A country jealous of its independence and sovereignty, achieved at the cost of the blood of the flower of its youth; a nation living in symbiosis for thousands of years, proud of its liberation and cohesiveness in spite of the nefarious actions of those who have imported barbaric systems repugnant to the conscience of mankind; a determined people fighting at the side of other revolutionary peoples in a relentless struggle against under-development and injustice in all its forms; a people that has always fought to bring about the triumph of the noble ideals of the Charter; an authority based on democratic centralism capable of ensuring the security of both nationals and foreigners; a people united and engaged in an irreversible revolution which began on 28 November 1966 thanks to its wise guide and well-loved chief, Colonel Michel Micombero this is today the glory and honor of the Republic of Burundi and the pride of its inhabitants.
2.	It is on behalf of that Republic that from this lofty rostrum I have the honor of conveying to the President my warmest congratulations upon his election to the presidency of the twenty-seventh session of the General Assembly. He may be assured that my delegation will be at his side and support him in his noble and lofty task of serving faithfully and indefatigably the interests of the whole international community. We are certain that the objectives of our Organization will ultimately be achieved, thanks to the efforts and sacrifices of the various world personalities who devote body and soul to this task. The President is one of those, and it is precisely for this reason that he has been elected to preside over the General Assembly. His eminent political attributes and diplomatic qualities, his expertise in international questions, and his personality which transcends the limits of his own country a personality which has long since made its mark on the international scene-his experience, competence and integrity constitute, we are sure, an earnest of the success of this Assembly session. As citizen of a country Poland which has suffered from foreign aggression, we are sure that he will be all the more concerned about the problems of aggression against the independent countries of Africa, Asia, Latin America and elsewhere.
3.	At this particular stage in history, when certain Powers are doing everything they can to sow subversion in the less-favored countries, fomenting division among citizens of the same country and also promoting foreign aggression, it is a great pleasure for us to have such an eminent personality as he presiding over this session, backed up by the members of the General Committee, who together make up such a great team. It is for this reason that we are confident that this Assembly session will be crowned with success, and that we greet him with such enthusiasm.
4.	May I also take this opportunity to pay a tribute to his predecessor, Mr. Adam Malik, the Foreign Minister of Indonesia, who throughout last year ceaselessly strove for world peace and international security.
5.	I should also like to thank and congratulate most sincerely Mr. Kurt Waldheim, Secretary-General of the United Nations, whose competence, devotion and probity are a credit to the Organization. Since his election to his high office a year ago Mr. Waldheim has devoted all his energies to the safeguarding of peace and to the search for understanding among peoples. Let him find in this the sincere expression of well deserved gratitude on the part of the Government of the Republic of Burundi.
6.	On 26 June 1945, many of the nations represented here today signed the Charter of the United Nations at San Francisco. Our country was not yet independent, but it was no less appreciative of the principles contained in that Charter. That is why, on 18 September 1962, precisely 79 days after its liberation, the Burundi people wholeheartedly adhered to the United Nations. In that way my Government and country demonstrated their determination to struggle for the safeguarding and success of the purposes and principles of the United Nations Charter.
7.	Burundi, in joining this Organization, was thereby taking an oath that it would henceforth spare no effort to maintain international peace and security and to promote development among nations and friendly relations based on the principle of the equal rights of peoples and their right to guide their own destinies and to take all other measures which might consolidate world peace and bring about  international co-operation through the solution of international problems in the economic, social, technical and humanitarian fields.
8.	It behooves us to note that today, 10 years after becoming a Member of the United Nations, Burundi has always acted consistently with the principles to which it solemnly subscribed.
9.	All nations represented here may derive gratification from the climate of understanding which has made it possible to avoid new conflicts among States. The world today may take pleasure at the fruitful talks which have been held between the People's Republic of China and the United States, on the one hand, and the United States and the Soviet Union on the other hand. The visit of the Japanese Prime Minister to China, the talks between the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and the Republic of Korea bode well for the unity of divided nations and for peace in Asia. This climate of detente, so favorable to the search for peace and co-operation, is a direct consequence of the admission last year of the People's Republic of China to the United Nations.
10.	The friendly meetings and dialog between the leaders of nations and the world are, we are certain, a guarantee of international peace and security, as well as of the unity of the great human family. It is therefore to be hoped that such meetings will take place regularly and periodically. Although our Organization has registered striking successes, we must express our regret at the fact that the worst hotbeds of conflict which constitute a permanent threat to international peace and security still persist and threaten to grow even worse. I would mention particularly the Far East and the Middle East conflicts, and the situation in the Territories under apartheid or the anachronistic colonialism of Portugal.
11.	Once again the Republic of Burundi appeals most urgently to international opinion, particularly to those responsible for the tragedy which has been going on in Viet-Nam for almost 30 years now, to see to it that those deliberate and organized massacres committed against an innocent people cease immediately. These massacres have been repeatedly denounced by many representatives from all continents.
12.	I, in turn, associate myself with them in asking that the 1954 Geneva Agreements be scrupulously observed and that the foreign troops of aggression be totally withdrawn from Vietnamese territory to enable the people of Viet-Nam itself, as a free nation, to settle its own affairs. For its part, the Republic of Burundi considers this to be the only acceptable solution dictated by common sense, because this war benefits neither the aggressor nor the Vietnamese people, but constitutes a crime against humanity and an unprecedented waste. This state of affairs, moreover, seriously jeopardizes the prestige of our Organization, and prevents it from effectively fulfilling its original and ultimate mission of protecting future generations from the scourge of war. My country suggests that France, which has offered its hospitality to the negotiators on Viet-Nam, could play an even more active role as mediator, thus responding to the statement of its Foreign Minister, Mr. Maurice Schumann, who said, just a few days ago that France "... has allies but neither has nor wants enemies." [2041st meeting, para. 62. ].
13.	Not far from Viet-Nam is another suffering people- the people of Korea. As long as that country, which wants to be an entity following its reunification, continues to be the object of a power and influence struggle, peace in that region will be delayed. That is why the independent and peaceful reunification of the Korean homeland must be brought about rapidly. For our part, we consider that no State in the world has the right to stand in the way of this manifest will of the Korean people. While the delegation of Burundi takes pleasure in noting the fact that talks between the two Koreas are under way, it regrets none the less that the United Nations has not hastened the conclusion of those negotiations, in spite of the consultation asked for by the two parties.
14.	A no less disturbing problem is that of Bangladesh, whose fate depends largely on friendship among all the States in the area and normalization of their relations. We hope that speedy achievement of the conditions governing admission to the United Nations-which has so far been lacking may take place soon.
15.	Within the same context, our delegation expresses its pleasure at the contacts between the two Germanys. This constitutes a prelude to the strengthening of European security which, we hope, will consolidate international peace and security and the well-being of the people of Germany as a whole.
16.	I come now to the Middle East conflict which has become a real tragedy for mankind. The Government of Burundi considers that immediate implementation of Security Council resolution 242 (1967) would be conducive to the restoration of peace in that part of the world. Withdrawal by Israel from the occupied Arab territories, together with settlement of the Palestinian problem, would reduce the causes of tension in that part of the world and, consequently, the frequency of individual or collective acts of violence caused by that war.
17.	As a member of the Organization of African Unity [OAU] we object to any part of the territory of an African country, in this instance the Arab Republic of Egypt, being occupied by armed force. The reopening of the Suez Canal has become an imperative necessity for many African countries whose goods are subject to high transport costs.
18.	We invite the two super-Powers to do their utmost to bring about a rapid settlement of the Middle East crisis which is liable to provoke a thermonuclear war at the very time when disarmament is the topic of the day.
19.	On the question of disarmament, my delegation would like to make some suggestions. In spite of the signing of many agreements on the reduction of armaments, the misuse of which may well lead to a terrible catastrophe, the danger of a war threatening to wipe out mankind is far from negligible.
20.	That is why the Burundi Government welcomes the courageous proposal to convene a world disarmament conference. My Government considers that such a conference is of the greatest concern to mankind as a whole which is earnestly hoping for the day when the present astronomical expenditure on weapons of destruction will be channeled towards its prosperity and happiness. In order to attain this objective fully, the conference should be held at the level of Heads of State or Heads of Government, who would take decisions to bring about total and complete disarmament.
21.	We come now to problems relating to decolonization in Africa. While the African continent is dangerously threatened in the north by the Middle East conflict, other hotbeds of unrest and conflict are deliberately and cruelly maintained in the south, thus rendering peace precarious and very seriously jeopardizing its development.
