251.	 On behalf of my delegation, I should like to express our warmest congratulations to Mr. Mojsov on his election to the Presidency of the thirty-second session of the United Nations General Assembly. It is a fitting recognition of his outstanding qualities of leadership and enlightened grasp of international issues. It is a tribute to his country's distinguished record in world affairs as a founding member of the non-aligned movement. We feel confident that under his capable guidance this General Assembly will inspire a new momentum for international co-operation towards peace and economic justice for all peoples.
252.	I also wish to pay a tribute to his predecessor and express our sincere appreciation to Ambassador Amerasinghe of Sri Lanka for his outstanding performance in presiding over the deliberations of the last session.
253.	To Secretary-General Waldheim I express gratitude for his untiring efforts in the cause of peace and the solution of the critical issues which face us all.
254.	I should like also to welcome the Republic of Djibouti and the Socialist Republic of Viet Nam as Members of the United Nations. The admission of Djibouti marks another important milestone in the process of decolonization.
255.	As regards the Socialist Republic of Viet Nam, we have watched with awe and admiration the unceasing struggle of these people for three decades against imperialism in the fight for independence. And, that war having been won, we witnessed yet another struggle-this one for membership in the United Nations. Viet Nam's history of struggle for independence and the fight to take its rightful place among the community of free nations stand as a shining example of determination to all oppressed peoples.
256.	We are sure that members of the international community will render to both these countries assistance for their development and reconstruction consonant with the fullest respect for their sovereignty.
257.	The year 1977 was ushered in with expressions of optimism by some leading statesmen that substantial progress would be made towards the solution of areas of international tension and conflict, both political and economic.
258.	The current political international situation is a source of grave concern to us all. New areas of strife and tension have surfaced which present a critical challenge to the preservation of international peace and security. In addition, the continued existence of major international economic problems, particularly those affecting the developing countries, and the lack of significant progress towards the establishment of the new international economic order, are rapidly dispelling any sense of optimism. Urgent solutions must be applied if the United Nations is to fulfil its responsibilities as an effective instrument for preserving peace.
259.	The situation in southern Africa has become more critical. The people of Zimbabwe are no closer to freedom and independence and, as time drags on, the only losers are the indigenous people of Zimbabwe themselves. The problem must be settled within the guidelines set out in the various United Nations declarations and resolutions, and especially the Maputo Declaration, adopted earlier this year.
260.	We must continue to demand of the illegal Smith regime the immediate and unconditional accession to power by the majority  of the people of the Territory. On this, there can be no compromise, and any attempt to bring about any other solution is bound in advance to fail. We view with interest current initiatives to resolve the situation. The Government and people of Jamaica will always support attempts to bring about a negotiated settlement, but the armed struggle will continue, and it will receive our unqualified support until the legitimate aspirations of the indigenous people are met.
261.	In Namibia we find the Pretoria regime still engaged against world opinion and, in defiance of the injunctions of the United Nations, in the illegal occupation of territory which is the direct responsibility of this body. As such, this constitutes a clear and most direct challenge to the authority of the United Nations. That regime has flouted the authority of the United Nations, has shown repeatedly that it does not intend to withdraw its presence and influence from the Territory, has established nuclear-test installations in the desert region of Namibia and has carried out preparations to test a nuclear device for military and aggressive purposes. Now what do we find? Negotiations are at present being conducted by certain Governments with the Pretoria regime in an effort to plead with, beg and beseech that Government to give up that which it illegally occupies.

262.	My delegation stands firmly behind the Maputo Declaration. It is up to the people of Namibia to determine their own future. Free elections must be held under the supervision and control of the United Nations. Prior to such elections, conditions for a negotiated settlement must be created in accordance with all the relevant resolutions and decisions of the United Nations, particularly as they relate to the removal of South African military presence from the Territory, the participation of the South West Africa People's Organization in the elections, and acceptance of the fact that Namibia will proceed to independence as one political entity, with its territorial integrity preserved. Any negotiated settlement must include these basic conditions to command Jamaica's support and endorsement.
263.	The situation in South Africa itself is now at a critical stage: massacres of innocent blacks and the murder of individual black leaders continue to be the order of the day as the white racist minority increases its acts of repression to delay the inevitable holocaust. And while leaders and opinion-makers in some of the major Powers exhort the oppressed, blacks to seek change by peaceful means, Vorster has shown his manifest contempt for such exhortations, as well as for the overtures that have been made to him by some of the major Powers, by recently announcing bogus proposals for constitutional change which make no provision for transferring power to the majority of the peoples of South Africa.
264.	Action to support the African struggle for freedom is now a matter of urgency. Of particular concern is the continuing collaboration of some major Powers with the Pretoria regime in the military and economic fields. We can no longer be content with hollow assurances of opposition to apartheid while these countries profit from their military and economic deals and thereby enable the reinforcement
of this criminal policy of apartheid. In this regard, the most disturbing development is the acquisition by the Pretoria regime of the capability to manufacture nuclear weapons.
265.	The World Conference for Action against Apartheid held in Lagos, Nigeria, in August of this year once again demonstrated international abhorrence of the system of apartheid. But the call of the Lagos Conference is for action to support the struggle of the African people to secure their legitimate rights and for action to sever all contacts with South Africa.
266.	In this latter regard, we hope that this Assembly will take concrete action towards the finalization of an international convention against apartheid in sports, as called for in the resolution which was adopted by the Assembly last year.
267.	The hopes and expectations of the international community at the beginning of 1977 that the year would show meaningful progress towards a peaceful settlement of the problem of the Middle East have been seriously prejudiced by recent developments in the occupied Arab territories The recognition by the Government of Israel of settlements by its nationals in the occupied territories is tantamount to annexation, and reinforces the view held by many States that Israel's basic policy in the Middle East is one of territorial expansion. The acquisition of territory by force is totally unacceptable to my Government. Jamaica continues to regard the implementation of Security Council resolutions 242 (1967) and 338(1973) as the basic ingredient for a settlement in the Middle East. We regard the participation of the legitimate representatives of the Palestinian people as an indispensable prerequisite for the successful resumption of the Geneva Peace Conference on the Middle East.
268.	We are encouraged by recent evidence of a more even-handed policy towards the Middle East problem by one of the major Powers-a policy which includes recognition of the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people. More than ever, it is essential that all parties to the conflict show restraint in their actions and give mutual recognition to one another, including the right of the Palestinians to a homeland and the existence of an Israeli State, lest the momentum towards the resumption of the Peace Conference be lost and the world find itself plunged once more into a deepening international crisis.
269.	The situation in Cyprus is another long-standing problem, as that small independent and non-aligned country remains dismembered through occupation by foreign military forces. The United Nations must therefore renew its efforts to promote a solution which is in the interests of the people of Cyprus through an early resumption of meaningful talks between the two communities and the withdrawal of the foreign troops.
270.	Perhaps the most positive achievement over the past year is the successful outcome of negotiations on new Panama Canal treaties which satisfy the legitimate aspirations of the Government and people of Panama. The settlement of this long-standing issue augurs well for the future of relations in our hemisphere, and we sincerely hope that this new spirit of understanding and co-operation will lead to the solution of the other outstanding issues in other parts of the world as well.
271.	In particular, within the hemisphere we look forward to a prompt solution to the Belize issue. For far too long the people of Belize have been prevented from achieving their legitimate rights. Talks held earlier this year have not provided any meaningful results for the achievement of the independence and security of Belize. At the same time there is fearful evidence that certain countries have been supplying arms for use against Belize. Moreover, the events which followed the movement of troops against Belize earlier this year leave no doubt that the situation is a growing threat to international peace.
272.	In the circumstances my Government wishes to re-emphasize that the United Nations must act now to provide appropriate international safeguards for the independence of Belize, with preservation of its territorial integrity. If the United Nations cannot help to ensure the right to independence of a small, defenceless country by providing such safeguards, then it will have fallen far short of fulfilling its responsibilities to the international community.
271 The relaxation of tension in the world and the promotion of international peace and security are directly related to substantive progress in disarmament. We continue to witness the escalation of the arms race, which has already reached alarming proportions. New and sophisticated weapons of mass destruction are being developed to add to already heavily-stocked arsenals. As the proliferation of nuclear weapons continues tensions increase and the danger of a nuclear holocaust becomes more frightening. No progress has been made over the past year on the conclusion of a comprehensive test-ban treaty and other issues of high priority in the field of disarmament.
273.	We urge the major Powers to commit themselves to more active endeavours towards the goal of general and complete disarmament. One step in this direction would be the reduction of military budgets and the use of funds thus saved for international assistance to developing countries. In this context I wish to emphasize that the arms race is inconsistent with the pressing social and economic needs of the developing world. It is deplorable that annual expenditures of over $300 billion are being wastefully utilized on tools of destruction.
