutions, we may be prone to forget that we do not

dispose of the power of legislation or the arm of enforcement.

Our decisions are, as is tirelessly pointed out,

recommendations whose enforcement potential lies entirely

in the moral weight they carry with popular support, and

the degree of general faith in the efficacy of the United

Nations. Lacking that support, we have a faith without

followers — a creed without disciples — in short, a United

Nations as remote as the moon, and far less exciting.

11. This poses a serious problem for our future work. We

are engaged in very important long-range projects, with

items ranging from the sea-bed to outer space, from the

classroom to national plans, from human rights to the rights

and duties of States. But most important of all is the global

strategy of the Second United Nations Development

Decade, involving the destinies of two-thirds to three-quarters

of the world’s population in the underprivileged

nations; and we are seeking to go even beyond that, into

longer perspectives, on the basis of the twenty-fifth

anniversary. Yet at this stage of our work, when we shall

need the full thrust of popular opinion to lift us into a

viable orbit of accomplishments, we find that support at its

lowest ebb. Is it not the most perverse of paradoxes that

the most consummate programme for man enjoys so little

of his enthusiasm and his confidence? How has this come about?

12. It is the view of my delegation that either we find the

answer to this problem or we shall move blithely ahead

with more plans and more resolutions, in tiresome restatements

of the repetitious resolutions of previous years.

13. One popular explanation is that we are going through

a period of reversion to nationalism: that people, turtle-like,

have put out their necks, looked at the big, wide

world, and then have drawn back into their nationalistic

shells, with a kind of ostrich blindness to pre-world

isolationism. But while true to a degree, that theory does

not square with the world we see around us. Never was

there so little of the old symptoms of nationalism, the spirit

of chauvinism and flag-waving; never was there so much

preoccupation of peoples with peoples, never so much of

the world-view of things. The youth who at the turn of the

century demonstrated for flag and country today riots for

the principles of universal peace and social justice.

14. No, this is definitely not a world of turtles and

ostriches, but the world of man — man caught in the spokes

of forward-moving forces — man on the move, but certainly

not in a reversion to the past. From all we hear and see

about us it is man in a conversion to the future. In this

orbit he is neither a nationalist nor an internationalist.

Perhaps he is basically the eternal explorer, seeking a sense

of direction out of his dilemma; and if he has lost his

contact with the United Nations, the supreme radar of that

direction, it is because he is propelled by forces with a

speed which gives our past the illusion of standing still.

15. It has also been said that we have lost the man of

today because we have lost contact with reality, that we

have adopted phantom resolutions whose words vanish like

ghosts with the first ray of morn, that we have adopted

decisions without regard to the voice of minority opposition,

or to the prospects of their being implemented.

16. It is true, of course, that many resolutions remain

unimplemented. But to blame the laws because they are not

observed puts the problem upside down. The concept that

the consensus of the majority must yield to the will of the

minority poses a new kind of veto — a voluntary subordination,

a tribute to power, without the responsibility of the

veto under the Charter. Resolutions that are by-passed and

defied are not necessarily adopted in vain; they carry with

them a stubborn moral content of their own, with a

penetrating force that begets implementation by somebody

along the corridors of time. It is not the resolutions that

alienate people from our influence, but our failure to

implement them, to make them come to life, to give them

the flesh of reality; it is our supine surrender to those who

ignore them that has created the confidence gap regarding

our Organization. If we fail to close this gap between

decisions and action we shall certainly not close that other

gap between the rich and the poor nations.

17. It would appear that in recent years this Organization

with its record membership, its vast agenda, born not out of

a misguided spasm for resolutions, but under the pressure

of a changing world, moving too fast for the “haves” and

too slowly for the “have nots“, has generally become

divided into two schools of thought. Those who enjoy the

monopoly of power — economic and military, psychologically

and logically — constitute a phalanx of gradualism.

The others make up the camp of the “forward-march”.

Government policies in the United Nations appear to be

shaping up along the lines of this division.

18. But for the hundreds of millions of impoverished in

Latin America, in racist-bound Africa, in war-ridden Asia,

and even for many people in the wealthier nations, the pace

of gradualism appears to be no longer acceptable. Impatience

is the pulse-beat of the day, and the so-called

revolution of rising expectations has moved far beyond

mere expectations to urgent demands, yes, sometimes even

reached for the impossible; and is the impossible so remote

when hundreds of millions have seen with their own eyes

the landing of men on the moon—and soon, we are told, on

Mars or Venus?

19. For the past two years we have witnessed an enormous

acceleration of the world revolution rotating into the

future. We have seen the rise of youth as a new political

force, with its own new rhythm of accomplishments,

clamouring for action where previous generations have

marked time. Everywhere new and old societies are seething

cauldrons of threatening violence in more insistent demands

for social justice.