22.	I associate the delegation of the Republic of Burundi with the representatives who have spoken before me from this rostrum, to condemn South Africa's hold on the Territory of  Namibia and also the terrible physical and moral exhaustion which it is causing to the black peoples of South Africa.
23.	The results of the mission undertaken by the Secretary-General in the first half of this year as well as all the contacts and subsequent representations are impatiently awaited. Without prejudging the content of that report, we should like now to express the hope that it will provide for broad consultation with the people of Namibia. The integrity and independence of the Territory of Namibia should be safeguarded. The so-called autonomy which South Africa wishes to give separately to the different tribes instead of liberating the country as a whole, is an old colonialist maneuver designed to divide in order the better to perpetuate domination. My delegation would like to express wishes for success to the Secretary-General in this enterprise for which a Special Representative has been specifically nominated, and he should, we hope, hasten the issuing of the report so that the Organization does not have to prolong indefinitely its analysis of the case of Namibia.
24.	We again urge Great Britain to do everything in its power, if necessary by force, to put an end to the rebel regime of Salisbury and to grant independence to the people of Zimbabwe struggling for its self-determination. The United Kingdom should also show its good faith in that unhappy affair instead of taking refuge behind legal subterfuges which deceive no one. The economic embargo against that country called for by the United Nations is a powerful weapon, even if it is not decisive, and it is a weapon which the British authorities could use to bring the Southern Rhodesian regime to see reason.
25.	The Members of the United Nations which violate Security Council resolution 253 (1968) on sanctions are deliberately destroying United Nations institutions. An urgent examination of this question is necessary in order to adopt new working methods.
26.	The problems of Rhodesia, and those of South Africa, are an exact image of the problem posed by the perpetuation of Portuguese colonialism in Angola, Mozambique and Guinea (Bissau). Officially, Portugal considers those African Territories as its own provinces and thus, in the view of Portugal, form an integral part of that shabby, decadent empire which is an empire in name only. Portugal persists in remaining beyond the pale of history by perpetuating its domination in Africa. Notwithstanding the repeated appeals of the world Organization to bring an end to those colonial practices Portugal, in spite of the severe defeats inflicted upon it by the peoples suffering from colonial occupation, still clings, thanks to the aid of certain Powers, to the major cities which alone remain outside the control of the freedom fighters. We think for our part that without the support or the complicity of certain Powers aid with its long tradition of political incoherence Portugal alone would be incapable of resisting the fierce, resolute struggle of the peoples of Mozambique, Angola and Guinea (Bissau). It is therefore incumbent upon our Organization to do its utmost to discourage those Members which, from near or far, support the bloody venture of the Portuguese colonialists. Basing itself on Article 6 of the United Nations Charter, the delegation of the Republic of Burundi has requested at previous sessions that Portugal be expelled from the Organization for having been guilty of grave crimes against peace and mankind as a whole. Since Portugal has done nothing to change its conduct and in fact is continuing to commit the most atrocious crimes, my delegation reiterates this demand for reasons which I have just mentioned and which are well known to all representatives here.
27.	These Portuguese crimes are all the more reprehensible and worthy of condemnation because they often extend to independent States. No doubt you all have fresh in your memories the recent and barbaric aggression of Portugal against the people of Guinea which, thanks to their vigilance, were able to neutralize, repel and destroy the enemy. The Assembly is not unaware of the repeated attacks against the Republic of Senegal, the People's Republic of the Congo, the Republic of Zambia, the Republic of Zaire and the United Republic of Tanzania.
28.	The objective of neocolonialism is quite clear: to recolonize Africa and to continue exploiting its riches. For this purpose the neo-colonialists must place in authority their own men, their faithful servants. It is in this way that neocolonialism takes a particular dislike to the progressive regimes which want to be genuinely independent.
29.	Nor does it hesitate if necessary to use organizations and even reactionary Governments in their sinister plan of recolonization. This is particularly the context in which tribal elements supported by foreign mercenaries, encouraged by neo-colonialists, have committed aggression against our own country.
30.	More than five months after the failure of the attempt at genocide organized against the people of Burundi, our Government had to depart from the course it had so rigorously observed up to then, that of confining the causes and consequences of the events of last May to the African framework.
31.	Thus, thanks to our unswerving attachment to the OAU, we wanted to depict at the highest authority of that organization in Rabat last June the causes and effects of the storm which was unleashed over Burundi.
32.	Heeding the appeals for African nobility, dignity and solidarity, we refrained from exposing certain direct or indirect authors of the aggression against our people. Complying with the virtues of discreet consultation within Africa, we banked on the confession and repentance of those who from their own territories had sent elements instructed to participate in massacres of our people. This policy was respected to the letter, both in Bujumbura and by all our embassies abroad. Up to 5 October last, last Thursday in fact, the same silence we had preserved concerning the grievous guilt of one African country in the attempt to commit genocide in Burundi was going to be characteristic of our whole conduct throughout this session.
33.	But, alas, since 5 October 1972 Rwanda has abused our full conformity and attachment to the ideals and approaches commended by the OAU. Confusing our recourse to calm dialog with weakness, Mr. Munyaneza, the Foreign Minister of Rwanda, departing from all norms of African wisdom, believed himself to be charged with the task of hurling thunderbolts of condemnation against Burundi. Without doubt trusting to the ingeniousness of his own imagination, the spokesman for the Kigali Government counted on the same spirit of accommodation it had so long benefited from thanks to our great circumspection and our restraint, a gesture which is unique and peculiar to Rwanda, and, after having vilified the Republic of Burundi from this very rostrum its representatives hastened, through certain intermediaries, to commend to us moderation and indeed silence, and this in the interests of the OAU and with the purpose of avoiding hostility on the subject of problems which should be resolved within the context of our own continent. Now, it is precisely in order to safeguard the prestige of our continental organization that all our authorities within the country as well as those outside it have received orders to allow nothing to filter through about the criminal role played by Rwanda in the decimation of our people.
34.	Thus arises the inevitable question of why the delegation of Rwanda, under the leadership of Mr. Munyaneza, and certain emissaries remembered the need to keep intact the image of the OAU after having themselves tarnished it by their particularly slanderous allegations against a member State of that organization.
35.	This provocative act on the part of the Foreign Minister of Rwanda has made it possible for us finally to shed all possible light on the part played by the Kigali Government in the succession of attempts at coups d'etat and acts of genocide against our people. In the course of the very day in which Mr. Munyaneza was reciting his charges against Burundi, our delegation was obliged to exercise the right of reply [2055th meeting]. Our statement addressed to Rwanda was not confined to a simple routine denial; it was based upon facts and overwhelming evidence against Rwanda, which, although it was the guilty party, actually dared to become an accuser. The massacres., which in his speech on 5 October, the Minister of National Co-operation laid to what he was pleased to describe as a feudal minority were imputable to the tribalist regime which it incarnates and which he represents.
36.	From the Government to the party, including the National Assembly, all the political institutions of Rwanda are tribalized and come from fratricidal procedures, as is shown by the most varied authorized sources, and I would venture to mention these. A report submitted to the sixteenth session of the General Assembly by the United Nations mission to Ruanda-Urundi says: "In Rwanda, on the other hand, a Government has been brought to power which had from the outset followed violent methods and which had been actively supported from its foundation by the Administering Authority ..." It was also stated that the racial dictatorship of a single party had been established in Rwanda and the events of the previous 18 months had consisted in a transition from one kind of oppressive regime to another. That extension was encouraged, and it was to be feared that the Tutsi would find themselves incapable of defending themselves against abuses. It was to be feared that the Tutsi would think they had nothing more to lose and that their only hope of defense lay in recourse to violence, because any possibility of a solution of conciliation had disappeared once and for all. The problem of the Africanization of official jobs had become much more complicated because of the elimination of the Tutsi.
37.	I should like to mention another source, a trustworthy source, to substantiate what has happened in that country, which certainly has no right to intervene in the internal affairs of other countries. I would venture to quote Radio Vatican, which described the last wave of genocide of the Tutsi in Rwanda in 1964 as one of the most terrible and most systematic acts of genocide since the genocide of the Jews by Hitler.