274.	But we should not abandon hope. The special session on disarmament scheduled for 1978 presents an opportunity for new approaches to this question. My Government looks forward to an intensive session which should provide a new impetus for progress towards general and complete disarmament under effective international control.
275.	The question of human rights is fundamental to all of our concerns and underlies all our efforts to resolve the most pressing issues now before the General Assembly, whether they be political or economic, or are labeled humanitarian issues. For essentially it is the basic ideals and goals of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which guide our considerations as we search for justice and peace throughout the world.
276.	Let us never forget that current discussions of human rights, both inside and outside +he United Nations, take place at a time of mounting crisis in southern Africa emanating from the most, massive violations of human rights known to our world today.
277.	These discussions of human rights raise questions of great sensitivity. This is to a great extent because varying perceptions of human rights exist, with differing emphasis being given to one aspect of human rights as against another. To some nations the civil and political rights of the individual, such as the right of free elections, freedom of expression, freedom of association, are paramount; to some nations the rights of all to food, to shelter, to health, to work, are the most urgent and basic of all human rights. States Members of this Organization strive towards a totality of human satisfaction In developing countries the struggle to achieve that totality becomes one of the most demanding aspects of national endeavours.
278.	Developing countries represent that vast section of the world whose previous history of colonization, foreign occupation and control has implied the massive deprivation of the human rights of the majority of our people-our civil, political, social, cultural and economic rights. This has been the experience of my own country.
279.	The enormous challenge which confronts us is how now to advance all of these rights for the enjoyment of all citizens without sacrificing one right to the other. Jamaica does not shrink from the magnitude of this task The socialist revolution in which we are engaged is firmly grounded in a democratic respect for the rule of law and the protection of individual human rights and freedom. We shall continue to promote these, not only within our own boundaries but regionally and internationally as well.
280.	We record with pleasure that the policies of my Government in the area of legal reform and institution- building will enable large segments of our population, such as women, youth and, particularly, children of unwed parents, to occupy the just and equal position in our society of which they have for centuries been deprived. Our commitment to eradicate poverty commands the highest priority, requiring the mobilization of all our resources, human and natural. Only in this way can we begin to discharge our responsibility to the masses of our people as they exert their rightful claim to enjoy human dignity But the pressure on national resources of fulfilling that responsibility is one of the most crucial challenges which faces the majority of our Member States.
281.	Unfortunately, developing countries which take a really serious view of their obligation to divert resources to meet the needs of their underprivileged find little sympathy or understanding among developed countries and certain international institutions. If we devote domestic resources primarily to meeting these needs and have to seek temporary foreign-exchange assistance from the international monetary agencies, those agencies ignore or discount the social objectives and apply rigid and anachronistic yardsticks to the credit application; stigmatize our Governments as having frittered away our resources and provide limited amounts of credit only on condition that the vital social programmes are cut back. All this is done in the name of sound financial practice.
282.	As we approach the thirtieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights it is timely to begin to recall the wide span of human needs identified in that Declaration and the complex nature of the task involved in satisfying those needs, even at the most minimal level. The most complex unresolved aspect of that task to date is the linkage which exists between civil and economic rights.
283.	The need for a searching and comprehensive analysis of human rights and the implications of their interdependence and indivisibility are issues which my Government hopes will receive full consideration by this Assembly.
284.	Jamaica hopes that we can in the coming weeks address our minds to the capacity of the United Nations to advance human rights on all fronts, guided by the growing recognition that the present urgent search for international economic justice is a process which carries most profound implications for the realization of the full spectrum of human rights for the majority of the world's people.
285.	As long as two thirds of mankind continue to exist at a subsistence level, there will be a continuation of crises and tensions throughout the world.
286.	The concept of the new international economic order arose from the need to synchronize or integrate international political and economic relations into a single conceptual framework for global development from which benefits would accrue to all countries and all peoples.
287.	Since the sixth special session, little progress has been made towards the establishment of the new order. The very acceptance of the concept has been slow as the industrialized market economy countries have clung stubbornly to the past. With a few notable exceptions, leaders and opinion-makers of those countries are doing their peoples a grave disservice by failing to educate them to the need for change in relations between the rich and poor nations. We, the developing countries, will not continue to live in squalor through exploitation by the operations of an. outmoded system of economic relations.
288.	The United Nations is the only forum where global problems can be tackled comprehensively with the hope of finding solutions in the interests of the entire international community. In the economic sphere, the results of the Conference on International Economic Co-operation clearly show the futility of dealing with these problems on the basis of the participation of a few countries outside the global framework of the United Nations. Yet we must be concerned at the capacity of the United Nations system to deal effectively with the restructuring of the global economic system
289.	It is not enough merely to reaffirm that the negotiations on the new international economic order must take place within the United Nations system. We must also take action to ensure that this system is adequately structured to carry out the negotiations and to monitor the implementation of decisions taken and agreements reached.
290.	There are three areas which call particularly for new approaches by the United Nations. The first concerns the transfer of resources from developed to developing countries.
291.	The two-year period since 1975 should have seen the complete implementation of the decision by the seventh special session of the General Assembly that the flow of concessional financial resources to developing countries should be made  predictable, continuous and increasingly assured. It has been taken up instead with arguments over the definition of official development aid, repetitious explanations of the failure of one or another donor country to maintain the promised level of its voluntary aid, and with attempts to estimate by what decade in the future past targets of voluntary charity will have been reached.
292.	It is time now to look at this subject of the transfer of resources in its widest aspects; to keep watch upon the movement of resources on non-concessional as well as concessional terms; to take into account the massive annual growth in the inward flow of resources from the poor to the rich. It is time now also to abandon the annual appeals to halt the downward trend in the volume of charity, to take up once more the various proposals which have been advanced for making the transfer of resources automatic and to negotiate firm commitments in respect of those transfers.
293.	Unless my Government can be convinced that existing machinery in the United Nations system can and will immediately be utilized for this new approach to the transfer of resources, we propose to work towards the early introduction of firm proposals for the establishment of a commission on the transfer of resources, in which representatives from developed and developing countries will sit down at a table across from each other and negotiate in earnest about the transfer of resources.
294.	The next area which, in the view of my Government, requires a new kind of involvement on the part of the United Nations is that of international monetary reform. For too long now the world monetary system has remained essentially under the control of a few major countries. Detailed technical studies have been made and recommendations for reform of the Bretton Woods system have been put forward; but implementation is being delayed by countries which have the power to place narrow national or group interests above the interests of the world community—with disastrous consequences for the economies of the developing countries. Even those proposals do not fully meet our needs. Moreover, the established principles and practices of IMF in the management of world liquidity will not satisfy the demands of a changing world order.
295.	My Government is convinced that the monetary reform eventually carried out will be adequate neither in scope nor in pace if the process of reform remains in the exclusive domain of the present governing bodies of IMF. Some external machinery with sufficient authority to stimulate reform is urgently required.
296.	My Government therefore proposes that the General Assembly should decide to establish an ad hoc commission on international monetary reform which would be charged with the function of calling for reports on the measures under consideration in IMF, assessing the progress being made with their implementation and of promoting and guiding the whole process of international monetary reform.
297.	The third area in which the United Nations needs to make a new approach concerns energy. Several factors point to the urgency of making effective international arrangements to deal with this critical area.
298.	These factors include the need for effective conservation of oil and natural gas; the need to intensify the search for new energy resources; the necessity to ensure that investment choices in the development of alternative energy supplies reflect rational strategies in the developing countries; the need to ensure adequate research into solar, wind and other renewable forms of energy and the need for financial and technical assistance for high-risk investment in energy exploration, in the development of known resources and for diversification programmes.
299.	All this must be seen within the context of a precarious world energy supply. In addition, the very close relationship between the question of energy and development must be continually recognized.
300.	The studies undertaken by the United Nations at the request of the General Assembly at its seventh special session cannot satisfy the urgency of this need.
301.	With respect to financial assistance, international financial institutions, especially the World Bank, should be provided with adequate resources to meet, in particular, the needs of energy-deficient developing countries.
302.	My Government therefore proposes that consultations should take place during this session of the General Assembly with a view to establishing one institution to provide for technical co-operation between developed and developing countries in energy exploration, energy diversification and the transfer of energy technology. The consultations will aim at discovering the form and precisely with what functions such a body could be invested.
303.	The resumed negotiations on the common fund are scheduled to begin in a few weeks' time and it is imperative that early agreement be reached on the establishment of the fund within the framework of the Integrated Programme for Commodities.
304.	Another forthcoming event of major significance is the ministerial meeting of the Trade and Development Board to review measures concerning the debt and related development and financial problems of the least developed, the developing island and the developing land-locked countries. In this connexion, the General Assembly has already charged the forthcoming Ministerial Meeting with the specific task of reaching agreement on concrete measures to provide an immediate solution to the debt problems of developing countries.
