101.	O temporal O mores! We could not have found a better place than this nor could we have selected a better occasion than this to take up again this cry of alarm, more than 20 centuries after Cicero, in view of the present way social, political and economic world mores are developing.
102. By your leave, may I first recall here, by way of explaining our attitude, a text which is well known and reads as follows:
"We, the peoples of the United Nations, determined to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind, and
to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small, and
to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained, and
to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom,
and for these ends
to practice tolerance and live together in peace with one another as good neighbours, and
to unite our strength to maintain international peace and security, and
to ensure, by the acceptance of principles and the institution of methods, that armed force shall not be used, save in the common interest, and
to employ international machinery for the promotion of the economic and social advancement of all peoples,
have resolved to combine our efforts to accomplish these aims".
Thus our elders express themselves in the Preamble to the Charter of the United Nations, which was signed on 26 June 1945.
103.	It is true that there is many a slip 'twixt cup and lip. And this may continue to be so as long as nations remain what they are.
104.	It is true also that the history of mankind has always been that of a permanent struggle between the wisdom and the folly of men. But more than at any other time in history, we consider that today it is essential that one day man brings his wisdom up to the level of his power if he wishes to save the world.
105.	O temporal O mores! That cry alarm is amply justified by the lowering of morals in the present-day world. The mind of any thinking man is completely disturbed at the present time. It would seem, as has been frequently said, that the origin of this unusual mental crisis should be seen as the giddy, almost anarchic, development of technology and science, which enslave the men they were designed to serve. And they have engendered a consumer society which makes man more selfish, which reinforces the egocentricity of nations and exacerbates the excessive cult of material wealth and the desperate search for profit.
106.	Man is disoriented by so much immoderation and has sought evasion in many ways. Hence, we have a excessive consumption of all sorts of stimulants such as alcohol, drugs, erotic films and pornography, sexual perversion, excess of speed, bright lights and noise. All these are factors which favour the decline of morality and the increase of criminality.
107.	Man, now appears, because of the progress of science, to be capable of a number of technological achievements and of responding to all the technical problems that exist; but he is so lamentably disarmed in the face of purely human problems such as racism, hunger, the environment, social justice, peace. Our technical civilization seems even to have further complicated these problems without having been able to give human wisdom new means of resolving them.
108.	O temporal O mores! That cry is also amply justified in the face of our incapacity to resolve international political problems.
109.	Let us take a look together at the situation of our Organization, without flattering ourselves. Theoretically, the United Nations should be resorted to whenever any serious crisis appears on the international scene. Unfortunately, we must painfully recognize that the role of the United Nations and of international organizations remains a desperately secondary one.
110.	Just as it was between the two world wars, when major conflicts such as the war in Spain, the Japanese attack against China, the aggressions of Nazi Germany, were not submitted to the League of Nations, similarly no decisive role was played by the United Nations in settling the two Viet-Nam wars, the conflicts in Nigeria and in Pakistan, or even the Cuban crisis. But even worse, the resolutions of the United Nations on the Middle East, particularly the well-known resolution 242 (1967) of the Security Council, have remained a dead letter.
111.	Israel spurns the decisions of our Organization — this very Organization which gave birth to it — emboldened by the support which it invariably finds from certain great Powers.
112.	Resolution 242 (1967), once we supported it with the ultimate degree of verbal vehemence, allayed our consciences. It is not even put into effect! And even if it were put into effect, it would not solve the fundamental problem, which it completely overlooks, namely, the inalienable right of the Palestine people to existence and self-determination.
113.	In the course of a television programme, two French broadcasters imagined a tourist poster for Israel for the year 2000, which would read:
"Visit Israel and its pyramids."
114.	What appears to us as an artists' joke is perhaps already a definite plan in the minds of the international Zionists if we are not careful, as would seem to be suggested by the present gradual annexation of the West Bank through the confiscation of land by the Israeli Government, the purchase of lands by para-State organizations, such as the KKL (Jewish National Fund) and other private land speculations and transactions.
115.	This is also suggested by the geometric progression of the area covered by Israel since its creation in 1948.
116.	In fact, the evanescence of the responsibilities of the international community, the notorious impotence of the United Nations, the arrogance of power, State terrorism or preventive reprisals — which are, by the way, a concept inadmissible in international law — the occupation of foreign territories and the colonization of those territories, repression of civilian populations, denial of the rights of the disinherited Palestinian people, whose only choice is to resort to violence in the face of a self-satisfied and intransigent power, the impatience of the Arab peoples who have been despoiled and who object to the fait accompli of the occupation of their territories by force — all the conditions exist for a new armed confrontation, with incalculable consequences for international peace and security.
117.	Are we finally going to react in the proper way to prevent a conflagration which might well involve our planet's catching fire?
118.	At the risk of disappointing some and shocking others — because sometimes things have to be said if we really wish to get out of an impasse — this is how we have tried to grasp the complex problem of the Middle East.
119.	The Larousse dictionary gives the following definition of Palestine:
"A country in the Middle East between Lebanon in the north, the Dead Sea in the south, the Mediterranean in the west and the Syrian desert in the east. It is a narrow strip of land between Lebanon and the sea, and the Jordan River runs through it."
The same Larousse gives the following definition of Israel —  of course, it depends on the edition one reads:
"Israel comprises that part of Palestine where the Jewish population is predominant, but its frontiers, which are the result of an armistice, are arbitrary".
Thus, at first blush, juridically speaking, the State of Israel is-without frontiers and does not exist.
120.	We said last year, and repeat today, that we have nothing against the Jews. The sufferings that they endured are sufficiently repellent for them still to be fresh in our memories.
121.	However, we are trying objectively to analyse the facts and to arrange them logically and consistently.
122.	Representatives are aware of the Projekt Madagaskar of Hitler that Theo Denneker addressed to Rademacber in August of 1940. It was a question, no more and no less, of deporting 4 million Jews to Madagascar, At that time there were 3.8 million Malagasies, and this would have turned our island into a vast concentration camp, an enormous Jewish homeland.
123.	I do not think I am mistaken when I affirm that the Malagasy people — which has never accepted colonialism since the time of the Menalamba and the Vy Vato Sakelika, in 1947 and 1971-1972 to actual independence in 1973 —  would have had any different reactions from those of the Palestinians today. We therefore understand their plight.
124.	As Mr. Pinhas Sapir himself said, "Israel today occupies Arab territories not by force of law, but by the law of force", and that is something that we could never accept and that prompts us to support the cause of the Arab countries.
125.	But we must go further in our analysis of this puzzle.
126.	By what absurd logic, by what strange aberration, did Balfour and Britain imagine that this strip of land, this narrow strip between Lebanon and the sea, could welcome millions of Jews previously scattered throughout the world, without subsequent expansion? How could they have conceived mutatis mutandis, that England could receive all Americans of British origin as well as all Europeans, Australians, New Zealanders, Rhodesians and Canadians of English lineage? How could they have imagined that a State like Israel, surrounded on all sides by hostile States, could live in any degree of stability or peace?
127.	In fact, the reply is simple. The imperialists did not want peace in that region. And the reason is this: there are in that area of the Middle East vast supplies of oil.
128.	But in this case would the Israelis, Palestinians and Arabs be only pawns in the hands of the great Powers? Would they be simply the tools of an underhanded struggle for economic domination of the area?
129.	If that is so, the necessary conclusions must be drawn.
130.	The situation is even more complicated because the Israeli population also grows according to a geometric progression; from the few tens of thousands which they were originally, they have now grown to several million, thanks to Jewish emigration from the four corners of the world, Thus we are simply witnessing a new form of settler colonization.
131.	May we dare to carry our analysis to its logical conclusion by asking a simple question. What if the underlying reason for the creation of the State of Israel was simply the anti-Semitism of the great Powers? In that case we might risk the following reasoning: Europeans do not like Jews; Hitler was not able to carry out his "final solution"; but since the Jewish question remains extant, the former anti-Nazi Powers found it more elegant and more useful for their long-term global strategy to create a Jewish homeland in Palestine.
132.	That is why we say the Israelis must cease to be only an international problem. They should cease to be the simple tools of zionism and customers of arms dealers; they must look reality squarely in the face and try to understand the Palestinian people.
