UN General Assembly
1983

Barely three years after coming to power we can proudly boast of having no political prisoners in our country. We have endeavored to pursue conscientiously a policy which guards against the abuse of human rights. We now stand proudly at the dawn of a national rebirth, as we have moved steadily ahead in our constitutional process for a return of the country to civilian rule in 1985. Looking forward to a new era of confidence and accommodation at home, I appear before the Assembly today as the first indigenous head of State of the Republic of Liberia, a country which has stood for over a century as the symbol of Africa's invincible soul and the flame of Africa's resurgence. We have come with pride to speak not of conflict but of reconciliation; not of division, but of unity; not of hatred but of love; not of war but of peace; not of action based on self-interest but of genuine co-operation based on a vision of global development.