Malta, 1982

The recent visit of the Prime Minister of Malta to Hungary is

sufficient indication of the close relations existing between our two

countries, therefore it gives me all the more pleasure to compliment

Mr. Hollai on his unanimous election to preside over this important

session. We also compliment Mr. Kittani of Iraq on his

record-breaking performance last year.

Our presence in the Assembly is a token of our collective commitment

to the processes of peace in inter-State relations which the United

Nations offers in opposition to the processes of violence and

aggression which have marred human history for unsold ages. Yet, in

spite of this commitment, we are all aware of the reality that once

again the methods of violence and conflict are on the increase in

intercourse among nations. In Asia we are disturbed by the events in

Kampuchea and Afghanistan, in Africa by the continuing aggression and

inhumanity of South Africa, in Latin America by the recently

concluded conflict in the Falklands. In the Middle East we have still

not recovered from the shock of the appalling events in Lebanon,

which form a tragic climax to the escalating policy of illegality and

outrage perpetrated by Israel in its relentless aggression against

the Palestinian people, its annexation of occupied territories, its

attack on Iraqi nuclear installations and its persistent flouting of

General Assembly and Security Council resolutions.

The post-war world order based on the Yalta repartition of spheres of

influence, with its ensuing system of armed alliances, is no longer

able to maintain even its initial precarious stability. The erosion

of the nuclear superiority by one super-Power, leading to nuclear

parity, ushered in a state of strategic uncertainty. Together with

the challenges by the emergent nations to rigid polarization around

super-Power spheres of influence, this led to an increasing resort to

the use of force by dominant Powers. Therefore we cannot but agree

with the frank analysis of the Secretary-General, in which he points

out the reforms which are still required to transform the United

Nations into a world body which effectively unites nations in the

pursuit of their security on the basis of peace, co-operation and

mutual respect.

In the absence of all-encompassing co-operation on security at the

global level, nations have increasingly resorted to concrete

initiatives at the regional level.

In the Mediterranean, regional States have traditionally approached

their security concerns in different ways. However, while most of the

States of the North appear to have chosen the road of complete

integration in the armed alliances and all the States of the South

are active members of the non- aligned movement, the apparent

division is not so rigid. There are evidently different levels of

integration in the alliances by the members in the North, while

States of the South have established their own links with members of

the alliances-links which are based on economic, technological,

cultural and historical realities.

What constitutes the most pervasive destabilizing element in the

Mediterranean at the present time is in fact the massive and

increasing super-Power presence in the region. Detente, far from

being a global phenomenon, was restricted to central Europe. In

Helsinki, at the start of the process begun with the Conference on

Security and Co-operation in Europe, Malta had striven for the

acceptance of the need to extend detente to the Mediterranean, on the

basis of the principle that security in the Mediterranean is an

integral element in European security. The super-Power, however, paid

only lip-service to the Mediterranean document of the Helsinki Final

Act. Eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation is the reality in the

Mediterranean today, a reality which is even more threatening to

regional and European peace and security because it creates a

confrontation more direct than it has ever been in central Europe,

where the military forces of the super-Power are buffered from each

other by the presence of their allies.

Because of the vacuum which exists at the global level through the

absence of an elective role by the United Nations, super-Power

influence in matters relating directly to security and co-operation

in the Mediterranean has today assumed excessive proportions. All

States in the region must be concerned by the extent of this

influence. Many have already come to the conclusion that the only

feasible alternative is for Mediterranean countries to forge together

their own arrangements for regional security, which would then enable

them to work out with the super-Power an agreed programme of

progressive armaments reductions, phased in such way as to ensure

that at no stage would either super-Power consider that its

legitimate strategic interests were being put in jeopardy.

Such an approach entails two fundamental objectives: first, that the

Mediterranean should not be used as a major arena of global

confrontation; secondly, that regional States should be more directly

in control of security and co-operation questions in their own

region. Although we cannot have any illusion as to the continuing

impact of bloc politics on our region, we also sense an underlying

appreciation of the potential validity of an indigenous regional

security system, leading to the ultimate withdrawal of super-Power

forces from the region.