133.	Turning now to the situation in southern Africa, we know as well as anybody that the resolutions of our Organization have changed nothing in the area. In point of fact, in that quarter of the world where it would be really indecent to speak of peace, security or justice — because they are conspicuous by their absence or, if they do exist, they are interpreted in a distorting mirror, unilaterally, in favour of
usurping minorities and of their near or distant allies — the situation remains the same.
134.	The joint and archaic alliance of illegality, of usurpation, of apartheid and imperialism continues to oppress and dominate the peoples of that area, in scorn or ignorance of the black man and with a pathological taste for half truth, It continues to give social, political, economic and cultural relations the same hollow justification directly inherited from the nineteenth century, according to the notorious theory of "continuity in evolution", which could be called more accurately "continuity in stagnation".
135.	Undo the increasingly threadbare cover of "the defence of the free world", this neo-colonialist, paternalistic, traditional or doctrinaire policy, though condemned in words, is in fact supported by the NATO Powers and the forces of capitalist imperialism.
136.	It is in fact quite evident that southern Africa remains one of the last bastions of lost causes and of minorities who call themselves the torch-bearers of a "civilizing mission". And it is in the name of that mission that we see perpetrated every day outrages, summary executions, massacres such as the one at Wiriyamu, genocide in Mozambique — all with the silent complicity of some and the material assistance of others, and all against the background of United Nations paralysis.
137.	We reject this alleged policy of appeasement consisting of an uninterrupted series of evasions based on a so-called differentiation among cases. In fact, such a policy could be justified only if we were to recognize the primacy of the inalienable rights of peoples over the dubious and uncertain right of States. On the basis of this last hypothesis, all is possible. Unfortunately, we are confronted with bad faith and inertia, which leads us to demand that an end be put to the sterile negotiations with South Africa concerning Namibia.
138.	In South-East Asia, just as similar causes produce similar effects, the setting is different but the substance of the problem is the same.
139.	In Indo-China we find ourselves faced with a striking example of a situation which some believed on the way to settlement following the Agreement of 27 January 1973,7 but one which carries within itself the seeds of a third war in Indo-China. The reasons for this precarious and ambiguous situation are varied: They are inherent in the very nature of the Agreement — this is an agreement which is fundamentally political but which has been thwarted by reservations that have served to encourage contractual agreements. They are inherent in the foreign interventions that continue in subtle forms, in the form, for instance, of "civilian advisers" to assist in the war effort in Viet-Nam and in the unjustifiable raids and bombardments and the scarcely disguised invasion of Cambodia, in support of regimes hardly to be called representative. These direct foreign interferences demonstrate in fact an unquenchable thirst for the maintenance of political and economic bastions, and thus the urge to dominate and the selfishness of certain Powers that still dream nostalgically of influence.

140.	The solutions proposed in this context can be at best improvised and unrealistic.
141.	The fundamental principles underlying a peaceful, just and lasting solution remain: equality of rights among peoples, as recognized by the Charter; the right of those same peoples to self-determination, and full respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity.
142.	Hence we hold it to be indispensable, first, that there be complete and genuine withdrawal of all forces of foreign intervention, whether in Indo-China, in Korea or in Cambodia; that the task of determining the conditions for participation in national and international political life be left to the peoples of those areas themselves, according to their own standards and not according to models imposed from outside; that the desire of those peoples to live in peace in accord with their own genius be recognized, so that they may live in a coherent society, not a society artificially held together or divided by any insincere allegiance to the sullied values of a foreign civilization; that an end be put to the chauvinism that has been elevated by some to a political principle, international in application but completely untenable because it runs contrary to the sovereignty of peoples.
143.	Unless these conditions arc achieved and respected, security in the Indo-Chinese peninsula and in South-East Asia will remain precarious and illusory,
144.	O temporal O mores! This feeling is further justified by our inability to ensure security throughout the world. The development and progress that have been achieved in weapons of mass destruction and the perfection of their means of delivery are such, in our time, that a generalized nuclear war seems, unless there is a miscalculation, highly improbable. The unleashing of a nuclear war by one or other of the super-Powers would inevitably end in genocide and collective suicide. All the great Powers can do now is engage in so-called "conventional" warfare. It is curious that the term "conventional" is used to describe a war that is so unconventional. In any case, a limited, classic type of war among great Powers, despite all the theories of "flexible response" or other theories, run the risk, in accordance with the "domino theory", of rapidly developing into a generalized nuclear war. We all know that no interest from now on is sufficiently great to justify such a holocaust. Consequently, the great Powers are forced to reach agreement. It is the end of the cold war and the beginning of detente.
145.	Thus the great Powers have become aware of the absurdity of their struggle and the sterility of their direct military confrontation. And thus we see yesterday's enemies renouncing what divided them, looking for things they have in common so that they may join forces and collaborate. This is true of Germany and Italy, which come into the Common Market beside Great Britain, Belgium, France and the Netherlands. This is the case of the United States of America, of Japan and of the Soviet Union, which are already beginning to co-operate beyond their ideological divisions. But since the political interests of the great Powers are not yet entirely identical, they wage war by proxy, with the third world in between. At any rate, they have to sell their armaments and keep their arms factories going.
146.	This is why we welcome, as we should, the efforts made by the Europeans in the field of organizing their
security, for this approach to the problem is in fact in accordance with the aims and principles of the Charter. It responds, furthermore, to European concerns and, where their interests are identical with those of others, to the concerns of all peoples.
147. But in spite of all, we cannot refrain from a certain scepticism in more general terms. In point of fact, the tendency of the great Powers and the super-Powers to negotiate among themselves has not improved or guaranteed in any absolute way the security of small and medium-size nations. The organization of co-operation, as we see it now in its exploratory and preliminary stages, may be carried out without the third world, at the latter's expense or even against its interests. The great Powers and the superpowers seem to be turning toward a consolidation of their positions and their respective advantages. Is it not, furthermore, symbolic and is it not one of the great paradoxes of our times, that the same small countries that previously were so noisily demanding the end of the cold war are today beginning to denounce the Russian-American rapproachement, which they regard as collusion? In the face of this contradiction between intentions and interpretations — a completely normal and healthy reaction on the part of a world disabused because often abused — it will be necessary, we believe, as the Preamble to the Charter tells us, to reaffirm and make real the equality of the rights of States through collective steps in connexion with security and international co-operation, and to create a new, more egalitarian order among peoples, large, medium-sized, or small, which would be tantamount to internationalizing social justice.
148.	Let us now turn to disarmament. We are, of course, gratified that a bipartite agreement has been reached between the Soviet Union and the United States on the prevention of nuclear war.8 But here again we cannot give way to unqualified jubilation. That agreement does not in particular solve, in a global way and with respect for the sovereignty and equality of all States, large, medium-sized or small, the problem of the diversification of nuclear weapons and weapons of mass destruction or their stockpiling, nor does it solve the problem of nuclear testing. In this connexion, we expect the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks to produce more positive results; otherwise security may well turn out to be an illusion. Military disengagement, the withdrawal of foreign troops and the liquidation of bases on foreign soil remain very much on the agenda, and progress achieved in these areas remains marginal.
149.	The small and medium-sized Powers, particularly those that are peripheral and belong to no alliance or military pact, feel rather frustrated by the role of mere spectators to which they have been relegated. Since disarmament is something that concerns us all, and not only the superpowers and the military blocs, we are more than ever convinced of the need to create conditions that will be propitious for the achievement of complete and immediate disarmament.
150.	The creation of zones of peace similar to that which is planned for the Indian Ocean would undoubtedly be one of
the instruments which we could use to achieve our goals of disarmament, peace and security. Actually, in the case of the Indian Ocean, the creation of a zone of peace will make it possible: for the countries concerned to get together in order to establish co-operation based on genuine mutual trust; to outlaw the present race, which in fact draws heavily on the theory of spheres of influence; to utilize the human and material resources of the countries in that area for purely peaceful purposes; to guarantee independence and the genuine sovereignty for those countries without risk of direct of indirect interference.
151.	But, again, there is many a slip 'twixt cup and lip, because the great Powers are putting forward the following objections to this generous and peaceful project: first, that the zone of peace might impede freedom of navigation on the high seas, and secondly that this liberty is generally recognized and will be defined at the forthcoming Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea.
