I am happy, Sir, to express to you the warm congratulations of the Ivory Coast delegation upon your election to the presidency of the General Assembly at its twenty-seventh session.
82.	At the same time I take great pleasure in expressing our gratitude to the outgoing President, Mr. Adam Malik, who presided with the authority and competence we all recognize here over the deliberations of the previous session of the General Assembly.
83.	I should also like to take this opportunity to repeat to Mr. Kurt Waldheim our warm congratulations on his appointment to the post of Secretary-General of the United Nations. I should like to assure him that in the performance of his important and delicate task he can always count on the support and understanding of the Government of the Ivory Coast.
84.	The last eight months have been marked by intensive activity in the most widely varied fields. If we cannot but deplore the absence of positive results, both in terms of development and in peace in regions of conflict, we are obliged to recognize, however, that a new wind has been blowing on the international political scene.
85.	The journeys of President Nixon to the People's Republic of China, of President Bhutto to Simla, of Japanese Prime Minister Tanaka to Peking and of Chancellor Brandt to Moscow and East Germany are the most marked features of the change which has occurred in international relations. Similarly, the ratification of the Soviet-German and Polish-German agreements, the moves towards rapprochement between the two Koreas and the striking manifestation of reconciliation and solidarity which marked the ninth session of the Assembly of Heads of State and Government of the OAU in Rabat, show that a climate of international detente is reigning.
86.	This climate of detente, which our Secretary-General quite rightly has described as "a historical development of the highest importance" [A/8701/Add.l, p. 1], has been made possible because responsible men, like President Nixon and President Bhutto, Chancellor Brandt and distinguished Heads of State of Africa and Asia, have chosen, without inhibition, to have recourse to dialog in order to resolve delicate situations which seemed insoluble. The results achieved demonstrate once again that the policy of dialog, which engenders tolerance and understanding- understanding which facilitates coexistence, the last stage of the process of exchange which is a true golden rule for a world which wishes to survive-remains the most effective, the most humane and the most reasonable method of resolving differences.
87.	In his message to the nation on 7 August last, the Head of State of the Ivory Coast, President Felix Houphouet-Boigny, stated:
"One of these hopes and you are aware, my dear friends, how much I cherish it-is that of seeing dialog, something which the Ivory Coast has always indefatigably championed, becoming finally the uncontested and general rule in our world, so that in order to prevent and to resolve conflicts of all kinds, hate, fanaticism and blind violence can give way to a spirit of co-operation which would be sincere and very widely shared."
But Heaven knows the extent to which fanaticism and violence have given us, and alas are still giving us, distressing examples of their pernicious effects.
88.	On the world chess-board the Middle East has become an important piece in the fluctuating, equivocal and doubtful policy' of the Member States, in particular the great Powers. The extremes of yesterday no longer exist, but the situation remains dangerous and explosive. For more than 20 years, at each of our sessions, the parties to this conflict have been vetting and scrutinizing our slightest gestures and every word we utter. Our Assembly is finally awake to the mass of innocent deaths resulting from acts of violence and repression, which are tragic episodes in a strategic war which reminds us if there is any need of this-of the existence and the persistence of a kind of slow-motion war. Our reaction is then to vote for one more resolution, with the easy conscience of a good craftsman doing a good job. But the reality is painful; it is no piece of fiction. We are plunged into a tragic atmosphere resulting from a refusal to undertake dialog. And thus the time has come when the disappearance of hope leaves us nothing more than shattered dreams and impotent resentments. Yes, indeed, the time has come when men, feeling themselves abandoned, isolated, betrayed and hunted, have no further recourse but irrational violence.
89.	We must recognize that in this tragedy the conduct of the United Nations has been far from being exemplary. Now, things happen quickly and politics tolerates only success. Are we to continue to display such an extreme of impotence? We do not think so. We believe that we must seek to determine the causes of our failure in order to bear them in mind when advocating more realistic approaches to the problems of this region, whose essential elements are the occupied territories, the refugees and the state of belligerence. Solutions are possible if we make up our minds to rid ourselves of our prejudices, if we bridle our passions and if we place above our own interests those of the peoples concerned. The memorandum of the 10 African statesmen,  prepared to contribute to the solution of the problem and based upon the principles I have just mentioned, has been totally disregarded, and we can only regret this.
