UN General Assembly
1991

Thirty years ago, I came to the United Nations as a nationalist leader and a petitioner. I was allowed to describe before the Fourth Committee of -he General Assembly the situation of the people of Sao Tome and Principe, which had suffered under the colonial yoke for five centuries. In 1975, the year my country acceded to independence and became a State Member of the United Nations, I had the great privilege as Head of Government of thanking the community of nations, from this very rostrum, for its support of our liberation struggle and of requesting at the same time its generous assistance for the work of national reconstruction that we were about to undertake.