UN General Assembly
1983

251. The 35 countries concerned should, therefore, have every reason to celebrate with some satisfaction the end of their work at Madrid, had it not been darkened by an unspeakable act, that of the shooting down in cold blood, by a Soviet military aircraft, of a civilian airliner of the Korean Air Lines, carrying 269 passengers, men, women and children. Today there is very ready condemnation, at least in words, of the first use of force. If there is a case in which it would have been possible to live up to such a commitment, not only in words but also in deeds, it was precisely that of the 269 unarmed civilians brutally shot down by a blind force which knows that its weapons cannot be resisted. In another forum, efforts are being made to devise new measures to prevent such a tragedy from occurring again. It must be hoped that such measure will in fact be applied. I cannot confine myself to merely condemning from this rostrum an act which cost the lives of 269 innocent people.