90.	We are particularly saddened by this tragic situation. We think that peace is possible by a recourse to dialog.
Since 1963 the Ivory Coast has been advocating this in the Special Political Committee. My country believes that this earth, where man has given his life for other men, his brothers, is not doomed to hatred, war and carnage, but that, on the contrary, its destiny is to become a place of reconciliation, peace, love and fraternity.
91.	Security Council resolution 309 (1972), charged the Secretary-General with a mission to contact with South Africa. This contact, the dialog for which the Ivory Coast cherishes a veritable passion through loyalty to the cause of its struggling brothers of southern Africa, which it knows to be just, constitutes a new approach in the search for a solution to the problem of Namibia.
92.	The success of this undertaking, which would finally afford us a glimpse of the dawning of an era of fraternity and understanding among black and white Africans, depends upon the abandonment of the idea of the partition of Namibia into small nations, which simply should be thought of as one of the minor and outmoded stratagems of the colonial power of yesterday.
93.	The mission of the Secretary-General constitutes, in this context, the test of the goodwill of the Government of South Africa. We therefore await with interest the report of the Secretary-General, and we presume that the South African Government is undoubtedly aware of the grave consequences of a failure of this mission. For our part, let us display the greatest goodwill. Let us be patient, let us exhaust all the possibilities offered by this approach before any rupture takes place. What is at stake for Africa is of the most vital importance.
94.	In southern Africa the situation therefore remains extremely disturbing. The majority of the people of Zimbabwe has rejected the Douglas-Home/Ian Smith agreement of November 1971,  and hence no progress has been achieved. The illegal regime profited from an easing of sanctions and noted with satisfaction the official lifting of the embargo on certain strategic supplies. Here again we are faced with a situation which is only too familiar, that of the ineffectiveness of sanctions, which are never applied because they are thwarted by the narrow, selfish interests of States.
95.	At the meetings of the Security Council in Addis Ababa the African group insisted that the administering Power should convene a constitutional conference to lay the bases for a settlement of the situation and a transfer of power to the majority.
96.	We consider that, after the veto "cast by the United Kingdom at the Security Council's 1666th meeting, the General Assembly should deal with this item at this session and exert pressure upon that Government to take the measures necessary to remedy the illegal and dangerous situation prevailing in the Territory bearing in mind the wishes of the vast majority of the people of Zimbabwe.
97.	As for the African Territories under Portuguese domination, their destinies are dear. The colonial war being waged against them is only a distressing phase. The Portuguese army is fighting the inevitable. Those Territories will be independent. It is simply a matter of the inexorable course of history and the unshakable and invincible will of their peoples, a will manifested in the actions of the nationalists.
98.	In order to preserve its African image, like other former colonial Powers Portugal has no alternative but a fruitful dialog with the nationalists. If it refuses and persists in propagating the fiction of "Portuguese overseas provinces", it will know the solitude of those who sow death and then undergo irreparable disaster on our continent.
99.	We have asserted from this very rostrum that Portugal's future in Africa is tied to its recognition of the right of all Africans to independence. The problem is simple and has one solution the independence of these Territories in friendship with the former colonial Power. If it rejects that, it thus rejects any prospect of having any future in Africa.
100.	The Ivory Coast's policy is to contribute to creating an atmosphere that would make it possible for the administering Power to get a better insight into the realities of today's Africa, an Africa aspiring to its own identity.
101.	In Viet-Nam, the situation seems to be frozen. Men, women and children by the thousands are falling victims to the principles of those who are supposed to guide their destinies. The main victims are the masses of the dead, the wounded, the mutilated, and the families in mourning. The principal victors are the armaments industries of the various countries supplying arms. The halting of hostilities and subsequent self-determination and neutrality seem to be the necessary pre-conditions for a final settlement of the VietNamese situation if we want to end the terrifying spectacle of dual intransigence causing so much havoc in the Far East.
102.	It is because we believe in the virtues of dialog in settling problems and the most difficult of situations that we hope positive results will be forthcoming from the secret conversations now going on simultaneously with the interminable Paris conference.