38.	There are still other sources. The tribalist inflation in Rwanda was condemned by Rene Lemarchand in his book Rwanda and Burundi,  in which he exposes the bloody revolution of Rwanda, stating that that of Burundi was accompanied by no bloodshed when the monarchy was overthrown in 1966. Romain Foucher, in the magazine Esprit of July-August 1972, echoed the universal indignation in the face of the virulent tribalism of Rwanda: "The ethnic crystallization in fact began in Rwanda, where discriminations of this type were always more advanced and more extreme and the revolution which broke out there in 1959, with its sequels which lasted until 1963, established a 'panhutu' regime, which saw the violent disappearance of some 20,000 Batutsi (the most terrible genocide that had occurred since that of the Jews, as Bertrand Russell said) as well as the forced expulsion of 200,000 others. These refugees are still today in camps, as are their Palestinian counterparts. The Rwanda example was decisive with regard to the evolution of Burundi, to the extent that the Hutu putsch of 1965, which was also accompanied by massacres" of the Tutsi-children, women and old people-"in the Muramvya region, seemed to be bringing the country into the same vicious circle." But fortunately the authorities were vigilant.
39.	As the annihilation of our peoples was hatched with the complicity of Rwanda, the Foreign Minister of that country dares to state, in regard to the number of victims in Burundi, that "more than 200,000 innocent victims have been massacred" [2054th meeting, para. 22.]
40.	This is the same number as was propagated from Rwanda and spread throughout the world. The Belgian newspapers Le Soir, La Cite and Remarques Africaines, in connivance with the Rwanda authorities, competed with each other in spreading and advertising this "made in Rwanda" product.
41.	The number of targets was predetermined between Kigali and the exterminating agents, and without doubt Mr. Munyaneza is confusing his plan and the results actually achieved. Under that plan hundreds of thousands of Burundi citizens were doomed to systematic elimination. Nevertheless, some 25,000 assailants, which included a number of Rwandese, did not succeed in fully fulfilling their plan, for they met with the heroic resistance of the Burundi people, hence the crushing defeat inflicted on the attackers, which reduced to a quarter the number of targets which the Rwanda plan provided for in its first phase. Certainly the 50,000 Burundi citizens who were annihilated in the course of the first few days by the attackers represent a terrible calamity and a sad loss for our country,
42.	This turn of events thwarted the diabolical consequences planned on by the Rwanda Government. We have already invoked the reasons why we made these great sacrifices, particularly in view of our wish to bring about the fraternization of the African continent. With the purpose of camouflaging its enormous guilt in these fratricidal crimes, Rwanda sent its Foreign Minister in June to foreign capitals in Asia and Europe, But it is more than high time that the country of Rwanda dispelled its own illusions, because Rwanda must be told that it does not possess the monopoly of the friendship of Asian and European Governments, which, contrary to the hopes of Rwanda, are very little disposed to believe naively everything it says implicitly.
43.	The magnanimity of our Government towards Rwanda was not confined to keeping silent on the role of that country in the program of extermination. While there were quite a number of Rwanda citizens among the 20,000 attackers who died on the battlefield, Burundi preferred reserve to open denunciation of Rwanda. Can any more convincing proof against that Government be asked for than the fact that the 300 Rwanda nationals who were captured were repatriated, except for 36 of them, who are still in the hands of the Burundi authorities? In the light of the mildness that our Government lavished on Rwanda in spite of its direct and flagrant participation in the plot designed to decimate our people, it is staggering to hear the Foreign Minister of Rwanda proclaim at once his innocence and his indignation. Certainly the nightmare which haunts him stems both from the overwhelming facts against his country in our possession and from the crushing defeat of his compatriots whom he sent to commit aggression against Burundi. According to the Rwandese thesis, the Hutu of Burundi are sunk in poverty and are exploited by the "Tutsi overlords". If Rwanda were to be tempted to fail to recognize the criminal role which it assigned to its nationals, we would be reduced to asking it about the motives of the hundreds of Rwandese irregulars who were found on our Territory.
44.	Let us admit for a moment the theory of the Rwanda regime that the Hutu in Burundi are in distress and those in Rwanda are wallowing in opulence. We still have to ask Kigali whether they sent the successive waves of Rwanda irregulars to our country to join in the martyrdom of the Burundi Hutu or to commit crimes.
45.	Those irregulars, after having undergone intensive training in subversion, were sent to Burundi by stealth and clandestinely. Fearing that they would run into our forces of order from the very first moment they attempted to tread on Burundi soil under irregular conditions, the subversive agents coming from Rwanda infiltrated into Burundi through neighboring countries, whose good faith they abused. Such fraud is liable not only to bring about open conflict between Rwanda and Burundi, but also to embroil the latter country with its neighboring brotherly countries. The Foreign Minister of Rwanda was very ingenious in trying to condemn publicly the "systematic genocide" of which his own country was the principal organizer!
46.	Mr. Munyaneza from this very rostrum repeated this imaginary number of 200,000 people massacred, a number which initially was waved around by Rwanda in order to arouse pressure abroad which would tend to make the guilty innocent. Could Rwanda reveal to us the genius thanks to which it was able to count the victims? While it is undeniably established that the Rwandese contributed to the massacres, it nevertheless seems impossible for their agents to know the number of victims, since the agents who came from Rwanda were, for the most part, mowed down in the course of battle or captured.
47.	The Government of Burundi, for its part, was in a position to count the victims by means of all its military personnel, the Party, the national youth, the Union of Burundese Women and the Union of Burundese Workers, who were all mobilized in order to honor the mortal remains of their brothers and sisters who were immolated for this high ideal, namely, the indivisibility of the Burundese people.
48.	All this is to the credit of the unity and determination of our people to struggle against invaders who want to import systems which have been condemned by history.
49.	In the light of these facts and in such circumstances, how can Rwanda and those who have so ingeniously manipulated this random number be in a position to be better informed about the number of dead than the Burundi Government itself? We should like an answer to this question.
50.	What are we to say about the hundreds of thousands of human heads which fell in Rwanda in the course of the genocide committed in the name of the Hutu tribe from 1959 to 1964? We do not hear the Rwanda Government decrying this holocaust which it caused in order to establish a Hutu State.
51.	Leaving aside Pretoria, there is not in the world any country other than Rwanda with a regime that systematically excludes all other ethnic entities from the Government, from Parliament and from the Party.
52.	In the event that Rwanda is inclined to contest this fact, the Government of Bujumbura on behalf of which I have the honor of speaking here, would be ready to have a mission sent-preferably from the OAU, or, if not, from the United Nations. That mission would go to our two countries in order to carry out an inquiry. In Burundi it would note that all of our successive Governments, ever since the reconquering of our independence in 1962, have included, without any exception, Hutu and Tutsi which were alternately majorities according to the criterion of individual abilities. The list of all the candidates and the elective posts were drawn up by the Union of National Progress [UPRONA], the mass party which, in the legislative elections supervised by the United Nations in 1961, obtained 94 per cent of the votes on the basis of the universal suffrage of all men and women 18 years of age and above, illiterate as well as literate.
53.	However, the Rwanda system hermetically closes the doors of Government, of Parliament and of the Party to all its sons and daughters who, by accident of birth, did not happen to be Hutus.
54.	Hitherto we have confined ourselves to drawing up a list of all the misdeeds and atrocities committed by the Rwanda political regime. It is time now to trace the causes. Indeed, the theoreticians of that apartheid a la Hutu advocated as long ago as 1959 the creation of South African-type "Bantustans". In order to permit members to judge this, it suffices to read out the text of a telegram addressed in 1959 to the United Nations and to the Belgian Government by Mr. Gregoire Kayibanda, founder of the Hutu Party and the present President of Rwanda. It reads as follows:
"We Hutu represent 85 per cent of the people of Rwanda. We insistently call for racial peace with collaboration of the Belgian authorities and fear the worst for the whole country if they do not accept the geographical partition into Hutu zone and Tutsi zone. We Hutus declare furthermore that we wish to collaborate with the Belgian authorities as long as the democratization of the country, peace and progress require it for the Hutu emancipation movement. (Signed) Kayibanda."
55.	After the gloomy picture depicted above, what further proof is needed that Rwanda remains the most fertile breeding-ground of those forces which are determined to undermine and weaken the independence, sovereignty and racial harmony of Africa, forces which yesterday seriously threatened the integrity of Zaire, severed from Katanga, and which, immediately thereafter advocated the creation of a Biafra torn from Nigeria. And is it not that very same Rwanda which served as a haven for mercenaries whose claim to fame was the sowing of desolation in a sister republic, an influential member of the OAU?
56.	The repeated participation of that country in genocidal plots successively organized against our people, its tribalization of all the political organs on the model of the colonialist and nazi regimes, and its granting of refuge to a mercenary clique, constitutes a trilogy which in itself suffices to demonstrate that Rwanda is nothing less than a bridgehead of the recolonization of Africa, or rather a pocket of unrepentant colonialism.
57.	The extreme gravity of Rwandan interference in the internal affairs of sovereign States and the low blows it struck in the unsuccessful attempt at genocide require redress by Kigali.
