Botswana, 1982

The task of congratulating the President on his

election to guide this thirty-seventh session of

the General Assembly and Mr. Perez deCuellar on

his appointment as Secretary- General is for me a

pleasant one. One is never at a loss for words

when praising famous men. With his appointment as

the fifth Secretary-General, Mr. Perez de Cuellar

joins a procession of illustrious predecessors,

each of whom has left a distinctive imprint on

some page of international history. The first was

Trygve Lie, a direct-speaking, if sometimes

emotional, man, whose objective was, through his

commitment to peace, to give credibility to the

United Nations. The second was Dag Hammarslqold,

a man who worked hard to build on the fundamental

principles of the United Nations, a peace-maker

who saw his position of Secretary-General as

providing him with a mandate for seeking and

restoring peace and who lived and died in that

cause. The third was U Thant, a blunt,

straightforward and outspoken individual, .a man

of proven negotiating ability; the fourth was

Kurt Waldheim, a professional and careful

diplomat. We salute them all. The present

Secretary- General joins this line of succession

in the face of many problems and difficulties,

which he has already identified as conflicts

between national aims and Charter goals... resort

to confrontation, violence and even war in

pursuit of what are perceived as vital interests,

claims or aspirations" . We are confident that

with his characteristic caution, his mature

intelligence and his wealth of diplomatic

experience he too stands ready to inscribe his

name on the roll of honor. I can assure him that

my country, Botswana, will heed his appeal to all

Governments for their conscious recommitment to

the j purposes and principles of the Charter. We

pledge our support for the continued search for

solutions to the different problems facing the

United Nations and the world.

334. The role of the President of the General

Assembly is no less challenging, onerous or

noble. We are equally confident that Mr. Hollai

will hold aloft the honor of his great country.

335. We are not so presumptuous as to think we

have the capacity or, indeed, the capability of

commenting on every item on the agenda of the

Assembly. We shall therefore confine our remarks

to a few only.

336. The scenario of international economic

development co-operation remains bleak. There

has been a further deterioration, especially

since 1981, in the international economic

environment. As we are all aware, the economic

problems of developed countries are being

transmitted to developing countries through a

variety channels, and vice versa. The development

crisis has deepened throughout the world, and the

development process has come to a virtual

standstill in many countries. The dynamism of

international trade, particularly in products of

special importance to developing countries, is

no longer assured as a mechanism for growth. The

shrinkage in the real flow of external resources

and development assistance has considerably

jeopardized the growth prospects and

opportunities in many developing countries. The

spirit of international co-operation has suffered

greatly.

337. In these circumstances, the current world

economic crisis can no longer be considered as

merely as another phenomenon of poor growth

figures. Nor can it be considered in complete

isolation from the interests of developing

countries. Recent experience has amply

demonstrated that the worsening world economic

conditions are of a structural, not a cyclical,

nature. The establishment of a new international

economic order could have greatly facilitated the

structural adjustment and strengthened the

possibility for economic revival and prosperity

of the world as a whole, including the developed

countries. However, short- tern. Interests

carried the day, and we have missed many

opportunities to facilitate structural

adjustments and give impetus to economic growth.

338. Commodity issues have emerged as major

trade problems for many developing countries. The

recent slump in commodity prices, together with

the rising tide of protectionism, has led to

reduced export j proceeds, increased external

indebtedness and a j worsened balance of payments

in many developing j countries. My own country,

Botswana, is in no different position. The

instability in commodity trade might have been

minimized, even curbed, had there been a fully

operational integrated program for commodities.

The convening of the sixth session of UNCTAD, in

June 1983 in Belgrade, offers yet another

opportunity to act on these issues, which should

not be missed this time

339. In spite of the worsening world economic

conditions, the international community has

succeeded in achieving some successes since 1981.