103.	Ten years have elapsed since the first Conference of the Committee on Disarmament. One meeting after another is held, and the examination of the budgets devoted to arms unfortunately indicates that the target of general and complete disarmament belongs only to the very distant future.
104.	However, partial progress has been achieved in this last decade, and it should be credited to our Organization. This initial progress can open up prospects of fruitful debate which will make it possible to reach general agreements within the framework of a world conference on disarmament. We consider these agreements to be indispensable if we want once and for all to banish the specter of war and give human beings enough time to devote themselves to the magnificent task of human solidarity.
105.	The first United Nations Development Decade is dead. The Second United Nations Development Decade, hardly born, is already in its death throes. We prepared for the great conference in Santiago, Chile.  We took an active part in it, and our final disappointment was commensurate with the hopes we had cherished for it, hopes so cruelly dashed.
106.	The gap between the rich and the poor is growing endlessly. "Assistance", this formula associating the words "give" and "receive", has been substituted for the genuine co-operation that should have been established between nations. This assistance is inadequate, and the rich countries providing it cannot increase it because of opposition from their own citizens. Indeed, the taxpayers involved are less and less willing to have their precious money, as they see it, going to fill the coffers of States they cannot even find on the map of the world. But we, the poor nations, know that our salvation lies, not in the policy of the outstretched hand, which is repugnant to our dignity, but in just and equitable remuneration for our primary commodities, the fruit of our own labors.
107.	Meeting here are the rich and poor countries constituting the United Nations. We have a more accurate view of matters. We are not unaware that primary commodities, be they mineral or agricultural, are the" principal and sometimes the only resources of developing countries and that a decline in terms of trade is inevitably to the detriment of those commodities.
108.	The loss sustained by the countries of the third world has been estimated at $1,300 million annually for the period 1965-1967. Today, in spite of UNCTAD that figure amounts to between $3,000 million and $4,000 million.
109.	The import taxes levied by industrialized countries on primary commodities coming from developing countries contribute-sometimes substantially-to the budgetary resources of the rich countries. It is quite clear that the countries that profit so much from international trade are hardly likely to question existing machinery.
110.	When, in August 1971, a crisis broke out in the international monetary system, the problem of the development of the poor countries became a secondary matter. The rich countries, and in particular the countries of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, found it too easy to conclude that they were the only countries concerned in the crisis and did not even think about its grave repercussions for the countries of the third world. Nor do they think about them now.
111.	That was noted with some bitterness by the Secretary-General of UNCTAD, who on 23 December 1971 stated:
.. development of the 'third world' [has become relegated] to that of being a casual by-product of output and demand in the industrialized countries."
112.	Meeting in Santiago, Chile, in the spring of this year, the third session of UNCTAD did nothing to repudiate that assertion. In analyzing the disappointing conclusions of that session, President Houphouet-Boigny quite rightly wondered:
"Who would dare to express satisfaction at the results of the third United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, which has once again seen the expression of the impotence of the poor and the lack of conscience of the rich. As for the most essential problem, that of primary commodities, it was in fact not really faced and was subsumed in the recommendations to the World Bank, which, we fear, in this matter as indeed in others, will simply be added to the interminable list of wishes which are as pious as they are innumerable."
113.	I shall conclude by stating that it was most illusory to expect any results from that session: in fact, the intransigence and insensitivity of the affluent countries are equaled only by the arrogance of their wealth in the face of the demoralizing impotence of the poor countries.
114.	That is the situation at a time when our Organization wants to achieve the objectives of the Second Development Decade.
115.	However, the financial resources made available up to now to the third world by the rich countries represent only half of what had been provided for, while at the same time the servicing of the debt of the poor countries has increased more than twice as fast as the export resources which were to finance that servicing. This tragic situation has led distinguished economists to raise objectively a question which should be of concern to us, "Who is helping whom? "
116.	However, and without any real reason, we are searching the dark skies for some chances of success for this Decade. Those chances might be transformed into reality if the affluent countries were willing courageously and honestly to reflect in actions their goodwill that is to say, if they were to set in motion a policy of co-operation on a world scale which would permit, inter alia, the stabilization of commodity prices and the development and universalization of a system of preferences without reciprocity or discrimination, to abolish in their own countries restrictions on manufactured articles exported from developing countries, and gradually to transform the codes which at present govern shipping.