Malta's experience in its own struggle for freedom, a struggle which

is rooted in a strategy for regional co-operation, corroborates this

assessment. The Socialist Government which came to power in 1971

after 13 years in opposition was firmly committed to a policy aimed

at the elimination of all foreign military bases on the island. The

phased and bloodless withdrawal of the forces of Britain and the

North Atlantic Treaty Organization from the island commenced in 1972

and was completed by March 1979. My party was returned to power in

1976 it was pledged to entrench the process of the elimination of all

foreign military presence in Malta by the assumption for the island

of a status of neutrality, based strictly on the principles of

non-alignment. We started discussions with our Mediterranean

neighbours on the status we were to adopt after 1979. By 1979 those

discussions were already bearing fruit. We found early encouragement

and support both from our southern neighbours, in particular the

Libyan Arab Jamahiriya and Algeria, and from our northern neighbours,

including Italy and France. In the unfolding of events, our choice of

a neutral status received broad recognition from Mediterranean and

non- Mediterranean States alike. In different forms and under

different circumstances, such broad recognition came from Qatar,

Yugoslavia, Italy, Bulgaria and the European Economic Community in

1980; from Saudi Arabia, Morocco, the United States of America, the

Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, France, Senegal, Iraq, the

non-aligned movement and the Commonwealth in 1981; and from Algeria,

Tunisia, Greece, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, China and

the Islamic Republic of Iran so far this year.

In May 1980 the Maltese Parliament formally enshrined our neutral

status in a proclamation. By virtue of that proclamation, Malta

undertakes not to allow any foreign military bases on its territory,

not to allow any military facilities to foreign forces, not to allow

any facilities to be used in Malta in such a manner or to such an

extent as will constitute a virtual presence of foreign forces, nor

that any foreign military personnel be allowed in Malta, and that the

shipyards of Malta will be used for civil commercial purposes and

will be denied to the military vessels of the super-Power. Soon after

the formal adoption of our status, in September 1980 Italy entered

into a bilateral agreement with us in which it welcomed, recognized

and supported our neutrality and engaged itself both to avoid any

action that would jeopardize that status and to come to our

assistance in case of any attack on Malta. That formal commitment by

a country belonging to NATO to commit itself actively in safeguarding

Malta's neutrality was paralleled a few months later by an analogous

undertaking by the Soviet Union in which recognition and support of

our status was also accompanied by an undertaking not to do anything

that would put it in jeopardy. Both agreements have been duly

registered with the United Nations under Article 102 of the Charter.

Following its third consecutive return to power in 1981, the

socialist Government pledged to utilize Malta's new-found freedom and

neutral status to promote a genuine process for peace in the

Mediterranean. Several countries have not only formally recognized

our neutral status, but have also explicitly acknowledged its

significance for the process of peace in the Mediterranean-these

include France and Greece from within the NATO alliance and the

non-aligned Mediterranean States of Yugoslavia and Tunisia.

In addition to its choice of neutrality, Malta had already taken

other important initiatives for peace in the Mediterranean. The most

comprehensive of those initiatives has been our endeavours in the

Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe to obtain

recognition of the linkage between security in the Mediterranean and

security in Europe, and participation by Mediterranean States in all

matters relating to Mediterranean security and co-operation.

By 1975 all European States, and the two super-Powers, had accepted

non-participating Mediterranean States in the process of that

Conference. By 1979 the Conference had launched a concrete initiative

for functional co-operation in the Mediterranean. Meeting in Malta in

February of that year, participants in the Conference and

non-participating Mediterranean States drew up recommendations

concerning the exchange of statistical data, environmental

co-operation, tourism, energy resources, transport networks,

telecommunications research, migrant labour, scientific and technical

problems, eradication of Mediterranean diseases, gerontology,

seismology, preservation of cultural heritage and a number of other

subjects. In the ongoing review Session of the Conference, taking

place in Madrid, our objective is now to bring about a thorough

consideration of the security aspects of the Helsinki Mediterranean

chapter, in particular the recommendations regarding the reduction of

armed forces in the region.

