Let me offer you my congratulations. Sir, on your election to the high office of President of the fortieth session of the United Nations General Assembly, in this jubilee year your long diplomatic experience with the United Nations will be of inestimable assistance to us.
Let me offer my thanks also to Ambassador Paul Lusaka for his successful work as President of the thirty-ninth session. He helped to ensure that during the last session of the General Assembly the major problems of Africa were dealt with pragmatically, realistically and in a genuinely sympathetic spirit.
Forty years ago, in founding the United Nations, the nations learned the lessons of the Second World War. The Federal Republic of Germany, though not a founding Member of the United Nations, has always, since it was constituted, worked for the fulfillment of the United Nations mission to preserve world peace. We do this by means of our policies in pursuit of peace in Europe and throughout the world.
For 40 years Europe has lived without war. In the North Atlantic Alliance, to which the Federal Republic of Germany as a liberal democracy has firmly hitched its destiny, a community of States was established which is a model of peaceful co-operation on a basis of equality and makes a contribution to peace and stability beyond its own frontiers.
In the European Community, friendship and co-operation have taken the place of centuries of rivalry and confrontation. From the original Community of six States the present Community has developed with its 10 members, and there will soon be 12 members. The forthcoming accession of Spain and Portugal to the European Community will bring great enrichment and new strength to the liberally and democratically constituted States of Europe. We want to put closer common foreign and security policies on a contractual basis. The way to European union is signposted. We regard an active policy in pursuit of peace as a historical duty to our own continent and to the world.
Europe is more than the States of the European Community. When we speak of Europe, we mean the whole of Europe. Peace in the world is particularly dependent on the relations between West and East in Europe. Through the partition of Europe, the German nation was torn apart. Tension between West and East affects us most acutely. For us, therefore, a policy on Germany is a policy in search of peace in Europe and a policy in the spirit of the United Nations. It is not possible to secure peace in Europe without a contribution by both German States. War must never again emanate from German soil. Joint efforts for peace are imperative. That is the essence of the community of responsibility in which both German States fulfill their special mission and duty to ensure peace. Our co-operation merits the support of all States sincerely interested in stability and genuine detente at the heart of Europe.
It is encouraging that on 12 March 1985 Federal Chancellor Helmut Kohl and the Chairman of the Council of State of the German Democratic Republic, Erich Honecker, jointly recognized the opportunity for a new phase of West-East relations presented by the resumption of the arms control dialog between the United States and the Soviet Union. The Federal Republic of Germany will do everything in its power to help improve relations between West and East. The treaties concluded during the seventies by the Federal Republic of Germany with its neighbors continue to be a solid basis for such improvement. The starting point was the 1970 Treaty of
Moscow, which put relations between the Federal Republic of Germany an<5 the Soviet Union on a new footing. Through the Treaty of Moscow and the treaties with the People's Republic of Poland and the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, as well as the Treaty on the Basis of Relations with the German Democratic Republic, we opened up,
out of a national and historical responsibility for peace, new long-term prospects for relations between West and East. We stand by these treaties. Our contractual
policy is not inconsistent with the political aim of the Federal Republic of Germany to work for a state of peace in Europe in which the German nation will regain its unity through free self-determination. That is the wording of the "Letter on German Unity" handed over by the Federal Government to the Soviet side
on the occasion of the signing of the Treaty of Moscow. These treaties and the Quadripartite Agreement on Berlin cleared the way for the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE).
On 1 August 1985, at the meeting marking the tenth anniversary of the signing of the Helsinki Final Act, all participating States affirmed their determination to continue the CSCE process and to implement all parts of the Helsinki Final Act. This Final Act is a realistic and balanced document. It is not a peace treaty but sets the course towards a future peaceful order in Europe. The CSCE process is intended to combine the precepts of peaceful coexistence between States and a wide range of co-operative options, on the one hand, with respect for the fundamental rights and interests of people regarding exchanges and information, on the other. It has encouraged States to pool their resources and creative powers. Co-operation is intended to check and reduce the potential for conflict inherent in the existing clashes of interests and differences between systems of values. The opportunities offered by international co-operation will become even more important in the light of the dawning technological revolution. A robust and enduring peaceful order that takes account of the legitimate interests of all concerned must be based on efforts to build confidence and establish co-operative security, combined with the participation of all in economic, scientific and technological progress. Cultural exchanges play a particularly important role in the creation of such an order.
Free and creative contacts and exchanges among all nations and presentation of cultural achievements on a reciprocal basis impart knowledge and deepen understanding of one another. In Europe the joint cultural heritage has always remained a unifying bond in spite of horrific wars, a bond transcending ideological frontiers.
Awareness of the cultural identity of Europe is growing, as is the realization on all sides that Europe will continue in future to have a common fate. The Cultural Forum to take place shortly in Budapest within the CSCE process will give all participating States the chance to substantiate their desire for cultural co-operation and exchanges.
The network of diverse connections developed between West and East in Europe has stood up in past years to serious strains. Our aim now must be to reach more extensive, more comprehensive results than in the seventies. The sound beginnings made in those days must be exploited.
We welcome the forthcoming summit meeting between the President of the United States and the General Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party. The Federal Chancellor, Helmut Kohl, has repeatedly advocated such a summit meeting. The meeting in Geneva is intended to become the new beginning of a top-level dialog. Above all, we hope for a significant impetus to the negotiations in Geneva.
On 8 January 1985 the United States and the Soviet Union agreed to resume negotiations. They began on 12 March. The document of 8 January is of great political importance. It creates new opportunities for arms control, dialog and co-operation within the West-East relationship. Far-reaching negotiating objectives are laid down in the document: to prevent an arms race in space and to terminate it on Earth? to reach effective agreements to limit and reduce nuclear weapons, both intercontinental and intermediate-range; and to strengthen strategic stability. The Federal Government unreservedly supports those negotiating objectives. They are in the interests of all nations.
We are well aware that results take time. The subjects under negotiation are intricate and complex. Each side must heed the security interests of the other. Tension and distrust must be reduced. Success depends on the negotiating parties endeavoring seriously and flexibly to reach co-operative solutions. They must consider themselves responsible for a common task. In the relations between West and East, no side must try to achieve a level of security that means less security for the other side.
Developments in the balance of military power between West and East since the 1970s are drastic evidence of that fact. The massive arms build-up by which the West has increasingly felt threatened since the period of detente in the 1970s has brought no major advantage to its originators; on the contrary, it has promoted the search for new types of space-based defensive options. Drastic and reliably verifiable reductions in nuclear offensive potential will therefore necessarily influence the need for, and the scope of, future defensive weapons. Both questions must be considered and resolved in their natural and political interrelationship, as was agreed on 8 January 1985.
The efforts to .achieve co-operative security are a key to the development of a stable relationship between West and East, on which world peace is largely dependent. If success is to be achieved during the present negotiations, existing arms control arrangements must be adhered to. The Federal Republic of Germany welcomes the decision made by President Reagan regarding continued observance of the SALT limitations. Co-operative solutions to the central security issues require a political environment marked by a minimum of mutual trust. A particularly important factor in that trust is predictability of the long-term intentions of the other side. That is why a sound and constructive relationship between the super-Powers is indispensable. But confidence-building and arms control are not a matter for the super-Powers alone: the medium-sized and small States, too, must endeavor to establish an enduring, stable basis for West-East relations. Distrust must be reduced wherever it exists.
Not only nuclear weapons, but also the other potential weapons must be reduced. That is why the multilateral negotiating forums remain for us indispensable components of the arms-control process.
It is an encouraging sign that the Third Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons has had a successful outcome. The Non-Proliferation Treaty has proved its worth as an important element of international arms control and of the peaceful use of nuclear energy. It has shown that multilateral arms control is possible.
The mutual and balanced force reduction negotiations in Vienna and the Stockholm Conference on Confidence and Security Building Measures and Disarmament in Europe concentrate on conventional forces and are an essential complement to the nuclear negotiations in Geneva. The aims of those negotiations, too, are stability at a low level of .forces, openness, transparency, predictability and the renunciation of force by means of specific confidence-building measures. Here in New York we launched an initiative aimed at drawing up guidelines for confidence-building measures that could be applied throughout the world.