117.	But those chances would become certainties if the poor countries, heeding the logic of facts, were finally to realize the imperatives of the situation, which make it necessary for them to put an end to their sterile competition and try to form themselves into groups of primary commodity producing countries in order to acquire the weight and the necessary influence and importance to discuss the points at issue on an equal footing with the consumer countries.
118.	Our countries were not born to independence in order to die of it. Our countries were able to put up a magnificent fight for political independence, and surely they can do so in the struggle for their economic well-being. They do possess resources of energy, courage and determination, which can work miracles when put to the test.
119.	Only progress based on the efforts on the part of all, rich and poor, will give to all the peoples of the world reason to believe in peace and in the reality of a better life on our human planet.
120.	As for the problem of the environment, the philosophy of the Ivory Coast in this regard is that of most developing countries. We therefore give priority to development rather than to the protection of the environment as the rich countries conceive of it. In Stockholm,  in the name of ecology, we were shown a picture of the future which would not be so splendid: pollution. But what pollution is there that is more dangerous, more destructive of civilization, than that of poverty, misery, disease, lack of hygiene and ignorance? However, those are so many scourges, and men of goodwill in their altruistic campaigns are meeting with refusals on the part of the affluent countries to do anything-about the cycles of production and well-being, for the benefit of everyone. For us, indeed, an improvement in our standard of living is inherent in human nature and its measurable reality remains our principal target; The Government of the Republic of the Ivory Coast thinks that a more profound knowledge of the environment should in fact be a concern of life and that the environment should be dealt with in the light of its human goals and targets. That is why we should not, in our view, contemplate this matter only from its biological, technological or scientific standpoint. We should study it as the problem of life, embracing all of life's aspects, political, cultural, economic, social. In this way we should have a clear and global insight into the ecological and social imbalance, a source of inequity, alienation and anti-social conduct.
121.	Our Organization has the essential task of bringing about peace, and the health of the world. The international relaxation of tension which has now been observed should not lead to. a relaxation of vigilance. We fear that the position adopted by certain States in the budgetary area will lead to new difficulties, and may cause a new financial crisis, such as we have already witnessed, with the risk of paralyzing once again the functioning of the United Nations.
122.	In spite of the criticisms which various people may have had and may still have with regard to the functioning of our Organization we are all aware that it does have the extraordinary merit of existing. Its importance in the solution of social, cultural and economic problems existing in the world should not be underestimated. Its shortcomings are essentially political.
123.	The Organization still remains the best long-term chance which the international community has to ensure its survival and justice and progress, with the effective participation of all nations. It remains noble in its task of active solidarity and generous in the granting of its aid and it would stand to gain a great deal by remaining pure in its political activities.
124.	Before leaving this rostrum I should like to assert once again the attachment of the Republic of the Ivory
Coast to the United Nations, to its Charter and its principles, and also the absolute belief that we in the Ivory Coast have in its future, because whatever the multiplicity of our convictions there remains one cause to be defended: peace.


Mr. President, I congratulate you on your election to the presidency of the General Assembly for this session, and 1 wish Secretary-General Waldheim well as he embarks on his heavy responsibilities.
65.	There is much violence in the international air, and the atmosphere of it can be felt in this very hall. But we should not forget that the past year has been fruitful for international conciliation. The main theme has been the victory of dialog. Complexes and taboos which had prevented contact between adversaries have almost everywhere been overcome. We read of meetings and agreements between the United States and the People's Republic of China; between West and East Germany; between the Federal Republic of Germany and Poland; between North and South Korea; between the United States and the Soviet Union; between the United States and North Viet-Nam; between the rivals of yesterday who are the partners of today in the European community; and even between India and Pakistan on the very morrow of their armed clash.