58.	Moreover, any renewed attempt is liable to lead to dire "results for which Rwanda will be fully responsible.
59.	The obligation upon the Government of Kigali to renounce for ever its interference in the events and situations occurring in Burundi, on the strange pretext of universalizing Hutu militancy in a sovereign State, is necessary also in the case of the refugees.
60.	Our Government has complied with the letter and the spirit of the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, .signed at Geneva on 28 July 1951 and with the Protocol on Mediation, Conciliation and Arbitration of the OAU, to such an extent that the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has, in his annual report ever since 1966, described Burundi as the "pilot country" in this area.
61.	Thus, more than 100,000 Rwandan refugees have found refuge in our country in their attempt to escape from the genocide of 1959-1964 and have been, for the most part, settled in regions distant from the center. The necessary measures have been taken to prevent them from adversely affecting the security of Rwanda and those measures have been and continue to remain quite effective.
62.	At a time when every effort is made and all forces combined to consolidate the OAU in particular, at a time when all countries are busy forming great regional and continental groupings, it is imperative to put an end to the primitive conception of power which hampers the surge towards economic co-operation amongst peoples and the harmonization of relations among States.
63.	Burundi, for its part, profoundly attached to the well-being of the human race, is determined to associate itself with the growing universal movement to bring about a general improvement in the economic and international monetary system.
64.	Important events which have occurred recently have revealed the fragility, the disadvantages and the disappointments inherent in the international situation within the field of economic development.
65.	The monetary crisis which broke out in August 1971 and its consequences have revealed clearly the need for a revision of the international monetary system. Developing countries, which are in no way responsible for that crisis resulting from an imbalance between developed countries, are obliged to be the sufferers today of the principal adverse effects of the uncertainties born of the collapse of the Bretton Woods system and the subsequent monetary readjustments.
66.	A solution of the monetary crisis must not impose any additional burden on the developing countries, which have unreservedly co-operate in the efforts undertaken to maintain the stability of the international monetary system. Quite the contrary; special corrective measures should be taken to compensate them for their losses.
67.	It is particularly important for the developing countries to make an effective contribution to the establishment of an international monetary system which would be most in keeping with their interests. The revision of the international monetary system should be studied with the effective participation of third world countries at every stage. It cannot constitute a preserve of the "Group of 10" alone. This revision of the Bretton Woods system should serve to bring about a solution of our development problems.
68.	We note with regret that the position of the developing countries in the field of international trade, upon which their economy largely depends, continues to worsen.
69.	Burundi endorses the idea that developing countries should not be kept out of the preparations for new world-wide negotiations on international trade which are to take place next year.
70.	In the course of those negotiations, special arrangements should be worked out to give an important place to the developing countries. Those countries should be given the opportunity to participate fully, continuously, at every stage of the negotiations.
71.	Our Government attaches particular importance to solutions which will be found to problems of commodities and all measures affecting access to markets J and price policies, including international machinery for the stabilization of prices, the effectiveness of existing international agreements on commodities, and any new agreements reached will be of the utmost importance to us.
72.	The generalized system of preferences, in order to be more effective, should provide for the inclusion in its plans of all primary commodities which constitute the very basis of the economy of most developing countries.
73.	We note with pessimism that government aid to the poorer countries is declining and that the burden of their debt is growing heavier. The recent devaluation of the dollar and the revaluation of other currencies resulted in raising the nominal value of the external debt of the third world, expressed in dollars.
74.	There persists profound disagreement between developing countries as to the nature of measures to be taken to resolve the problems of indebtedness. The debates of the recent session of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development [UNCTAD] confirmed this once again. We agree with the content of resolution 59 (III),  which calls upon the Trade and Development Board to institute within the framework of UNCTAD a special agency to find practical solutions to the problems which the developing countries face in the matter of debt-servicing.
75.	In view of the gravity of the situation in which the developing countries find themselves in regard to their indebtedness, it is highly desirable that the conditions upon which aid is provided should be reasonable.
76.	The attainment of the objective of 1 per cent of the gross national product or a financial contribution of the target of 0.7 per cent for public assistance to development and the establishment of a link between the special drawing rights and additional financial resources for development, will contribute, we are convinced, to a resolution of the difficulties of a financial type which are encountered by the developing countries.
77.	Burundi attaches great importance to economic co-operation and regional integration among developing countries.
78.	The United Nations must pay particular attention to the long-term prospects of economic and social development, in order to view development within the broader framework of an indivisible world, in which all nations are interdependent. An over-all conception of development means that the United Nations should, here and now, assume greater responsibility in the achievement of economic development which would be better balanced at the international level.
79.	In order to bring about an over-all development, it is important to recognize the role of regional co-operation. The regional economic commissions have already acquired great experience in this field and hence constitute, within the framework of the United Nations, a point of convergence of the national, subregional, regional and world development efforts.
80.	An important question which is at the center of our attention is the inalienable right of the developing countries to exercise their sovereignty over their own natural resources and to take all the necessary measures to develop those resources in the interests of the economic and social development of their people. All measures or economic or political pressures from the outside, prejudicial to those rights, constitute a flagrant violation of the principles of self-determination and non-intervention in the internal affairs of other States. That is why we support any measure which would provide for the creation of a revolving fund of the United Nations for the exploration and exploitation of natural resources.
81.	We share the concern of most Governments at the sometimes nefarious role played by international companies in the economic and social development of certain developing countries and associate ourselves with those countries which call for an expert group to study the influence of international companies in the process of development, in order to formulate conclusions which would be taken into account by Governments when they set their development policies.
82.	We understand the importance attached today to the problems of environment. However, we must agree that the problems of environment which face the developing countries differ from those which face the developed countries. That is why we must allot resources to the preservation and improvement of the environment, while taking account of the particular needs of the developing countries.
83.	At the present time we are witnessing great sympathy and international solidarity towards the developing countries that are the least developed. Our country properly appreciates and understands the measures contemplated for the benefit of that group of countries, to which we, unfortunately, belong.
84.	In tackling problems of development the organs of the United Nations especially the United Nations Development Program like certain bilateral donors recognize that the least advanced countries and the land-locked countries should benefit from measures which would make it possible for them to profit equitably from international development policies, and we should lay stress on some of these measures.
85.	Technical assistance, including training, can increase the capacity for absorption of capital inflows to developing countries, especially the least advanced of them, and in this regard it is important to co-ordinate technical assistance efforts from all organizations, both multilateral and bilateral.
86.	Economic regional integration and co-operation constitutes one of these measures to the extent that it can solve problems such as the smallness of domestic markets and the question of natural and human resources, as well as the problem of limited financial resources which these countries suffer from.
87.	The most advanced countries among the developing countries can plan an important role in helping the least advanced. This assistance can be given both within and outside the framework of regional economic co-operation agreements.
88.	Within the realm of trade policy, we must have special supplementary measures favoring the least developed countries. There is the possibility of reducing, for example, the quota restrictions applicable to the exports of the least advanced countries and lowering taxes on tropical products, limiting non-tariff obstacles, identifying and eliminating restrictive trade practices, stabilizing the prices of tropical products and increasing the number of products to which the generalized system of preferences would apply so as to embrace products whose export is of particular interest and importance to the least-advanced countries.
89.	The least developed of the developing countries, whose economy is based essentially on agriculture, cannot develop as long as their resources within the field of agriculture are backward. It is important, therefore, that special measures to improve the agriculture of the least- advanced should be adopted.
90.	Our country also encounters difficulties because of the fact that it is land-locked. In order to meet these difficulties it needs technical assistance, particularly in order to improve its transport infrastructure.
91.	Burundi will endorse any regional or subregional project in the transport field and will support any measures designed to help the land-locked countries by special freight rates and by facilitating the transit of their goods through neighboring countries.
92.	Economic exchange and co-operation have always been the basis of the deepest links of the solidarity between men belonging to the same family, the same village, the same town and the same country; so why should international economic co-operation not play a unifying role for the whole world community?
93.	The development of means of transport, radio, newspapers, international meetings are in the process of eliminating geographical barriers which separate or which formerly separated peoples, and promoting international economic relations. As is the case within States, economic mutual assistance should contribute to a more equitable distribution of the world's wealth among nations and put an end to the systematic exploitation of the poorest by the richest.
94.	The elimination of injustice and exploitation among States is without doubt the most powerful factor promoting world peace, prosperity and the continued progress of mankind.
95.	But all these objectives, all these noble goals which are contained in the United Nations Charter can be achieved only if all the peoples of the world join hands in an upsurge of solidarity and fraternity to rekindle the flame of San. Francisco, which has stirred the hearts of all men of goodwill who have joined together against the great scourges of humanity.