The Agreement Establishing the Common Fund for

Commodities and the Substantial New Programme of

Action for the 1980s for the Least Developed

Countries" adopted at the Paris Conference are

two such achievements.if these are to be

translated into action, there is much the

international community should undertake in order

to avoid talking about the same issues all over

again at UNCTAD.

340. It is equally necessary to remove the

considerable uncertainties which currently

prevail in the international financial system.

Recent developments have caused concern regarding

the capability of the international financial

system to deal with the effects of the

unfavorable .economic environment.

341. We must persist in carrying through

global negotiations on international financial

issues which restore balance to the system which

affects us all.

342. Internal upheavals as well as wars born

of external aggression are a common phenomenon in

different parts of the world. The irony of the

matter is that in many of these situations it is

easy to identify the involvement of those Powers

to which the custodianship of peace and security

has been permanently entrusted by us all. As a

result, the principal organs of the United

Nations can only chum out innocuous resolutions

expressing their grave concern at such

interventions and calling for the withdrawal of

foreign troops, often without naming them. Such

resolutions are quite often frustrated by the

non-compliance of the States concerned. The

United Nations has thus become a place for the

expression of indignation and the trading of

recriminations. We have been guilty of

diminishing its capacity to deal effectively with

issues affecting peace. We ourselves are weakened

thereby, as there is no other instrument to which

we can turn for the solution of international

problems. My delegation therefore supports the

Secretary-General in his call to all Governments

to recommit themselves consciously to the Charter.

343. Mr. Fayez Sayegh, a Palestinian scholar,

says in his book "The crux of the Palestinian

problem is the fate of a people and its homeland.

It is the piecemeal conquest and continued

seizure of the entire country by military force.

It is the forcible dispossession and displacement

of the bulk of the indigenous population and the

subjugation of the rest".

344. In its resolution 521 (1982) of 19

September the Security Council unanimously

condemned the massacre of Palestinian civilians

in their refugee camps. The stench of death

continues to hang like early morning mist over

west Beirut and the grief of those brutally

treated people is immeasurable. Nations severally

have condemned this criminal act perpetrated

against an unsuspecting and defenseless people.

Many searching and pertinent questions are being

asked. Was it not enough to have made them the

refugees they were and to have thus condemned

them to live in squalor and misery? Why murder

them? Had they not suffered sufficient

humiliation when their leadership was dispersed

throughout the length and breadth of the Arab

world? Why massacre them? Protestations of

innocence should neither supplant nor be a

substitute for response to the need to establish

the circumstances and the enormity of the crime.

For that reason, my country welcomes the decision

to hold an independent and impartial

investigation. This heinous crime will remain a

dark eventin the life of nations, its

perpetrators and their collaborators eternal

villains. History has not always been benevolent

and charitable to Israel, yet the continued

occupation of Arab lands by military force

provides no justifiable compensation. "The crux

of the Palestinian problem", says Mr. Sayegh, "is

the fate of a people and its homeland".

45. As long as nations in the area deny one

another the right to exist as sovereign and

independent entities within clearly defined and

secure borders, peace in the Middle East will

remain elusive and unattainable.

346. We implore the United States, from the

vantage point of its special relationship with

Israel, and the League of Arab States to

reconcile their peace proposals and to intensify

their search for a solution acceptable to all

parties.

347. The situation in Afghanistan continues to

defy solution. Foreign troops have not yet been

withdrawn and the refugee population in Iran and

Pakistan has reached the 3.5 million mark.

Efforts to bring the parties to the negotiating

table have hitherto been of no avail. The

intractable nature of the situation typifies the

impotence of the United Nations in the face of

super-Power Involvement. It is in such

circumstances that the words of the

Secretary-General stand out in sharp relief, to

be quoted and quoted yet again—a recommitment of

Governments to the Charter.

348. We appeal to the parties involved to

engage in negotiations designed to secure the

withdrawal of foreign forces, the elimination of

external interference in the internal affairs of

Afghanistan and the facilitation of the return of

the refugees.