305.	The progress at those two meetings will be closely watched by developing countries and will constitute the acid text of the  greater understanding  so widely emphasized by developed countries as well as their implicit commitment to negotiate seriously in the United Nations system, particularly on issues involving structural change pertaining to the new international economic order and its establishment. Comprehensive substantive proposals have long been submitted by the Group of 77 on these critical issues, and we look forward to constructive consideration by the developed countries on these important proposals.
306.	Another area we regard as being of fundamental importance for the establishment of the new international economic order is the Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea. An international agreement on a convention for the equitable distribution of the resources of the sea-bed is long overdue, and I urge all participants to work seriously towards a successful conclusion of the Conference at its next session, in March 1978. Jamaica looks forward to accommodating the headquarters of the international sea-bed authority.
307.	Jamaica has followed with deep interest the work of the Ad Hoc Committee on the Restructuring of the Economic and Social Sectors of the United Nations System. It is with concern that we have observed the scope of the exercise being whittled down by developed countries in the course of the Committee's work, particularly with respect to enhancing the capability of the United Nations Secretariat to meet the demands involved in establishing the new order. Jamaica will therefore be keenly interested in the actions to be taken by the General Assembly at this session in the light of the anticipated report of the Ad Hoc Committee.
308.	We stress the absolute necessity of developing rational structures and processes that can better serve the international community. They are essential and, if relevant and effective, they can greatly assist our work. The issues on our agenda-issues involving, for example, the arms race, the intractable nature of racist regimes, the Middle East and the reorganization of the world's economic system-which will command our attention during the coming weeks require far more of us than skills and talents in institutional engineering and diplomatic virtuosity.
309.	Yesterday we Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the States members of the Group of 77 reaffirmed our unmistakable determination to eradicate the ills that have for so long plagued mankind. We restated with one voice the principles that should guide the international community in this undertaking.
310.	Time ebbs away. Further delay invites disaster. The entire world community must act now. Failure imperils all mankind. Our mandate is to improve the lives of all the men and women who now occupy this planet and those who will be born on it. This is our mandate, as simple to state as it is at times difficult to implement.
311.	Conscious of this, we renew our faith in the capacity of the United Nations to serve humanity. Simultaneously we will continue to challenge it and ourselves to fulfil its great and noble task.


55.	Mr. President, it gives me pleasure to extend to you on behalf of the delegation of the Republic of Iraq our warm congratulations on your election as President of the thirty-second session of the General Assembly. What makes us all the more proud of your election is the continuing strengthening of the relations of friendship and amity existing between Yugoslavia and Iraq. I should like to commend in particular our close co-operation within the framework of the non-aligned movement, which Iraq considers to be the corner-stone of its foreign policy.
56.	I avail myself of this opportunity to pay a tribute to the outstanding contribution made by Mr. Amerasinghe, the President of the thirty-first session, and to his wisdom in steering its deliberations. I should like also to express my appreciation to the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Mr. Kurt Waldheim, for his excellent efforts on behalf of this Organization.
57.	During the past two years I have had the privilege from this rostrum of acquainting this esteemed Assembly with the basic principles of the policy of the Republic of Iraq towards the Palestine question. I did this in the context of presenting my country's policy concerning many international issues. This time, however, I should like to confine myself to this central issue, which is of vital concern to us and which we sincerely believe should be the focus of attention of all of us if we really want to establish a lasting and just peace in the Arab region.
58.	My country has continued to refuse to recognize the Zionist entity in a consistent policy based upon an objective assessment of how that entity came into being and of its long-term objectives. This policy is founded on our conviction that the emergence of that entity was based on a monstrous injustice and would not have come about had it not been for colonialist collusion between Great Britain and later the United States, on one hand, and world Zionism, on the other. Zionism has acted in concert with the imperialists in Britain ever since the nineteenth century, with Palmerston, Shaftesbury and Disraeli, and later with Chamberlain, Herbert Samuel, Lloyd George and Balfour, the author of the well-known Declaration.
59.	It is true that the political and military circumstances of- the First World War played a basic and direct role in Britain's issuing the above Declaration, as admitted by David Lloyd George in his book entitled The Truth about the Peace Treaties, as well as by Chaim Weizmann, Christopher Sykes and others. In the final analysis, however, the decisive factor was the long-term British interest, based on the use of Zionism, in confronting the national liberation movement which had begun to take shape among the Arab masses, thereby threatening the colonial interests of the British Empire. Each party found in the other its natural partner. Imperialism sought a dependable ally through which it would establish a beachhead to achieve its purposes in the Arab region and to safeguard the route to India. Zionism wanted someone to help it to occupy the land of Palestine.
60.	Thus, in his bid to enlist the support of Britain, Chaim Weizmann said, in 1904:
 ... should Palestine fall within the British sphere of influence, and should Britain encourage a Jewish settlement there,... we could have in twenty to thirty years a million Jews out there, perhaps more; they would .. . form a very effective guard for the Suez Canal.
61.	Thus Balfour issued his illegal and immoral Declaration on 2 November 1917, pledging his Government's position of viewing with favour the establishment of a national home for the Jews in Palestine, ignoring thereby the will of the Palestinian Arabs, who constituted 92 per cent of the population and possessed 98 per cent of the land. The Balfour Declaration was the culmination of Herzl's plans expounded at the First Zionist Conference in Basel in 1897 and the efforts of Weizmann, who linked the Zionist programme with the British colonial interests.
62.	The Palestinian people rejected the Declaration from the outset, as confirmed by the findings of the King-Crane Commission, which presented its recommendations to the Peace Conference of 1919, stressing the opposition of the overwhelming majority of the population of Palestine to the establishment of a Jewish national home therein.
63.	The chapters of the conspiracy began to unfold when Britain occupied Palestine and secured a Mandate over it from the League of Nations. The provisions of the Mandate instrument laid stress on the implementation of the Balfour Declaration.
64.	Events later revealed how the mandatory Government enacted a constitution for Palestine incorporating the contents of the Declaration and the instrument as the most important obligations that Britain had to discharge under the Mandate. Britain, in effect, discharged this role: it opened the doors of immigration and liquidated the interests of the Palestinians, and granted the Zionists wide privileges at the expense of the original inhabitants up to the end of the Mandate in 1948. That was the beginning of the conspiracy.
65.	At the time of the Balfour Declaration the Arabs constituted, as I have already stated, 92 per cent of the population and the Jews 7.9 per cent. As a result of the encouragement of the biased mandatory authority, the Jewish population began to increase. In 1922 the percentage of the Jewish population in relation to the whole population became 11.1 per cent, and in 1931 it rose to 18.6 per cent. In 1944 the percentage of the Jewish population reached 31 per cent.
66.	In spite of this flagrant violation of the rights of the Palestinian people, the Arab population at the end of 1946, that is, on the eve of the adoption of the partition resolution, stood at about 1.25 million, whereas the number of Jews, in spite of the rapid rise in immigration, remained at 600,000.
67.	Ever since the establishment of the first Zionist settlement in Palestine in 1886, the Palestinian Arab people resisted this Zionist onslaught with a determination far beyond their meagre means of defence. They expressed rejection through various forms of struggle, culminating in their great revolution in 1936, which lasted three years, during which they held the longest strike in the history of the land in protest against the dual enemy represented by Zionist colonialism and the British Mandate. The toll among the Palestinian Arab people, which numbered 1 million at the time, was over 5,000 killed and 15,000 wounded. The British forces suppressed the revolution by resorting to various modern weapons such as tanks and aircraft. Large numbers of troops were used to quell the revolution. More than 5,600 Arabs were arrested and 54 were sentenced to death. The British mandatory authority declared a state of emergency in Palestine in order to divest the Palestinian Arab people of their arms and imposed the heaviest penalties for the possession of arms, including sticks. At the same time the Zionist terror organizations were stockpiling weapons with the approval and assistance of the mandatory authority. This assistance was acknowledged by Ben-Gurion in his article published in The Jewish
Observer on 27 September 1963.
68.	Those were the roots of the conspiracy, in which many evil efforts were combined and which paved the way for the establishment of the Zionist entity in Palestine in flagrant violation of the values cherished by the international community.
69.	The second blow was perpetrated when the same conspiratorial forces impelled the United Nations General Assembly to adopt resolution 181 (II), partitioning Palestine, in the year 1947. By so doing, the United Nations violated its own Charter and overstepped its mandate, since, in contravention of the sacred right to self-determination set forth in Article 1 of the Charter, it prescribed a political status for the great majority of the population of Palestine without consulting them, and thereby paved the way for the greatest political tragedy of our time.
70.	The partition resolution categorically violated the provisions of the United Nations Charter, whose objectives relating to the future of the peoples covered by the Trusteeship System were defined in Article 76 as the promotion of the  advancement of the inhabitants of the trust territories, and their progressive development towards self-government or independence  in accordance with  the freely expressed wishes of the peoples concerned ... .