We have also taken initiatives outside the established bodies. As

early as 1972, on the initiative of Malta's Prime Minister, Dom

Mintoff, who has identified himself most intimately with the

objective of enhancing Mediterranean co-operation, a process of

quadripartite collaboration at the ministerial and technical levels

was initiated between Italy, Libya, Malta and Tunisia. That

initiative has led to the recognition of a common interest in

communications, tourism, fisheries, agriculture and the preservation

and protection of the environment.

A more recent initiative has been the setting up of Radio

Mediterranean, which Malta pioneered in 1978 under the auspices of

UNESCO and which is now starting to assume its intended role as the

collective and authentic voice of Mediterranean peoples. The keen

interest which that initiative is awakening has recently been

demonstrated by Algeria's participation and by the various approaches

made by other Mediterranean States.

At the multilateral level in 1975 UNEP launched a Mediterranean

Action Plan, which, under the objective of environmental protection,

has given scope to the emergence of a number of concrete projects of

a technical and practical nature. Malta is participating in various

aspects of that Action Plan, in particular through the setting up of

a Regional Oil-Combating Centre on the island which is intended to

coordinate regional action against hazards of oil pollution.

Here at the United Nations since 1976 the resolutions on the

implementation of the Declaration on the Strengthening of

International Security have included a call, sponsored by Malta and

other Mediterranean States, for the transformation of the

Mediterranean into a zone of peace. The growing support for that

call, which now also includes members of the NATO alliance, is also

manifested in the encouraging number, and substantive content, of the

various replies sent to the questionnaire on the strengthening of

security in the Mediterranean called for under resolution 36/102. It

is clear from some of those replies, in particular the one from

Yugoslavia, that Mediterranean countries are giving very serious

consideration to the question of how they can themselves best take

charge of security matters in their own region. We also find great

significance in the fact that in its reply France has indicated that

it considers its formal recognition and support of Malta's status of

neutrality as a direct contribution to the process of strengthening

security and co-operation in the Mediterranean. Similar interest has

emerged in the various statements made during the current general

debate, in particular by Italy and Algeria. It is our intention this

year, in collaboration with our partners, to seek to add to the

growing consensus on the question and to identify pragmatic ways of

developing the initiative further. One important consideration

concerns the need to keep all Member States, and especially those in

the Security Council, fully informed of relevant developments in our

region.

Various initiatives are converging to lend further strength and

credibility to the formation of a Mediterranean built upon the

awareness of a commonality of interests which bind the regional

States together in a process of peace and co-operation. Malta's

uphill task in the mid-1970s to form a consensus for bringing

together northern and southern Mediterranean States in the framework

of the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe has in turn

opened up prospects for other initiatives. Thus, Malta and other

Mediterranean States, the Sixth Conference of Heads of State or

Government of Non-Aligned Countries, held at Havana in 1979, engaged

the explicit support of the non-aligned movement for the proposal

that non-aligned Mediterranean States meet in Malta in 1980 with

aligned Mediterranean States, participants in the European

Conference, to discuss specific projects of co-operation and to

co-ordinate positions for further action even in the European

Conference itself.

That convergence is most evident in the case of Malta's neutrality.

The widespread recognition and support for Malta's status of

neutrality is proving of seminal value for initiatives aimed at

installing a system of regional security in the Mediterranean in

which the concerns of super-Power confrontation are neither exclusive

nor dominant.