349. It is almost four years since the

Kampuchean People's Revolutionary Council

supplanted the Pol Pot regime. Attempts to reach

a political solution by way of negotiations among

the parties concerned have been frustrated by

boycotts. The end to three decades of war in

Indo-China is not in sight and regional

insecurity has become a matter of serious concern

for South-East Asian nations.

350. The complete withdrawal of all foreign

troops, the cessation of external interference

and the unimpeded exercise by the people of its

right to elect a Government of its choice is what

we desire for Kampuchea. This is our litany.

351. Korea remains a divided country. The

North- South dialogue, acclaimed by .many nations

as a concrete manifestation of the determination

of the Korean people to reunify their divided

peninsula, has been suspended since 1973.

Proposals by one side are relentlessly spumed by

the other side. Notwithstanding this regrettable

circumstance, Botswana persists in its view that

the reunification of Korea is a matter to be

decided by the Koreans themselves in direct

ipter-Korean negotiations. It remains for the

United Nations to continue to encourage the

resumption of those talks without pre-conditions

or external interference.

352. Similarly, we support the continuation of

the intercommunal talks in Cyprus. We believe

that their efficacy could be enhanced by the

speedy withdrawal of foreign troops from the

island.

353. 333. The position of my country regarding

the Falklands crisis has already been made dear.

It does no harm to reiterate it here. Botswana

does not accept the use of armed intervention to

enforce territorial claims. Our condemnation of

such action by Argentina was therefore without

prejudice to the merits or otherwise of its

claim. We do not regard the Falklands as an

integral part of Britain, some 8,000 miles away.

Such a concept belongs to the imperialism of

bygone centuries. Our view is that the Falklands

is a colony of Britain. The Falklanders, like all

colonized peoples, have the right to

self-determination without external pressure or

intimidation. We resent and resist the change of

one colonialism for another in Africa. We

maintain the same principle in the United Nations.

354. A year ago the General Assembly met in an

emergency special session to discuss the question

of Namibia. Volumes of words were spoken on that

occasion, as they have been spoken since the

international challenge to South Africa's

occupation of the Territory of South West Africa

in 1946. The general Assembly was reminded then

that the United Nations plan for Namibia

remained, after three years, a pious declaration

of intent, because nothing had come of it. Ft

must be admitted that there has now been some

audible shuffling of feet by the contact group

and the South African representatives, but there

has been no appreciable move forward or dramatic

change in the situation; no peace in Namibia. We

submit that the validity of the vaunted

"significant progress" made in the negotiations

relating to the constitutional principles and the

preparedness of South Africa to move

expeditiously to resolve the question of the

composition and deployment of the United Nations

Transition Assistance Group is being somewhat

neutralized and rendered ineffectual b the

unfortunate linkage of the withdrawal of South

African forces from Namibia and the progress of

that Territory to independence with the

withdrawal of Cuban forces from Angola, in the

name of regional security. We consider this

requirement strange, especially as it is the

South African and not the Cuban forces which have

been guilty of trans-border violations and have

intensified their war of aggression against the

People's Republic of Angola, even as the Namibian

plan is being negotiated.

355. Of equal concern to my delegation is a

new plan whereby South Africa seeks to establish

a so-called more effective interim Government,

reported to be structured on ethnic lines, in

Namibia. This plan, coupled with the possible use

of Walvis Bay in a "manner prejudicial to the

independence of Namibia ", in disregard of

Security Council resolution 432 (1978), would not

only delay progress towards an acceptable

solution but might in fact frustrate all the

efforts already made to resolve the problem. A

genuine solution of the Namibian problem can be

reached, and soon, if South Africa desists from

its recurrent invention of extraneous excuses.

After many years of war waged by South Africa:

forces against the people of Namibia, it is not

in their interest that a settlement be further

delayed by being subordinated to or coupled with

the withdrawal of foreign forces from a third

country.