71.	Instead of placing Palestine, which was then held under Mandate, under the Trusteeship System in accordance with Article 77 of the Charter or granting the Palestinian people the right to self-determination in accordance with Article 1 of the Charter, the General Assembly adopted its resolution partitioning Palestine under the pressure of the imperialist countries and the Zionist movement. Even the partition resolution-towards whose adoption the Zionist pressure groups in the United States worked so assiduously to influence undecided States, notably some in Latin America-was ignored and never implemented by the Zionist entity.
72.	The Zionist entity has so far ignored 109 resolutions adopted by the General Assembly and 82 resolutions adopted by the Security Council since 1947 until this very day. It has not abided by any of these resolutions.
73.	It should be noted in this connexion that the admission of the Zionist entity to the world Organization was conditional upon its acceptance of resolution 194 (III) of 1948, which provided in paragraph 11 for the right of the Palestinian refugees to return to their homeland. That was never honoured by the Zionist entity, which to this day is continually obstructing the work of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian people. In this connexion, I wish to pay a warm tribute to that Committee for its constructive and objective work.
74.	Another example of the wanton disregard by the Zionist entity of the resolutions of the world Organization is its refusal to admit the Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices Affecting the Human Rights of the Population of the Occupied Territories set up by the General Assembly. I would be remiss if 1 failed to pay a tribute to the efforts of the Special Committee. Its unbiased work deserves the admiration of all.
75.	Yet another of the numerous examples of the wanton conduct of the Zionist entity is its refusal since 1967 to ,apply the Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War of 12 August 1949 to the occupied Arab territories in spite of Security Council resolution 237(1967).
76.	The statement of Yigal Allon in the Knesset, published in Ha'aretz on 1 August 1975, to the effect that whether Israel is inside or outside the United Nations is of no importance, in their view, as the only effect of its membership is merely psychological, again demonstrates the low esteem in which the world Organization is held by the Zionist entity.
77.	No sooner had the Zionists achieved their first colonialist dream than they widely opened the door of immigration at the expense of the Palestinian people, the rightful owners of Palestine. They pursued every means and enacted all kind of laws for the liquidation of the Palestinian people and their replacement by alien Zionist immigrants. In 1950 they introduced the Law of Return which gave every Jew in the world the right to immigrate to Palestine and acquire Israeli nationality upon arrival. They also enacted the nationality law of 1952 and its amendments granting nationality to the Jews and withholding it from the indigenous Arab population of the country.
78.	Apart from the foregoing, a number of laws were enacted during the period 1948-1960 relating to land. Some of these laws provide for the confiscation of land—that is, of course, the confiscation of Arab land and its transfer to the Zionists. There was also the law on the acquisition of the absentees' property, The Absentees' Property Law, which considered any Arab who was absent from his home for any period of time, even for only a few hours, to be an absentee. The property was then taken over by the military authorities and the owner was considered to have obstructed the establishment of the Zionist entity. Under that law, the property of 30,000 Arabs was confiscated in 1962. There is also the Law of Prescription and the Law for the Concentration of Agricultural Land. All these laws aim at dispossessing the Arabs of their agricultural land. Of 370 Jewish settlements established in the period 1948-1953, 350 were established on the lands of displaced Arabs. In 1954 more than one third of the Jewish population was settled on the lands of absentees and in their property and homes. The Arabs who remained in Palestine were not safe from the large-scale process of usurpation. Up to 1976, a total of 40 per cent of the lands belonging to the Arabs who were present was confiscated.
79.	Furthermore, the Zionist entity enforced the notorious Defence (Emergency) Regulations, which were legislated by the British mandatory authorities in 1945 and about which the Zionist Shapiro, who later became the Minister of Justice, bitterly complained, saying that the regulations had no parallel in any civilized country, not even in Nazi Germany. Upon becoming Minister of Justice, Shapiro himself supervised the application of that law to the Arabs alone.
80.	All these laws prove beyond any shadow of doubt the racist nature of the Zionist entity, which is a discriminatory society based on purely religious foundations and is, as such, very similar to the racist regimes in Africa. I need hardly remind you of the inhuman treatment meted out to the oriental Jews in the Zionist entity which led many of them to long for their previous homelands. The radical change in the membership - of the United Nations in the interest of the peoples of the world and the weakening of the grip of the imperialist Powers on the world Organization enabled the General Assembly to adopt its memorable resolution 3379 (XXX) considering Zionism as a form of racism and racial discrimination. We all know the panic that gripped the Zionist movement as a result of the adoption of that resolution, which made the Zionists and their supporters resort without avail to all kind of pressures before and after its adoption.
81.	So much for the racist nature of the Zionist entity. As regards its atrocities in Palestine, they are too many to (enumerate. It is enough for me to remind the Assembly of the Deir Yasin massacre perpetrated on 12 April 1948 by the terrorist gang of the Irgun Zvei Leumi under the leadership of Menachem Begin, who boasted of the crime as a victory which spared the Zionist entity the presence of half a million Arabs who, as a consequence, fled their homeland in panic. Now let us hear the comment of Jacques de Reynier, the senior representative of the International Red Cross Committee, on the massacre:
 Three hundred persons were massacred without any military reason or provocation of any kind: old men, women, children newly-born were savagely murdered with grenades and knives by Jewish troops of the Irgun entirely under the control and direction of their chiefs.
M. de Reynier described Zionist troops he met on the scene of the massacre as:
.. men and women armed with pistols, sub-machine guns and large bayonets most of which were still bloodstained.
82.	That was followed by the massacre of Kafr Kassim in 1956 and the massacre of Qibya and hundreds of other atrocities which were a blot on humanity, but whose perpetrators unabashedly attach the label of terrorism inherent in them to those who are struggling to regain their rights to their homeland.
83.	In spite of the attempts of the Zionist entity to cover up its expanding relations with the racist entities in southern Africa, the international community has concentrated on those relations, to such an extent that they were condemned by the international. Organization through various resolutions. The relationship between the Zionist entity and the racist entity in South Africa dates back to the undertaking by Smuts to Weizmann to adopt the cause of Zionism. That is evidenced by Vorster's statement published by Hayom Haze, which is as follows:
 Israel is the twin sister of South Africa. Like South Africa, it is dominated by a white racist regime, which is keen on keeping the blacks as hewers of wood and drawers of water as ordained by God.
84.	One should not really wonder at that: the Zionist entity and South Africa are both based on settler colonialism. Each of them seized the land of the indigenous population of the country through illegitimate ways and means, wrested their ownership from the citizens and has remained in power through brute force. Both of them are actively engaged in transforming the indigenous population into strangers. On the one hand there is a Zionist movement
persecuting the Palestinian people, and on the other an Afrikaner nation persecuting the Africans. One is a racist movement engaged in emptying Palestine of its Arab population and replacing them by Zionists with the aim of expanding and implementing the programmes of Zionism, and the other is a racist movement which exploited the great majority of the population of South Africa and expanded at the expense of Namibia. Just as the United Nations General Assembly adopted numerous resolutions calling upon South Africa to renounce the policy of apartheid after the Western Powers had continued to oppose such resolutions on the pretext that the United
Nations was not competent to discuss it, so the self-same Assembly adopted in 1975 its historic resolution 1 3379 (XXX) which determined that Zionism was a form of j racism, after the nature of Zionism had become know to all. j There is a distinct similarity between Zionism and apartheid. Both movements represent imported minorities j planted in the lands of peoples struggling for their rights; both of them developed under British imperialism and have remained in existence through tyrannical force and imperialist support. That also wholly applies to the racist regime in Rhodesia.
85.	One of the racist manifestations of the Zionist entity is its failure to become a party to the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination  and the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid. It signed the first convention in 1966 but failed to ratify it, and has not even signed the second.
86.	The present Prime Minister of the Zionist entity revealed his views on the relations between the two racist entities when he made the following statement during his visit to South Africa in 1968:
 Israel is considered to be part of the Western world. Hence its presence in the area serves the West. It is furthermore a perpetuation of the Western presence in the area. Israel must therefore stretch its hand to its allies in South Africa and Rhodesia which are part of the Western world and the product of its civilization amidst backward areas.
87.	The expansionist policy of the Zionist entity is the manifestation in practice of the Zionist expansionist ideology, which has laid emphasis ever since its inception on the necessity for expansion. Kerzl's reply to an inquiry about the frontiers of the land they seek to secure was as follows:  We demand what we need; the more the number of immigrants increases, the more our need for land increases.
88.	The idea of the establishment of  the State of Israel  has passed through stages from the mere call to allow Jews to immigrate to Palestine, to the claim for a national home under British Mandate and the demand made publicly at the Zionist Conference, held in the Biltmore Hotel in New York in 1942, for the establishment of a Zionist State and the termination of the Mandate. The same applies to the frontiers of the Zionist State. After the Zionist movement had hailed the victory achieved through the adoption of the partition resolution, the Zionist entity managed to expand its geographical area through the 1948 war by around 50 per cent more than the original area allotted to it by the partition resolution, and began to denounce that resolution and to refuse to implement it. It is obvious that the 1948 frontiers were never the end of the road for the ambitions of the Zionist expansionists. In this connexion, after the 1948 war Ben-Gurion said:
 Certain circumstances will arise in the future, and we must make use of these circumstances to expand the
boundaries and borders of the State. If such circumstances do not arise, we must create them ourselves.