Through their unilateral rejection of foreign military bases on their

territories, a number of Mediterranean States have set in motion a

process of disarmament in the region. With the closing of foreign

military bases, Malta, too, has contributed to that formation of

embryo zones of peace. But this unilateral approach is not enough. In

seeking support for its status of neutrality, Malta has introduced a

reciprocity of commitments. At the regional level it has undertaken

the commitment that its territory would never be used for armed

offensives against neighbouring States, and in return obtained

assurances from them that they would not threaten or violate its

neutrality; at the broader level, the super-Power have accepted

Malta's assurances that its territory would not be available to

either of them for military purposes and in return they have assured

Malta of their undertaking to respect its neutrality. If the

Mediterranean is to enjoy the benefits of a system of regional

security, an extension of this type of reciprocal commitment is

indispensable. Only in this way would there start a process of easing

of tension, reduction of polarization and limitation of armaments

deployment.

We are, of course, very much aware that military deployment by the

super-Power in the Mediterranean is not simply a function of regional

concerns, but is integrated in global strategic planning. We are

equally aware that the options being taken today by some of the

States in our region are supportive of the global dimension of the

super-Power military presence in the Mediterranean. The current

deteriorating situation is not especially propitious. Yet, we have

sensed in the developments which took place in the 1970s that the

potential exists for an affirmation of the collective role of

Mediterranean States in the security of their own region. Our

persistence at the present time arises both from the concern that any

relaxation would jeopardize the progress which has already been made;

as well as from the conviction that in pursuing our objectives for

peace we are directly contributing to the overcoming of the current

negative trend.

Although conditions in the Mediterranean are ripe for progress in the

pursuit of regional security and co-operation, current negative

trends elsewhere are adversely affecting this region too. The

Mediterranean thus challenges the super-Power with a crucial test of

their willingness and capacity to respond by favouring the processes

of peace as opposed to the processes of confrontation. In the light

of the remarkable achievements for the Mediterranean over the past

decade, a reversal here would have ominous consequences for other

quarters of the globe, where stability, peace and security are

precarious and threatened. Progress here, on the other hand, would

give the cue for analogous initiatives to be undertaken in other

regions so that peace becomes indivisible and stable. In other words,

the crucial test for peace is whether Mediterranean countries and the

super-Power agree on reciprocal assurances as have already been

implemented in respect of a neutral Malta. The Mediterranean is ready.

For Malta, the struggle against such high odds to bring about a halt

to the process of confrontation in our region is in line with the

historic linkage which has existed between events in our country and

in the region at large. Poised in the heart of the Mediterranean,

less than 200 miles from the mainlands of Europe and of Africa, Malta

has for centuries been right on the dividing line between opposing

and contending forces.

Starting with the Roman-Carthaginian confrontation of the

pre-Christian era, and running through to the regional super-Power

confrontation of our day, Malta's position has always imposed

critical choices of alignment and commitment. In the past, these

choices were always made by the dominant Power in possession of the

island. They were inevitably choices for aggression and military

domination of Malta's neighbours. During this century alone, Malta

has served as a forward base for major military offensives in Italy,

Greece and North Africa; it served as a strategically vital position

in the two world conflicts and as an important focal point of

operations in the Suez crisis in the late 1950s.

Without any choice of its own, Malta has therefore consistently been

committed on one or another of the sides in the many conflicts and

confrontations taking place in the Mediterranean region. Whenever

armed aggression took place, Maltese territory fell directly under

attack. The nature and extent of our defences were as much at the

discretion of the foreigner as were the strategic decisions leading

to the opening of hostilities and the actions and considerations

leading to their resolution. The experience of the last World War,

when the Maltese people in their overwhelming majority joined

enthusiastically in the struggle against fascism and nazism and

rejoiced in their eventual overthrow, brought with it the dear

realization that in always fighting other people's wars, Malta had

never yet had the opportunity to struggle for its own freedom and for

peace.