356. My country, one of the front-line States

bordering on Namibia, continues to call for the

immediate implementation of Security Council

resolution 435 (1978) as the generally accepted

peaceful means of ensuring the attainment of

independence by that United Nations Territory.

Negotiations relating to outstanding issues

relevant to that resolution have been

successfully concluded. The process leading to

the liberation of Namibia should be unhindered.

My country looks forward with the most fervent

hopes to seeing a liberated, free, independent

and sovereign Namibia assume its rightful place

in the Assembly at its thirty-eighth session.

357. But the accession of Namibia to

independence will not in itself bring peace to

the southern African region as long as apartheid

and racism continue to be the fundamental tenets

of South Africa's philosophy of government. For

300 years the South African white has asked

himself these questions: Who are we? What is our

destiny? What is our divine and appointed role in

Africa? His answers to those questions are basic

to the theory and practice of apartheid. His

answers are formulated in such a manner as to

perpetuate his image as the divine messenger to

Africa, the torch- bearer of Christian truths and

principles. He is in a class apart, the only

citizen of South Africa. Thus, after 300 years,

the black majority of the South African society

remains aliens in their fatherland. The creation

for them of crowded, over-grazed and generally

denuded so-called homelands, the denial of equal

economic opportunities and power sharing, the

downgraded quality of their education, their

restricted and controlled movement—these and the

many other disabilities they are made to suffer

have increased their frustration and anger and

heightened their determination to secure an

equitable deal for themselves by whatever means.

This should be avoided, for if the manner of

accession to independence by Namibia, whenever it

comes, is to provide any lesson at all, it should

be in the realization that resistance to orderly

and timely change can serve only to condemn even

the unborn of all races to future strife and

suffering.

358. South Africa is fully cognizant of the

ghastliness of such an eventuality and is groping

for a solution. Whilst we welcome the reformist

initiatives of South Africa, we consider the

so-called constitutional dispensation to be

hollow. It is hollow because it denies the black

majority South African citizenship and relegates

them to Bantustans; it is hollow because it

attempts to entice the Indian and Colored South

Africans away from their traditional

identification and solidarity with the other

disadvantaged group, the black South Africans,

without in any way enhancing their political

integration within the South African society. A

system founded on injustice is bound sooner or

later to collapse.

359. Drawing the Colored South Africans and

South Africans of Indian extraction into the plan

whilst excluding 70 per cent of the population

will only increase the areas of polarization and

their ramifications—whites versus non-whites,

black South Africans versus Colored and Indian

South Africans conservative Colored and Indians

versus their progressive compatriots whom they

will brand as renegades from the cause of genuine

liberation.

360. Moreover, it should be conceded that the

avowed objective of converting urban South

African Macks into rurai citizens elsewhere is

not oniy retrograde but ill-considered and

impossible of attainment. To succeed, any p!an

or solution for the South African problem must

take cognizance of these basic truths. Neither

the mercenary invasion of Seychelles nor the

sustained aggression against the People's

Republic of Angola and the continued occupation

of parts of its territory by South African troops

neither the support given to the Uniao Nacional

para a Independencia Total de Angola [LW/7/1] in

Angola, the Mozambican National Resistance in

Mozambique or the Lesotho Liberation Army in

Lesotho nor that given to dissidents in Zambia

and Zimbabwe, all instruments of the

destabilization of neighbouring States will

silence the call for change within South Africa.

361. Our undying refrain is the continuing

call urging South Africa to engage in meaningful

dialogue with the recognized leaders of all the

citizens of that country and to work out a

solution acceptable to all.

362. The relevant exhortation in the Lusaka

Manifesto on Southern Africa is still as fresh

and as valid today as when it was made some 13

years ago:

"... we are demanding an opportunity for all the

people of these States, working together as equal

individual citizens, to work out for themselves

the institutions and the system of government

under which they will, by general consent, live

together and work together to build a harmonious

society."