89.	Thus the tripartite aggression against Egypt in 1956 was an operation aimed at creating new circumstances for a new expansion. The claim by the Zionist leadership, before the 1956 invasion, that the provisions of the armistice agreements of 1949 had acquired permanence, as stated by the Permanent Representative of the Zionist entity before the Security Council in 1951, came as no surprise. But the Zionist entity completely reversed its attitude after the 1956 war according to the statement by Israel ending compliance with the armistice agreement with Egypt in the aide-memoire presented by Israel on 4 November 1956 to the Secretary-General of the United Nations. Lastly came the aggression of 1967 to triple the area occupied by the Zionist entity.
90.	It is well known that the Zionist entity is the only one in the world whose fundamental laws do not provide for the delimitation of fixed borders for the country. The delimitation of the borders was actually left to the material and military capability of the entity. In the words of Golda Meir, the former Prime Minister of the Zionist entity:  The international borders of Israel are determined according to where the Jews settle.  That explains the great effort exerted by the Zionist entity to establish Zionist settlements in the Arab territories occupied after the 1967 war.
91.	The Zionist movement has always camouflaged its expansionist ambitions by slogans and pretexts. In a memorandum presented by the representatives of the Zionist Organisation to the Peace Conference on 3 February 1919 under the title  Statement of the Zionist Organization on Palestine , those representatives proposed that the frontiers of Palestine should extend from near the town of Sidon in the north to the Hedjaz Railway, eastwards down to Akaba, and to the Mediterranean on the west. As to the southern border, this was to be left to negotiation. It is interesting to note that the justification by the Zionist organization at the time for demanding such frontiers was not based on religious but on economic grounds. In the words of the memorandum:  The boundaries above outlined are what we consider essential for the necessary economic foundation of the country.
92.	Now we hear the cry of  secure and defensible borders , taken up in the wake of the 1967 war, to justify further Zionist expansion, not only at the expense of the territory of the people of Palestine, but to cover the territories of other Arab States which were taken from them by force of arms. In this connexion, I need hardly recall the United Nations resolutions which repeatedly stress the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by force, such as the resolutions of the General Assembly on the Israeli withdrawal from Sinai after the 1956 war, and the resolutions of the Security Council and the General Assembly on Israel's withdrawal from the territories occupied after the 1967 war, and on the illegality of the annexation of the Arab city of Jerusalem. Yet the Zionist entity defies all these international documents and resolutions and insists on territorial expansion, depending on its military force and on United States imperialist support, thereby corroborating Hitler's saying:  The borders established by men can be changed by men , and Mussolini's famous saying:  The growth and expansion of a State are a basic sign of its vitality; the opposite is a sign of its decline.
93.	The latest decisions of Begin's Government to legalize three settlements on the West Bank, to establish additional settlements and to extend Zionist laws to the population of the West Rank conclusively demonstrate the expansionist policy of the Zionist entity and the extent of the Begin Governments’ contempt for world public opinion.
94.	Arab fears about the Zionist entity and the Zionist movement are the product of our long experience, and of bitter reality, which have convinced us that Zionism is an aggressive movement seeking the destruction of the Arab nation and the elimination of all that is Arab. It is the tool of neo-colonialism in the region, working hand in hand for their mutual interest in stemming the progress of the Arabs and impeding their renaissance and unity. The refusal of the Zionist entity to sign the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, and the statements concerning its possession of a number of nuclear weapons, confirm our view.
95.	Just as the African national movement is struggling against the doctrine of colonialism and racism represented by the white man, and just as Europe struggled against fascism represented by the Hitlerite Nazi regime, so is the Arab national movement struggling against Zionism and its institutions.
96.	Just as the rout of nazism as a doctrine has opened the way to living in peace with the Germans in Europe, the defeat of the apartheid regimes in Africa and of Zionism in Palestine will open new way to the coexistence of white and blacks in Africa and Arabs and Jews in the Arab world, particularly since a large percentage of those residing within the Zionist entity are from the Arab countries.
97.	The establishment of a secular democratic State on the unified land of Palestine will guarantee the rights of all sects and minorities. The era of settler colonialism has gone forever. Palestine is the land of the Palestinian people, who should decide their destiny by themselves. All those who came for colonialist ends should evacuate the country. That is the permanent solution which will achieve real peace. Other solutions are but manoeuvres aimed at consolidating aggression and expansion through a series of gradual processes leading to the ultimate aim charted by Zionism and colonialism, which is the destruction of the Arab nation and the occupation of its lands.
98.	That is the truth about the Palestinian question. Can the world Organization do anything for the cause of right, justice and peace? Yes, it can, by dealing with the following questions.
99.	First of all, the Zionist entity is occupying- the territories of three Arab countries-Egypt, Syria and Jordan-in contravention of international law and of many
United Nations resolutions. It is the responsibility of the international Organization to end the occupation of the territories of its Member States. It can impose on the Zionist entity the appropriate sanctions to force it to withdraw from those territories unconditionally and without any political gain.
100.	Secondly, any support extended to the Zionist movement leads to increased tension and the perpetuation of the conflict in the Arab region, which in turn constitutes a threat to world peace. The United States military supplies to the Zionist entity constitute the most salient form of such support, which has made the United States the main supplier of modern, sophisticated weapons to Tel Aviv— apart from the financial support given by the United States, which has reached astronomical figures. In a comment made by Senator William Fullbright in the wake of the second Sinai Agreement, signed in 1975, he said it was expected that during the coming five years United States financial assistance to Israel would reach $9.9 billion.
101.	As for Itzhak Rabin, he said in an introduction to the 1977 Yearbook of his Government:
 We contribute only 45 agorot from our sweat for each Israeli pound entering the regular budget, whereas the rest comes from the United States and from loans and donations by the Jewish people.
102.	Thirdly, the other aspect of the process of support for the Zionist entity takes the form of immigration to that entity. The active encouragement of immigration to Palestine by world Zionism bears the dangerous seeds of the need for more land, causing expansion—which is bound to lead to more wars and the perpetuation of the displacement of the people of Palestine.
103.	We believe in the necessity of a General Assembly initiative to discuss this question and take such measures as will condemn and halt this immigration to Palestine.
104.	Fourthly, ever since the adoption of the partition resolution, the world Organization has adopted a series of resolutions which stress the right of the Palestinian people to return to their homeland and their right to self-determination, particularly resolution 3236 (XXIX). The setting up of the 20-member Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian people was a positive step. The recommendations of the United Nations General Assembly at its last session stressing the necessity of working towards the return of the Palestinian people to their land were based on an unequivocal and specific programme. But we are now witnessing a series of economic, political and military measures taken by the Zionist entity aimed at the further displacement of Palestinians from the occupied Arab territories, whether in the Gaza Strip or on the West Bank. We call upon the United Nations and its specialized agencies to pay due attention to these dangerous manifestations and to prevent their further escalation through the drawing up of economic, cultural, health and social programmes to enable the Arab population to remain in the occupied territories.
105.	Fifthly, the United Nations constitutes the natural and sound framework for discussion of the question of Palestine with the participation of the representatives of the Palestinian people. The attempt to circumvent the world Organization and the attempt by certain parties to monopolize the settlement of the question through conferences will not. be helpful in finding a sound solution to the problem, because the aim of such parties is not really the solution of the problem but the mere stabilization of the conflict, leaving all the elements and factors of contradiction and discord latent in the area. The United Nations was responsible for the birth of the Palestinian tragedy when the Organization was under the control of the colonialist minority. Today the United Nations, having become more universal and representative of the peoples of the world, is in a better position to put an end to the tragedy. We are against any weakening of the role of the United Nations in resolving the question of Palestine.
106.	Sixthly, the danger of the spread of nuclear weapons in the Middle East is no longer sheer imagination. Various indications and information point to the determination of the Zionist entity to acquire nuclear weapons. In an interview on French television in February 1976 Moshe Dayan said:  The future, for Israel, should include the option and possibility of possessing nuclear weapons, without foreign supervision.  The United States Central Intelligence Agency reported last year that Israel possesses 10 to 20 atomic bombs ready for use.
107.	It is necessary to take speedy and serious steps to translate the United Nations resolution on the creation of a nuclear-weapon-free zone in the region of the Middle East into practical measures and to expose the obstructionists. The spread of nuclear weapons in the Middle East not only constitutes a massive danger to the peoples of the region, but could also be the fuse that would set off a world-wide explosion. The failure of the international Organization to play its part in preventing the Zionist entity from continuing to produce nuclear weapons would impel the other States in the area to defend themselves with the same weapons.