66.	How improbable all this would have seemed a short time ago! There is a new spirit in international relations. The polemical and rhetorical mood which dominated the past two decades has given way to a strong instinct for conciliation. Hie question that preoccupies nations today is not how they fell into conflict in the past, but how they can live side by side, together, in the future.
67.	If we look more deeply into the successes of diplomacy in the past year, we find a strong similarity in the conditions under which they were achieved. These successes have all been secured by direct settlement. They have all been the result of laborious and reticent preparation. They have all been the product of agreement, not of external adjudication. In every single case the pursuit of agreement has had to take place outside the United Nations frame-work.
68.	This is of course a significant reflection on the institutional condition of this Organization. It justifies a long hard look at its techniques, its procedures and its atmosphere, which have clearly not been congenial to the craftsmanship of peace. The plain fact is that strident public debate is not a good method of peacemaking but a poor substitute for it. An annual exercise in polemics with preordained voting results either paralyzes conciliation or delays its commencement.
69.	I said here last year [1946th meeting] that the Middle East was the only area in which the parties to a conflict were not engaged in a dialog to bring it to an end. That is still the situation. Those who will have to live together side by side in our region have still not come face to face at a table of negotiation. This is a primary source of deadlock. In all other international disputes the breakthrough has come on the level of communication, and not through substantive commitments ahead of negotiation. The very decision of governments to make contact with each other creates a dynamic of its own. It transforms the context of their relationships and leads to mutual adjustment of their positions and thereafter towards binding agreements.
70.	Despite this central disappointment, the Middle Eastern scene has not become darker in the past year. The cease-fire has been maintained. There seems to be less feasibility for full-scale hostilities. Despite deplorable slogans about "inevitable struggle", it is clear that resumed fighting would serve no interest and advance no settlement. The retirement of Soviet forces and equipment from Egypt has stripped the conflict of its dangerous global dimension. Powers outside the Middle East cannot solve our region's problems; they have not fought its wars and they will not build its peace. The idea of a settlement imposed from outside has become visibly weaker. It is explicitly rejected by some of the Powers; and the summit meeting between the leaders of the United States of America and the Soviet Union in May 1972 revealed what an illusory prospect it is. Once it becomes generally understood that a military solution is not feasible and that an imposed solution is excluded by the international realities of our times, a negotiated peace will emerge as the only valid alternative. The central aim of our policy is to create this consciousness: we aspire to break out of deadlock into a new vision and a new hope.
71.	The developments in Egypt during July 1972 made it natural for the Israeli Government to restate its positions on a negotiated peace. Our ambition is to see an end of belligerency and conflict and to advance towards a peaceful future. Negotiation is not an act of "humiliation" or "surrender" for anybody, as some Arab leaders have said. It is a supreme assertion of national sovereignty and of international responsibility. Courage in leadership does not belong to the battlefield alone; it can be put to the service of conciliation and peace.
72.	In maintaining the cease-fire positions until peace is obtained, we do not seek to perpetuate the cease-fire lines or to freeze the existing situation for ever. Our proposals for permanent boundaries to be established for the first time between Israel and its Arab neighbors will be determined by the need to ensure security and to prevent new wars such as that which arose from the fragile and vulnerable armistice lines of 1967. The construction of a stable peace and security between Israel and Egypt requires a precise, detailed negotiation on territorial delimitation.
73.	The deadlock on the over-all settlement in this sector arises from the fact that Egypt has so far refused to begin negotiation unless its position on the final outcome is conceded in advance. There is no valid precedent for such an approach. Negotiation creates the final result; the final result does not create negotiation. We seek no binding commitments from Egypt in advance on matters that are subject to negotiation. We have not sought to determine the final peace boundary, and we have drawn no alternative maps.
74.	It is unlikely that a transition from complete deadlock to complete peace can be made in one stage. Accordingly, the Israeli Government through its Prime Minister reiterated on 27 July this year its readiness to negotiate a special Suez Canal agreement. Such an accord would be a contribution and a stimulus to an over-all peace. We would consider such an arrangement as a temporary solution and as a step towards peace. In the atmosphere of confidence created by such an agreement, a momentum for further accords would be generated.