Without reliable verification, arms-control agreements would be built on shaky foundations. The attempt to establish a universal prohibition of chemical weapons is still being hampered by the outstanding verification issues, which must now be tackled with vigor. It is high time that an end was put to the scourge for mankind constituted by those chemical weapons of mass destruction that have been outlawed for decades. Partial, regional solutions do not achieve that. They would make the question of verification even more complex. However, we welcome every effort by other States to bring about reliable verifiability. In that spirit, we are studying the suggestions made to us by the German Democratic Republic and the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic. The States at the heart of Europe have every reason to help resolve the verification question, thereby ensuring that chemical weapons are banned worldwide.
We know that a state of non-war through nuclear deterrence cannot be the ultimate method of securing peace. If deterrence against attack, deterrence against war - in other words the strategy of preventing war - should ever fail, there would be inconceivable consequences. The fortieth anniversary of Hiroshima renewed our awareness of that truth. In the nuclear age security can no longer be based solely on autonomous efforts. The long-term preservation of peace, however,
requires co-operative solutions; for that reason, disarmament and arms control are integral components of our security policy. We want to avoid any type of war, including war waged without nuclear weapons.
No one must reserve the option to make the first use of conventional weapons. Given the present state of technology, a conventional war would be a thousand times more dreadful than the Second World War. In Europe, with its high levels of armaments, even a conventional war would be a catastrophe. Our Alliance has declared that it will never be the first to use arms. We do not seek superiority. We do not wish to defeat or control anyone, nor do we wish to make any side arm itself to exhaustion.
The many trouble-spots in the world, the regional conflicts, must not be seen only from a European point of view; above all, they must not be fitted into the mold of the West-East confrontation. That is why we regard genuine non-alignment of the States in the Third World as a tremendously important contribution to world peace and to the realization of the purposes of the United Nations. The great idea of equal rights and self-determination of peoples must not remain empty words. Article 1 of the Charter of the United Nations makes it clear that all nations possess the same right to determine their own national life and political actions, including the political pursuit of peace. That right entails respect for the special needs of peoples in their own regions. No State and no power bloc has the right, or can usurp the right, to decide on issues vital to other nations.
We, along with the vast majority of the United Nations, therefore demand the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan. Striving for ideological supremacy means rejecting real non-alignment. That was recognized with the utmost clarity at the summit conferences of the non-aligned countries in Havana and New Delhi and most recently at the Foreign Ministers Conference in Luanda. Real solutions to the problems of the third world must come from the regions in question.
The European Community, our regional Community, is also an attempt to solve regional problems by means of an increasingly close association of the European democracies. Together with our European partners, we support regional co-operation and associations of States in all other parts of the world too. We actively support the peaceful settlement of conflicts among neighbors. That helps to keep East-^West confrontation out of the third world.
On the basis of this concept of regional co-operation, we support the Contadora process in Central America, a process initiated in the region itself. It is the only realistic way for Central Timerica to approach the solution of its problems. In Luxembourg, on 11 and 12 November, another conference is to take place between the Foreign Ministers of the European Community, Spain and Portugal and those of the Central American States and the Contadora group. We want to continue the dialog between the two regions of Central America and Europe; we seek close co-operation between them.
We also seek structured economic and political co-operation between the European Community and the Gulf Co-operation Council. In the Middle East we support regional efforts to increase the willingness of all parties to the conflict to negotiate and bring about peace. We acknowledge the positive elements of the Fez plan. We welcome the initiative of King Hussein and hope that it will help pave the way towards negotiations. Only through negotiations and the renunciation
of force can accommodation be found between the right of Israel to exist within secure and recognized boundaries and the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination.
We support the regional efforts for peace of the countries of the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN). The European Community recognized from the very beginning that the economic and political co-operation pursued by the ASEAN States was an exemplary form of regional co-operation that pointed the way ahead. The ASEAN countries' Kampuchea initiative in the United Nations can count on our vote.
We are pleased that talks have been resumed between the two parts of Korea. We support all efforts to eliminate tension on the Korean peninsula. That should also open the way for accession to the United Nations.
To work for peace in the world also means to co-operate in order to meet together the economic and social challenges faced by mankind. North and South must co-operate to bring about successful development in the third world. North and South must also co-operate to come to terms with the global structural transformation that the third industrial revolution will cause once the transition has been made to the age of information and communication technology. This new age offers great opportunities to mankind. It will enable the world to grow even closer together and will extend the scope and the need for international co-operation. It will open up new opportunities for the individual responsibility and personal development of everyone.
The one world in which we live today cannot remain a peaceful world for long if it remains divided into rich and poor nations, into technically advanced and technically backward nations. The establishment of a truly peaceful world means overcoming hunger and poverty in all regions of the world.
Our look back at 40 years of the United nations is also a look back at 40 years of development co-operation. Despite all the problems that remain unsolved, the last 40 years have been a period of unprecedented economic growth, particularly for the third world. The gross national product in Asia, Africa and Latin America grew by 5.6 per cent annually during the 30 years from 1950 to 1980; that means that it increased fivefold. Between 1960 and 1982 life expectancy rose from an average of 42 to 49 years; infant mortality was cut in half; and whereas in 1960 only 50 per cent of the children received primary education, 94 per cent receive it now.
Two central themes of this sessions of the General Assembly are the debt crisis and the situation in Africa. Since 1982 we have made progress towards overcoming the debt crisis, but the crisis is far from having been mastered. It continues to tick like a time-bomb in the world economy and jeopardizes the growth and social stability of the developing countries, as well as the health of the banking system in the industrialized countries. What can be done?
First of all, we must find methods for restoring credit flows to a normal level and for enabling adequate resources to flow into the developing countries. However, the very volume of such funds means that this task cannot be fulfilled by the international financial institutions alone, nor even principally by them. Private banks and investors must continue to play the main role. I appeal to the commercial banks not to shirk this responsibility. For their part, the debtor countries must also make every possible effort during the coming years to reform their internal economic policies and to fight inflation. Only in that way can they strengthen their international creditworthiness, create a favorable climate for investment and terminate the flight of capital. He must, however, be aware also of the fact that the debt issue is not only an economic and financial
issue; it is also a political question. It is a question of the social peace and internal stability of the debtor countries. They must not be confronted with impossible demands. The servicing of foreign debt must not be paid for in the third world with recession, unemployment and hunger, or with a threat to freedom, democracy and independence.
Secondly, if the debt crisis is to be resolved, further interest-rate reductions are required. The industrialized countries must pursue an economic and financial policy that enables interest rates to be reduced further. They must reduce their budget deficits.
Thirdly, the markets of the industrialized countries must remain open to developing countries; they must be opened even wider. Protectionism is a danger not only in economic growth in the industrialized countries; protectionism is a deadly danger to the developing countries. Free world trade is of vital importance to the developing countries. Only if the industrialized countries open up their markets to exports of finished and semi-finished products from the developing countries can the latter be more firmly integrated into the world economy, whoever denies the third world access to its markets is denying it development. The Federal Republic of Germany supports open markets, particularly with regard to the third world. The high trading surpluses on our market, particularly those of the African and Latin American countries, bear witness to that fact. So that free trade can be secured and consolidated, we advocate that the next round of negotiations in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) be commenced as soon as possible. The acute danger to international free trade stems particularly from the great trade imbalances in the world. It would however be a fateful mistake to seek to overcome them by means of trade barriers. It would mean misunderstanding the roots of the problem.
An interdependent world economy does not permit any isolationist economic policies pursued with no regard to their effects on other countries. The stronger the economy of a country, the greater its responsibility.
The call to open up markets to the third world is also addressed to the socialist industrialized countries. They still continue to take less than 5 per cent of the finished products exported by the third world. That is in no way compatible with their international economic position and the responsibility that they also bear.
The second great task facing us at this session of the General Assembly is that of aid for Africa. After the last session of the General Assembly, the international community organized assistance to combat the threat of starvation. The Federal Government helped with food, transport and medicines. Innumerable people in my country gave generous donations. Assistance for Africa must continue and, indeed, be increased. Donors and recipients are agreed that external help alone cannot bring about the breakthrough. Africa knows that it needs economic reforms and that it must make agriculture the focal point of its development efforts. Good producer prices are essential as an incentive to farmers to increase production, but the reforms in Africa can be implemented only if they are supported by adequate help from outside. Acting on a mandate from the Bonn Economic Summit, the seven industrialized States represented there prepared proposals for the fight against hunger in Africa which were approved here in New York yesterday by the seven Foreign Ministers.