108.	Seventhly, and finally, it should be noted that if we want this world Organization to fulfil its mission and gain the confidence of the peoples of the world, its Members must shoulder their responsibilities. The United Nations is what its Members want it to be. Proceeding from this premise, we believe in taking serious steps to prevent the resolutions of this Organization from remaining merely ink on paper. Nor should a Member of this Organization be allowed to become so brazen as to tear up and ignore the resolutions of the Organization, as the representative of the Zionist entity has done and is still doing.
109.	The admission of the Zionist entity to membership in the United Nations was conditional upon its acceptance and implementation of United Nations resolutions. Nevertheless we find Tel Aviv, after 30 years and the adoption of more than 200 resolutions by the General Assembly and the Security Council, ignoring and rejecting the implementation of the various United Nations resolutions.
110.	Are we to adopt further resolutions that will not be implemented, or has the time come to take deterrent action against the continuance of wanton behaviour by the Zionist entity and its flouting of United Nations resolutions? We believe that the expulsion of that entity from this Organization would constitute a sound step in the right direction.


194.	It gives me great pleasure to express to the President, on behalf of Kuwait, heartfelt congratulations on his unanimous election to his high office in the General Assembly. His election attests to the General Assembly's confidence in him, which is not only a recognition of his exceptional qualities but also a token of the appreciation of the international community of the role Yugoslavia has played in international affairs as a member of the non- aligned group and the Group of 77. It is a source of great pleasure to see presiding over our deliberations a man with vast experience in United Nations work who has contributed a great deal to the upholding of the purposes and principles of the Charter.
195.	I should also like to pay a tribute to his predecessor, Mr. Amerasinghe, the Permanent Representative of Sri Lanka, for the able manner in which he presided over the deliberations of the thirty-first session of the Genera! Assembly.
196.	Kuwait prizes the efforts 02 the Secretary-General, Mr. Waldheim, for the maintenance of world stability and order. We support the quiet diplomacy and his call for the utilization of His good offices for the containment of existing tensions in many areas.
197.	Kuwait has consistently advocated respect for the principle of the universality of the United Nations, which should make the world Organization a real microcosm of international society. In this respect I should like to congratulate the Socialist Republic of Viet Nam on its admission to the United Nations, which had been for some time overdue. Our sincere congratulations go also to the Republic of Djibouti, a new member of the League of Arab States, which is now ready to discharge the responsibilities of statehood and to participate actively in regional and international organizations.
198.	The Government of Kuwait welcomed detente as a major step heralding a new era in international affairs, an era in which the relations between the big Powers would move from confrontation to negotiation. It was our hope that the law of co-operation would eventually supplant the law of coexistence as the predominant body of norms. However, we may have been over-optimistic, since the entire concept of detent has not yet taken a concrete form but continues to vacillate in a manner that frequently leads to disillusionment. We should like to voice our ardent hope that detente may ultimately take deep roots and be followed by a variety of measures leading to the elimination of international tension and the strengthening of international peace and security. We should like also to reaffirm our firm belief that detente should in no way be used as a means of consolidating big-power hegemony in international affairs or of dividing the world into spheres of influence. The primary need of the international community is to abolish political aggression and to create conditions favourable to the advance of the developing countries on the path of progress.
199.	Kuwait attaches great importance to the special session of the General Assembly on disarmament because there is a close link between security and development, a conclusion inherent in the recognition of the fact that peace and prosperity are indivisible. Disarmament and development are both tasks of utmost urgency which have to be pursued simultaneously and vigorously. Substantial progress in the field of disarmament will constitute an important element in the search for a more equitable international economic order. The continued diversion of the world's scarce material find human resources to military ends is seriously threatening the attainment of the goals of development. What the world needs is not guns but better standards of living and the eradication of the evils of poverty, illiteracy and disease.
S98. The dialogue last year in Paris between the North and the South proved beyond doubt the existence- of a wide gap between theory and practice, promises and performance. It is regrettable that the developed countries have not shown the necessary political will to make the structural changes required in the international economic system or to adopt the measures needed for prompt action on urgent problems. The resumed thirty-first session of the General Assembly exposed the overbearing attitude of the developed countries and their reluctance to fulfil their commitments. We call upon the developed countries to reconsider their position on the unresolved issues and to continue the dialogue in a constructive spirit.
199.	Technical co-operation has come to represent a necessary instrument for the development process in various fields since it is not possible to formulate and implement development plans in one country without taking into consideration the advances made and the experience gained in others. In the industrial field the developing countries are heavily dependent for new technologies on a few large transnational corporations, which impose harsh conditions for the transfer of technology, conditions which constitute an excessive burden on the limited resources of the developing countries.
200.	Kuwait had the privilege during the last few months to act as host to two important meetings concerned with technical co-operation, namely, the ECWA regional meeting on technical co-operation among developing countries and the panel of consultants which issued the Kuwait Declaration on Technical Co-operation among Developing Countries. One can never overestimate the importance of technology in creating the world order under which some privileged groups in the international community live today. Economic progress cannot be envisaged for the less fortunate in the absence of technical innovation adapted to their needs.
201.	Kuwait is keenly alive to its role as a donor of aid and an active participant in promoting technical cooperation among developing countries, and has been cooperating actively with national, regional and international institutions to this end.
202.	More than two thirds of the people of the developing countries depend directly on agriculture for survival.
Agriculture provides those countries with their main dependable defence against future famines and their primary means of overcoming the current evils of malnutrition and under nourishment. Systematic, sustained action to stimulate agriculture in the developing countries is a compelling necessity, not just to prevent hunger, but also to inject dynamism into the whole process of economic and social development. The establishment of an International Fund for Agricultural Development is a positive step in this direction, I should like to take this opportunity to express the hope that the instruments of the Fund will be ratified at an early date so it may soon become operational.
203.	The Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea has become a permanent phenomenon in international society. If the preparatory work in the sea-bed Committee is taken into consideration, the Conference will have been in constant session for a whole decade. The results, however, have been so far disappointing. The coastal States have shown little regard for the interests and needs of the geographically disadvantaged States. The developed countries are still seeking to impose their joint dominion on the area beyond the limits of national jurisdiction rather than let mankind as a whole exploit the resources of the area for its benefit. The atmosphere of the Conference has been clouded by the unilateral declarations of coastal States and threats of unilateral action by developed countries, which ignore the fact that conventions are still the main instrument of international legislation. States therefore must negotiate in good faith and decisions must be made in an atmosphere of freedom. The eventual convention will be ineffective, unless all States agree to become parties to it. In the final analysis, the Conference on the Law of the Sea is a major test of the present state of international relations, one which will decide whether the rule of law should prevail or whether the world will be dominated by those who monopolize political power, technology and managerial skill.
204.	The situation in Africa still poses a threat to international peace and security. The situation in Rhodesia is very dangerous. Notwithstanding the commendable efforts made by the United Kingdom and the United States to put an end to the rebellion of the white minority in Rhodesia, that minority continues to monopolize government power and responsibility against the will of the preponderant African majority and its right to self-determination and independence. The principle of acceding to the wishes of the majority in Rhodesia on the basis of the right of every citizen to express his views is sacred and inalienable. Kuwait has always supported the just struggle of the people of Zimbabwe to abolish the illegal minority regime and to replace it with democratic majority rule. The intransigence of the white rebels kindled the flames of resistance, personified in the liberation organizations, after the people of Zimbabwe realized that the only means of escaping from the rule of the illegal minority was through resort to armed struggle.
205.	Tension in Namibia also continues, owing to the refusal of the Government of South Africa to recognize the right of the people of Namibia to self-determination.
206.	South Africa's attempts to fragment Namibia have increased the intensity of the armed struggle for independence and the preservation of the territorial integrity of Namibia. The presence of South Africa in Namibia, in spite of the resolutions of the General Assembly and the decision of the International Court of Justice, and its attempts to annex parts of Namibia pose a threat to international peace and security and constitute a flagrant defiance of the United Nations Charter. Kuwait has consistently supported the imposition of economic and military sanctions against South Africa, in accordance with Chapter VII of the Charter.
207.	The situation in South Africa is a menace to peace, not only in that region but in the world as a whole, owing to the inhuman policy of apartheid, that seeks to subject the African majority to the will of a tyrannical white minority, which practices a policy of suppression.
208.	The recent events in South Africa, reflected in the demonstrations expressing the indignation of the majority over the policy of apartheid, places a heavy responsibility on the United Nations to take the necessary steps to put an end to this policy, which is inimical to basic human rights.
209.	The policy of dividing South Africa into bantustans in the guise of self-determination is unacceptable, since its aim is to perpetuate power in the hands of the white minority, and to monopolize the sources of wealth in South Africa.