96.	It is in that spirit that we wish every success to this session of the General Assembly and happiness and prosperity for all peoples.


Mr. President, may I first of all congratulate you on your election as President of this session of the Assembly and assure you of the whole-hearted co-operation of my delegation and its Permanent Representative in the arduous task ahead of you.
143.	I should also like to thank the outgoing President, Mr. Adam Malik, the Minister for Foreign Affairs of Indonesia, for the way in which he presided over the affairs of the General Assembly.
144.	I am very happy to see sitting on your right, Mr. President, Mr. Kurt Waldheim, the new Secretary- General, who has already shown keen interest in the affairs of the United Nations by apprising himself personally of the views and aspirations of the peoples of the world. Mr. Secretary-General, may your endeavors bear fruit.
145.	I do not think it would be out of place to pay a tribute to U Thant, who retired last December after years of untiring efforts to enhance the power and the prestige of this Assembly. He had always pursued his duties with utmost understanding and devotion.
146.	Speaking at this rostrum at the twenty-fifth session of the General Assembly of the United Nations [1875th meeting], I pointed out that the Organization had not fulfilled all the hopes and expectations which the poor, the weak and the disinherited of the earth had placed in it. While we recognize that it takes time to establish a new world-wide order of peace, justice and prosperity, to which we aspire, there has been good progress for peace and international agreements during the past months. The fact that the United States of America, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and China have come nearer to one another augurs well for the world; and the dialogs
between West and East Germany and the discussions between North and South Korea are no less significant.
147.	I believe that we all share the Secretary-General's view that "the United Nations ... remains the best long- term basis on which the international community as a whole can opt for survival, justice and progress" and that "in the long run there is no substitute for such an instrumentality" [A/8701/Add. 1, p. 2], I submit that the Member States should endeavor to make the United Nations more and more effective with each passing year and that it is incumbent on the General Assembly at each regular session to see to it that we progress steadily towards the goals that we have set for ourselves.
148.	I should like now to come to a few specific points. There is no doubt that by restoring the rights of the People's Republic of China and by admitting five new States the General Assembly at its twenty-sixth session took a decisive step towards ensuring conditions for the increased effectiveness of the United Nations.
149.	Mauritius welcomes the initiative of Member States to request the General Assembly to consider the question of the admission of the new State of Bangladesh into the comity of nations. This question should not be tied up with any extraneous issue but should be considered by itself and on its own merits. Mauritius-like other countries-is of the view that with the admission of this important country to the United Nations most of the issues which are now pending between Pakistan and Bangladesh would be resolved.
150.	In this connexion we are gratified that under the Simla Agreement of last July India and Pakistan have agreed, in accordance with the United Nations Charter, to renounce the use of force to settle their disputes. The normalization of relations between these two countries will contribute in a large measure to the solution of outstanding differences between Pakistan and Bangladesh. All three nations should be encouraged by the United Nations to restore conditions for a durable peace on the subcontinent. It is our view that it is not by keeping Bangladesh out of the United Nations family that we shall contribute to the peaceful settlement of disputes that affect peace in South Asia.
151.	I appeal to the People's Republic of China to look on the admission of Bangladesh with sympathy and generosity and not to pursue the path of ostracism, for through ostracism it was itself denied for over a quarter of a century its rightful place in this Organization.
152.	Now I come to the very delicate issue which preoccupies the minds of most Governments at present. We have from time to time censured South Africa for its policy towards the black peoples of Africa; but to my mind South Africa's policy of apartheid and discrimination against our brothers and sisters in Africa has paled into insignificance against the recent action of Uganda, namely, the expulsion of Asians from that country and the expropriation of their property. We have all been put to shame, and in the name of humanity and peace I appeal to President Amin to search his own heart and reconsider the situation. Otherwise there will be no distinction between the policies adopted by
Uganda and those adopted by South Africa. After all, South Africa has not dispossessed and expelled people because of their origin or race, thus bringing about the great hardships which would have followed such a policy of utter disregard of the principles on which this world Organization is based.
153.	Without interfering in the internal policy of any State, I should like to deal now with another problem facing our brothers still struggling for their respective independence.
154.	In our own lifetime peoples of all countries have fought two World Wars for justice and freedom and for equality of opportunity for all, and the last World War has now been behind us for over 27 years. Yet, despite the efforts of this great Organization and of the economically backward peoples of the world, there are still colonial Territories struggling for their rights. Four years ago I touched upon this problem in the Assembly [1765th meeting], and we are still in a dark tunnel groping our way towards a dawn that we should like to see for each of these Territories.
155.	There can be no justification today for a country to be under the domination of one colonial Power or another. I am not making an indictment of these Powers; my purpose today is to appeal to their conscience and to countries.represented in this Organization. I feel that the big Powers which are now holding large tracts of territories inhabited by other peoples should relinquish their hold over these territories, preserving, if they so wish, their economic, cultural and other ties with them.
156.	Friendly Governments to which I am appealing must not take my remarks amiss, but rather search their own hearts to see whether there is any more justification whatsoever for keeping colonies in this decade. There are ugly aspects to these dominations of territories, for such territories are used as bases for the economic and political subversion of the neighboring countries which have become independent. If freedom per se cannot come to these countries, I again suggest to this Assembly that we .should revive the Trusteeship Council, under whose umbrella all the remaining Territories should live and be enabled to secure their independence at some future time; otherwise I see no hope for them. I know that I am touching on a very sensitive issue, but in the name of God and in the name of justice I ask the Powers concerned to pursue a policy of live and let live. I leave this problem to the representatives here for consideration and action.
157.	I am glad that the subject of terrorism has been discussed. Let us hope that moderation and wisdom will bring about a better state of affairs. But it will be necessary in the first instance to define terrorism and to exclude from its connotations the freedom-fighters and liberation movements for which the Organization of African Unity has doubled its contribution this year. But after they have been excluded, to whom will terrorism refer? To the Arabs and the hijackers? We can see immediately how delicate the problem becomes. We all deplore and condemn terrorism, and I am glad that in his statement at the 2038th meeting Mr. William Rogers, Secretary of State of the United States, has defined at great length the several aspects of terrorism and given a new and, no doubt, acceptable orientation to this problem. I am convinced that all States will consider favorably the draft convention submitted by the United States for the prevention and punishment of certain acts of international terrorism [A/C. 6/L.850].
158.	While on my way to the United Nations I had the opportunity of visiting the Middle East, and I am more than over convinced that it should be the first aim of this Assembly with the help of the super-Powers, which are really responsible for the tension in that part of the world-to bring about peace with honor. I am sure that it should be possible for the Federation of Arab Republics and other neighboring Arab countries to recognize the frontiers of Israel and live in peace with it, provided Israel withdraws from the territories it is occupying against the wishes of its neighbors. Otherwise, the peace of the world will continue to be threatened without any hope of reconciliation.
159.	As I have just emphasized, the main concern of this Assembly should be to promote peace everywhere in the world, and it is heartening to think that the General Assembly at its last session declared that "the Indian Ocean... is hereby designated for all time as a zone of peace" [resolution 2832 (XXVI)] and in that resolution called upon the great Powers and all other States concerned to enter into immediate consultations with each other with a view to halting the further escalation and expansion of their presence in the Indian Ocean and eliminating from the Indian Ocean all bases, military installations, the disposition of nuclear weapons and weapons of mass destruction and any manifestation of great Power military presence in the Indian Ocean conceived in the context of great Power rivalry.
160.	In the framework of resolution 2832 (XXVI) containing the declaration, Mauritius will continue to cooperate with all other parties concerned in order to make the Indian Ocean a nuclear-free zone and an area of peace.
161.	Further, considering the achievements of the Organization of African Unity [OAU], of which Mauritius is a proud member, we share the conviction of the Secretary- General that "regional organizations have a vital role to play in any workable world order" [A/8701/Add.l, p. 3]. Without divesting itself of its prerogatives with regard to the maintenance of international peace and security, the United Nations should encourage regional organizations set up in accordance with the principles of the Charter to play their role as agencies of first resort to deal with local disputes and conflicts among Member States. The success achieved by OAU in this regard is important. At our last summit conference,  we had occasion to witness once again peaceful methods of solving disputes by negotiation, mediation, conciliation and arbitration. As often as possible the regional organizations should be given the opportunity to maintain regional peace, in accordance with Article 52 of the Charter.