The Federal Republic of Germany regards development policy as part of its policy in pursuit of peace. We want the developing countries to become economically more self-sufficient and independent. We want to strengthen the economic foundations of genuine non-alignment. The Federal Republic of Germany has not concentrated its assistance on a few selected countries; on the contrary, we
have helped wherever the need was greatest. We have remitted the debt of the world's poorest countries to an extent unequaled by any other industrialized country.
The Government of the Federal Republic of Germany considers population policy to be a necessary component of a successful development strategy. We therefore also support the United Nations Population Fund. It has performed valuable work and played a considerable part in slowing down the rate of population growth. However, further successes are needed.
Worldwide interdependence is particularly clearly illustrated in the field of environmental protection. In that field "international home affairs" are becoming an element of international policy, and in that field mankind is making collective decisions regarding its own future. Our forests are in danger. Our agricultural land is being eroded; deserts and steppes are spreading; seas, lakes and rivers are becoming increasingly polluted; animal and plant species are becoming extinct. It is vital to preserve the natural sources of life on which we all together depend on the shrinking planet Earth.
In the field of North-South co-operation it is vital to begin dealing in good time with the questions raised by the new forms of technology, microelectronics and bioengineering. These forms of technology present great opportunities, particularly for the developing countries. Gene technology offers great potential for a solution to the world food problem. The new telecommunications and radio satellites offer the opportunity to equip entire regions of the third world quickly and relatively cheaply with a communications infrastructure. However, the opportunities are accompanied by risks. For instance, the new forms of information technology in the industrialized countries are accelerating automation. This poses
the danger to the developing countries that the advantage they derive from lower labor costs will be eroded. North and South must co-operation to take the opportunities offered to the third world by these new forms of technology and to avert dangers. What seems to me to be the greatest opportunity is, that the new technological revolution will permit many developing countries, at least in some sectors, to enter the new information age at practically the same time as the industrialized nations.
The United Nations has recognized the dignity of man as the supreme principle. All States must follow this principle at home and in their foreign relations. The United Nations has created a comprehensive system of universally binding standards to protect human rights. The 1984 Convention against Torture is a document directed against humiliation, inhumanity and cruelty. I hope that the next agreement in this sphere will be a further optional protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights concerning the abolition of the death penalty. We are faced with the task of putting human rights not only into words but a.J.so into practice. For this, we need international institutions that strengthen the protection of human rights. We call for the appointment of a high commissioner for human rights and for the creation of an international court of human rights at the United Nations.
In many parts of the world human rights are still violated. One special human-rights problem that depresses us all is that of apartheid in South Africa. We seek the peaceful elimination of apartheid in the Republic of South Africa. That is consistent with the ethical basis of our constitution, with the demands of the Christian churches and with the deep conviction of the people of my country. At issue are equal rights for all South Africans, irrespective of the color of their skin. The world watches with horror and outrage the escalation of the bloody clashes in South Africa. We appeal to the responsible authorities in South Africa to release each and every political prisoner, to end forced resettlement, to put a stop to arbitrary detention without trial and to terminate the state of emergency. Only in negotiators with the authentic leaders of all groups of the population can a permanent solution be found. The form that solution will take must be decided by the people in South Africa themselves; no one outside South Africa has the right to lay down how this should be done. The South African Government has recently given indications of specific reforms. These must now be implemented quickly. Further, increasingly extensive reforms are essential, until apartheid has been fully eliminated. We hope that the responsible leaders do not miss the last opportunity given them by history.
The right of peoples to self-determination must be the basis of the solution to the question of Namibia. Security Council resolution 435 (1978) remains for us the indispensable basis for any Namibian solution. We appeal to the Government of South Africa to make the way clear at last for the internationally recognized independence of Namibia. It is free elections that must decide which Government the majority of the people wishes.
The United Nations is 40 years old. This year, we shall rededicate ourselves solemnly to the principles set forth in the Charter of the United Nations. Secretary-General Perez de Cuellar has called on us to pursue a new co-operative internationalism. We support his practical proposals. We do not need a new Charter, but we do need a new spirit in the United Nations. It is here, it is in this building, that the preservation of peace must begin. The United Nations was created to reconcile differing interests. It must not be abused for propaganda and for short-term voting successes, useful as they may be for domestic political purposes and votes. To be sure, the United Nations is a political Organization, and politics means struggles over power, influence, values, programs and personalities. And yet we must not forget that the United Nations is a precious instrument in our hands. Our war-scarred fathers have created it. We still have to learn to make the best possible use of the instrument offered us by the United Nations for the preservation of peace. History will not judge us by occasionally small tactical successes; it will judge us solely by whether we succeeded in avoiding the final catastrophe and enhancing the human dignity of all mankind. The dignity of man, his inalienable and fundamental rights, must remain the yardstick against which all our actions are measured.


Mr. President of the United Nations General Assembly and representative of Spain, a country in which the Latin American community asserts its roots, acknowledging it as a fundamental ingredient of its own identity.
Mr. Secretary-General, symbol of Peru's commitment to the international community and of our faith that the transformation of Peru is linked to change and justice in the world.
Representatives of all nations:
For some this is a ritual, a declarative and symbolic meeting. We have not lost faith, because we know that those who are listening to us are a bureaucratic agency, but rather that they fully assume their role as representatives of mankind in the face of selfishness, poverty and violence in our world.
Of course we could ask whether in its 40 years of existence the United Nations has fully achieved its purpose, whether peace really exists in the world. And we might answer that nuclear peace is but a balance of insecurity and terror, that this apparent peace expresses its tensions by shifting its conflicts to the poorest
countries; and that it conceals an unequal and unjust economic system in which the central nations dominate the others for their own benefit by manipulating interest rates, prices, wages and therefore wielding power in the poorer countries, in order to maintain profound injustices that generate violence.
But to say all this would be to repeat the litany that has so often been heard in this hall.
I have come here to state once again that in spite of this, the United Nations remains the highest representation of mankind and that we have come to it because we believe in the equality of human beings and of nations, and because we believe that history will not be determined by the laws of the marketplace and of conflict, but rather that its meaning will henceforth be the affirmation of freedom. Thus, our first words are an appeal for the democratization of this Organization which, in accordance with its Charter, is based on the principle of equality among its
members. but in which the Security Council is governed by the realities of the last great war and the five Powers possess a right of veto that is incompatible with that equality. That right of veto is a blot upon our Organization because it is an institutional recognition of force, and the vicious circle is completed because in order to eliminate the veto the agreement of the Council, on which those Powers with the veto right are represented, is necessary.
One group of countries, however strong, cannot contradict the universal nature of this Organization. No Power, however much it may contribute financially, can demand a weighted and contribution-linked vote in which each nation is valued on the basis of the amount of money it contributes. We prefer a poorer organization, a less bureaucratic one, but an organization prouder of its moral dignity. In this connection we would propose that the economic contribution of all countries be the same, because higher contributions by the richest must be rejected if they in turn require the mortgaging of our destiny.
The strength of the united Nations does not reside in the number of offices or functionaries that it may have throughout the world; the strength of the United Nations should reside in the moral power of the equality of all its Members and in its capacity to act without vetoes.
In this, which is the highest court of mankind, we commit ourselves to a bid for life and, without surrendering to defeatism, we proclaim that, while assemblies and words may not have conquered selfishness, we, the poor of the world, have not lost our hope in the meaning of history.
To those who use arrogant force, we respond in the words of the old Spanish philosopher: they will succeed but they will not convince. They may succeed through the power of their bombs and their money, but they will not convince the universal democracy of consciences, and in spite of them the hope for a better mankind will continue to be felt.
I" speak on behalf of a nation that is struggling, a nation that does not give up. I have not come here to repeat what has been said already of the world order and what all of us must do in the future to change it; I have come to state what we are doing at present, and the message that I bring to you is a message of determination. We believe in the solidarity of countries and in their common future, but today we affirm that action is the duty of all countries. That is what we are proposing in respect of each of the subjects on which I should like to dwell at this times the debt problem, human rights, drug trafficking and disarmament.