75.	It is far-fetched to assert that the positions which I have briefly outlined today offer Arab Governments no possibility of honorable and meaningful negotiation. These principles correspond to the norms of international conciliation. What is required is the application to the
Middle East of the spirit and method that have had successful results elsewhere.
76.	The lack of Egyptian response so far to Israel's willingness to negotiate a temporary Suez agreement has long been an obstacle to progress. So, too, is the deadlock created by Cairo's insistence on determining the boundary and withdrawal issues before and without negotiation. In addition, a new massive barrier to peace has arisen through the resurgence of the Arab terrorist outrages which have sent a shock of revulsion through the civilized world.
77.	The story seems unending. Only a few hours ago, the heroes of the Arab liberation movement handed a transistor radio to a woman passenger about to embark on an airliner from Paris to Israel, with hundreds of passengers. It contained a heavy explosive charge. The passenger showed the vigilance necessary to transmit it to the security authorities. The moral qualities of this terrorism come to expression here.
78.	When the Secretary-General decided to request the inclusion in the agenda of an item on international terrorism [A/8791 and Add.l], he was giving a correct and perceptive interpretation of his rights and duties under the Charter. Organized groups of terrorists, for whom violence is both a means and an end, are threatening the texture of international life. Innocent civilians live in fear of attack by murder squads from abroad. The airlines work in an atmosphere of vulnerability. The international mails are violated by the assaults of cowardly men whose malice knows no compassion and no restraint.
79.	There are many forms and varieties of terrorist violence. They spread like a contagious germ. They respond to destructive and nihilist impulses that have taken root in contemporary culture. And the ultimate arrogance of the terrorists is not that they perform their outrages, but that they then ask for understanding and endorsement. They base their assault on the proposition that all restraints, civilities, immunities and human solidarities must be sacrificed to what they unilaterally proclaim to be their "rights". When they endanger the principles of international order, such as the sovereignty of States, the legal systems of free societies, the universal freedom of the air, the physical safety of men and women who handle the international mail, then the United Nations would lose all credit and repute if its Secretary-General were not to focus its attention and conscience on the approaching abyss.
80.	It is disquieting that the inclusion of the item in the agenda was so strongly opposed that it was nearly lost. Civilized mankind should take a keen look at the Governments which opposed the inclusion of the item or advocated its long postponement. The truth is that their Organization came within a few votes of moral death last week. And the Foreign Minister of Brazil was perfectly right in deploring the General Assembly's failure to endorse the wording of the item as recommended by the General Committee [2038th meeting]. Once the deliberate and unprovoked murder of unarmed civilians is justified by reference to the murderers' "motives" or "frustrations", we might as well include murder amongst the legitimate indulgences of a permissive society and wipe the sixth commandment off the tablet of man's ethical history.
81.	The Israeli delegation will support the draft resolution presented by the United States [A/C.6/L.851] and will give careful study in an affirmative spirit to the text proposed for an international convention against terrorism [A/C.6/ L.850].
82.	But while the problem has its international aspects, especially in aviation and in police security, much depends on the willingness of individual Governments to take measures of prevention on their own soil. The terrorists are particularly active on the territory of free democratic States in which tolerance and hospitality are cherished values. It thus becomes painfully necessary for such States to develop habits of sharp detection and action which are, in a sense, contrary to their easy temperament. But a free society cannot long survive if it fails to defend itself against those who would destroy its freedom and menace its survival by illicit violence. Similarly, many a government must face a moment of agonizing truth when it is called upon to judge the results of giving the terrorists what they want under the threat of dreadful blackmail. To withstand hijackers and kidnappers requires very strong nerves. A compromise convenient for the short term will usually have the effect of giving terrorism a new lease of strength, thereby endangering more victims than are immediately at stake.
83.	In addition to the need for international and national action there is an important area for regional co-operation. The terrorists have made the liberal societies of Western Europe the main arena of their activities. It is here that the majority of outrages against vulnerable aircraft and civilian establishments have taken place. We attach importance and interest to the discussion initiated by the Federal Republic of Germany at the Council of the European Community a few weeks ago regarding measures to combat international terrorism.
84.	My Government has considered certain specific concrete proposals for international, regional and national measures to combat terrorism and we shall bring them forward at the appropriate Committee stage.