162.	Turning now to the main requirement for lasting peace, namely, the question of general and complete disarmament, we have to note that the most decisive measures to end the arms race remain to be taken. Of course, we are gratified that agreements on partial measures of disarmament have been reached and that the talks on strategic arms limitations have been concluded successfully. But as long as there is no comprehensive nuclear test-ban treaty, we cannot genuinely speak of the possibility of peace. It may be that such a world disarmament conference as proposed by the delegation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics is the answer. We believe that such a conference, if adequately prepared as suggested in resolution 2833 (XXVI), will bring about the desired results, provided that the fundamental issues, including the stopping of all nuclear testing and the destruction of all existing nuclear weapons, are fully gone into beforehand.
163.	If we consider all the problems of social and economic development facing two thirds of mankind, we realize how essential it is to take the bold steps that are called for in order to take measures for population control. Mauritius, as one of the countries plagued by a population explosion and consequent unemployment, is aware, perhaps more than most countries, that lack of economic development breeds social unrest which may result in serious internal conflicts. Accordingly, Mauritius .is engaged seriously in mobilizing all its population-controlling institutions under the aegis of the State. It is in this way that Mauritius hopes to provide increasing opportunities to its people for a better life, by removing obstacles to their economic and social progress.
164.	Finally, it is our firm belief that the United Nations could best serve mankind if it could become the center for harmonizing human endeavors in the political, economic and social fields.


President, may I be permitted first of all, on behalf of the delegation of the Republic of Niger, to convey to you warm congratulations on the confidence placed in you and your country by your brilliant election to preside over the twenty-seventh session of the United Nations General Assembly. Your personal qualities and your long experience with international problems provide, in the opinion of my delegation, firm assurances of the fruitful development of our work.
2.	May I be permitted also to associate my delegation and my country with the so well-deserved tributes that previous speakers have addressed to Mr. Adam Malik for the courtesy and efficiency with which he presided over our twenty-sixth session, which proved so delicate in so many respects.
3.	I should also like to convey to the Secretary-General of the United Nations an expression of the confidence that the Government of Niger places in him. Since he was appointed to this high post he has demonstrated by his energy and his courageous initiatives that he intends to assume to the full his exceedingly difficult role.
4.	Year after year we meet in this august Assembly with representatives of an ever-increasing number of nations. But year after year we find ourselves grappling again with the same serious problems that still have not been solved. What is even worse, some of the most burning questions, questions on which the peace of the world depends, do not appear on the agenda of our session.
5.	Once again we must note the ineffectualness of the United Nations in an area considered as of primary importance by its founding fathers and affirmed in Article 1 of the Charter: that is, the area of the maintenance of international peace and security. Increasingly, this has appeared as the privileged preserve of the super-Powers. We must accept the evidence. Everywhere where there is no convergence of interests among the super-Powers disputes remain unsolved. That is a situation whose seriousness escapes no one. Thus, certain serious problems have been frozen for decades: here, large countries remain artificially divided in two; there, entire nations see themselves refused the right to self-determination or to the free choice of a government; elsewhere, cruel wars are raging with no end to them in sight.
6.	During the past year, however, we have witnessed some encouraging signs. The two parties in Korea have sketched out a rapprochement, or at least a relaxation of tension. The Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic have begun conversations. The Governments of India and Pakistan, despite a particularly painful dispute, have met together again. At the great-Power level, we have witnessed some events but we cannot yet estimate their implications. However, as of today we can congratulate ourselves on the arrangements concluded at Moscow on the limitation of strategic weapons. We would like to hope that this will come to represent a first step towards more general disarmament, which will relieve humanity from the specter of war and free for peaceful and constructive work the vast sums swallowed up each year in military expenditure in almost every country.
7.	But these few signs of relaxation of tension cannot lead us to forget the troubled areas. In Viet-Nam, where last year we thought we saw a glimmering of hope for a peaceful settlement, the fighting resumed a few months ago, intensified beyond any level we had witnessed before, causing incredible destruction and human suffering. And we still do not see any end to this tragedy of a whole people, while the United Nations, for a whole series of reasons, hardly participates as effectively as could be desired in the efforts made in various quarters to achieve a negotiated solution.
8.	Neither can we discern any gleam of hope in the Middle East. Last year, at this time, we hoped at least for a partial, temporary solution concerning traffic through the Suez Canal. Unfortunately, this feeble hope seems today to have been abandoned. The Jarring mission appears to have been compromised. Now it is absolutely essential to reactivate that mission or find some other approach likely to get the negotiations out of the impasse in which they are bogged down now.
9.	Niger for its part abides by Security Council resolution 242 (1967) and considers that the great Powers should be in a position to impose its strict application, with all the desired guarantees for the establishment of an equitable and
lasting peace. That is a responsibility which they cannot evade.
10.	Niger is aware that it has always sought to maintain the best of relations with all the independent countries of the world, at least so long as others refrained from intervening in our domestic affairs.
11.	What is more, President Diori Hamani has acquired the reputation of being an impartial and wise mediator and his action to restore harmony among the African States has been decisive on more than one occasion. Quite recently we had the pleasure of helping neighbors and brothers to clear up a painful misunderstanding which had developed between their Governments.
12.	Moreover, we try to work as closely as possible with our African neighbors in order to pursue, by successive stages, the ideal of African unity. Whether this be within the framework of the Council of the Entente or in the wider framework of the African and Malagasy Common Organization [OCAMJ, or the Organization of African Unity [OAU], Niger is convinced that it has chosen the path of realistic and brotherly co-operation. At this very moment it is seeking to create with its neighbors of West Africa, a large economic community which would be in a position to encourage the development of this vast geographic area by binding more closely together the nations that make up this region.
13.	In North Africa, in Central Africa and in East Africa, similar groupings are emerging. We welcome these realistic events with hope and confidence.
14.	It is with the same hope and the same confidence, and in the same spirit of essential solidarity, that my country, adding its voice to the already numerous voices of so many others, appeals with all its strength for the holding of a world conference on freedom of navigation and the common exploitation of resources of all sorts which lie on the sea-bed and ocean floor beyond the territorial waters established by each State. It is in this way and this way alone that the land-locked countries will be able, injustice, to play their full role in international trade.
15.	Unfortunately there is another vast region of our African continent, southern Africa, which is a matter of concern and scandal to us.
16.	Although world public opinion is becoming increasingly sensitive to the problems of decolonization and racial discrimination, and although from time to time it has succeeded in imposing its will on international bodies, we are compelled to note that the Portuguese Government, the racist regime of Pretoria and the illegal Government of Southern Rhodesia have in no way altered their attitude and their policy. For more than a decade now despite innumerable debates, despite all the resolutions adopted by the Assembly on apartheid, on decolonization, on Rhodesia and on Namibia, these colonial Governments, which are the remnants of an era that we had thought long past, are flouting international public opinion and making a mockery of the United Nations community.
17.	But it is obvious that this incredible arrogance, this permanent affront to international morality is made possible only by the culpable inertia of the big Powers, inertia which sometimes extends to complicity. There is no doubt in our mind that if the principal Western Powers, by common agreement, would withdraw their overt or covert support from these regimes and their support of Rhodesia is the most scandalous-they would quickly be brought to terms.
18.	We call upon the great Powers to understand and to seize this historic moment and to cease their support of these anachronistic regimes, support which they justify by what are often fallacious arguments. We call upon them to find a solution to these painful problems. They have just been given a fine lesson in this sense by the World Council of Churches at its recent meeting in Utrechi. It decided to boycott companies and banks operating in South Africa, in Rhodesia and in the Portuguese colonies and has called upon all churches to support the appeal of the African Council of Rhodesia for the convening of a national convention in that country. We congratulate ourselves on these initiatives of this eminent international body, which enjoys vast moral prestige. In the long run, they will certainly not fail to have a decisive influence at least we should like to hope so-on the Governments on which in the final analysis the solution of these problems will depend.
19.	The Government of Niger expects the South African Government to respect the resolutions of the United Nations, particularly that which set up a committee on the question of Namibia. It firmly expects that this committee will be set up without delay and that it will facilitate the access of the people of Namibia to full sovereignty in the shortest possible time.
20.	As for the Portuguese Government, which stubbornly insists on pursuing its inhuman and anachronistic colonial policy, when will it understand, and when will its Western allies finally make it understand, that it is vain to try to hold back the inexorable course of history? The independence and accession to full sovereignty of Angola, of Guinea (Bissau) and Mozambique are inevitably inscribed in the records of the world's history. Any attempt to set back the date not only affronts the universal conscience but also submits the people of Angola themselves to the most criminal deception in its history.