In connection with all these issues, we have but one message: we have the will to act here and now.
Many believe that Peru is a country of drugs, death and violation of human rights. I have cone here to say that there is much more to the truth. He are a part of the impoverished peoples of the earth, a part of Latin America, and our problems have as a root cause our link with the international economy. For lack of a national program of action, our country has been at the service of external interests and each of the economic cycles of this century has stemmed from changes in the international system.
Peru was at the beginning of this century a country that was primarily an exporter of raw materials at a time when these were required by the international economy. At that time the Andes region and its peasant population were kept under the landowner system. At the end of the Second World War, Peru began its process of industrialization, but this was the result of the expansion of world industry, whose transnational corporations sold their machinery and established their branches in the capital of my country.
Furthermore, when foreign foodstuffs were introduced in consumer markets the poverty of the peasants worsened, causing a greater exodus towards the cities.
In this framework, the world crisis meant that new adjustments were needed in Peru, when the richest countries moved towards protectionism and strove to collect their debts, we were forced to open up our borders and destroy our industries in order to buy from world industry, and also to recycle our debts, with ever-increasing rates of interest.
As a result of all this, a grave crisis is shaking my country. The disparity in regional development reflects the gap between the administrative industrial bloc and the marginal peasant and urban sector. Furthermore, the gap between rich are poor is widening. Our per capita production has gone back to levels comparable to those of 20 years ago and inflation and unemployment are on the increase.
This is the tragic situation which my country is now confronting, but Peru is a country that has made democracy effective by asserting its will. Peru does not want to be a ship adrift at the mercy of shifts in the international economy. Peru does not want to remain within this vicious circle, devaluing its currency because inflation increases when interest rates go up in order to compensate for previous devaluations. Peru has decided to manage its own economy and not be managed by it, and that is why democracy in my country is the concrete expression of our national will.
We know that to carry out a democratic revolution we must be anti-imperialist and fight against hegemonism. We know that transformation is not a national fact of life, but rather an international commitment to action.
That is why we are members of the Movement of Non-Aligned Countries and why we assert the unity of Latin America; that is why we seek to strengthen the Andean Pact and that is why we shall participate in all forums that affirm the solidarity of all peoples on earth.
In the face of today's crisis we cannot wait; we must act. We cannot go on talking and writing letters that the wealthy of the earth refuse to read. Our people cannot await action by the irresolute. Supranational organizations cannot become an impediment to the will of our people. That is why I have come before this Assembly to set forth what we in Peru are doing to ensure the establishment of a nationalist, democratic Government of the people.
We affirm as nationalism the right of our people to autonomous existence, the right to work, and to defend our industry from the liberal opening up that in recent years has overwhelmed it. We affirm as nationalism the recovery of our natural wealth.
Here one fundamental issue arises; the foreign debt, as a major hindrance to the development and well-being of our peoples. The foreign debt expresses a relationship between the rich and the poor of the earth; its root cause is the imbalance of the prices of raw materials and manufacturing and industrial resources.
Throughout the centuries the countries that are today underdeveloped have financed the mercantile and industrial economics of those that are now wealthy countries, and in the last few years we have fallen into debt in order to finance a model of industrialization and consumption imported from abroad. As a result, the debt has become a cause of conflict between the poor South, of which our American continent is a part, and the industrial, imperialist, financial North. This must not be confused with an issue that pits East against West in a conflict of hegemony.
Secondly, the original indebtedness has been inflated by the application of usurious interest rates. Interest has been, in the central countries, not only the cost of productive capital, but also a tool for the procurement of capital to cover the deficit produced by military expenditures. That is why two thirds of the America's debt has been re-exported to the banks by the dominant sectors of our countries. And if the effects of unequal trade are added to the interest rates, we see that these have amounted in real terms to nearly 25 per cent.
Thirdly, the over-valuation of the dollar as a currency of exchange based upon the permanent devaluation suffered by our own currencies has readied, according to some estimates, nearly 40 per cent, and we are required to repay our debts in that currency.
I give the following dramatic example from ray own country, we purchase corn from the United States to feed chickens with which we are repaying in kind our debt to the Soviet Union. Thus, a country that is threatened by hunger has to repay its foreign debt with food. We therefore become a stopover for products that travel from one Power to another.
If to that we add the fact that the rich countries have been applying protectionist fcKade policies, by closing their markets to our products, we can see why the debt situation has become untenable for our economy.
We must ask: what has been the response to the debt problem in recent years?
First of all new credits have been requested to repay earlier debts, and higher interest rates and commissions have been accepted. The result has been more indebtedness than before. The anti-trust laws of the united States have been violated by the banks, which have joined in cartels to avoid free competition in the placement of credits. Likewise, federal credit laws have also been violated as banks have renegotiated with countries that they know are bankrupt? solely in order to ensure the payment of interest, waiving the payment of principal, which is the capital of the depositors.
Secondly, and as a condition for this financial merry-go-round, the harmful terms of the International Monetary Fund have been accepted, directing our countries* economies towards debt repayment.
The letters of intent that express these terms are in fact letters of colonial submission to the prevailing injustice. While the richest countries close their borders, we must open ours, thus destroying our industrial facilities and indebting ourselves in order to continue to buy from foreign industry. A second factor of the letters of intent is the requirement that we devalue our currency in order to maintain the external competitiveness of our products; that, in other words, means that we are increasing the amount of work we must accomplish for the payment of our debt. The third factor stipulates that the domestic interest rate must be linked to devaluation, thus promoting inflation in a permanent vicious circle of unemployment and productive paralysis.
The International Monetary Fund explains all these results as the consequence of excessive expenditures by the State and State participation in the economy. The Fund's final instruction is, therefore, fiscal austerity. Investments and social expenditures oust thus to cut back in order to guarantee the timely servicing of the foreign debt,, These are how the letters of intent have been applied in recent years for the impoverishment of our peoples. As I have said, rather than being letters of intent these are in fact letters of colonial submission to injustice.
Furthermore, we say that the International Monetary Fund does not have the moral authority to preach austerity in our country, because during the seventies, when it was necessary to place petrodollars in credits for poor countries, the International Monetary Fund promoted indebtedness. In those years, it encouraged waste and unproductive investments; it was an accomplice of excessive growth in public admire in is tradition. The International Monetary Fund, moreover, demands austerity only of the poorest countries; it favors the most powerful nation on earth. Since" the non-convertibility of the dollar was declared in 1971, the United States has been the only country that has been able indefinitely to issue currency to cover its own deficits. What has been the role of the International Monetary Fund in adjusting the united States economy?
As President of Peru, I announce that at the next meeting of the International Monetary Fund, in Seoul, we shall demand decisions on the reform of the monetary system and the distribution of world liquidity in a fairer manner. Otherwise, we are not interested in belonging, nor is it to our advantage to belong, to an agency that benefits a single country.
We therefore reiterate that the International Monetary Fund shall not be the intermediary between us and our creditors. In the dialog with our creditors we shall not accept as a pre-condition the mortgaging of our sovereign economic independence nor the imposition of internal political conditions through the signing of letters of intent with negative terras for our people. I repeat before the whole world that my responsibility as Head of State is to the Peruvian people, that the Peruvian people is the primary creditor as far as I as concerned and that the Peruvian Government has been elected by the people, not by some financial cartel that wishes to satisfy its own appetite.
In conclusion, we affirm that in current conditions the foreign debt - as a result of its unjust origins and because of the methods by which it has been increased - cannot be paid by any of our countries, because the effort to service it on time will keep our democracies trapped in misery and violence. Thus, we are faced with a dramatic choice: either debt or democracy. That is the crossroads faced by Latin America at present; that is the crossroads at which the poor world now finds itself. We must decide what road to take.
We believe that the objective must be the unity of the debtor countries and a radical change in the present situation. To that end, we need to harmonize our positions with those of the countries of Africa and Asia, and to co-ordinate Latin American action. One hundred and sixty years of independent life in Latin America have shown us that the isolated development of each country is a model doomed to failure. None the less, we persist in our solitude. As in the title of the great novel, our countries have lived through 160 years of solitude. Exporters of commodities, purchasers of factories, debtors: we have continued on the same path, because the siren songs of the International Monetary Fund and of the banks beckon one and all towards isolated solutions which are only fading hopes or letters of intent that are immediately unheeded.