152.	That is why certain great Powers advocate, purely and simply, that the creation of zones of peace should await the convening of the Conference of the Law of the Sea — as if the freedom of the high seas and its exercise were incompatible with the desire for peace of the peoples of that area, and as if they did not know that the conclusions of that Conference will be legal and economic in nature and thus will not in any way take precedence over the collective political will of the littoral countries of the Indian Ocean.
153.	As far as we are concerned, last year we announced that the emergence of Madagascar to full sovereignty and to completely national and international responsibility make it imperative henceforth that it play fully the role which belongs to it in that part of the Indian Ocean where it is located.
154.	How has the Malagasy Government tried to live up to this role? First, by creating conditions for genuine national independence in all areas: the creation of an autonomous currency and central bank; the adoption of an outward-looking policy of friendship with all; the severance of alienating links with foreign countries, particularly with South Africa; and the evacuation of foreign troops and bases from its territory.
155.	The last two points should be particularly emphasized and analysed. In point of fact, by eliminating foreign bases and troops from its soil and by refusing to join the Southern Defence Pact, Madagascar has contributed in a significant way to creating a zone of peace in the Indian Ocean area, a position which is in accordance with the desires of non-aligned countries.
156.	The Malagasy Government has taken its place on the world scene particularly by being more active in international affairs — with the non-aligned countries, in OAU, in the United Nations and so on. Thus the Malagasy Government is helping liberation movements in Africa and elsewhere. It welcomes the proclamation of the independence of the former Portuguese colony of Guinea-Bissau and the Cape Verde Islands, It considers that that new State is juridically and morally entitled to international recognition and to participate in our work, if our Organization intends
to remain faithful to its ideals of freedom, progress and justice.
157. The Malagasy Government considers that the solution of the Korean problem depends on the determination of the Korean people itself to diminish tension and internal friction, to promote co-operation in all areas, to forge awareness of a common destiny, as set forth in the proposals of the North Korean Government, which we entirely support.
J58. The Malagasy Government also recognizes the Royal Government of National Union of Cambodia as the only .legitimate and legal Government, and supports the idea of the urgent need to restore in the United Nations and its system the rights of the Cambodian people to be represented by a Government free from any form of dependence or foreign allegiance.
159.	It also recognizes, with some 40 other States, that the Provisional Revolutionary Government of Viet-Nam is the authentic representative of the South Viet-Namese people. The Government and the people of Madagascar can never forget that they in fact owe their present independence to the heroic struggle of the Viet-Namese people; to the historic "No" of the fraternal people of Guinea; and to the brave combat waged by the dauntless people of Algeria.
160.	The Malagasy Government has followed with some sympathy the experience of the Government of Popular Unity of Chile. The policies of Salvador Allende were in accordance with the aspirations of the people, which has long been enslaved and frustrated by the alliance of reactionaries and monopolists. We pay a tribute to Mr. Allende, his courage, his honest and universal vision, and his universalism in the defence of genuinely independent nations and completely liberated peoples.
161.	Finally, the Malagasy Government is making its voice heard in international bodies on questions of monetary reform and in the Economic and Social Council, particularly on questions relating to the environment and the law of the sea.
162.	Thus we consider that the concept of the continental shelf and the definition which has been suggested are valid only for the great Powers. In point of fact, the criterion of the 200-metre isobath for the delimitation of the continental shelf is not applicable to a number of countries of the third world. The hydrography of that area has either not been carried out at all or has been done in summary fashion. Furthermore, there are a number of countries which have no or very little continental shelf. For example, a few miles from our coast one frequently finds the abyssal depths. Consequently, we would prefer the idea of an exclusive economic zone based on a distance, rather than a depth, criterion.
163.	With regard to the idea of the territorial sea, here again our position has been dictated by our desire to adapt everything to the realities instead of submitting to decisions imposed from outside. Up to now, the great Powers have determined the breadth of this territorial sea on the basis of cannon range. Thus, they adopted three nautical miles; and then — we do not know why or how — they decided to
increase that distance to 6 and then 12 miles  —  perhaps because the range of their ordnance grew accordingly. Nevertheless, at a time of intercontinental ballistic missiles and rockets, the criterion of the range of armaments for the delimitation of territorial waters no longer makes any sense,
164.	For a small island country such as ours, we prefer to choose another criterion in delimiting that area. Since we wish to protect, in so far as possible, our island from any possible intrusion, landing or invasion, we chose the concept of the time it takes for us to summon our coastal or air forces. That is why the Madagascar Government decided to increase the breadth of its territorial waters to 50 nautical miles, starting from the baseline, and the exclusive economic zone to 150 miles, starting from the same point.
165.	O temporal O mores! Our pessimism is finally justified by the iniquitous organization of present international economic relations. The political liberation of all continents is being achieved. But this political liberation could only be a delusion if it were bereft of any economic content.
166.	All delegations here stress as a Leitmotiv that the growing gap between the "haves" and the "have-nots" may seriously compromise international peace and security.
167.	We feel it is our duty to reaffirm that underdevelopment is not backwardness in development. It is, more or less, the result of an historical process — colonial and then neo-colonial exploitation by means of which developed countries empty the economies of the poor peripheral countries of their substance.
168.	Some euphemistically describe this colonial depredation as "deterioration in the terms of trade". It remains true that pillage of the resources of the third world continues in ever-more subtle forms. That is why these so-called developing countries are actually under-developing countries. They are in a state of perpetual under-development because the conditions which brought about this situation are continually recurring.
169.	An eminent person said that development is now the new name of peace.
170.	But we refuse categorically to follow those who support development by incantation, as if it were sufficient to speak about development for it to materialize. "Disarmed laws", said Cardinal de Retz, "are not to be respected". To overcome under-development we have to dismantle the whole machinery and bring about a drastic transformation in relations between the "haves" and the "have-nots" and also in the social relationships existing in our countries.
171.	To decolonize, to democratize, to make more moral international relations and trade is, of course, excellent; but we know that States never willingly renounce their interests. It is up to us, the countries of the third world, to force the rich countries to accept our points of view. We have the material ways and means of imposing the ideas which we believe are fair, since our countries contain in their soil and sub-soil the main natural resources of our planet, resources which are indispensable to the economic growth of the industrialized countries.
172.	We have the opportunity to organize ourselves and to adopt clear options on the basis of our common interests, despite our differences in civilization, language, ideology, religion or political systems.
173.	Furthermore, the developed countries themselves can set aside their differences and they do not hesitate to decide to sacrifice us to their strategies.
174.	As far as we are concerned, we henceforth refuse to entertain that dichotomy, that Manichaean division of the earth into rival East and West blocs, That is no longer in accordance with reality.
175.	As long as the developed countries have a common interest and a common goal — to assure their economic development, to the detriment of the poor countries — the world is naturally divided into two camps: the imperialist exploiters on the one hand and the exploited on the other. But as long as we are content to demand, to exhort, to make pressing appeals and to beg the great Powers to do certain things, we will not achieve results.
176.	As long as the richer countries continue to freeze their assets in London, Paris, Bonn, New York and Tokyo, the sums which the imperialists then lend to us at very high rates, or use to finance and arm Zionist armies, although they could be used to hasten the development of the third world; as long as we are content to mouth words such as "the freedom of peoples to determine their own destiny" —  which is only, after all, the freedom granted by imperialism to Governments which dispose of our peoples as they will, Governments which are docile — without giving any genuine economic and cultural content to that liberty; as long as we former colonized peoples remain in the wake of Europe, by clinging to the Commonwealth, by following the French or the European Community, by joining regional organizations dominated by a particular great Power; as long as we have not understood, as the Europeans have, that our strength comes from organized unity; as long as we, the peoples of the third world, are content simply to ask the rich countries to stabilize the prices of primary commodities, whereas we have the means to get together to impose and fix ourselves the sale price of our commodities; as long as we do not assist each other in our struggle for economic liberation as we did in our struggle for political liberation, we, the countries of the third world, will always remain peoples who are mere objects, because the rich countries, the self-styled democracies, have not hesitated and will not hesitate to send colonial expeditions, such as those sent to Indo-China, Algeria, Suez, Mozambique and Angola. They will not balk at aggression and economic exploitation and they will let us have, at best, the crumbs of their unprecedented development.