20. This may well be a warning to us that if we do not

enforce the decisions of our own making somebody else

will — and it will not. be with the peaceful transition we

envisage. If we stand still, as so many of our frozen

resolutions testify, it is obvious that the world does not.

Not only the people on the streets, but also the scientists in

their laboratories have stepped up their tempo in the

elaboration and production of new weapons, so that the

snail-pace progress made in disarmament is wiped out by

the new weapons, just as in developing economies inches of

progress are erased by the population explosion.

21. Thus if we establish a true ratio between gradual

progress and the big leap of current events, we shall see that

gradualism means standing still, and standing still means, in

fact moving backwards.

22. We hear many views on what the United Nations

might be, a forum, a mere diplomatic mart or the builder of

nations and their future well-being. But I think that we can

all agree that the one thing the United Nations, of all

institutions in the world, can never be, is what is

contemptuously called in our new world “The Establishment”.

The United Nations can never be the “Old Generation”. Its

Charter functions, based upon principles of a new and

better world, give it a force and built-in leadership of the

new world which no Government, however benign or

liberal, can rival. I am afraid that the United Nations is

doomed to the role of either “Perpetual Youth” or

“Gradual Eclipse”.

23. This poses a problem for an organization whose centre

of power at its founding was the older generations. Youth

was then largely in military uniform. Since then what we

call public opinion has undergone mental and psychological

changes. I am not sure that we have established a line of

contact with these new forces. In the area of human

thinking also, science and technology have made valuable

strides. Therefore it may well be that the new psychological

forces could become one more item on the agenda of our

Advisory Committee on the Application of Science and

Technology to Development, recalling the famous UNESCO

dictum that wars and peace begin in the minds of men. In

the meantime we may safely assume that our “peoples gap”

problem is chiefly the problem of non-implemented resolutions.

While in our vast agenda we are about to add over

one hundred more resolutions to the archives of the past, it

might be useful to establish a small group or committee on

the presidential level to concern itself with the problems

and possibilities of increased implementation. Such a group

might approximate the “wise men” formula utilized in

other international circles.

24. We are gravely concerned with certain retrogressive

tendencies in world political developments in the past year,

which not only by-pass the Charter but promulgate policies

in direct contravention of the most basic principles of our

Organization.

25. In recent months we have heard the enunciation of the

right to the military conquest of territory and to the right

of annexation of foreign lands. We have even heard a big

Power, a permanent member of the Security Council, a

major custodian of the Charter and a praetorian guardian of

the peace, accord that right to a belligerent nation,

generously at the expense of the territory of other Member

States — a right which, incidentally, this big Power has

repeatedly renounced for itself.

26. There is no need for me to discuss the juridical aspect

of conquest by force of arms; the truth here is self-evident.

All I wish to say on behalf of my delegation is that if this

throwback to the dark ages is permitted an inch of

compromise, then we shall plunge the world back into the

days of Genghis Khan whose footprints are still on the soil

of my country; then no nation represented in this hall will

be safe from the ancient greed of the wars of conquest. This

Assembly should administer an unmistakable and decisive

rebuff to such policies.

27. The past year has also seen new and more extensive

violations of human rights in the colonies, in occupied

lands, in war-ridden lands and other lands. It is here that

the United Nations, in its failure to go beyond the

enunciation of general principles, has sustained an immeasurable

loss of prestige. Accordingly, my delegation will

support the creation of a United Nations High Commissioner

for Human Rights as a first step in the future

development of an international enforcement structure.

28. We are also concerned over the rise of a new type of

war. As in the case of war for territorial conquest, we

thought that religious wars — the most dangerous, the most

fanatical and the most intransigent of all wars — were a part

of a long buried past never to return. But now it appears

that we are about to suffer a serious relapse into history.

Claims to the Old City of Jerusalem have been made on a

basis of biblical law and quasi-religious narratives. On 3 July

1969 I appeared before the Security Council [1485th

meeting] on behalf of my Government, along with representatives

of other delegations, in the Council’s deliberations

on the occupation of Jerusalem. I raised the warning

that the claims made to Jerusalem on so-called religious

grounds, apart from any other aspects of the issue,

dangerously opened up the flood gates for a reversion to

religious war. I stated that if such a war took place, Israel

would be responsible.

29. On 20 August 1969 the world heard with dismay and

grief of the burning of the sacred Al Aqsa Mosque, one of

the holiest of shrines to the Islamic peoples in all lands and

a historic landmark to all religions and all faiths. This tragic

occurrence ignited the hearts of Islamic peoples everywhere.

30. My point here is to draw some lesson from this

unhappy development for the future peace and security of

the world. Religious claims are one category of war into

which the United Nations must not allow itself to be

dragged as an arbiter — and for a very sound reason. Even in

political and ideological tensions the world Organization

has its. obvious limitations and, within them, has achieved

much in the prevention of conflict and in halting its spread.