85.	It is of course right and inevitable that the item on our agenda [item 92] should be drafted in universal terms. It would, however, be mere pretense to lose sight of the fact that the most rampant terrorism today is that which has its root in Arab hostility to Israel. It was after all the ghastly crime at Munich that gave the incentive for the debate which the General Assembly has decided to hold.
86.	In this context I come to discuss the methods used by Arab terrorist organizations; their political aims; and, above all, the crucial role of Arab Governments in creating and maintaining them.
87.	The original targets of Arab terrorism in the early 1950s were the lives and homes of Israelis on their own soil. The toll was heavy and constant. A bus load of passengers at Scorpion Pass; a group of farmers celebrating a wedding at Patish; a party of scholars on an archaeological expedition at Ramat Rachel; farmers in the collective villages of the Jordan Valley; fishermen on Lake Tiberias. These are random extracts from our nation's memory of bereavement. No other people has had to live all its days with a mark of interrogation hanging over its collective and individual security. A United Nations representative, General E. L. M. Burns of Canada, wrote then of these fedayeen activities that they were worthy of the Nazis. In those days murder was not regarded anywhere as a symptom of revolutionary "progress".
88.	The terrorist bands called the "fedayeen", which, thereafter, became the "Palestine Liberation Organization", developed their main activity in the 1950s and the early 1960s. In other words, they have absolutely nothing to do with the situation created by the 1967 war. Their object has been and is to destroy security of life for Israel, irrespective of what the armistice or cease-fire configuration is at any given time. After 1967 they transferred their violence from frontier areas to Israel's urban centers; shoppers in Mahne Yehuda Market in Jerusalem; housewives in a supermarket; students in a college cafeteria; passers-by in a crowded bus station-and on one horrifying morning a clearly marked school bus at Avivim in Northern Israel. As the mangled bodies of our children, still clutching toys and copybooks, were flown by helicopter to hospitals and morgues, there came across the frontier the gloating voice of Mr. George Habash, Commander of the so-called Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, announcing that it was wise to kill Israelis while they were still young. It is difficult to speak or hear of this morbid monster without a cold chill of revulsion. The essential point for these "liberators" is that their victims should be defenseless, vulnerable and unarmed. This is their chivalry.
89.	The rest is part of the recent experience and memory of everyone in this hall. Before the squalid butchery at Munich, the worst horror was at Lod Airport, where a group of depraved mercenaries from a distant land methodically slaughtered 26 civilian passengers-one of them was an eminent Israeli physicist, others were humble Puerto Rican pilgrims coming from the United States. Condemnation was world-wide; but alas it was not universal. Those who take their weekly instruction from the cultivated prose of Hassanein Heykal should ponder his commentary on the massacre at Lod. I quote from an article by him dated 9 June 1972:
"If there had been three Palestinians there instead of three Japanese I should have been enthusiastic about it, in spite of the fact that at the bottom of my heart I'm for the three Japanese."
90.	The Egyptian Prime Minister's reaction was less sophisticated and more simple, although it had a note of blasphemy. He invoked divine blessing on the murderous example:
"I want to say that what happened at Lod Airport proves that we can, with Allah's help, achieve victory in our battle with Israel. This is the only reaction I have to this matter."
91.	In the history of revolutionary violence there is a constant clash between ends and means. But in the Arab terrorist movement, dedicated to enslavement and genocide, there is no such ambivalence. The aims which Arab terrorism serves are even worse than the means it employs. The means are murder and kidnapping. The aim is not to win freedom for the Arab nation, whose freedom is so
amply and lavishly assured, but to liquidate the national? liberation which the most ancient of nations has already achieved.
92.	There is no need of interpretation here. Quotation is enough. The Palestine terrorist organizations are not at all concerned with finding a solution for the problems of Palestinian Arabs within the framework of a Middle East of which Israel forms a part. This, in fact, is what they are fighting to prevent. The aim is much more radical. Let their leader, Yasser Arafat, speak for himself:
"Al Fatah started its activities in 1956 and its armed struggle in 1965. Its aim is the liquidation of the Zionist Israeli existence."