We call for unity on the part of the Non-Aligned Movement and on the part of the Latin American countries, unity on this subject is a specific test for non-alignment, because political dialog will serve not only to deal with debt servicing but also to place the international economic order in a new context. Thus the debt which is the result of our weakness will be the instrument of our strength and an impetus to our unity. That is the great route to follow: unity. But Peru cannot wait for a series of meetings without concrete results. We shall not fall into the vicious circle of waiting for unity in the future and not doing anything until then. We do not believe in waiting passively; rather, we shall wait actively, not only by proposing the maximum of audacious actions but also be committing ourselves to a concrete struggle.
Therefore, we have taken a decision that we shall maintain: Peru will assign to its debt only one out of every ten dollars, one tenth of what is paid to it for its work and its exports. This is a responsible and revolutionary decision, because it is the decision of a poor country that imports foodstuffs and industrial inputs, whose debt is with Western banks, and which has suffered and is suffering from the pressure by the International Monetary Fund. Our responsibility in this decision is to face up to its consequences.
We do not have a privileged relationship with any Power, because we do not struggle against dependency by being the instrument of another hegemony. We do not adopt any spectacular positions, advocating non-payment while repaying one part of the world punctually, and repaying with strategic sovereignty a substantial debt that, for that reason, is not demanded under pressure by the other part of the world.
We do not want, in a Messianic way, to export a 10 per cent model of payment. All we want to do is prove that a major step can be taken and that if many others decide to take it, we can open up the avenues to the future. In the future, if we unite, other solutions will also exist, but, between the rhetoric of great speeches and the realism of decisions, we have chosen the latter. For, if our relationship with the industrialized world is expressed through debt, it has its historical origin in the unjust difference between the prices of imports and those of exports.
Today prices of copper, silver, fishmeal and oil exports are lower while real interest rates rise. We are convinced that by linking these two aspects we can change these asymmetrical relations. And this is the way in which we are staking on the future and setting our own terms of payment. If interest is the cost of money within a given term, then by seating a maximum payment the term is extended and by being extended interest rates are in fact varied.
Someone has hastened to say that what, we are doing is accumulating more debt. But that passive pessimism does not distinguish between two different elements: that of the creditor, for whom interest accumulates, and that of the debtor, who by setting a maximum payment is laying down his own rules, independent of the accumulation of debt that the creditor presumes he has. This means that the uncertainty of the future becomes a problem for the creditor, rather than for us.
Under traditional terms, in 1986 we should have to pay $2.4 billion to service the debt, plus $3.1 billion owed from the year before, which would in all represent a commitment of $5.5 billion payable in 1986. This amounts to 160 per cent of our exports, estimated at $3.4 billion for next year.
In accordance with our decision, the maximum amount to be paid would be $340 million which would be allocated on a priority basis to the international financial agencies and to government-to-government credits, because we must achieve our economic autonomy. But at the same time we must accept the fact that we require a technological exchange with the world in order to support our development. And an important element of government-to-government co-operation and credits from international financial agencies, granted on favorable terms, is the fact that they must be repaid.
Furthermore, Peru is a responsible country that does not simply blame its foreign debt on the international economy and the banks, we are a people seeking a revolutionary transformation and, as such, must make a critical assessment of our own history and acknowledge that due to a previous lack of unity and awareness and because we allowed ourselves to be dominated by groups linked to foreign interests, we have responsibilities that we must assume.
When the time comes for decision, Peru will continue to maintain its aims until circumstances change, protectionist barriers are brought down, the true value of our exports is recognized, and we regain the fruits of our labor.
I know that the response :o this decision may be the imposition of sanctions and amendments or, as has already been announced, that the Peruvian debt may be declared value-impaired in October. As President of Peru, I wish to say that it is not necessary to wait until October to declare this. The Peruvian debt is already value-impaired here and now. We acknowledge this. But what we should ask ourselves is how and.by whom was our economy impaired and what historical answer must we give to this situation.
That is why our second objective is the complete democratization of our society as a way to resolve the crisis vf are confronting.
We consider the human being to be use highest priority of society and state and we affirm that democracy should be initiated and based on suffrage and freedom of speech.
There can be no democracy without participation. There can be no socialism without freedom. Universal suffrage cannot be replaced by a sectoral or corporative vote in the work place.
Universal suffrage cannot be replaced by a Messianic attitude where one exponent becomes for decades the possessor of truth and history and dooms his people to disability and silence.
Universal suffrage and freedom cannot and must not be sacrificed to the offer of bread that justifies dynasties and national mortgages.
We firmly believe that it is possible to establish governments that are governments of bread and freedom and that a contrary attitude, whatever its motto or support, is nothing but tyranny.
But we believe that democracy must also be based on an equal distribution of social resources, a harmonious development of regions and of economic sectors. Democracy must be an economic model that breaks through the vicious circle, that isolates a centralist industry in the face of marginal agriculture, in which millions of Peruvians are doomed to poverty.
Democracy must be the universalization of the right to work, to health, to education, to participation. Democracy must be the genuine and only possible road to socialism. In this point the Peruvian Constitution is original. Where other constitutions begin by defining the state, ours begins by speaking of the human person.
Front this standpoint, I wish to approach the second subject of my statement, the painful issue of terrorism and subversion, that in recent years has caused thousands of deaths, thousands of injuries and enormous material losses.
While repudiating totalitarian and dogmatic terrorism, we also reject the concept that the means justify the and, since such ethics lead to the acceptance of the concept that might is right.
We will fight subversion with resolute firmness but with respect for the law and for human rights. We acknowledge that subversive action has been possible not only because of lack of foresight and the absence of a well-planned social and economic policy, but because subversion has been nourished by the exasperating poverty in which millions of neglected compatriots are living.
It is no coincidence that terrorism has arisen in the most economically depressed zones of the country. It arose in what we have called the Andean trapezoid, whose population has been subjected from colonial times to exploitative bGdSism and to a rigid centralist system. Millions of Peruvians were left mired in a subworld of oppression. United by the same language, mainly Quechua, united by the same culture - the Andean - and united by the same system of agricultural production, these Peruvians were neglected and injured by a state that never represented them.
Ayacucho, the region where terrorism initiated its activities, is in that Andean trapezoid. In Ayacucho, out of every thousand births, over 270 die before the age of one, whereas the average in Latin America is 73 per thousand.
In Ayacucho, 74 per cent of the population is illiterate. In some places only one out of every hundred houses has water and only five out of every hundred has electricity.
That is Ayacucho, the historic center of the peoples of America, where the great final battle for independence was waged. And it is precisely by taking advantage of such flagrant injustices that terrorism found a fertile ground for profiting from the despair of the people by pitting them, precariously armed, against the forces of the State. That is why we cannot pay the foreign debt at a rate in excess of 10 per cent of our exports; that is why we call for regional agreement in order to stop spending millions of dollars on weapons, millions that could save the neglected from poverty. For the incidence of terrorism and violence also feeds upon political circumstances, and in order to fight it we must understand it as not only the action of a Messianic and totalitarian group. We must take political action and make an effort to incorporate these millions of human beings .into civilization by establishing democratic institutions and a State presence and by reclaiming agriculture and considering farmers as the very sustenance of our nationality.
Therefore, a close relationship exists between our economic history, our foreign debt and the poverty that promotes violence in the Andes. That is why I have dwelt at length on this subject, for in the case of my own country we may see the immediate future of other Latin American countries if poverty continues to increase and if advantage is taken of it by totalitarian and extremist forces.
Thus, we are convinced that only a new international economic order can open the way for a lasting and democratic solution to violence. All of this, of course, must be accompanied by vigorous action that will firmly oppose subversives, but within the framework of law.
Our bona fides of democratic introduction to the world is our respect for life and for the rights of individuals. Nothing justifies torture, disappearances or summary executions; barbarism must not be fought with barbarism.