21.	With respect to Southern Rhodesia, my Government calls upon Great Britain to take the full measure of its responsibilities and to draw the necessary conclusions from the recent failure of the agreement concluded with the illegal regime of Ian Smith. It immediately became obvious that the terms of that agreement had been rejected by the vast majority of the population. To continue to close one's eyes to the state of affairs is tantamount to forcing the black majority to have recourse to violence as the only way out of this unjust situation.
22.	Turning to the item inscribed in the agenda at the request of the Secretary-General, namely, international terrorism [item 92], the Republic of Niger, while rejecting terrorism as a means of combat, believes that it must be defined very carefully in legal terms because we must not confuse terrorism with the legitimate struggle which people are waging, as an extreme solution, to conquer the rights of which they have been deprived.
23.	Any effective measure should in our opinion strike at the roots of the evils known as armed struggle throughout the world, colonization and apartheid in Africa in a word desires for intolerance, hegemony and human passions.
24.	Finally, in an area which is very dear to our hearts, our disappointment has been very great indeed. I refer to the third session of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development [UNCTADJ which was held a few months ago in Santiago, Chile. Despite intensive preparations, despite the appeals and the warnings from all sides, uttered not only by the representatives of the poorer countries, but also by enlightened minds within the group of industrialized countries, that confrontation at the world level, which could have resulted in a global development strategy, ended in a thinly disguised failure.
25.	None of the major claims of the developing countries was accepted: neither the commitment of the wealthier countries to devote a greater part of their gross national product to investments in the third world, nor the promise to associate the poorer countries more closely with far- reaching monetary decisions that affect them as much and even more than the developed countries, nor even the glimmerings of an organization of the trade in commodities which would halt the continuing deterioration of the terms of trade between the industrialized countries and the poor countries.
26.	To what extremes, therefore, must the poor be reduced before the wealthier countries, suddenly enlightened as to their true interests, will finally agree to come to grips with these problems with all the urgency and seriousness that they require?
27.	The only positive decision taken by the Santiago Conference was the selection of the 25 least favored countries which should receive preferential treatment. Since Niger was placed in this category some might tell us perhaps that we are ill-placed to complain about the results of the Conference. To this I would answer that it is our duty to speak in solidarity, in the name of all of the States members of the group of under-developed countries, since it is precisely because of a lack of solidarity that we have not succeeded in having our just claims recognized heretofore.
28.	Those are the few brief thoughts that my Government instructed me to put before the General Assembly because, in Niger, despite the inevitable setbacks encountered along the way, our hope in the United Nations remains firmer and more resolute than ever.


Mr. President, I wish to convey to you the very warm congratulations of the Irish delegation on your election as President of the twenty- seventh session of the General Assembly.
58.	In your inaugural address you stated that your country owes its existence, its freedom, its independence and its present dynamic development to great effort on the part of its people but also to tremendous sacrifices'" [2032nd meeting, para. 55].
Here I am reminded of an observation made by the Polish representative in the Security Council on 29 August 1946 in connexion with our application for admission to the United Nations. On that occasion Dr. Lange said that
.. the people of Poland have always, throughout the whole history of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, had a great sympathy and feeling of great and deep community with the people of Ireland".
These are sentiments which are fully reciprocated by the Irish people. Consequently my delegation is most gratified that the presidency of the Assembly should be assumed by Poland, and we are particularly happy that this high office should devolve on a personality of your experience and competence. The proceedings over the past three weeks have demonstrated that you will discharge your functions in a manner calculated to promote the purposes and principles of the United Nations and to enhance the standing of the Organization.
59.	I should like, too, to say how much my delegation welcomed the election last December of Mr. Waldheim to fill the office of Secretary-General. Naturally his long experience in the field of international affairs, both as representative of his country at the United Nations and elsewhere and as Foreign Minister, eminently fitted him to undertake the onerous duties of that office. In the intervening months we have admired the initiative and drive he has shown since assuming those functions.
60.	We have in particular been gratified by the Secretary- General's determination to use the powers conferred on him by Article 99 of the Charter to call attention to serious situations and by the readiness he has shown to make himself available to help in resolving such situations. We sincerely hope that the international community will heed his advice and will take advantage of the services which he, as depositary of important responsibilities under the Charter and ideally placed to play a detached role, is so well qualified to render. My delegation much appreciates his offer to help in any way possible in connexion with the North of Ireland.
61.	When I spoke in this Assembly at the twenty-sixth session [1956th meeting] I said that we in Ireland believed that political and moral power grew not out of the barrel of a gun but out of the will of people to act together so as to translate values into facts. The United Nations was established for this purpose.
62.	Men of vision and goodwill felt that the old inter-national order of sovereign, independent States which had characterized the nineteenth century was no longer adequate. The social, economic and political realities of the modern world require that we achieve a saner and more balanced view of our relations with our neighbors, within national societies, and between nation and nation, and indeed a saner and more balanced relationship between man in general and the earth which we all inhabit.
63.	To meet our individual and collective purposes we are constantly adapting structures and institutions or developing new ones. If the structures fail the fault may lie not in the institution itself but in the will of the national or the international community to make it work. As a structure, the United Nations, the Secretary-General reminds us in the introduction to his report on the work of the Organization, is "not an independent sovereign organization but an association of sovereign Governments, and ... its failures are also their failures". [A/8701/Add.l, p. 2.]
64.	The ability of the Organization to succeed is primarily dependent on the will of its Members. I believe that, if one examines the Organization's work and achievements to date and, more importantly, its capacity to meet the needs of the contemporary international society, one must conclude that as a structure, while some adaptations and adjustments could profitably be undertaken, the United Nations remains adequate for the tasks which it has assumed. It is not the structure which is lacking. It is the will and commitment to make it work that must be continually reinforced.
65.	The central political function of the United Nations, as the Secretary-General has recalled, is, in the words of the preamble to the Charter, "to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war". We can do this by making the Organization an instrument of collective security. Although mankind has been spared the horror of a third world war, nevertheless we are all aware that the United Nations has been unable to act to end a series of bitter and long-drawn- out localized conflicts. However, its failure in this regard is not due to the weakness of the Organization itself but manifestly to the unwillingness of the parties to those conflicts to make use of the instruments of peace-making and peace-keeping which the United Nations has at its disposal.
66.	This is the eighth regular session in which our agenda includes as an item "Comprehensive review of the whole question of peace-keeping operations in all their aspects" [item 41]. It is well known that the Irish delegation has long stressed the importance of this item, for it is obvious that situations can arise, and quite unexpectedly, in which the peace-keeping role of the international community is the most effective means of containing potentially explosive conflicts. Ireland consequently has contended that it is essential that the United Nations evolve a system, within the existing structure, by which a peace-keeping operation can be mounted at short notice and can be effectively pursued until it has achieved its purpose. We have always held that the establishment of a peace-keeping operation is primarily a matter for the Security Council, but we have contended equally that if the Council cannot take that step the residual authority of the Assembly should be capable of being invoked. Moreover, once an operation has been mounted, it is vital that its successful completion should not be jeopardized through the inadequacy of the method of financing it.
67.	Many previous speakers have referred to recent encouraging and hopeful developments in international and political relations the movement towards detente and dialog between the great Powers and between nations and States which are divided or dismembered by ideology or the fortunes of war. Ireland welcomes these developments, as we welcome, too, the movement towards full universality in this Organization, which gained enormous momentum last year when the People's Republic of China took its place among us. My delegation believes that Bangladesh should be a Member of the United Nations. For dialog detente and universality must surely serve to strengthen the structure of the United Nations and strengthen both the confidence of the peoples in the Organization and their will to make it work.
68.	The difficulties confronting national and international society are frequently more acute and more complex in the economic area. The United Nations, through UNCTAD, is engaged in what the distinguished Foreign Minister of France rightly called a "great movement of solidarity" [2041st meeting, para. 73].
69.	The problems with which UNCTAD has to deal are numerous, delicate and difficult. They directly affect the well-being and livelihood of all the peoples of the world.
The relatively disappointing results of the third session of UNCTAD, which took place some months ago in Chile, should not, therefore, be allowed to weaken our determination to persevere. The session should not be judged solely in the light of its immediate or concrete results. It served to define more clearly the areas in which our efforts must be concentrated and has made the international community both more aware of what needs to be done and more alive to the need to do it. It also demonstrated that, while the many problems involved are interrelated, the best hope of success lies in attacking them individually rather than in trying to solve them all simultaneously.