In the 1950s and 1960s, the time came for Malta, in common with other

oppressed nations of the world, to achieve its independence. The

opportunity thereby created for the island to define its role for

peace in the region was, however, obstructed by British and NATO

collusion that Malta should and, indeed, would continue to pursue

economic, strategic, political and cultural choices strictly

integrated into the Western alliance, even if that involved actions

and policies divergent from the national or regional interests of a small

independent island State in the heart of a troubled region.

For a few years the local interests which had thrived on the colonial

structures and mentality managed to retain sufficient control over

the island to ensure the pursuit of a policy in strict conformity

with NATO strategies. The inappropriate economic infrastructure

closely supportive of a NATO role, which had been inherited from

colonial times, was cosmetically restructured only to the extent that

it would not interfere with that role. Control of key factors-ports,

airports, telecommunications, media, banking and currency, for

example-was retained, sometimes through indirect means, by the

British.

This continuing control served British interests in two ways. On the

one hand, by reinforcing the dominance of an elite which had a weak

base of local support, it ensured the continuing loyalty of that

elite to the British and NATO objectives. This in turn permitted

Britain to convince its NATO allies that in order to ensure that

Malta remained firmly entrenched in the Western bloc, it was in their

interests not to take any action to improve, at least to Western

European standards, the social and economic plight of the Maltese.

The Maltese people soon realized that the policies under which they

were being led constituted a negation of their freedom, were inimical

to their national interests and thwarted their natural vocation to

serve as a focal point of peace and co-operation in the

Mediterranean. Those who were claiming to maintain the island as a

bulwark of democracy by aligning it irrevocably with one bloc were at

the same time led into taking measures which, in their disrespect for

the basic rights of the individual, constituted a serious denial of

democracy.

The process of Malta's struggle for freedom came to a critical point

in the early 1970s when the people of the island, in anger and

frustration, took a dramatic decision to halt the centuries-old

military role of their own homeland. Over the last 12 years, Malta

has pursued a policy in which the struggle for personal liberty,

national freedom and regional peace and co-operation are intimately

intertwined. We have, restructured our economic infrastructure to

make it serve simultaneously the purposes of national development and

regional co-operation. We have opened our economic, cultural,

technological and political relations to all countries, rejecting any

ideological bias in our contacts.

This policy both defines and lends credibility to the status of

neutrality we have assumed, not out of any escapist desire to steer

an uncommitted course between the contending antagonisms in our

region and beyond, but out of the fundamental awareness that the

future of our nation is intimately linked with developments in our

region.

This policy has enabled us to demonstrate a forceful integrity in the

pursuit and defence of peace. Last week's endorsement of Malta's

candidacy for the Security Council in the ministerial declaration of

the non-aligned movement encourages us to persevere in our policy.

Whenever the occasion has required it, we have not shirked from

taking the necessary frank and forthright action. It was the forceful

integrity of our policies which enabled us to persevere when alone in

the European forums, in the Conference on Security and Co-operation

in Europe, and in the European capitals we put forward such views as

the call for a Mediterranean involvement in questions of European

security and the equally pressing call for a Middle East solution

based on recognition of the Palestinians' right to an independent

State of their own. Today, when these views are finding increased

support, we can look back on our earlier efforts with a dense of

pride, satisfaction and encouragement for the future.

This same spirit motivated us in the early 1970s to be equally firm

in our negotiations with Britain over the arrangements to phase out

their military presence on our territory. We then faced a massed

opposition based on prejudice, misconception and vested interests

both from within and beyond our shores. Gradually, however, we

persuaded our opponents of the integrity and peaceful nature of our

objectives.

Yet following the final departure of British troops from the island,

we again had to face the arrogant attitudes of our erstwhile colonial

ruler in connection with the question of the clearing from areas

around Malta of war remnants left over from the colonial period which

are seriously obstructing some of our major development projects.