True, the action of public order against anonymous and collective subversion produces reactions of irrational aggressivity, but in no case can that justify the suppression of facts or permitting such acts to remain unpunished. That is why the Peruvian Government has taken drastic decisions in recent days. He will energetically defend democracy with the law and with social justice, in the conviction that we are acting in the name of life.
Because we act in the name of life, we believe that politics must be an ethical reflection of respect and of morality. Thus far, the expansion of economic interests has governed the world, sacrificing peoples and individual human beings. Corporations, banks and super-Powers have oriented the world towards serving the needs of production and consumption because by controlling consumption and publicity human beings can be made to serve the logic of that economy.
I should like here to move to the third subject of my statement: narcotics traffic as an activity that corrupts institutions and degrades man. We believe that drug consumption is but the exacerbation of consumption as a logic of capital. To consume, to consume to the point of self-destruction, is the caricature of the economic system. The same greed for profit that dehumanizes capital is reflected in drug addiction, that is, the consumption of dissatisfaction. Drugs are thus revealed to be a different state of consumer capitalism.
The only raw material to have increased in value is cocaine. The only successful multinational business originating in our countries has been drug trafficking. The most advanced efforts at Andean integration have been made by drug traffickers. But to what is this due? According to liberal economic theory, production is regulated by demand, and it so happens that the main market is in the United States of America. For Peru, drug consumption is not a national problem, but X can say that, in spite of that, within the first 50 days of our Administration we have dealt the most successful blows.to the international drug traffic. Twenty-two airports, three helicopter landing strips, five long-range light aircraft, hundreds of kilograms of drugs and eight large factories have been
discovered and seized. All of that means that the consumption of drugs in the United States of America will suffer a yearly reduction of approximately 80 tons, worth $5.6 billion. He could therefore ask the United States Administration, since we have done this in 50 days, what it is doing for the human rights of individuals who keel over in Grand Central Station and so many other locations. He might well ask when the United States Administration will act in a legal and Christian fashion to eradicate and condemn drug consumption here in the United States, which is the primary market thereby distorting our agricultural life.
A liberal economist would recommend we keep our hands off this risky issue, but we believe that the State cannot be - indifferent to corruption and vice. That is why we consider the fight against drug trafficking to be our duty, because it is a crime against mankind. He are not doing it for the granting of a loan; we are not doing it to receive assistance of a few million dollars that is	us
and that we will not accept in the future; we are doing it because our own conscience is enough to defend youth, whether Peruvian, American or.from any other part of the world.
However, I affirm from this rostrum that another and equally serious crime against humanity is increasing in interest rates, reducing in the prices of raw materials and its wasting of economic resources in death-dealing technologies while hundreds of millions of human beings live in poverty and are encouraged to acts of violence.
Lastly, I should like to refer to the position of Peru with regard to the rest of the world, which brings me to the fourth part of my statement. He are Latin Americans, and we are fighting for the integration of our continent in its anti-imperialist stance, because only in this way will we have a respected voice on the subject of the debt; only in this way will we be able to strengthen the multilateral treatment of the major problems facing the world; only in this way will we avoid the extension of the borders of the great Powers towards us.
As a route towards that integration we support the peace efforts of the Contadora Group to safeguard the sovereignty and self-determination of the peoples of Central America, and as a committed continent we have, with other countries, constituted the Front for Support of Contadora, willing and united, ready to be present if a Power attempts to violate with its weapons the sovereignty of any country, for we understand that in that region the destiny of Latin Americans is also at stake.
We affirm the need to strengthen the Andean Group, by working for a new and more up-to-date Protocol, and by proposing the expansion and more effective application of the Andean Reserve Fund, a financial organization which has already surpassed the International Monetary Fund in its disbursements within the region.
We wish to enter into bilateral compensated trade agreements that could free us from the use of hard currencies, and affirm our economic integration. We have already taken the first steps towards an agreement of this type with Brazil.
But one subject now stands out on the international scene, and that is the arms race. We are a peace-loving nation, respectful of international treaties, and we are not part of the arras race. We do not represent the strategy of any Power, nor have we been infected by the egocentric view of security that characterizes the big Powers. For them, their own security involves the insecurity of others, but the arms race results in the insecurity of all.
That is the logic and the neurosis of the weak. We believe that the best defense is an affirmation of the nation as a people, and that the social requirements of our countries mean that we must limit our expenditures on arms. That is why we propose a regional agreement in Latin America for a substantial reduction of expenditures on weapons and will spare no effort to achieve this.
I am convinced that more human beings have died because the money channeled into weapons was not used to help them, than the sum of all the dead from all the wars that have occurred in our history.
Each bullet, which in 99 per cent of all cases is used in shooting practice, represents a food ration that could have been given to a child to save him from death. But today, the sale of weapons that swiftly become obsolete is a very important part of world trade, and that renewable technology involves not only competition between our peoples but also high earnings for the weapon-selling nations which are jointly responsible for the crisis, and for the arms dealers. These professional death dealers are the promoters of intrigue between our nations and spur on our rivalries.
In this, as in other subjects, we have not limited ourselves to proposing collective action while waiting passively for a consensus to emerge. We believe in consensus, but we also believe in our own determination. The determination of each of our countries must be renewed: determination makes it possible for a country to set a maximum limit for debt payment; determination that compels us to subversion while respecting human rights; determination compels us to fight drug trafficking without asking for compensation. Determination also requires us to act. We have made a substantial reduction in the purchase of highly sophisticated war planes agreed with France. And, while we are not paying our debt, neither shall we use our money for the benefit of the industry of death. On the initiative of our own navy, we have dismantled war vessels, and our armed forces, in the context of a new world, are being oriented towards action for the development of the nation.
We are moved by any fear of being weak towards others. We do not seek to arm ourselves and to achieve a false sense of power in regard to others. We have confidence in the peoples of the world. We do not feel attacked by anyone, and with that confidence, and sustained by our willpower, we are ready to take action consistent with the principles I have outlined.
The poor peoples of the earth are not enemies to one another. But we do have a common enemy that has penetrated our borders and our history with poverty, with domination and with injustice. It is imperialism which divides us and which trades on our lack of unity.
In the face of this imperialism, we affirm our participation in and identification with the Non-Aligned Movement, with its authentic and substantive originality because we are not instruments in the bipolar strategy of the big Powers.
We do not believe our peoples can in any way benefit from the Manichean East-West conflict. The only result of this conflict of fundamentalist views, is the outbreak of limited conflicts in the countries of the periphery.
We affirm the role of the principles of non-alignment maintained by Nehru, Tito and Nasser,, and in Latin America by Haya de la Torre since 1924. He proposed as a principle of anti-imperialist action the integration of Latin America to build democratic socialism. On our continent, integration is the guarantee of nonr-alignment, which does not consist of freedom from one hegemony in order to sustain a natural alliance with the countries of the East.
This is why I reiterate from this forum that we are poor but dignified people, free and ready to unite, and that in the face of the armed power and wealth of the super-Powers we exalt the moral power of justice.
We call on a united Europe to reflect upon itself and to realize that it has more in common with the poor nations than with bipolar hegemonism. Europe is also a field of political and military strategy, its lands bristling with their own and foreign nuclear weapons; it is undermined by insecurity, and its economic development is, regardless of its own wishes, dependent on the technology and economic orientation of the great Powers.
And in the broader framework of all countries, we affirm the interdependence of North and South. We believe that the strategy defined in the 1950s and 1960s has not been implemented, and is still confining itself to such traditional categories as South-East Asia, the Middle East, the North Atlantic and the Caribbean, thus ignoring the growing globalization of decisions and of conflicts.
That is why we also address the peoples of the industrialized countries and of the major Powers, reminding them of our common humanity.
And here I should like to present a greeting to the American people, to the people of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, Roosevelt, Kennedy and Luther King, and my tribute to its democratic conscience and the outstanding individuals here who understand Latin America and the Third World without any imperialist zeal.
And from this rostrum we greet mankind, all mankind everywhere, particularly the poorest in Africa and in Asia, who use their consciences as weapons so as not to be the passive objects of an irrational course of history and.an irrational world.
My greetings go out to those who raise their eyes to the future and to justice.
We have come here to say that, in poverty but with dignity, Peru has begun to walk forward towards peace, independence and justice. In the name of the poor of the earth, in the name of God, because it is the hour for action and the time for resolve.