70.	The interplay of our will to act and the structures through which we can act in the political and economic spheres is also manifest in the complex relations between man in general and the earth which we all inhabit. There has been a growing realization in recent years of the importance of achieving a saner and more balanced view of the relations between man and the human environment. Piecemeal and uncoordinated development of industry, overpopulation, urbanization and rural depopulation, we now realize, can disturb, and have disturbed, the delicate balance between man and his ecological habitat. Resources have been depleted by rapacious exploitation; other resources have been destroyed by pollution and industrial waste; and many of the great cities of our civilization have been made barbarous by the refuse of mindless consumerism and planned obsolescence.
71.	The recent success of the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, held at Stockholm in June, is therefore a heartening sign. It is evidence of a growing realization of the gravity and complexity of the problems which world industrialization and urbanization have created and of a willingness to develop through the United Nations system a means of regulating growth and achieving and maintaining a proper equilibrium between the exploitation and conservation of the earth's resources. The tasks of the United Nations in this regard and its responsibility to succeeding generations are hardly less arduous and grave than those which it has assumed in its primary purpose of saving our children from the scourge of war.
72.	Twice in this century the clash of opposing national wills brought war to Europe. And the tragic lesson which war sometimes teaches and out of which the United Nations was born has a crucial relevance for Europeans. Those who had endured those terrible years had also reaped a new wisdom. The leaders of Europe realized that, if the continent was to avoid a further and perhaps final catastrophe, a profound transformation of European relations was necessary. National economic and political rivalries and dissension had to be replaced by co-operation and consensus.
73.	Just as the adoption of the United Nations Charter laid the foundation of a new world structure and order, the Treaty of Rome  laid the foundations of a new regional structure and order in which the peoples of Europe would assume obligations which bound them even more closely and committed them to work out together the common destiny to which both geography and history summoned them. In the years since 1957, when the Treaty of Rome was signed, the European Economic Community has undergone a process of evolution and development-which has been sometimes painful and often difficult but which, we are confident, is now about to repay the work, the tenacity and the vision of those men who labored to translate the ideal of European economic and political unity into a reality.
74.	Since I last addressed this Assembly the Irish people have expressed their overwhelming will to participate fully in the European Economic Community, which in a few months' time, with the accession of new member States, will group together some 250 million people. Ireland will bring its own heritage to this community of complementary cultures-which in Europe is endeavoring to build unity in diversity and, through co-operation and consensus, to guarantee to all our children that birthright of peace, of physical security, of material prosperity and of moral enrichment which should and can be the right of all mankind.
75.	One paragraph in the speech made in this general debate by the United Kingdom Secretary of State struck me as being especially arresting. Speaking in the context of Europe about East-West relations, he said:
"We must face the facts even when they are unpleasant. Since the last World War the confrontation over the years between the Warsaw Pact countries and those of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization led to an almost total loss of confidence. Western Europe had no desire for this, but the fact is that neighborliness, once confidence is broken, cannot be recreated in a day." [2042nd meeting, para. 107.]
76.	These remarks are, I feel, cogent in another context, that of Northern Ireland, and relevant to another relationship, that of my country and Great Britain. For the relationship between Britain and Ireland could not escape the influence of events in Northern Ireland over the past three or four years. These events have tended to reduce the problem there more and more to its most basic elements. The problem derives essentially from a conflict of political wills and is aggravated by a defective political structure.
77.	The conflict of wills is that between Unionism and anti-Unionism, between those who seek to perpetuate a nakedly sectarian state in Northern Ireland-while pro-testing their loyalty and allegiance to Britain and British democracy-and those who are struggling for basic civil rights and substantial recognition of the legitimacy of their allegiance to the ideal of a united Ireland.
78.	Northern Ireland was created as a political entity in order to provide an area in which to cater separately for unionism in Ireland. In the demographic and political circumstances of Ireland as a whole in 1920, when Northern Ireland was established, unionism could not-and cannot today-exist on its own. A purely Unionist area could not, and cannot, be established as viable. To cater for unionism therefore required the creation of an area divided into two communities with assured dominance for one. The structure of Northern Ireland, in consequences, had political instability built into it from the beginning. As a solution for the Anglo-Irish problem it was, in the words of my Prime Minister, "a recipe for slow disaster".
79.	A permanent peace and genuine democracy cannot be established until all the elements of the dilemma in Northern Ireland are squarely faced and dealt with together. And as I have said, the central dilemma of the North lies not only in a conflict of wills, but in the fact that this conflict of wills can never be resolved within the existing structure of Northern Ireland. A permanent solution therefore can only be found, in the view of my delegation, through a genuine attempt both to resolve the conflict of wills and to replace the existing structure.
80.	To date, all the attempts by Britain and by successive Belfast administrations to bring about consensus government in Northern Ireland through reform have focused on only one element of the dilemma. In 1969 when the abuses which the divisions within the area had made virtually inevitable came to world attention Britain intervened to see to the reform of these abuses. Attempts at piecemeal reform and the violent refusal of the more reactionary Unionists to accept them brought no stability and the situation grew worse.
81.	Moreover the attempts at conciliation were accompanied by efforts to coerce the minority, which simply increased their alienation, and generated tolerance or support for violent tactics, and this in turn left the two communities in the North of Ireland even further divided than before. In short, these attempts to resolve the conflict of wills failed. Six months ago, in March, in the face of persistent violence and instability, Britain took the more drastic step of suspending the structures of dominance within the area by proroguing the Northern Parliament in an effort to reassemble the shattered pieces of the structure in a more equitable and stable way. But what Britain has to face is that the very structure of Northern Ireland the unworkable attempt to create an area to deal separately with unionism in Ireland-is the fundamental difficulty and that there is no way in which the pieces can be put together again so as to have permanent stability within a purely Northern Ireland setting. If a successful political structure is to be built, it must be one which is open to, and capable of, operating in a wider context, that of Ireland as a whole.
82.	But the conflict of wills must also be faced. Britain and Ireland together with the divided communities in the North will have to be involved in the resolution of that conflict. The deepest concerns of the Unionist community in Ireland will have to be, and can be, met by an eventual accommodation with the national majority by negotiation and on terms acceptable to both. And the deepest concerns and desires of the Unionist community in Ireland cannot be met any other way-certainly not by coercion or by the inter-communal violence who threatens all Irishmen with common ruin.
83.	It is evident that there can be no instant solution to the present difficulties. Short-term measures alone, based on a simple balance of forces within the area, will not be enough.
84.	There is general acceptance at present of the need to provide a new framework for administration in the North of Ireland. This administration must provide for an equitable division of political power between the elected representatives of the communities in the area, and there must be no possibility of the abuse of security powers in the interests of one community. Beyond this, there must be recognition of, and a real political outlet for, the legitimate aspirations of the non-Unionist community.
85.	Interim measures can allow a process of reconciliation to begin: membership by Britain and both parts of Ireland in the European Community will undoubtedly help. But the process of reconciliation will advance only if there is an acceptance of the need to promote and work positively towards a stable and lasting settlement on a new basis in Ireland. It is not enough simply to speak of this as a "legitimate aspiration", or to suggest that reconciliation, now, is a prerequisite to any progress towards this aim. If a real and lasting process of reconciliation is to begin now, there must be courageous and far-sighted policy decisions aimed at such a settlement, and there must be provision for movement towards it as the opportunities become available.
86.	In brief, the aim must be not merely to hope for but to encourage actively, by every available political means, progress towards a new Ireland. It would clearly be wrong to repeat on a larger scale in the island as a whole a pattern which has already proved unstable in the North. So we must try to achieve, by agreement, new political institutions in Ireland which do not divide its communities or subordinate one to another, but which are responsive to all elements of its population and their diversity of outlook and tradition. A beginning must be made now which will promote and encourage progress in the right direction, but it would be unwise to demand absolutes, or to set a rigid time-table.
87.	In speaking to the General Assembly as I have done on tills issue, which deeply troubles us in Ireland, I should like to emphasize that my Government does not consider that the interests of the national majority in Ireland are in any way at variance with the real, long-term interests of the Unionist community. Nor are the interests of the Irish people in conflict with those of the British people. We consider that a stable and lasting settlement in Ireland on the basis I have outlined is in the real interest of both, and we believe and hope that the British Government will come to see this, if indeed it has not begun to do so already.
88.	Over the past year there have been exchanges of view between the British and Irish Governments on the mutual problem of Northern Ireland. The situation there and the approach to it I have outlined require deep involvement by both Governments.
89.	The Irish Government, for its part, is fully prepared to play a constructive role in reaching a just and lasting settlement of this last difficult problem in Anglo-Irish relations. It will act, by every constitutional means open to it, to work towards a reasoned political settlement, because it believes such a settlement would be clearly in the interests of everyone in Northern Ireland, of both the British and Irish Governments, and of all the people of both islands.