Algeria, 1969

207. The numerous and complex questions which we

ate called upon to consider at this twenty-fourth session

provide so many reasons for concern and anguish that I

take the liberty of beginning on a happier note by

conveying my heartiest congratulations to the President on

her brilliant election. There is no African who has not felt

proud and gratified at seeing his continent thus honoured in

the person of this daughter of the new and emancipated

Africa, marching towards progress and unity. Knowing as I

do her great qualities and her vast experience, I am not sure

whether I should rather congratulate her or pay a tribute to

the wisdom of my colleagues who have unanimously

entrusted to her the heavy responsibility of presiding over

our labours. Thanks to her wisdom and patience, I am

certain that she will discharge this noble task in full.

208. As this year draws to a close, the international

situation should incite us to make every effort to

circumscribe the conflicts which are rending asunder the

community of man and to find a way out of the contradictions

paralysing our Organization. In this same year in which man

has affirmed his mastery over his own planet and set out

with magnificent energy to conquer others, wars are still

consuming our world and causing grief, suffering and ruin.

209. Labouring under a strange curse, we seem to be

condemned to reach at one and the same time the peaks of

technology and science and the depths of selfishness and

barbarism. Man in this second half of the twentieth century

is so made that he masters his environment much better

than his own desires and emotions. He has more pity to

spare for animals in distress on the polar cap than for his

fellow men being exterminated in the rice paddies of Asia

or the jungles of Africa. How long and how far will

mankind march in this state of absurdity and indifference?

210. The values which, throughout history, have enabled

the human genius to develop have less and less weight in

modern society where, with every day that passes, the great

are increasingly separated from the small, and the rich from

the poor. The sufferings of the past, the ruin and genocide

of yesterday, have not put an end to the thirst for conquest

and hegemony engendered by material power.

211. The year that is now drawing to a close has not

brought a respite to the small countries. In South-East Asia,

the Middle East and Africa colonialism and imperialism

have redoubled in aggressiveness, proliferating shams and

lies in order to deny the weaker peoples their natural right

to freedom and progress.

212. On the eve of the celebration of the twenty-fifth

anniversary of the proclamation of the Charter of the

United Nations, the international community should not

blind itself to the fact that the principles it solemnly

affirmed are now seriously threatened and that it is facing a

very grave problem: world hegemony finding its most

brutal expression in the less developed continents. That

global hegemony is a challenge both to peoples still under

colonial rule and to progressive societies, which have no

recourse but armed struggle. That opposition of imperialism,

in particular American imperialism, to liberating

ideologies and revolutionary movements is the source of the

present tragic situation with its great dangers for

international peace and security.

213. While we continue our desperate search for solutions

to the conflicts rending the world, new clouds are gathering

and announcing even more sombre morrows. Hotbeds of

war are threatening to spread. Tension and the cold-war

atmosphere are reappearing among the great Powers,

particularly in Europe. The resultant sense of insecurity

leads inevitably to a new arms race, multiplying ad

infinitum the production of missiles and of anti-missile

missiles, and thus increasing existing arsenals. Can this

enormous waste of resources, immeasurably accelerated by

competition, bring any promise of peace?

214. Thus we witness with concern an ever-widening gap

between the principles which men affirm by their actions.

Men speak of peace and negotiations in Viet-Nam, but

multiply military operations and strengthen the murderous

hand of the Saigon regime. Men speak of peace and justice

in the Middle East but continue to arm the Zionist

aggressor and encourage him to treat the despoiled Arab

peoples with greater intransigence and cruelty. Men speak

of peace and aid to development for the third world but

continue to apply to it the brazen law of colonialism,

exploiting its natural wealth and the fruits of its labour.

215. In order to escape from this vicious circle we should

need an organization of unquestionable authority, enjoying

the trust and co-operation of all States. At first our

Organization should have played that part. But we are

compelled to recognize today that it can no longer compel

respect for the Charter or fulfil its mandate. Deprived of

the means of dissuasion and intervention necessary for any

effective action, it sees its decisions systematically ignored

and its authority flouted.