It is most appropriate, Sir, that at its fortieth session the General Assembly should be presided over by a diplomat who is as experienced in international affairs and as skillful in the business of the United Nations as you. I wish to congratulate you warmly and to assure you of the operation of the delegation of Finland in your challenging task. May I also take this opportunity to pay tribute to our outgoing President, Ambassador Paul Lusaka, fog his distinguished service.
I wish to take this opportunity to express, on behalf of the people and Government of Finland, our deepest condolences to the people and Government of Mexico for the devastating natural catastrophe that recently occurred in their country.
In commemorating the fortieth anniversary of the United Nations and, at the same time, the thirtieth anniversary of Finland's membership, my Government wishes to reaffirm its full support for the purposes and principles of the Charter and for the strengthening of the United Nations as an organization. We are grateful for the annual report of the Secretary-General, in which he wisely emphasizes that international co-operation is not a choice for the nations of the world, but a necessity. We entirely concur.
For 40 years, the United Nations has stood at the center of mankind's aspirations for a more secure and just world order. For 40 years, the United Nations has fulfilled its main task - that of maintaining international peace and security. While there have been many local and regional conflicts, the world has been spared a conflict on the scale of the Second World War.
In the course of the past four decades, economic and social problems have come to occupy an increasingly prominent place among global concerns. One after another peoples that were not free in 1S45 have assumed their right to self-determination. The membership of the united Nations has more than tripled. Today, the agenda of the Organization reflects the foremost concerns of the majority of its present membership.
While the world has changed greatly in the past 40 years, so have the challenges mankind faces. There is the challenge of halting and reversing the mindless arms race, particularly in nuclear arms. There is the challenge of new frontiers of human endeavor, above all that of outer space. Space holds great promise for mankind, yet it may become an arena of unprecedented peril. There is the challenge of saving our environment, maintaining the natural infrastructure without which human life on Earth is impossible. And there is the challenge of survival and development, of ensuring basic needs and better standards of living for the hundreds of millions who today live in misery, while these challenges are awesome, mankind is in a better position than ever before to meet them. A new kind of interdependence among nations and issues, as well as rapid technological advances, represent a potential that should be tapped for the benefit of all.
The commemorative session offers a timely opportunity to discuss these and other common concerns of mankind and to assess the role of the United Nations in managing them. As the only universally representative forum, the United Nations system is in a unique position in this regard. The presence of many Heads of State or Government at that session testifies to the importance they attach to such an opportunity. The President of Finland is one of them.
Speaking about the world situation from this rostrum one year ago, I saw little reason for optimism. Uncertainty and even hostility characterized international relations. Since that time, the atmosphere has improved and dialog has been rediscovered. This gives us reason to expect a positive change.
The Government of Finland has welcomed the Soviet-American talks on nuclear and space arms begun in Geneva earlier this year. These talks between the two Powers with preponderant military might offer the best chance of curbing the arms race in those areas where it matters most for the preservation of peace - indeed, for the very survival of mankind. They should, as the mandate says, result in effective agreements aimed at preventing an arms race in space, terminating it on earth, limiting and reducing nuclear arms and strengthening strategic stability.
Arms control efforts are an integral part of international politics. Periods of reduced confrontation have been more congenial to arms control efforts. Impulses originating at the highest political level have often been necessary to narrow differences in views and to prepare the ground for negotiations. The meeting of the leaders of the United States and the Soviet Union in Geneva in November is, in our view, a welcome opportunity for dialog in the interests of peace and international security.
Only a few days ago, at the Third Review Conference of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, an overwhelming majority of Member States reaffirmed their conviction that the Treaty is the most important instrument in the pursuit of basic security interests of the international community. The Final Declaration approved unanimously by the parties to the Treaty confirms that its three main goals remain valid: preventing the proliferation of nuclear weapons, developing the use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes and working towards nuclear disarmament.
While the responsibilities of those who possess nuclear weapons are great, international security is also a collective responsibility. The United Nations Charter and the Organization founded upon it are our joint recognition of that fundamental fact.
The broad concept of security enshrined in the Charter finds regional expression in the Final Act of the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE). The recent meeting in Helsinki commemorating the tenth anniversary of the Final Act demonstrated, at a high political level, the continued commitment of the signatory States to the CSCE process. One subject of discussion at the tenth anniversary meeting holds particular promise for lessening the risk of military conflict in Europe. The Stockholm Conference needs to show that militarily significant confidence- and security-building measures are achievable. That would make it possible to broaden its horizons to include an even more ambitious goal, that of curbing armaments on the continent with the heaviest concentration of weapons. The CSCE process provides for all the participating States an important forum in which to pursue a policy of co-operation as outlined in the Helsinki Final Act. Finland has consistently given its active support to these endeavors and, in so doing, served its own interests as well. In its immediate vicinity, the region of northern Europe, Finland will persevere in its efforts to maintain basic stability. Consolidating the absence of nuclear weapons from the territories of the Nordic countries through the establishment of a nuclear-weapon-free zone would make a signal contribution to that stability.
Among the challenges of our time the use of outer space is a far-reaching and complex issue. Finland deeply believes in the goal expressed in the space Treaty of 1967; space should be used for peaceful purposes to benefit mankind as a whole. My Government has consistently supported the work on outer space that has been carried out within the United Nations system over the years. Now that new technologies are making the economic utilization of space even more attractive and now that more countries, including mine, are interested in these possibilities, the time has come to think about a more comprehensive approach to the use and management of this resource. This should most properly be undertaken under United Nations auspices.
At the same time, there is a growing risk that outer space may become a new arena for military competition. Finland is gravely concerned over such an eventuality. It was most welcome that the General Assembly last year came to an agreement which provides the basis for considering within the Conference on Disarmament the question of preventing an arms race in outer space. In addition, the United States and the Soviet Union have committed themselves at their negotiations in Geneva to seeking agreements on this issue.*
Co-operation in the field of environmental protection has developed in an encouraging manner during recent years. The United Nations Environment Program has since its foundation done valuable work in the field of environmental protection. Its role as the main organization responsible for United Nations activities in this field should be further strengthened. But, although the challenge is now better understood, the threat has not abated. In Europe valuable conventions have been concluded relating to the reduction of long-range trans-boundary air pollution and to the protection of the marine environment. In other regions of the world also, agreements have been concluded. There is a close interdependence between economic development and the state of the environment. No country can afford to ignore the deterioration of the ecological infrastructure. The Government of Finland urges the adoption, unilaterally, bilaterally and multilaterally, of stringent measures to save our common environment. The environment is a shared responsibility.
The situation in South Africa is rapidly deteriorating. Violence and bloodshed are increasing. The state of emergency recently proclaimed by the South African Government has intensified the conflict between the Government and the majority of the South African people. Only the abolition of apartheid, together with the recognition of the civil and political rights of all South Africans, can provide the basis for a peaceful and democratic evolution of South African society. Demands for the intensification of pressure against South Africa have been repeatedly made. This was again reflected in the recommendations included in Security Council resolution 569 (1985). It is essential that the Security Council decide on effective mandatory sanctions against South Africa.
At the same time, the international community as a whole has an urgent need for concerted action to secure an end to apartheid. It is our wish that the draft resolution on this issue to be introduced during this General Assembly session will receive the unanimous support of Member States. In March this year, the Nordic Foreign Ministers decided to strengthen and expand the Nordic Joint Program of Action against South Africa adopted in 1978. New measures are at.present being discussed among the Nordic Governments. A revised program will be adopted at the next meeting of the Foreign Ministers, in October. On the part of the Government of Finland, further measures to increase pressure against the South African Government have been under fresh review, and new legislation to this end is shortly be introduced. The Finnish Government has also decided to widen significantly its co-operation with the members of the Southern African Development Co-ordination Conference so as to help the countries of the region to become less dependent on South Africa. Our direct and indirect assistance to the liberation movements and oppressed people of South Africa and Namibia will also be further increased.
At this moment there is a special reason to re-emphasize that Namibia is a unique responsibility of the United Nations. Only a week ago South Africa committed an armed invasion of Angola, apparently in order to frustrate the efforts to implement Security Council resolutions 385 (1976) and 435 (1978).