177.	Finally, it is obvious that our salvation will come from ourselves. We have to count on ourselves, rely on ourselves. We must not shuffle off our responsibilities onto others. We have to overcome our own weaknesses. It is a question of political will and determination.
178.	Those were the anxieties and preoccupations contained in our cry, "0 temporal O mores!" I think, Mr. President, you will understand why we pay a heartfelt tribute to the competence, skill and devotion of your predecessor, Mr. Stanislaw Trepczynski, a citizen of a great country which suffered particularly from war, racism and man's folly, who was able in such a masterly way to conduct the work of the twenty-seventh session.
179: It is also fitting that we should wish the Secretary-General and all his co-workers to continue to serve with devotion the noble causes of our Organization, which, according to the words of the Secretary-General, should be "a reliable instrument of world order and co-operation, accepted and respected by all Governments."
180.	But we are particularly happy to congratulate you, Mr. President, on your well-deserved election to preside over this twenty-eighth session of the General Assembly. That, following the Fourth Conference of Heads of States and Government of Non-Aligned Countries in Algiers, the representative of Ecuador, a developing country, should be elected to the presidency of the General Assembly — you, Mr. Benites, with your experience of international affairs and the aptitude and objectivity which we know are part of your character — is for us small countries full of significance. We see it as an earnest of the fact that the problems of the developing countries, which have been left outside the deliberations of mankind, will be examined with all the attention they deserve, because those countries represent the overwhelming majority of our planet.
181.	. We are pleased to offer you our entire co-operation, so that the work of this session will lead not only to a few more resolutions but also to concrete and significant results, so that the world may one day see wisdom victorious over man's folly.


86.	Mr. President, on behalf of the People's Republic of Albania I should like first of all to express my warmest congratulations to Mr. Leopoldo Benites on his election to preside over this session of the General Assembly.
87.	The events that have taken place in the course of the year that has just elapsed show that, basically, the positive changes that we witness today in the world are the result of the just struggle of peoples, which, despite the complexity of the problems created by imperialism, colonialism, neo-colonialism and other reactionary forces, is progressing irresistibly forward. The efforts of sovereign States to counter the policy of aggression and hegemony and the threats, pressures and blackmail practised against them have led to a continuing growth of their role in international relations in favour of the cause of freedom and independence, peace and social progress. The peoples of Indo-China have won important victories over the American aggressors and their lackeys. The Arab peoples are pursuing with determination their struggle against imperialist-Zionist aggression and the plots hatched against them. The liberation movements in Asia, Africa and Latin America are strengthening and are spreading to new areas. An ever- increasing number of countries on these continents are taking measures and co-ordinating their actions in the struggle for the defence of their independence, their sovereignty and their national interests against the rapacious designs of the imperialist Powers; and, in the first instance, I refer to the two super-Powers, which are seeking to place them under their trusteeship. The wave of anger and resistance against American imperialism and Soviet imperialism has mounted even higher. This development in the international situation is encouraging to peace-loving peoples and States and is increasing their confidence in the triumph of their just cause.
88.	However, we feel that it would be rather unrealistic to overlook the obvious and not-so-obvious dangers which continue to threaten the freedom and independence of sovereign peoples and States and true peace and security. Here, in this very Assembly, efforts have been made to induce us to believe that at the present time the world is relieved of the threat of war, that relations among States are governed by a spirit of understanding, and that the prospects for peace are very encouraging. But the reality does not justify such an evaluation. In the world there still exist a good number of serious problems which are awaiting solution. In Viet-Nam, acts of war have not come to an end and there is no true peace. In Cambodia, aggression by American imperialism and its lackeys is continuing. In the Middle East, one finds a tense, explosive situation which is fraught with dangerous consequences. The Portuguese colonialists and the racist regimes of South Africa and Southern Rhodesia are unceasingly perpetrating barbarous crimes against many African territories. National and social oppression is being practised in grand style by the imperialist Powers and their instruments in many countries of the world. And, above all, nothing has changed in the essence and content of the aggressive policy and aims of the United States and the Soviet Union to bring about world hegemony. The two super-Powers are spreading their political, economic, cultural and military expansion to every corner of the globe.
89.	For a long time there have been spreading certain concepts to the effect that peace and stability in the world depend in the first instance on relations between the United States and the Soviet Union and that it is on the American-Soviet balance that any world balance will rest. It is alleged that the two super-Powers, as the great and powerful States which they are, should assume a particular responsibility and role in international life and that, under this responsibility, they also have the right to act in full freedom wherever and with whomever they please. Such ideas are inadmissible. The time is long past when the great imperialist Powers decided the fate of the world and of peoples. Very often attempts have been made to frighten peoples by the force of the two super-Powers, by their atomic teeth, but these attempts have remained fruitless. Many facts testify to the fact that the super-Powers are only powerful in appearance, that they carry within them real weaknesses. They are in a decline and in a continuing state of disintegration. However, at the same time, the peace-loving peoples and countries are unceasingly and steadily growing and becoming stronger.
90.	The policy of violence and aggression, oppression and exploitation which is practised by the United States and the Soviet Union, the armaments race and the continuing increase in their war budgets have created great difficulties both internally and externally for these Powers. In the United States the dollar crisis, inflation and unemployment, and, in the Soviet Union, continuing economic setbacks, the phenomena of disintegration and confusion in the political and social system, as well as the worsening of conflicts between nationalities, have now become chronic ills. The Watergate affair and other political scandals and the hardening of the methods of oppression and violence that have been displayed are just so many phenomena which testify to the basically reactionary nature and the continuing weakening of the system of the two superpowers.
91.	At the present time both of them are trying to overcome their difficulties by casting part of the burden on others; in the first instance, on the countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America. The United States and the Soviet Union, through the credits they have granted and their alleged aid, the unequal trade deals and discrimination in respect of trade, investments, pillage of natural wealth, and by other neo-colonialist methods, are engaged in a frenetic course of economic aggression, seeking to ensure to themselves privileged positions and to enrich themselves at the expense of the developing countries, to sabotage their efforts at progress, to keep them in a state of dependence and thus to counteract the struggles which these countries are conducting in order to liquidate the after-effects of colonial domination, to put an end to the division of the world into rich countries and poor countries, into exploiter countries and exploited countries.
92.	In recent times the two super-Powers have been intensifying their measures of constraint in order - to preserve their positions of hegemony and have been seeking to relieve themselves of some of these difficulties by shifting them to the backs of their partners and allies. The United States has submitted the draft of a new Atlantic charter or a declaration on the principles of the Atlantic Treaty as an effort to offset the attempts of the countries of Western Europe to strengthen themselves as a separate force, freed of American dependence. The Soviet Union, for its part, with the intention of halting the efforts of the countries of Eastern Europe to escape its control, has intensified its efforts in order to bring about as quickly as possible the complete political, economic and military integration of those countries within the framework of the Warsaw Pact and the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance and to monopolize in its own hands the direction of all foreign relations of those countries, in accordance with the imperialist theory of "limited sovereignty".
93.	At the same time, the United States and the Soviet Union, in order to cope with the problems confronting them in their own zones of influence and to put into application their global strategy, have come to an understanding and are assisting each other. They are intensifying their collaboration in all areas and in all parts of the world.
94.	None the less, deep-rooted contradictions divide those two imperialist Powers that aspire to world hegemony. In the efforts of those Powers to establish their domination throughout the world, those contradictions, sooner or later, will end by breaking out into bloody conflicts, and those conflicts will lead the world to destruction, suffering and privation even greater than those which it has known heretofore. It is because they think and are prepared for such confrontations that the two super-Powers do not want to disarm. Collaboration is not and never can be absolute in relations between imperialist Powers. Their agreements are temporary and their rivalries eternal.
95.	The United States and the Soviet Union try to convince us that the world is embarked upon an "era of peace" and that we are witnessing the introduction of a new system of international relations and that the "balance of terror" has given way to the "balance of security". According to them, that has been made possible owing to the extension of relations, the atmosphere of understanding and the agreements concluded between the United States and the Soviet Union, which will prove to be the guarantors of peace and security in the world. In fostering such a spirit of demobilization and compromise, the two super-Powers are seeking to create in peoples a pacifist psychosis and dangerous illusions to compel them, allegedly in the name of "peaceful coexistence" and the "settlement of disputes by means of negotiations", to make concessions and renounce the struggle to defend their national interests.