216. Though the great Powers are still far from renouncing

their greed or resolving their own contradictions, they have

been raised by force of circumstances to be guarantors of

order and of something like peace. Concerned, and rightly

so, to avoid a nuclear confrontation which could well

destroy them, they nevertheless tolerate limited conflicts

which bring fire and sword to the nations of the third world.

217. The international community must unhesitatingly

reject that concept of peace by which the nuclear threat is

to be banished only at the cost of endless wars in various

countries of the third world. Apart from its dangers, this

concept of peace is fallacious. It can provide only a false

calm amongst the great Powers which foster and foment

these localized conflicts. So tight is the solidarity of the

various countries in today’s world that, although often

contradictory, their diverse interests are none the less

closely interdependent.

218. It is therefore obvious that the destiny of mankind

cannot be settled privately between the great Powers. The

people who suffer in their flesh the consequences of

international tensions must be among the chief architects of peace.

219. That peace cannot be conceived in terms of a status

quo more or less closely linked to ideological or strategic

considerations. It must be a just and living peace,

compatible with the current of history and with the aspirations

of the peoples to freedom and progress. It cannot result

from a fortuitous balance of the interests of great Powers

dividing the world into spheres of influence. In other

words, to establish a true peace the tasks of the

international community must be redefined in the light not only

of the prerogatives of the great Powers, but also of the

hitherto ignored aspirations of the peoples.

220. While none denies that the road to a just and durable

peace lies through a reduction of armaments, we feel that it

would not be enough to make an agreement between the

nuclear Powers the absolute condition of peace. We have

already pointed out in this very forum the essential

incompleteness of nuclear disarmament in a world where

conventional weapons have been in continuous use for over

30 years. That type of disarmament must be the work of

those who variously encourage colonial adventures and

expansionist enterprises.

221. A just peace cannot be made within a framework of

aggression, domination, discrimination of all sorts, negation

of the right of peoples to settle their own affairs, or denial

of the principles of sovereignty, independence and

territorial integrity.

222. The. rejection of a bipolar political system for the

world has aroused in the countries of the third world a will

to organize for dynamic participation in the maintenance of

the international balance. Non-alignment can be regarded as

one of the essential conditions of that quest, even though in

our view it must not consist in the uniform application of a

now disputed political pattern to an international situation

which has undergone tremendous changes.

223. That situation, marked by a peaceful coexistence

strictly limited to the great Powers, creates more tensions

for the small countries, compromising both their own

existence and the international balance. Hence our attitude,

if it is truly inspired by these considerations, should not be

confused with a base opportunism or with a comfortable

neutrality which would make us utterly indifferent to

anything that might affect, directly or indirectly, the

interests of the third world.

224. Nothing that affects Viet-Nam, Palestine, South

Africa, Rhodesia, Namibia, Guinea (Bissau), Angola or

Mozambique can be squared with this position. That would

amount in the end to an abdication of responsibility and an

acceptance of a fait accompli resulting from the balance of

the strategic, military and economic interests of the great Powers.

225. For over 20 years the Middle East has been ravaged

by a conflict which is deliberately not being traced to its

origins. But no amount of rhetoric can conceal the facts of

history. Once more a Western Power, the United Kingdom,

colonized Palestine. That same Power has acted as the

metropolis of world Zionism, prepared the ground for a

totalitarian take-over, and deprived a people of its right of

self-determination. An occupied territory, a dispossessed

people chased from their homeland: that is the problem of

the Middle East, meaning the Palestine question, The chief

purpose of implanting a European colony in Palestine by

force and terror was to create in the region a rallying-point

for a colonialism at bay, occupy a strategic position in the

Mediterranean basin at the crossroads of three continents,

control their natural wealth and strike at the liberation

movement of the Arab peoples. That is the task assigned to

the Zionist occupation and the Sixth Fleet.

226. Twenty years have passed, but justice has still not

been done to the Palestinian people. Today, weary of

hollow words and legal myths, the Palestinian people is

coming out of its political ghetto to take its destiny into its

own hands. By its irruption on to the international stage it

joins in the courageous struggle of colonial peoples and of

progressive members of the third world, of which it is an

integral part. Algeria, always present where freedom and

progress meet, brings its total and unconditional support,

both material and political, to this struggle which will

brook no compromise on the path to liberation.