210.	I should like to mention the reports according to which South Africa may be planning to conduct a nuclear test in Namibia. These plans will aggravate tension in the region, and will induce the African countries to take security measures to protect themselves against this violent danger.
211.	The Conferences held in Lagos and Maputo regarding the situation in southern Africa had a considerable effect in drawing the attention of the international community to the nature of the grave situation which prevails in that part of Africa. I should like to mention in this context that Kuwait, which attended both Conferences, contributed $ 1 million to the liberation movements in Africa, actuated by its belief that rights cannot be attained except through armed struggle.
2).2. Of all the regions of the world, the Middle East has for the past 30 years been in an abnormal situation which has made it a cause of special international concern, not only because it may explode at any moment, but because it can lead the international community to a nuclear war, which would destroy the whole world. That region has been the scene of four wars during the past 30 years; the elements of war in it are still stronger than the elements of stability.
213. More than 10 years have elapsed since Israel launched its aggression against Egypt, Syria and Jordan, and 30 years have passed since it extorted from the people of Palestine their lands and homeland for the purpose of replacing the
Palestinians with Jewish settlers from all parts of the world. Israel still occupies the Sinai peninsula, the West Bank of Jordan, Gaza and the Golan Heights and refuses to withdraw from ail these territories, which have been under its occupation since 1967.
214.	The United Nations has made great efforts to establish a just peace in the area; its efforts, however, have not yielded any positive results. On the contrary, Israel has formally informed the United Nations that it will not withdraw to the 1967 frontiers. Israel has established Jewish settlements in the occupied Arab territories to create a fait accompli, in violation of the Charter, which proscribes the acquisition of territory by force, and in defiance of United Nations resolutions, which provide for complete withdrawal from these territories. Nevertheless, Israel, which flours the resolutions of the United Nations and ignores its Charter, still finds sympathizers and supporters who protect it against the indignation of the international community, expressed in innumerable resolutions. Thus, the Middle East will remain a severe test for the international Organization, to whose Charter allegiance has been sworn by all States.
215.	The Middle East is a good example of the gap between words and deeds. No region has subjected the United Nations to a more severe test as to whether it would implement its resolutions, or would neglect them and relegate them to oblivion. The United Nations has adopted many resolutions calling upon Israel to withdraw from the occupied Arab territories, thus putting all its political and moral weight against Israel. The United Nations has not, however, translated these resolutions into practical steps which would deter Israel and put an end to its defiance of the international community, and it has therefore lost a great deal of its prestige and efficacy. It is a cause of regret that some Member States, who were given special powers by the Charter to protect that Charter, defend Israel and object to the imposition of measures against it. This has deprived the international Organization of its political importance, especially in the Middle East, whose peoples have lost their faith in the United Nations and its capacity to implement its resolutions and enforce its Charter.
216.	The people of Palestine were expelled from their lands, homelands and possessions and driven to refugee camps to live on international charity, contrary to the resolutions of the United Nations, which defined their right to self-determination and called for the establishment of a homeland in their own country. Yet Israel seized their lands and possessions, and transformed the Arab minority which remained in Palestine into second-rate citizens, and deprived the majority of their right to return to their homeland despite United Nations resolutions. Nevertheless, Israel is still a member of the international Organization, although it had pledged, at the time of its admission, to implement all United Nations resolutions.
217.	The United Nations has adopted a resolution which stated that negotiations for a just peace settlement in the area could not take place in the absence of the Palestine Liberation Organization, the lawful representative of the people of Palestine, which should take part on a footing of equality with all other parties.
218.	One of the main reasons for the delay in convening the Geneva Conference has been the refusal of Israel to allow the Palestine Liberation Organization to participate, in spite of the resolutions of the United Nations, which explicitly provide for the representation of the Palestine Liberation Organization in the negotiations. Israel should fully realize that there is no alternative to the participation by the Palestine Liberation Organization in the peace negotiations. Peace will not be established in the Middle East unless the people of Palestine exercise their right to self-determination and an independent Palestine is established for them. Likewise, peace will not be restored to the area unless Israel withdraws from all occupied Arab territories. This matter is not negotiable, as it stems from United Nations resolutions as well as the principles and purposes of the Charter. This position has already been endorsed by a majority of States, whether in the non- aligned group, the Islamic countries, or within the framework of the United Nations, including the nine members of the European Economic Community which, in their recent statement, supported these fundamental principles. Mr. Carter, the President of the United States, has repeatedly proclaimed that it is necessary to establish a homeland for the Palestinians, and reaffirmed the need for Israeli withdrawal from occupied Arab territories. The Nordic countries have also supported this position in their recent statement in Helsinki.
219.	The clouds of war are ominously gathering over the skies of the Middle East more than at any other time in the past. Israel's present policy is a prescription for war and is devoid of any real desire for peace since Israel refuses to withdraw from occupied Arab territories and objects to the representation of the Palestine Liberation Organization in the negotiations for a just settlement. Israel opposes the establishment of an independent Palestinian State in Palestine. It also rejects the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people to self-determination. In addition, Israel has established settlements for Jewish settlers in occupied Arab territories. The number of those settlements there has already exceeded 80. Israel persisted in its defiance of the international Organization and of the States that still support it by recently proclaiming the legalization of three Israeli settlements and authorizing the establishment of additional settlements.
220.	Israel's defiance of the whole world culminated in the declaration by the Minister in charge of Jewish settlements, General Sharon, to the effect that he had prepared a plan for the settlement of tens of thousands of immigrants in the occupied Arab territories and that a network of roads would be built to connect those settlements with Israeli cities. His plan calls for the importation of 2 million Jews to settle on Arab territories by the end of this century. The Israeli Government also took a decision to grant Palestinians under occupation a special status as a prelude to the annexation of their territories.
221.	The policy of the annexation of the West Bank of the Jordan and of Gaza that was formulated 10 years ago is part of an expansionist Israeli plan to occupy the whole of Palestine and the territories surrounding it and to destroy the entity of the people of Palestine as a nation eager to exercise its right of self-determination. Israel's "peace- loving" statements are no more than a hoax designed to mislead world public opinion.
222.	The situation in the Middle East is extremely grave. In the light of those violations of United Nations and the provisions of its Charter, the Organization has no alternative but to translate the indignation and wrath of the international community into effective action against Israel, not merely by condemning its policy that will inevitably lead to war, but by adopting punitive measures in conformity with Chapter VII of the Charter, which impose political, economic, trade and military sanctions, as in the case of Rhodesia, in order to preserve the prestige and efficacy of the Organization and to protect the Charter and its purposes.
223.	The Arab countries have had enough of the policy of procrastination and delaying tactics at a time when Israel is annexing the remaining parts of the West Bank, Gaza and other occupied Arab territories. It is imperative to emphasize that the Middle East region is moving in the direction of war, a fact that. portends grave consequences for the whole world. The Arab countries and the Palestinian people have no alternative but to resort to force and to proclaim their rejection of Israeli policy and their resistance to the policy of creating settlements and annexing territories.
224.	Whatever may be the inadequacies of the United Nations system—and they are legion—that system represents the only realistic point of departure for the sustained efforts of succeeding generations through which mankind can equip itself with the political institutions without which there can be no peace or freedom. Crisis management, however sophisticated, is no substitute for organized work towards real peace. The whole future of mankind now depends on matching the actions of Governments and the organization of society with the contemporary progress of science and technology. The United Nations has now been in existence longer than the effective life of the League of Nations and has to its credit a substantially far more impressive record of accomplishments. It has displayed a vitality and an adaptability to changing circumstances that augur well for the future. It has greatly enlarged the scope and range of international activities and achieved a directness of impact that is a great advance. But in matters of the first importance, the United Nations continues to be crippled by some of the limitations that destroyed the League. We must conceive of the United Nations as a universal community in which the obligations of membership and the policies of Members are not contradictory. We must make its services so indispensable to its Members and so build up its prestige and authority that it becomes for the world at large what the community in which the citizen is born has become for him.


118.	 Mr. President, it gives me great pleasure to congratulate you on your election to the presidency of the thirty-second session of the General Assembly. It is a well-deserved tribute to you, as an eminent statesman, and to your country, Yugoslavia, and its leading role in the non-aligned movement. I should also like to extend our appreciation and gratitude to your predecessor, who guided the work of the previous session of the General Assembly with distinction.
119.	It is also with pleasure that I welcome the Socialist Republic of Viet Nam, whose admission to this world Organization has been a great achievement for the liberation movement in the world as well as a victory for the forces of peace and progress. Likewise, I welcome the sisterly independent Republic of Djibouti and salute its people, who are determined to preserve their freedom and sovereignty.