96.	But no one allows himself to be taken in by this Soviet-American demagogy. The peace which the United States and the Soviet Union are extolling is illusory; behind their verbiage about peace are concealed their dangerous plans directed against sovereign peoples and countries, and their plans to repress and stifle any revolt or any resistance against them and any progressive and national liberation movement.
97.	One is then entitled to ask oneself, How can one believe that peace and security are being strengthened when the two super-Powers are pursuing their relentless arms race, when they are unceasingly and steadily swelling their military budgets and are manufacturing new, more perfect weapons of mass destruction? Since people claim that war is remote, then why does anyone wish to organize those threatening military manoeuvres, and why do the United States and Soviet navies roam the seas in every direction? And why do they brandish all those weapons, and why are those war preparations being made?
98.	Considering things as they are, we cannot fail to bring out the fact that the freedom and independence of sovereign countries, general peace and security, are increasingly threatened by the hegemonistic expansionist policy of the two imperialisms which are the most dangerous of our era, American imperialism and Soviet social-imperialism, and that there is actually no real international detente in the world. As has been said by the well-loved leader of the Albanian people, Enver Hoxha, and I quote:
"Even if actually there is a certain degree of detente, that is true only as it applies between the imperialist super-Powers. But there is not and there will be no detente between them and us, between the peoples on the one hand and the imperialists and the social-imperialists on the other. For us it is abundantly clear that the imperialist-revisionist strategy, designed to stifle struggles and revolutionary movements as well as any resistance to their hegemony, to destroy and repress any force, any State or party which opposes the domination of the super-Powers, has remained unchanged. Only the tactics have changed and the means used, which have been multiplied in number and have been perfected".
The detente that we are witnessing between the United States and the Soviet Union, which is accompanied by an accentuation of co-operation, compromise and bargaining between them, far from diminishing the danger of war and armed conflict, on the contrary enables the two superpowers to increase their pressures vis-à-vis the small independent countries, to intensify their efforts to intervene in the domestic affairs of peoples and sovereign countries, and creates dangerous situations and new hotbeds of tension on all continents.
99.	Fresh proof of this is to be found in the recent summit meeting of the leaders of the United States and the Soviet Union. The agreements reached in the course of that meeting, as well as all the ultra-chauvinistic Nixonian or Brezhnevian concepts and doctrines which the two superpowers seek to propagate, are designed to legitimize their arbitrary acts, their arrogance and their diktats in international relations. They want to arrogate to themselves the attributes of a world super-Government and to become the arbiters and the masters of all international life, whereas sovereign peoples and countries would see themselves denied the right to participate on a footing of equality in the solution of problems of the hour and questions which, directly or indirectly, affect their vital interests.
100.	In particular such an attitude finds its expression in summary form in the Soviet-American agreement on what is called the prevention of nuclear warfare.  Under the fallacious pretext that it is appropriate to take measures to ward off the threat of a nuclear war and prevent all forms of military confrontation, the two super-Powers are actually trying, through this agreement, to make sacrosanct at the present time in legal terms their right to intervene jointly at a time and a place they consider appropriate and to define the terms of this intervention. They are thus envisaging playing together the role of international gendarme.

101.	The Soviet-American agreements which have already been concluded, like those which will be concluded in the framework of the so-called SALT negotiations-the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks-do not in any way set aside the danger of nuclear conflict and guarantee in no way that the considerable stockpiles of nuclear and strategic weapons will not be used against other countries. Through those agreements the United States and the Soviet Union do not intend to touch their nuclear strike-force, or to contribute to complete and general disarmament. They propose only to set up a balance which is acceptable to them, to preserve their nuclear monopoly and, above all, to impose on other States a whole series of restrictions in order to prevent any strengthening of their national defence potential and to compel them to place themselves under the American or Soviet atomic umbrella.
102.	If the United States and the Soviet Union were sincerely interested in warding off the danger of a nuclear war, in dispelling the danger and threat of the use of atomic weapons, they should have accepted the clear and constructive proposals put forward for many long years now by the People's Republic of China. The commitment never to be the first to use nuclear weapons against other countries and the permanent prohibition of the manufacture and use of these weapons, together with the destruction of existing stockpiles thereof, would constitute the only specific steps towards disarmament and would create real guarantees for the elimination of the threat of a nuclear war. We believe that, so long as the two super-Powers continue to amass and steadily improve their nuclear armaments, together with those of other types, and so long as they use them as a means of exerting pressure and practising blackmail, countries have the unquestionable and legitimate right to take all the measures they deem appropriate and necessary for their defence.
103.	The People's Republic of Albania, as a peace-loving European country, is interested in the just solution of the problems that concern the peoples of Europe and of the world. Albania has on numerous occasions clearly set forth its point of view on these problems, in particular with respect to European security.
104.	Guaranteeing the peace and security of Europe is an ardent and legitimate wish of the peoples of Europe. After two world wars that were particularly devastating to Europe, that continent should have been able to achieve its own stability and equilibrium. The great and historic victory over fascism aroused great hopes and created good reason to assume that a lasting peace would be brought to Europe and that true security would be achieved. But although 28 years have gone by since the day of victory, the peoples of Europe have not seen their aspirations realized.
105.	The first to sabotage the establishment of true European security was the United States, which, taking advantage of the difficult time through which the countries of Western Europe were going, weakened as they were and seriously devastated by the war, succeeded in securing for itself privileged political, economic and military positions in those countries. In order to safeguard its imperialist interests and transform Western Europe into a base for attacking the socialist countries, the United States set up the aggressive North Atlantic Alliance and armed the Federal Republic of Germany and turned it into a great revanchist Power. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization [NATO] became an organ for the domination of Western Europe by the United States. Thus for Europe there emerged the danger of new wars, and for the countries members of NATO the danger of losing their independence. One of the eminent statesmen of modern France, Charles de Gaulle, was well aware of the danger for the countries of Western Europe, particularly France, inherent in their integration into NATO and in due course he took steps to get the American troops out of France and to withdraw his own country from the military organization of that bloc.
106.	The aggressive aims and activities of NATO, the rebirth of West German revanchism and the accession of the Federal Republic of Germany to the North Atlantic Treaty compelled the Soviet Union and the socialist countries to envisage the measures necessary for guaranteeing their security and to create the Warsaw Pact as a defensive alliance. For a certain time, that Pact served to contain within bounds the aims of the United States and NATO; but when the leaders of the Soviet Union abandoned the just anti-imperialist policy that had been followed in the post-war years under the leadership of Stalin, the Warsaw Pact, too, was transformed into an aggressive alliance, and the countries and peoples of Europe found themselves confronted with a fresh danger.
107.	Moreover, by not concluding a peace treaty with Germany, a treaty that should have been completed with the participation of all the countries that had contributed to the defeat of nazism, one of the fundamental reasons for the lack of balance in Europe was allowed to remain. The conclusion of that treaty was sabotaged first by the United States and later by the two super-Powers working together. The American imperialists did everything possible to bring West Germany out of the state of isolation in which it found itself as a conquered -nation, and they busied themselves in compelling it to follow a line that served the purposes of German revanchism within the framework of American strategy. At the present time, with the establishment of Soviet-West German co-operation, new conditions have been created enabling the Federal Republic of Germany to emerge as the greatest political, economic and military force in Western Europe and to affirm itself as the principal partner of the two super-Powers. Thus there have been created new ties, new imperialist alliances and a new threat to peace and security in Europe.
108.	Such a state of affairs could not but appal the peoples of Europe, could not fail to awaken concern and arouse opposition among them. The fact is that a great many of the allies of the two super-Powers, especially those of Western Europe, no longer wish to see imposed upon them attitudes and objectives contrary to their interests. However, we do find in Western Europe one State which has traditionally followed a "balancing" policy. Although that policy has notoriously not brought any benefit to that State or to its partners, it continues to pursue that policy at the present juncture, thus helping the super-Powers and creating a favourable ground for them to manoeuvre in such fashion as to enable them to dictate their will with regard to European questions.