227. We must consider the Middle East conflict in terms

of Palestine. The 1967 aggression against the Arab countries

and those which have followed it have been aimed not only

at giving Israel a comfortable negotiating position but also

at thwarting the economic development of the countries of

the region. Though the closure of the Suez Canal deprives

the United Arab Republic of considerable resources for its

development, the imperialist Powers do not seem to be in

any a hurry to reopen this important means of communication.

The pre-1967 stagnation of their merchant shipping

has since given way to a feverish activity for which they had

no longer dared to hope. As a result, the new trade routes

are at present passing round South Africa, so that the

Pretoria racists along with their imperialist allies are the

main beneficiaries of the situation imposed on the

Afro-Asian victims of aggression.

228. The consequences of the Israeli aggression of 1967

and the continued occupation of Arab territories call for a

serious re-examination of the situation, not only by the

imperialist Powers, which have just awarded an additional

prize to the aggressor in the form of the most modern

weapons, but also — and above all — by those smaller

countries which would like to limit themselves to the illusory

role of the non-involved.

229. In this respect the fire in the Al Aqsa Mosque and its

repercussions, particularly in the Moslem world, have given

the Middle East problem a new dimension, The recent

Islamic Summit Conference at Rabat® should awaken all

those who support Israel to the risks which might arise

from their actions.

230. Whereas before 1967 the Middle East problem was

essentially to restore the Palestinian people’s legitimate

rights, since the Israeli aggression it has been broadened by

occupation of the territories of Arab Members of the

United Nations. This process seems to have been started

already by American imperialism when it extended the

front of aggression by the mass bombing of the Democratic

Republic of Viet-Nam.

231. The territories occupied in 1967 are now tending to

become the actual subject of negotiation. This approach is

aimed at legitimizing the aggression of 1947 which resulted

in the creation of Israel and at burying the Palestine

problem by giving it a merely human value.

232. If the occupied Arab countries are able, sovereign

and unaided, to adopt what they consider the best and

most appropriate means of freeing their national territories,

then restoration to the Palestinian people of its lawful

rights is a problem exclusively for themselves.

233. The struggle for national liberation in which the

Palestinian people is engaged is in the noble tradition of

peoples who have decided to fight for freedom and dignity;

and Algeria, which has always identified itself with all just

causes in the world, sees itself clearly reflected in the heroic

Struggle of its sister nation.

234. In the year which has just passed the Palestinian

fighters have increased their efforts. The world now

recognizes their existence and regards them as the true

representatives and spokesmen of their people. They are

working to create a Palestinian society within safe and

recognized frontiers of eternal Palestine, a democratic and

secular State in which all citizens, without distinction of

race or religion, may forget their hatreds and rancours and

live collectively and individually, equal in rights and duties,

as a symbol of harmony and peace in this country which

has cradled ancient civilizations.

235. In Viet-Nam a resistance unprecedented in history

has finally brought the aggressor to the negotiating table.

However, the interminable talks in Paris seem more and

more to disappoint the hopes. aroused in the world for a

speedy and peaceful settlement. The aggression is being

multiplied and is becoming increasingly bitter, sowing ruin

and desolation everywhere. The law of the strongest has

never been so prevalent, and one wonders what glory can be

lawfully gained by exterminating the people of Viet-Nam.

236. This mad enterprise gives the impression that the

United States is willingly playing the game of those who in

Saigon and elsewhere have as their only motive the profits

they derive from operating an enormous war machine.

237. The Viet-Nam affair highlights the failure of the

Asian policy of the United States and demonstrates the

futility of force as a means of making peoples adopt alien

ideologies. To be sure, peace is slow in coming and the

responsibility for the continuation of the war falls squarely

on the aggressors, who are now trying to seize through

negotiation what neither their vast army nor their “special

warfare” could gain on the field of battle. Against this

proud and invincible people, unshakable in their will to

freedom, the interventionist policy of the United States

must cease. It will cease on the day when the aggressor

recognizes unreservedly the right of the people of Viet-Nam

to live in independence, as well as its sovereignty, its unity

and the integrity of its national territory. It will cease on

the day when the aggressor withdraws all its troops from

South Viet-Nam and leaves the people of Viet-Nam to settle

their affairs by themselves without interference or outside

pressure of any kind.