It has been able to exercise a restraining influence over

Governments. But wars involving the most precious convictions

of man run beyond the control of governments and

become the crusades of peoples on the highest level of

reckless emotions; and this kind of war may not be

amenable to the usual United Nations restraints. The

United Nations must nip in the bud any attempt to revive

this kind of war by eliminating its causes.

31. We are always concerned about the concepts of

security. In this area the winds of war, like hurricanes, shift

their direction. The centre of gravity of war now appears to

have shifted from Europe to Asia, but with different problems.

32. In Europe the conflict was one involving power and

hegemony, and at times colonization. In Asia the causes

and roots of the conflict are more economic than political.

Ours is primarily the problem of under-development in the

lands where people are hungry and poor and restlessly

striving for a slight improvement in their meagre livelihood.

In this situation there is little margin for an extravagant

division into military blocs, even for purposes of security,

and their inevitable arsenal of armaments. Here, the

strategic approach constitutes absolutely the wrong basis

for the economic development which the countries of the

region so desperately need.

33. Here, where seemingly, the fate of war and peace is to

be decided in the future, and is already being fought out in

what was once called the Indo-China sector, where tensions

simmer between Pakistan and India, between China and the

Soviet Union, between China and India, between Pakistan

and Pakhtunistan, it is essential to ponder the political

structure most conducive to the economic and social

development of an entire hemisphere.

34. In such a structure we consider that foreign intervention

is fraught with the greatest danger of setting off a new

power struggle. Here, unlike in Europe, the ruling principle

of peace must begin with the principle of self-determination

of peoples as the major point of orientation. On the basis of

these axioms — accepted as United Nations truths — perhaps

the entire continent may embark on a constructive era of

economic rehabilitation and development only on the

broad base of an all-Asian formulation as the alternative to

the rivalry of blocs and rival groupings.

35. In this pattern we may be able to implement what our

Secretary-General, U Thant, calls a disarmament decade.

Rightly and financially it is inseparable from the decade of

economic development; the two are as complementary as

the right arm is to the left. In the same way the two are

inseparable from continental collective systems which,

unlike strategic blocs, have no need for excessive armaments.

We hope that Member States may begin to think in

terms of this triptych for a new concept of inter-relationship

between economic development, disarmament and security.

36. However, it must be emphasized that as long as the

political crises and wars and disputes continue to plague

relations between nations in any region or continent, to

speak of peace and progress or collective understanding for

any purpose, in any form, will remain far from realistic.

37. Speaking for my country, I am happy to state that our

own relations are friendly with our neighbours, with all

countries on our continent, and indeed on all other

continents. It is with great regret that I have to mention

one excepticn.

38. At the last session of the General Assembly I spoke of

the serious situations of international concern affecting the

people of the Asian continent [1690th meeting]. I expressed

the hope that a peaceful settlement of the disputes

would be found in an amicable solution of the problems

causing them. We are still deeply concerned about those

situations in which Afghanistan is not directly involved; but

we are directly involved in the high tension between the

people of Pakhtunistan and the Government of Pakistan,

fraught as it is with danger for the future peace and security

of that region.

39. The cause of the people of Pakhtunistan is a legitimate

and just cause based on the right of peoples to self-

determination and the fulfilment of the aspirations of

peoples to determine their own fate and future. This is a

cause that, as Members know, Afghanistan has supported

for all peoples everywhere, and naturally we cannot do less

for a territory that was a part of our country, usurped by a

colonial Power, and a people that is our own people.

40. Pakhtunistan is not a small problem. It involves the

legitimate aspirations of more than 7 million people. It is

the largest territory in Asia demanding the right of

self-determination. it is a serious and explosive problem,

fraught with the possibility of grave consequences. Since

this problem is not yet before the United Nations, I shall

once again express the hope that the new Government of

Pakistan, fully aware of the aspirations of these people and

having realized the gravity of the situation, will not add to

our disappointment as in the past by refusing to deal with it

in accordance with the accepted international standards

regulating such disputes, on the basis of the undeniable

right of peoples to self-determination.

41. This Assembly session offers us an opportunity of

facing new problems, the new forces, the new trends in our

swiftly evolving world. They are many and complex. They

include ourselves. They must be our profound preoccupation

as a prelude to the next session, when we shall embark

on a programme of celebrating our great anniversary and

landmark. Basically, it all comes to a renaissance of the

great faith the founding nations enunciated in San

Francisco. We must restore faith in our people, faith in

ourselves and a rededication to the Charter which has

already done so much to alter the concepts and perspectives

of modern man. We must close this gap between ourselves

and this new man. We must regain our partnership with him

in the great epic of our times: the renaissance of the human race.