Finland welcomes the unanimous condemnation, in resolution 571 (1985), by the Security Council of this act of aggression against a sovereign country. Earlier in June, after a lengthy pause, the Security Council reaffirmed the United Nations Plan for the Independence of Namibia in its resolution 566 (1985). The resolution confirmed the unconditional commitment of the international community to the Plan. The Council also condemned South Africa for its refusal to abide by the decisions of the Council, and warned South Africa that sanctions under Chapter VII of the Charter would be imposed if it persisted in its policy of illegal occupation of Namibia, m this anniversary year it is for the united Nations to make a firm commitment to implement its Plan, as universally accepted. The General Assembly, in its resolutions, can do nothing less than send a clear, effective and unequivocal message to South Africa on an early independence of Namibia without further pre-conditions.
The Government of Finland remains convinced that the basis for a comprehensive settlement to the Arab-Israeli conflict lies in Security Council resolutions 242 (1967) and 338 (1973). Israel must withdraw from Arab territories occupied since 1967. Acquisition of territories by force is inadmissible. The right of Israel and all other states in the area to exist within secure and recognized boundaries must be guaranteed. Furthermore, provision must be made for the legitimate rights of the Palestinians, including their right to national self-determination. This presupposes the right of the Palestinians and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), as the most significant representative of Palestinian national aspirations, to participate in negotiations on their own future within a comprehensive solution to the conflict.
Finland has given its support to proposals and initiatives that contribute to a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in the Middle East through negotiation. We hope that the latest initiatives will speed up the process towards a negotiated settlement.

My Government is greatly distressed at the continued violence in Lebanon, The unique opportunity presented by withdrawal of Israeli forces did not bring about a credible ceasefire between the internal parties in southern Lebanon, nor did it restore the authority of the Lebanese Government in that region. We believe that agreement between the warring factions is the only way to save Lebanon's independence and sovereignty. The territorial integrity of Lebanon within its internationally recognized boundaries must be strictly respected.
By taking a balanced and conciliatory position on the various controversial issues in the Middle East, Finland maintains good relations with all parties concerned. A tangible expression of our policy towards the Middle East is the contribution which Finland is making to united Nations peace-keeping activities in that area.
The United Nations and its peace-keeping operations play a vital role, often under difficult circumstances, in creating favorable conditions for a peaceful political solution. In order to be successful, peace-keeping operations require an authorization given by the Security Council - an authorization which is implementable - and full co-operation of the parties concerned. The incident last June where Finnish soldiers of the united Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) were taken hostage raises fundamental questions of principle. A new effort to work out unambiguous and realistic guidelines covering all aspects of united Nations peace-keeping operations should be made.
In Central America, a lasting solution to the problems can only be arrived at through dialog and negotiation based on the priorities and concerns of the States of the region, their sovereignty and their territorial integrity. Finland supports wholeheartedly the efforts of the Contadora Group toward a peaceful and comprehensive solution. We welcome the increasing support for the Contadora process elsewhere in Latin America.
Persistent problems of development remain on our agenda. Despite efforts by the international community during more titan three decades, the plight of many poor countries has not been eased. Difficulties accumulate upon the poorest of the poor, making survival, not development, their major challenge. Changing this trend is our collective responsibility.
The economic crisis in Africa is a tragic demonstration of the severity of these problems. Millions are still faced with famine and death. World Bank forecasts suggest that even in the most favorable circumstances, per capita growth in Africa w<ll be negative until at least 1995. This outlook is a challenge to the entire international community. Present policies are simply not enough.
Any significant improvement requires concerted action. All should contribute to efforts aimed at creating an international economic environment more conducive to policy reform and sustained development. The developing countries themselves bear the main responsibility for their own development and for ensuring the efficient use of the resources at their disposal. This notion is one of the cornerstones of the Third International Development Strategy and has been repeatedly acknowledged by the developing countries themselves. The role of the industrialized countries is to support the efforts of the developing countries by providing adequate assistance. Above all, the flow of concessional assistance to the developing countries is more important than ever.
In 1977, I was able to declare from this rostrum that my Government had decided to double the gross national product share of our official development assistance funds during the period of five years. That pledge was kept, and in 1984, for the first time, Finland reached the average level of development assistance among the countries of the Organization for ISconoraic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
In July of this year, the Government of Finland took a policy decision by which it committed itself to substantial increase in its official development assistance in 1986 and 1987, with a view to reaching the target of 0.7 per cent of gross national product by the end of this decade. This decision is fully reflected in the budget bill now before our Parliament. My Government is backed in this matter by an active public opinion.
Increasing the volume of aid is necessary, but it is not enough. All aid must be judged by the results it produces. The primary purpose of development co-operation is to achieve sustained economic and social progress in recipient countries. Other motives must be subordinated to this primary concern. An international re-commitment to this principle is called for. More can be achieved with the resources invested in development co-operation. The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and its recent achievements give ample evidence of this. It is the responsibility of donors and recipients alike to ensure that these resources are used effectively.
A new and integral approach is needed, one which takes population, natural resources, the environment and technology into account in the process of development. Human resources, the key element of sustained development, urgently need increased attention. The administrative and absorptive capacities of the developing countries must be strengthened in order to help them manage their own development.
The process of development is basically the same in all societies. The economy can be developed only step by step. There are r.c easy shortcuts to higher levels of well-being, in the first place, a people's basic means of livelihood must be assured and sustained. This requires that priority be given to food production, education and health. It is encouraging to note that many developing countries have adopted this approach as a basis for their own development policies.
The world is living through an age of rapid technological change, through a new technological revolution with profound consequences for all societies. These new technologies pose new challenges and open up new prospects also for developing countries. The latest achievements of technology make it possible to adopt modes of production which cause less social and ecological strain than the conventional technologies of industrialized societies. It is our common responsibility to ensure that developing countries can benefit from technological advances and that they can avoid repeating certain negative features of development experienced in the industrialized countries.
Despite the complexities of development, the international community cannot evade its responsibilities by claiming that no solutions are available. He have sufficient experience to attack the problems of development. More realism, higher ambitions and an open dialog between the North and the South are called for.
The Charter of the United Nations established respect for and promotion of human rights as one of the principles of the Organization. During its 40 years of existence, the United Nations, together with its Member States, has made great progress in the codification of human rights, whether defined in terms of political rights, economic, social and cultural rights, action against racism or the general development of the international bill of human rights. Finland welcomed the adoption by consensus by the General Assembly at its thirty-ninth session of the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.
The implementation of human rights and fundamental freedoms remains inadequate. Violations of human rights are the rule rather than the exception. Yet all Member States have undertaken a solemn commitment to promote and respect human rights. Observance of human rights is not an option, but an obligation.
He envisage a great task for all countries in promoting and implementing human rights both nationally and internationally. Progress in this task will help to strengthen the rule of law and to build a durable world order in peace and security.
The world conference to review and appraise the achievements of the United Nations Decade for women, held at Nairobi two months ago, was a significant step towards full equality between women and men at all levels and in all spheres of life. The adoption without a vote of the final document on forward-looking strategies to improve the status of women to the year 2000 was a successful conclusion of the United Nations Decade for Women. Global, regional and national mechanisms for advancing the status of women have been constituted. That process must be carried on.
The General Assembly has designated this year as International Youth Year. The Year aims at focusing international attention on issues of interest to young people and on their aspirations, problems and concerns. During the Year, these issues have been highlighted all over the world. In order to improve their position, young people themselves should become more active, not only at the national level, but internationally as well. The active participation of youth awakens new hope and brings renewed energy to the affairs of societies and to the international community.
The United Nations is an organization for the future, for our children and for our youth. Today, young people are confronted with a world plagued by many serious problems. However, there exists a universal and strong will among the peoples of the world to overcome these problems and to provide a better future for coming generations. This will should be fully reflected in our work at the United Nations.
Forty years ago, the peoples of the United Nations committed themselves in the Charter to practice tolerance and live together in peace with one another as good neighbors, and to unite their strength to maintain international peace and security. Today, on behalf of the people and the Government of Finland, I renew that pledge. By pursuing our policy of neutrality we wish to serve the international community for the benefit of peace, security and development.