120.	This year marks the tenth anniversary of the independence of the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen. For 129 years our country was subjected to colonial rule, with its capital, Aden—an important and strategic site—a military base in the service of imperialism. The policy of partition was implemented in its countryside, which was fragmented into 23 sultanates, emirates and skeikhdoms, to ensure the perpetuation and domination of the colonialist rulers. Today, as our people celebrate this auspicious occasion, we solemnly remember and salute all those heroes who sacrificed their lives for the independence of their country, for its freedom and its progress. We also salute all those friends who extended to us the necessary support and solidarity and stood by our people in their struggle until final victory was achieved.
121.	Needless to say, political independence is not an end in itself, for the manifestations of colonialism are many-its soldiers, its education, its culture, its economic relations and its political philosophy. Genuine independence is not, therefore, just a flag and a national anthem. Rather it should initiate radical changes in order to secure a better quality of life for the people in all respects. In our country, independence was only the first step. With our homeland divided and fragmented, our economy a shambles and our people languishing in the abyss of poverty, we had but one choice, namely, a total revolution against all the manifestations of colonialism and neo-colonialism.
122.	Thus, we established a national democratic system of government responsive to the wishes and interests of our people, who had long suffered under the yoke of colonialism, feudalism and capitalism. We emerged into political life faced with a rudimentary rural economy, and we worked towards development and progress. We are today well on the way to genuine development. The revolutionary process of economic development thus began with the complete restructuring of the State. Nationalization of the main institutions of the economy, together with the promulgation of the Land Reform Law, brought into prominence the public sector, which now plays a leading role in our economic life. A three-year development plan, completed in 1972, and a five-year plan, now in its final phase, have laid the basis for a modern economic infrastructure. A total change in the ownership of the means of production, carried out mainly by popular uprisings sanctioned by the National Front, propelled our economic development and motivated the masses of workers, peasants and fishermen to undertake voluntary work—a phenomenon that is becoming part of our revolutionary tradition. Today we are faced not with unemployment but with a shortage of manpower.
123.	On the social level, a new family law provided for equal political, social and economic rights without regard to sex. A mass movement for the eradication of illiteracy is now. well under way, and before the end of this decade illiteracy will have been completely eradicated in Democratic Yemen. Formal education, which was previously tailored to serve a cosmopolitan service economy, is now geared to the development needs of the country. Our national culture and traditions, which were suppressed by colonial culture, are now being revitalized. Despite our economic problems, we have instituted programmes for free education at all levels and free medication and hospitalization as well as a social welfare programme.
124.	Since its establishment in 1963, the National Front led the national struggle against colonialism under the banner of independence, unity and progress. It was natural, therefore, that one of the first decrees of our revolution was the unification of the 23 political entities into six provinces of geographic rather than tribal lines. In 1975, an historic event took place when the National Front merged with the other two national parties to form the United Political Organization—the National Front.
125.	Today, we are determined to achieve Yemeni unity, for it is a strategic and noble goal to which the Yemeni people is deeply committed. To that end we are striving, together with our brethren in the north, to undertake the appropriate measures to pave the way towards unity.
126.	The persistence of colonialism is in flagrant conflict with the desires manifested by the majority of peoples for the achievement of international peace and security. What has been achieved up to now in the field of detente and international relations is a source of inspiration instilling in us a sense of optimism. Yet, the persistence of certain hotbeds of tension continues to pose a direct threat to world peace.
127.	International peace is indivisible, and peace without justice is unendurable. The situation in the Middle East is alarming, to say the least. Ten years after the Israeli aggression against the Arab peoples in 1967, Israel has not withdrawn from the occupied territories. Israel stubbornly continues to follow a policy of refusing to withdraw from the occupied territories. It is pursuing a policy of expansion and annexation and is establishing new settlements in the occupied territories, in utter disregard of the international community and the United Nations. Israel, acting in accordance with its Zionist and racist character, could not even be checked by its closest ally, the United States of America.
128.	Likewise, the Palestinian problem, which is at the core of the Middle East problem, continues to be unresolved. Today, three decades after the usurpation of Palestine, Israel is denying the Palestinians not only their homes and homeland but also their inalienable right to self-determination and statehood.
129.	How can we then reasonably expect a peaceful solution to be achieved when Israel is proving to the world it is neither prepared nor willing to withdraw from the occupied Arab territories or to recognize the inalienable right of the Palestinian people; and when the United States, which is now posing as an arbiter and intermediary in the Middle East conflict, is hesitant to recognize the Palestine Liberation Organization as the sole representative of the
Palestinian people, a fact which has been overwhelmingly recognized by the General Assembly of the United Nations.
130.	It is high time that the United Nations asserts its will by forcing Israel to abide by its resolutions, and notably General Assembly resolution 3236 (XXIX) of 1974, which clearly called for the self-determination of the Palestinian people in Palestine. We are in full solidarity with the just and legitimate struggle of that people and we fully support the Palestine Liberation Organization in its unrelenting struggle for self-determination and statehood.
131.	This- session of the General Assembly will focus a great deal of its attention on Africa, a continent which has long been a target for the colonialist and imperialist Powers. An imperialist conspiracy is unfolding which is bent on making Africa another sphere of conflict so as to prevent its people from whole-heartedly pursuing their heroic struggle for independence, sovereignty, and social progress. We are fully convinced that the heroic peoples of Africa realize the new aims of these imperialist and racist plans and will work together to strengthen their solidarity against the common dangers confronting them. For it is actually in the interest of these peoples to co-exist in harmony, to resolve their differences by peaceful means, and to channel their resources into reconstruction and development.
132.	In southern Africa, the long and arduous struggle of the African people is beginning to bear fruit. The rebel minority regime in Rhodesia is tottering; Namibia is on the verge of drastic changes; and the apartheid regime in South Africa is deeply shaken by popular revolt. No delaying tactics can prevent the African peoples from achieving full independence. We salute the heroic struggle of these peoples and call on everyone to support it unreservedly.
133.	We have consistently and on many occasions stated our firm stand with regard to those issues which occupy world attention. We believe that there still is the danger that what has happened in Cyprus can happen to another small State or. people. We have always called for the withdrawal of all foreign troops and bases from Cyprus and for the full respect of its sovereignty, territorial integrity and independence and its membership in the non-aligned group. We have called for the unconditional withdrawal of all foreign forces from South Korea so that unity can be achieved by peaceful means and a unified Korea may be admitted to the United Nations. Likewise, we have called for the total independence of Puerto Rico, which is now in the grip of imperialism.
134.	As a coastal State of the Indian Ocean, we fully subscribe to the Declaration of the Indian Ocean as a Zone of Peace j and support the initiative for holding a conference for that purpose. In this respect, we also attach great importance to the maintenance of the Red Sea as a zone of peace and security. The territorial sovereignty of its coastal States should be guaranteed, while its resources should be exploited for the benefit of their peoples. We have always maintained that the security of the coastal and hinterland States of the Indian Ocean is endangered not only by foreign military bases on the islands, such as the American base in Diego Garcia, but also by the foreign military bases on the coastal or hinterland States themselves. Moreover, the expansionist ambitions of certain States, and their military intervention in the affairs of others, pose no less a threat to the peace of the area. A case in point is Oman, where foreign troops are interfering in the internal affairs of that country and make every effort to obstruct the self-determination of the people of Oman. We condemn all military interventions, and we consider that a political regime sustained by foreign troops and bases lacks the very essence of legitimacy. We reaffirm our total support of the struggle of the Omani people, waged for more than 10 years, for real independence and autonomy under the leadership of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Oman.
135.	On the level of world economic relations, we note the important role which the United Nations plays in the establishment of a new international economic order, based on equality, justice and interdependence, the sixth and seventh special sessions, together with the Charter of Economic Rights and Duties of States, have paved the way for the realization of this new system and for putting an end to the existing inequitable modes of economic relations, which served the interests of the capitalist market at the expense of the peoples of the developing countries. While the institution of colonialism is in the process of disappearing, neo-colonialism, with its multiple disguises and varied methods, not only widens the gap between the capitalist countries and the developing countries, but also poses a threat to world peace and security.
136.	Unfortunately, the results of the Paris Conference on International Economic Co-operation were a great disappointment to the developing countries. The capitalist countries must show the necessary political will and carry out practical measures to strengthen international cooperation, while the developing countries must continue to shoulder their responsibilities to cement their solidarity and formulate national policies to bring about the radical changes needed for their social and economic development.
137.	It goes without saying that their co-operation and relationship with the socialist States would contribute toward achieving their political independence, ending the exactions of transnational corporations.
138.	The United Nations, in its thirty-second year of existence, has co-operated greatly in solving international problems. It has sometimes failed to find the necessary solutions, but this is because certain Member States have not acted in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations. The strengthening of the role of the United Nations depends, on the implementation by its Members of the resolutions of the General Assembly.
139.	I would like to pay a tribute to the persistent efforts of the Secretary-General, Mr. Kurt Waldehim, for world peace and security.
140.	The People's Democratic Republic of Yemen once again reaffirms its firm support of the United Nations and its commitment to its ideals and principles.