238. It is vain to count on a supposed weariness of peoples

to turn back their inexorable march towards freedom,

peace and progress. The people of Viet-Nam certainly has

enough strength to defeat the aggressor and build an

independent, unified, democratic, peaceful and prosperous

Viet-Nam. The programme of the National Liberation

Front and the Provisional Revolutionary Government of

South Viet-Nam remains the solid basis of a negotiated

settlement.

239. I shall not tell you of the long and painful road

which has led our continent to emancipation and to the

affirmation of its personality, which was recently revealed

in all its splendour at the First Pan-African Cultural

Festival, which my country had the honour of welcoming

and where African civilization astounded the world by its

wealth and vitality.

240. Yet the Africa whose joy in its own rediscovery

shone under the sun of Algiers was a wounded Africa, a

dismembered continent, still a bleeding prey locked in the

dying throes of colonialism.

241. Our Organization has been during the last decade a

helpless spectator of this unequal struggle against the forces

of exploitation and oppression. Indeed, I feel somewhat

embarrassed at speaking of the problems of southern Africa

after the brilliant statement which the President of the

Federal Republic of Cameroon made in this Assembly

[1780th meeting] on behalf of the Organization of African

Unity when he presented the Manifesto on Southern

Africa. But how can we refrain from denouncing the

intolerable sustained indifference of the human conscience

to the liberation movements which still struggle against

colonialism? Still less can we conceive how countries

calling themselves democratic can continue to give such an

anachronism financial and military support. These countries,

which still reject the verdict of history and infringe

this Assembly’s decisions, shoulder a heavy responsibility

before Africa and the world. It is no coincidence that they

are also evading their duty as trustees towards the people of

Zimbabwe, whom they have delivered tied hand and foot to

the regime of Jan Smith. Although the international action

promptly recommended against the Salisbury racists has

not been taken; although the condemnations and ultimatums

of the Security Council have remained dead letters

and the economic sanctions, as is now clear, have failed, the

United Kingdom is still bound first and foremost, as it

always has been, to enable the people of Zimbabwe to

accede to all their national rights.

242. Against the Pretoria regime, whose refusal to evacuate

Namibia we have already recorded, it is high time that

the United Nations took vigorous action, particularly as any

illusion about the possibility of an agreement has been

definitely dispelled. The failure of past efforts should make

the United Nations resolve to take all the steps called for

both by the fate of Namibia, for which our Organization is

responsible before the bar of history, and by the policy of

apartheid. The good faith and good conscience of the

countries maintaining profitable but tainted relations with

Pretoria will, here too, be the test of our Organization’s

capacity for action.

243. In any event the subjugated peoples of southern

Africa are determined to be free, counting first of all on

themselves and on the solidarity of their continent.

244. Africa, emerging bruised from the colonial yoke,

knows that it is still a temptation for all kinds of

adventurers. It is also rightly concerned with that other

tragedy which is tearing Nigeria apart, to the profit only of

those who covet the riches of that great country. The

fratricidal conflict which we are witnessing in that part of

our continent is painful enough because of the human

dramas to which it has given rise. But the real issues require

all African States to rise against secessionist ventures and

safeguard their territorial integrity; otherwise the

independence and unity of Africa will be jeopardized anew.

245. The solution of development problems and the

building of the countries of the third world are one of the

major tasks of our Organization, to which it is devoting a

large part of its resources. The development of institutional

structures in the United Nations, directed towards

specialization of tasks according to study and evaluation of the

needs of economic growth, has not been followed by a

concomitant increase in the necessary funds.

246. There is no doubt that the prime responsibility for

the development of the third world lies with the countries

directly concerned. They are fully aware of this, for they

are devoting four fifths of their internal resources to this

task. At the same time their sacrifices, however great, will

be fruitless unless those who have the necessary means and

resources also take world-wide action to modify an

international situation not designed to favour the development

of our economies.

247. The very idea of instituting a Development Decade in

which national efforts would come first cannot be

conceived unless the developed countries apply consequential

and simultaneous measures to sustain the action of the

developing. This is indeed the very essence of the

development strategy, which should be conceived as a global plan

of action, a perfectly co-ordinated pattern of measures.