109.	The achievement of European security certainly is a lofty objective, one for which all European countries should strive; but the road for reaching that objective cannot be that recommended by the two super-Powers. The events that have taken place in Europe, and particularly the preparatory consultations at Helsinki, together with the first phase of the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe itself, have fully confirmed the view that the conditions necessary for convening an intra-European conference and for the establishment of genuine peace and security have not been created. These facts have served to dash the hope that such meetings might compel the two super-Powers to respect the rights of the sovereign countries of Europe. What took place at those meetings and the results achieved have confirmed the view of the Government of the People's Republic of Albania as expressed particularly in its memorandum of 29 June 1973, where it was emphasized that
"... the Soviet Union and the United States are attempting to channel the question of European security along lines that are dangerous for the interests of peace and of peoples, and that the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe, as a product of Soviet-American collusion, will serve the two super-Powers, and that it will not be able to escape from their control and their manipulations or go beyond the framework of the discussions between the aggressive blocs over which they preside".
110.	The United States and the Soviet Union have used the Helsinki negotiations to conceal from the peoples of Europe where the danger to them really lies and who is threatening them, and to set themselves up as defenders and guarantors of the peace and security of Europe. They have missed no opportunity to exert pressure and engage in demagogic manoeuvres to force that Conference to turn its back on the present-day reality of Europe and set out on the path which they themselves have laid down in advance. And beyond all question, it is thus that they will continue to act in the future as well.
111.	The Government of the People's Republic of Albania adheres to its viewpoint that an intra-European conference which does not deal with fundamental problems that concern the peoples and the States of Europe is not in a position to create the conditions which would make it possible to prevent or repel armed aggression. It cannot serve to bring about true peace and security on the continent. On the contrary, it serves only to increase insecurity in Europe and to create new dangers for European States, and enables the two super-Powers to draw political consequences from the situation. How can anyone talk about the establishment of lasting peace and the creation of an atmosphere of understanding and collaboration on the continent when the United States and the Soviet Union are intensifying their policy of hegemony, and are maintaining and strengthening aggressive blocs of NATO and the Warsaw Pact, and when they maintain their bases and their troops on the territory of several European countries? The United States and the Soviet Union are organizing the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe not by any means to contribute to the realization of the lofty aspirations of the peoples and countries of Europe who love freedom, but rather to preserve their zones of influence and to create in Europe a situation of relative tranquillity in order to enable them to spread their activities to other zones where their interests require their presence.
112.	This conviction is even strengthened by the fact that, concomitantly with the Conference on "European security", there was convened another conference on the alleged reciprocal reduction of military forces in Europe. The purpose of the two super-Powers in this matter is to establish, within the framework of close negotiations between one bloc and another, a balance of their troops and their respective weapons in Europe and to weaken the defensive capacity of the European countries. At the same time we must see in this manoeuvre a farce staged by the United States and the Soviet Union to allay the anger which the European peoples feel at the presence of their troops, to perpetuate the stationing of these troops and to sanction the permanent violation of the sovereignty of European States. Any symbolic reduction of these troops in Europe will not diminish or set aside the threat and the danger which the policy of the two super-Powers represents for European peace and security.
113.	This reduction in no way reduces their military power in Europe and does not affect their superiority over other countries in view of the. continuing perfecting of their means of combat. The interests of peace and security for the countries and peoples of Europe in general, and in particular those who, so many years after the end of the Second World War, still see foreign troops on their own home soil, call not for the reduction but for the complete evacuation and withdrawal of these troops, and a withdrawal from Europe of all military installations by the United States and the Soviet Union and the wiping out of all unequal agreements which enable these troops to enter and leave when and how they wish.
114.	The European peoples and countries cannot in any way feel themselves in a state of assurance just so long as tensions subsist in other parts of the world and just so long as the aggressive navies of the United States and the Soviet Union are cruising in the Mediterranean basin, with their action being openly directed against the freedom and independence of the peoples and countries of this region of the world, and just so long as the super-Powers try to convert the Mediterranean into a base for aggression against the countries of Europe and other continents.
115.	The Mediterranean peoples and countries that aspire to see the Mediterranean free of foreign navies and bases are opposed to this policy of aggressive hegemony by the two super-Powers and call for a removal of the United States and the Soviet navies from this sea. We have never ceased to feel that this legitimate aspiration could be achieved if such concrete and effective measures were taken as would make impossible the subsequent presence of the aggressive navies of the United States and the Soviet Union in those waters; in other words, if all foreign military bases were dismantled and if we prevented the creation of new bases, if no facility

was provided and no aid lent to the United States and the Soviet navies, and if those navies were refused the right to dock and to make visits to the ports of Mediterranean countries.
116.	The situation created in Europe and in the Mediterranean cannot fail to command the attention of the peoples and countries of the Balkans, above all at a time when the great imperialist Powers are engaged in penetrating and spreading their influence in the Balkans. The Albanian Government has been and is still interested in seeing true peace and stability established in the Balkan peninsula, and it is convinced that this can be brought about, thanks to the efforts of the peoples of this region themselves, without entrusting to anyone else the defence and the guarantee of their interests. The ties of friendship and understanding between the peoples and countries of the Balkans, based on known principles which govern the relations between sovereign States and the policy of good-neighbourliness, should serve as a solid basis to achieve this end. It is necessary to oppose any effort by the superpowers or by anyone, whoever he may be, to speculate on the problems of this region of the world and to intervene in its domestic affairs, directly or through other means, as they are endeavouring to do now through the Conference on European Security and the Vienna negotiations, or as they would seek to do by taking advantage of another similar occasion if this possibility were opened to them.
117.	The maintenance of a situation of "no war, no peace" in the Middle East testifies to the false nature of the allegations to the effect that throughout the world now we have witnessed a great positive change which will enable us to make progress towards solving the most burning problems of the hour, and that, as a result of the goodwill and concern of the two super-Powers, all of this will be brought about. It is with good reason that the peoples and States of the Arab world, victims of imperialist-Zionist aggression, while pursuing their struggle, demand that an end should be put to such a situation, that the vestiges of aggression should be wiped out as soon as possible and that all their rights that have been trampled' under foot should be fully restored. But these legitimate demands encounter the criminal opposition of Israel and the deeply hostile anti-Arab attitude of the two super-Powers. While the Israeli Zionists obstinately and arrogantly press their annexationist claims and while they intensify their acts of war and armed provocation against Egypt, Syria and other Arab States, the United States and the Soviet Union, in various forms, are supporting and encouraging Israel and exerting pressure on the Arab countries to bring them to make concessions and sacrifice their sovereign rights. They are hatching intrigues against Arab unity, creating internal and foreign difficulties for the Arab States and engaging in plots against them. The Soviet-American summit meeting this year and other events have shown more clearly than ever before that the two super-Powers are opposed to a just solution of the Middle East question and are seeking to preserve at any cost the status quo and their neo-colonialist interests in that part of the world. The Israeli plots and the plots of the two super-Powers, as well as their efforts to destroy the Palestine movement and to eradicate the Palestine problem completely, at the same time are directed against all the Arab nations because the Palestine people is fighting also for the common cause of the Arabs.
118.	The Albanian Government and people have supported and will continue to support firmly our brother Arab peoples. They will vigorously support the Palestine people, which has made and is continuing to accept vast sacrifices to preserve its national existence and to reconquer its homeland, which has been seized from it. The Palestine people is carrying out a just and heroic struggle and nothing will cause it to bend, neither violence and plots, nor the diabolical slanders and outrageous labels which the Israeli- Zionists and their supporters try to apply to them. We firmly believe that it will continue the struggle until final victory and that it will never accept the fate that its enemies are seeking to prepare for it, to condemn it to live forever as a people of refugees, or to pile it up in a desert corner of a so-called Palestine State, or to place it under the power of any traitorous Arab sovereign.
119.	The People's Republic of Albania demands that an end should be put as quickly as possible to the serious and ominous situation existing in the Middle East as the result of the pursuit of imperialist-Zionist aggression. The Israeli aggressors should unconditionally withdraw from all occupied Arab territories and cease all forms of provocations, acts of war and terrorism against the Arab countries. We should bar the way to any imperialist intervention in this part of the world and restore all the sovereign rights of the Palestine people.