One particular case, concerning the removal of war remnants, is

causing serious problems to our development programme. My

Government's development plan calls for the setting up in Malta of a

major coal and grain trans-shipment centre in the Mediterranean. A

prerequisite for the success of this project is a sufficient draught

to enable ships requiring an under-keel clearance of over 14 metres

to enter and navigate in the Grand Harbour of Valletta without any

problem. Nature has blessed Valletta Harbour with a sufficiently

large draught to handle such ships, but the presence of war wrecks in

various parts of the harbour and, in particular, at its entrance, has

reduced the clearance to 12.6 metres, so that the trans-shipment

project cannot materialize unless those wrecks are removed.

For the past several years my Government has been trying to reach an

amicable solution with Britain on this subject but, in spite of the

universally accepted principle that the removal of remnants of war is

the responsibility of the country that implanted them, Britain has

consistently refused to accept any legal or moral responsibility.

Indeed, Britain is making its repeated disclaimer of any legal or

moral responsibility whatsoever a pre-condition of any talks with my

Government. From this rostrum I repeat the offer which my Government

has already made to the British Government of talks without

pre-conditions. A satisfactory solution would also obviate the need

for us to raise this issue in all appropriate international

forums-something which we are otherwise determined to persist in.

Our experience teaches that the struggle by a people to achieve

dignity and freedom is itself part of the process in the endeavor for

regional and global peace and security. For the Palestinian people

the road to dignity and freedom is proving particularly tragic, as

the recent events in Lebanon have shown. These events have not broken

the spirit of the Palestinian people in continuing their struggle but

the opportunities for a peaceful solution, which under the leadership

of the PLO were genuinely being sought, have been dealt a severe

blow. The Israeli actions have deliberately placed a policy of

aggression right in the path of the road to peace; in the process

they have inflicted unbelievable suffering, and they have torn a

country apart.

The threat to the peace and stability of the Middle East and the

Mediterranean which arises out of the Palestinian and. Lebanese

tragedies constitutes a direct threat to peace and stability even

outside the region. European nations should play a major role to help

bring about a solution which both respects the inalienable rights of

the Palestinians and at the same time safeguards other legitimate

interests in the region. Malta is proud of the role it has played in

supporting the Palestinian cause and pledges to continue steadfastly

in this course.

The actions of South Africa, its internal policies of racism and

oppression and its external policies of aggression and domination

constitute yet another threat to international peace and stability.

The cry of anger, frustration and suffering emerging from southern

Africa is urgent and persuasive. It calls for urgent and effective

remedies.

The aspiration of the people of Korea to the peaceful unification of

their country continues to be frustrated. The presence of foreign

troops in South Korea and the size and strategic objectives of this

presence run directly counter to the already expressed desire of all

Korean people to seek a peaceful road to the reunification of their

country.

Similarly, in Cyprus the illegal presence of foreign troops stands in the

way of an already defined basis for a peaceful solution which would

ensure the sovereignty, unity, territorial integrity and independence

of that island.

The people of Afghanistan and Kampuchea also find the internal

evolution of their societies interfered with and distorted by the

interplay of outside interests. The departure of foreign troops from

these countries remains a necessary pre-condition of the recovery by

their peoples of their sovereignty and independence.

For over two years now the imperatives of peace have not prevailed

between the Iranian and Iraqi peoples. We continue to believe that

the possibilities exist for a peaceful solution to their problems and

that no means whatsoever should be spared to achieve this end.

In the Falkland Islands the resort to force was a tragic outcome of

the failure to use the processes of consultation and negotiation

recommended by the United Nations. We hope to see wiser counsels

prevail in the future.

In these and other instances, policies of aggression and force

clearly continue to play their dominant role in the relations among

nations. The yearning for peace, so urgent and pervasive in the

hearts and minds of peoples throughout the world, has not yet been

translated into the actions and policies of nations. And yet the

mechanisms for peace exist, here at the United Nations, through

regional concertation and through national initiatives. We need to

muster the courage and tenacity to make a thrust for peace before the

increasing resort to force overwhelms us completely and leads us to

an irreversible catastrophe. Malta remains deeply committed to this

endeavour.