248. It was precisely that over all approach that enabled

the Group of 77 to propose to the international community,

in the Charter of Algiers, the essential elements for

genuine international co-operation. There has been no

response yet to our programme of action. The preparations

for the execution of such a programme have not got

beyond the stage of an academic exercise; and the Trade

and Development Board was recently unable to make the

essential contribution which UNCTAD is expected to make.

249. We are fully aware that international co-operation

will not come from pathetic appeals to the virtues of heart

and mind, nor from a sudden desire to respect the

principles of the Charter, but only from a long process in

which the third world countries free themselves from

foreign domination by their national and regional efforts

and reach a position from which they can negotiate.

250. Thus we shall play our due part in hastening the

advent of an era of genuine international co-operation; at

the same time we shall have created in and around our

countries the basis of a durable peace for the greatest good

of our peoples and of mankind. Those are the motives of

the regional and international policy of Algeria.

251. The agreements and treaties of friendship, of

good-neighbourly relations and co-operation which have during

this year set the seal on our links with our brothers in the

Maghreb are further tokens of my country’s adherence to

the fundamental principles of the Charter, and we regard

them as a contribution to the peace and prosperity of

nations, Harmonious relations among the Maghreb countries

are an important element of peace in the Mediterranean;

and to that end Algeria will work unceasingly to

eliminate all factors of tension, actively favouring every

form of co-operation among the coastal countries that is

compatible with its freedom of choice and its

uncompromising idea of national independence.

252. Of course, the United Nations is merely the reflexion

of the preoccupations of its creators in a given international

context. It can be improved if its Members agree to work

sincerely to adapt it to the realities of this world. It would

certainly be surprising if a world divided by antagonisms

and opposing interests were suddenly to find itself firmly

united and harmonious in this chamber. The gaps in

development are too great, the political and ideological

cleavages too deep, and the animosities too keen to permit

such a miracle. The numerous anomalies and flagrant

defects expose the gravity of the illness which afflicts our

Organization and may one day destroy it.

253. Is there indeed a more scandalous anomaly than the

occupation of South Korea for the last 20 years by foreign

troops, in particular United States troops, under the United

Nations flag? Thus our Organization is illegally associated

with an enterprise designed to perpetuate the territorial

division of the Korean nation. The withdrawal of foreign

troops from South Korea and the dissolution of the

so-called United Nations Commission for the Unification

and Rehabilitation of Korea are the essential conditions for

enabling the Korean people as a whole to solve a question

which pertains to its sovereignty.

254. Is there a more scandalous anomaly than that which

denies the representatives of the great Chinese people the

right to take their lawful place among us? Is the Organization

so paralysed that it cannot give effect to the need for

universality, simply because of the obstinacy of one State

which still refuses to admit the full reality of the Chinese nation?

255. In opening this session [1753rd meeting] the President

spoke of the need to make this Organization more

dynamic and readier to act on its decisions. The great

danger threatening it and condemning it to sterility lies, in

our view, in its inability to grasp the essential facts of a

world in motion. The reality of the People’s Republic of

China is irreversible and does not need to be affirmed by a

seat in the United Nations, though China is fully entitled to

one. The United Nations is bound to build a stable, pacific

and coherent world, and must therefore do what is needed

to enlist the aid of that great country, which has a special

part to play in any world-wide undertaking.

256. It is high time our Organization gave all the peoples

that renewed hope and confidence without which nothing

durable can be built. In this great space age, which is

making us aware of the full though limited dimensions of

our own planet and of the vanity of some of our

undertakings, it is high time we regained our solidarity and

our common destiny within the universe. It is high time we

asked ourselves about the ultimate. purpose of man. It is

precisely here that our Organization’s universal vocation

must be unequivocally affirmed; this is the crucible in

which, in an all-embracing fraternity, the great aspirations

and dreams of mankind must be fulfilled.

257. Speaking as I am for a courageous people that has

suffered greatly from war and is therefore deeply dedicated

to peace, for a hard-working people determined to build a

new society, I have no need to assure you again that for

Algeria adherence to the spirit of the Charter of the United

Nations is a cardinal principle and an irrevocable commitment,

since it is rooted in the great ideals for which my

country has sacrificed and fought and for which it will

continue unceasingly to work.