120.	In Indo-China, as a result of the fortunate development of the legendary struggle for their national independence which the heroic peoples of Viet-Nam, Laos and Cambodia have been carrying on for many years against the armed aggression of the United States, a new situation has been created. In January of this year the Agreement on Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Viet-Nam  was concluded. The withdrawal of the United States troops, which the United States had been compelled to agree to, constitutes a great victory for the people of Viet-Nam and a heavy political and military defeat for the American imperialists. This victory of the people of Viet-Nam has been hailed by all the peoples of the world, which are inspired and will always be inspired by its heroic struggle and its lofty spirit of sacrifice. Viet-Nam will go down in history as a great example of what can be accomplished by a people, no matter how small it might be, when it is determined to fight to the very end for its just cause.
121.	At the present time the United States of America, without renouncing its aggressive aims in Viet-Nam and throughout Indo-China, is manoeuvring in every possible I way to maintain for ever its presence in South Viet-Nam and to prevent the people of Viet-Nam from achieving its supreme aspirations. It is systematically violating the Paris agreements on Viet-Nam; it is supporting and steadily arming the puppet regime of Saigon and it is inciting people to engage in new acts of war and provocations against the liberated zone of the Republic of South Viet-Nam. In fact,
it is pursuing its military commitment and its intervention in the domestic affairs of the people of Viet-Nam and the other peoples of Indo-China, and placing serious obstacles in the path of the establishment of true peace in Viet-Nam.
122.	The interests of peace and stability in Viet-Nam and throughout Indo-China require that the United States and
the Saigon regime, which is under its orders, put an end once and for all, and without delay, to all the violations of the agreements on Viet-Nam, and that they strictly respect the commitments they have undertaken in accordance with these agreements, as is being done by the Government of the Democratic Republic of Viet-Nam and the Provisional Revolutionary Government of the Republic of South Viet-Nam, which is the only legal Government of South Viet-Nam. If the United States and the puppet regime of Saigon stubbornly persist in their designs of aggression, they will certainly experience new defeats which will be even more overwhelming. The people of Viet-Nam, which is continually standing vigil over the. defence of the victories that it has won, is determined to wage its just struggle to the very end, until it has won a complete triumph.
123.	For more than three years the valiant Cambodian people has been involved in a heroic armed struggle for its national independence against the American imperialist aggressors and the traitorous clique of Lon Nol. Under the leadership of the United National Front of Cambodia, it has won overwhelming victories on the battlefield and it has become invincible. Neither the unprecedented intensification of the United States armed aggression and the barbarous air bombardments nor the efforts of the United States to "Khmerize" the war in Cambodia, nor the plots and political combinations which are worked out against it have succeeded in causing it to yield. The new victory which it has won by compelling the United States to cease its air bombardment over Cambodia is one more evidence of its determination and its invincibility. At present the initiative lies entirely in the hands of the Cambodian people and the armed liberation forces. The United States plans to transform Cambodia into a colony and to maintain in being the puppet regime of Phnom Penh are doomed to imminent and complete failure.
124.	Despite all this, the United States has not given up its efforts to impose on the people of Cambodia the tricky solution of a "cessation of fighting" and "peaceful settlement" American-style. What it wants is to compel that people to renounce the complete liberation of the country and thus save the bankrupt clique of Phnom Penh, to compel the Royal Government of National Union of Cambodia to share power with the traitors and, finally, to create in Cambodia a de facto division into two zones or two States, two Governments or two administrations. In this connexion, the United States enjoys the support of the Soviet Government, which, from the very outset, has maintained a hostile attitude towards the just struggle of the people of Cambodia. Refusing to recognize the Royal Government of National Union of Cambodia, the Soviet Government has maintained and still maintains diplomatic relations with the puppets of Phnom Penh, thus taking a position against the just struggle of the people of Cambodia. The Soviet leaders, completely discredited by their attitude vis-à-vis the Cambodian problem, now claim with shameless cynicism to support the struggle of the liberation forces of Cambodia, and are seeking directly to intervene in the domestic affairs of the Cambodian people.
125.	But the freedom-loving Cambodian people is determined, courageously and without falling back, to pursue its armed struggle until the complete liberation of its country and until the just demands formulated in the historic five-point declaration of the legal Head of State, Samdech Norodom Sihanouk, on 23 March 1970 have been satisfied; that declaration is the only basis of a just settlement of the Cambodian problem.
126.	The delegation of the People's Republic of Albania considers it necessary to emphasize that it is completely illegal and manifestly contrary to the Charter to deny to the Cambodian people its legitimate rights to be represented in the United Nations and to maintain in its stead the puppet clique of Phnom Penh, which represents nothing, neither a people nor a State. The only legitimate representatives of the people of Cambodia are the United National Front and the Royal Government of National Union of Cambodia. Only that Government, which exercises complete and unquestioned power over more than 90 per cent of the territory and 80 per cent of the population of Cambodia, which has set up its agencies everywhere, which directs and organizes the life of almost the whole of the country and which enjoys the support and help of the entire Cambodian people, has the capacity and the attributes necessary to represent the latter in international relations and in the United Nations.
127.	The trip which Samdech Norodom Sihanouk, the legal Head of State and President of the United National Front of Cambodia, made last spring to Cambodia and the National Congress held recently clearly confirm the effective power of the United National Front and of the Royal Government of National Union of Cambodia throughout the country and have increased their prestige and their authority in the international arena. Clear evidence of this 's to be found, inter alia, in the fact that 48 countries have established and maintained diplomatic relations with the Royal Government of National Union and that the participants in the Fourth Conference of Heads of State or Government of Non-Aligned Countries, held at Algiers in September, recognized that Government as the only legal Government of Cambodia.
128.	In order to put an end as soon as possible to the great injustice done to the people of Cambodia, it is necessary that the General Assembly, without delay, take the decision immediately to expel the representatives of the puppet Lon Nol clique and to invite the Royal Government of National Union of Cambodia to take its rightful seat.
129.	Although 20 years have elapsed since it was compelled to put an end to its aggressive war in Korea and to sign an armistice agreement, the United States none the less continues to maintain its occupation troops in South Korea and to incite the Seoul regime to engage in excessive acts of armed provocation against the peoples of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. For 20 years the United Nations has been intervening in this matter without taking any concrete measure to put an end to such a situation. The maintenance of such a state of affairs constitutes a flagrant violation of the sovereign rights of the Korean people; it hampers its efforts for the reunification of the country, increases tension in Korea, seriously endangers peace and stability in the surrounding zone and seriously undermines the prestige of the United Nations.
130.	The achievement of the legitimate aspirations of the Korean people and the interests of peace and stability in the Far East demand that as soon as possible a remedy should be found for this intolerable situation, and that the United States should withdraw its troops and its bases from South Korea and cease all military engagements in that country, that the illegal United Nations Commission for the Reunification and Rehabilitation of Korea should be dissolved immediately, and that any intervention by the United Nations in the domestic affairs of the Korean people should cease.
131.	Peace-loving Members of the Organization, acting in the spirit of the Charter, should try to ensure that the General Assembly takes the proper decision along these lines in order that these important and urgent steps can be taken, as called for in the draft resolution submitted by Algeria and a certain number of other Member countries [A/C.1/L.644 and Corr.1]. The delegation of the People's Republic of Albania fully supports the draft resolution.
132.	In recent times the United States and the Seoul administration, without heeding these demands and the need to provide a just solution to the question, worked out the plot of the "two Koreas" and they are attempting to impose that settlement on the Korean people and also on Member States through the discussion of the question concerning the so-called "dual representation of Korea". By this manoeuvre they are attempting to legalize and perpetuate the division of Korea into two States, to perpetuate the United States colonial domination in South Korea, and to divert the attention of the General Assembly from the substance of the Korean problem in order to get the discussion bogged down in an impasse.
133.	There is only one Korea that exists in the world. Its division into two parts is a result of the hostile and aggressive policy that the United States has been pursuing for many years against the Korean people and an end should be put to this situation as soon as possible. The Korean people has constituted and continues to constitute one single nation. It must live again united. The Korean people has the supreme and sovereign right to decide for itself all the questions that concern it without intervention from outside, and that is something that no one has the right to deny to that people.
134.	The Government of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the only legal representative of the Korean people, has steadily attempted efforts and has taken a series of important and reasonable initiatives in order to bring about the realization of this right and of this ardent aspiration of the people of Korea. The Government of the People's Republic of Albania supports the constructive proposals contained in the five-point programme presented by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea on 23 June last [see A[9027, para. 19], proposals which testify once again to its desire to see created an atmosphere of understanding, collaboration and national unity in Korea with a view to a just solution of the Korean problem and which tear the mask from those who press for division and prepare for war in this country. We vehemently condemn the plot of the "two Koreas" and any steps which the United States, alone or with the aid of its accomplices, may undertake to legalize this state of affairs through the United Nations. The question of the representation of Korea in the United Nations is a domestic matter for the Korean people and it is only for that people to decide this question and for no one else. The most recent five-point proposal of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea sketches the proper course for the solution of this problem in accordance with the aspirations of the entire Korean people and in the light of the conditions obtaining in that country.
135.	Not only in Indo-China and in the Far East but also in other parts of the Asian continent — in the Arabian Gulf and in the Indo-Pakistani peninsula, in the Indian and in the Pacific Oceans-the two imperialist super-Powers are collaborating and rivalling each other in their expansionist aggressive activities, increasing tension and threatening the interests of sovereign peoples and countries. A succession of events has not ceased to provide us with evidence of this fact. And clear evidence is also to be found at present in the intensification of the efforts of the Soviet Union to impose on Asian peoples and countries its plan for "collective security in Asia", which is just as dangerous as their so-called scheme for European security or international security.
136.	How can anyone talk about "collective security in Asia" when the authors of that plan, the Soviet social imperialists, have encouraged and are supporting Indian aggression against Pakistan, when they have engaged in armed provocation against the People's Republic of China, when, preparing war, they have at present massed numerous troops on the Sino-Soviet and Sino-Mongolian frontiers, when they are constantly whipping up anti-Chinese hysteria and strengthening their naval forces in the Indian Ocean, and when they are engaging in subversive activities and stirring up quarrels and conflicts among the Asian countries?
137.	The so-called collective security in Asia is directed against the freedom and independence of the sovereign peoples and countries of that continent, and against the national and revolutionary liberation movement in that part of the world. It is directed first of all against the People's Republic of China, which is the stalwart bulwark of socialism, the most powerful defender of the struggle of peoples for freedom and national independence, the country which most sincerely supports the effort of sovereign States for their independent development and progress, and which fights with determination against the policy of hegemony of the two super-Powers.
138.	None the less, the imperialists and social imperialists and other reactionaries of all kinds and colours have failed and will continue to fail in their anti-Chinese activity. That great country, the People's Republic of China, a powerful socialist State which enjoys great prestige and plays a tremendous role in the international arena, is pursuing a revolutionary policy both at home and abroad and, in accordance with the principles of that policy, is developing and strengthening continuously, thus advancing firmly along the path of socialism and revolution. That is a source . of pleasure and encouragement to all peace-loving and freedom-loving peoples.
139.	The People's Republic of Albania will always stand side by side with peoples and countries fighting for freedom, independence and national sovereignty against imperialism, both old and new, colonialism and neocolonialism. My delegation wishes to express the feelings of friendship and solidarity of the Albanian people towards peoples who are suffering from colonial oppression and the policy of genocide and racial discrimination; it denounces the bloody crimes of the Portuguese colonizers and the racist regimes of South Africa and Southern Rhodesia, it demands that resolutions and decisions which for many long years have been adopted by the United Nations along these lines should not be trampled underfoot but should be put into effect. It hails the just struggle of these peoples and is firmly convinced that they will triumph.
140.	The Albanian people, like all progressive peoples and progressive public opinion throughout the world, condemns the coup d'etat organized in Chile by the rightist forces incited and supported by American imperialism. We express our support and solidarity with the Chilean people, which at the present time is going through a difficult moment of its history because of the campaign of violence and terror which has been raging throughout the country.
141.	We vigorously support the efforts of a great many independent developing countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America that are making efforts to strengthen their political and economic independence, to defend their national rights and national resources, to consolidate their sovereignty and to preserve their territorial integrity.
142.	The People's Republic of Albania is a peace-loving State. It has fought and will continue to fight with determination to defend its freedom, its independence and its sovereignty and it is determined to stand up against, and to bring to nought, all plans and all the aggressive aims and threats of the United States imperialists and the social imperialists in the Soviet Union which are directed against it. Albania will continue always to act as a factor of peace and stability in the Balkans and in Europe and it will pursue, as always, and in consistent fashion, its foreign policy, which is unchanging and one of principle in the service of the cause of socialism, freedom, the independence of sovereign peoples and countries, and general peace and security throughout the world.
143.	At the outset of the work of this session the General Assembly decided to admit to membership the two German States, the German Democratic Republic and the Federal Republic of Germany as Members of the United Nations. In voting in favour of that decision the Albanian delegation explained [2119th meeting] the attitude of the Government of the People's Republic of Albania in connexion with certain aspects of the German problem which heretofore have not met with a just and final solution because of the failure to conclude a peace treaty between vanquished Germany and the victors of the anti-Fascist coalition, a treaty which should include the necessary clauses and obligations so that we can prevent a renaissance of militarism and German revanchism and in order to ensure that indemnities are paid for all of the damage experienced by those countries because of the occupation or aggression to which they were subjected by Hitlerite Germany.
144.	The Albanian delegation affirms once again in this Assembly the views it expressed a few days ago, and it wishes to emphasize that the People's Republic of Albania does not give up its demand that Germany satisfy all the rights which Albania acquired as a country which participated in the anti-Fascist coalition.
145.	The Albanian people was one of the first victims of Fascist aggression, and the occupation of our country by Germany during the Second World War brought it immense suffering and privation, damage and vast destruction. Because of this fact, 28,000 Albanians were killed  —  3 per cent of the population of the country at that time - 12,600 were wounded, and 12,150 deported. Tens of thousands of other persons were used as forced labour by the German occupying forces. The economy and all sectors of the life of the country suffered vast losses. Suffice it to recall that 100,000 homes or buildings were set fire to or reduced to ashes, 1,850 towns and villages out of the 2,500 which Albania had at that time were destroyed. The losses in livestock, large and small, which were killed or carried off amounted to 800,000 head. Agriculture, forests, mines, ports, roads, bridges and means of transport and communication were destroyed. Monetary treasure and great quantities of objects of art and archaeological treasures were pillaged. Estimates made by the competent State commissions after the war show that the monetary value of the loss suffered by our country because of German occupation amounts to approximately $2,000 million, calculated at the value of the dollar in 1938.
146.	Because of its heroic struggle side by side with other peoples and countries of the anti-Fascist coalition, the Albanian people made a valuable contribution to the historic victory won over fascism. In proportion to the area of its territory, which is 28,000 square kilometres, and its population at the-time, 1 million inhabitants, Albania, in terms of losses in manpower and cultural and material property, is in the forefront of the countries which fought fascism.
147.	The Albanian people, by its struggle and by the blood which was shed by thousands of its sons and daughters, won the undeniable and imprescriptible right to payment of the damages inflicted upon it by Germany. As was stipulated in particular in Potsdam:
"In accordance with the Crimea decision that Germany be compelled to compensate to the greatest possible extent for the loss and suffering that she has caused to the United Nations and for which the German people cannot escape responsibility . . ."
the People's Republic of Albania declares before this Assembly that it demands that it should be paid as soon as possible the full measure of reparations for the damage which the troops and occupation authorities of Hitlerite Germany inflicted upon Albania during the Second World War, as well as for the losses suffered because of the postponement of the payment of these reparations.
148.	In conclusion, I should like to express my delegation's conviction that Member States which have at heart the interests of national independence and freedom and general peace and security will firmly oppose the pressures and intrigues of the two super-Powers, that they will reject their secret diplomacy carried out through this Organization and outside it, and that they will not allow them to prevent the present session of the General Assembly from looking objectively and seriously at the important problems confronting it. With that goal in mind, the delegation of the People's Republic of Albania will spare no effort, in the course of this session also, to make its modest contribution towards that end.