President El-Sadat is often very frank on this theme. On 2 June 1971 he told the Egyptian National Council:
"The Zionist conquest to which we are being subjected will not be terminated by the return of the occupied territories. This is a new Crusader war which will persist during our generation and through the coming one."
93.	A document called the Palestine Covenant was adopted by all the Palestine liberation groups at the sixth congress of the Palestinian National Council, which met in Cairo in September 1968. The Covenant lays down that the Palestine State is to be an Arab State, that it is to comprise the whole area west of the Jordan not part of it, and that only Jews who were living in Palestine before the "Zionist invasion" could be citizens. The rest -the vast majority- would be pressed to depart. So the aim of this terrorist movement is the liquidation of the solitary Israeli State for the purpose of establishing the nineteenth Arab State. A compact expression of this policy came from former Egyptian Foreign Minister Mahmoud Riad in a press conference in Paris on 1 October 1971, when he said: "I give complete support to the organizations and their program of wiping out the Jewish State."
94.	The concept of "politicide"-the extinction of the identity and personality of a State-is so unfamiliar, indeed unique, that it may be difficult for other Governments to grasp its significance. Israelis study this notion against the background of another unique experience, the memory of which no other people has ever shared. In the Hitler decade we learned that some things are too terrible to believe but that nothing in our people's history is too terrible to have happened.
95.	In questioning Israel's axiomatic right to security and independence, the terrorist organizations commit a disruptive heresy in the life of our age. They rise up in revolt against history, law, justice, humanity and peace. There are now 18 Arab States, with a population of 100 million, an area of 4-1/2 million square miles and unlimited wealth and opportunity. Facing them alone on the scales of equity is the small State of Israel. There is, therefore, only one nation which stands or falls in history by the way in which this conflict is resolved. By-its solitude and uniqueness, Israel's secure existence is the overriding moral imperative in this dispute. The moral quality of the Arab terrorist organizations is determined not only by their brutal acts but by the destructive vision which inspires them. Their
close links with neo-Nazi and anti-Semitic organizations are in full harmony with their inner nature.
96.	I have said that the resurgence of Arab terrorism is a massive obstacle or the road to peace. This is not only a reflection on the psychological atmosphere. *t is true that a condition of hate, fear, bloodshed and bereavement works against the prospect of a conciliatory effort, which would be difficult enough in any case. What is no less grave is tha we find it impossible to accept the distinction between these organizations and the Arab Governments which are our destined partners in the peace effort. The support given by those Governments to the organizations undermines the credibility of their peaceful professions and even the professions are few and far between.
97.	Egyptian support for the terrorists finds expression in the press, radio and television. The terrorist leaders see Cairo as the center at which they co-ordinate matters of common concern with the League of Arab States. Egypt serves as the center where the heads of the terrorist movements meet the representatives of the various Arab countries passing through Cairo. Not a week passes without a central Egyptian personality meeting with a terrorist leader for co-ordination and co-operation. Cairo Radio gives a special program on Palestine in which terrorist activities are constantly praised. The special radio station broadcasting from Cairo, called "Saut Falastin", belongs entirely to the terrorists, who are free to broadcast what they like. The station broadcasts constant agitation and incitement against Israel and justifies every terrorist action.
98.	Egyptian support on the military level is very broad. On many occasions delegations of the organizations with Arafat at their head pay visits to Egyptian army camps in the rear and at the front. Arafat wears an Egyptian army decoration for valor.
99.	The terrorist organizations are permitted to carry on activity everywhere in the country to mobilize volunteers. Apart from their own independent mobilization machinery, they receive active support in this respect from the Libyan Embassy in Cairo, which openly signs up volunteers, pays them and sends them to Libya for training.
100.	Delegations from the various terrorist organizations receive information and instruction in Egyptian military bases. The Fatah stands apart from the rest and has special privileges in Egypt. Its members actually go through training together with Egyptian soldiers in the ranks of the Egyptian army. The "Ein Jalud" unit of the Palestine Liberation Army is commanded by an Egyptian officer. Egypt also helps the organizations with supplies of arms, ammunition and other military material.
101.	The crisis that broke out between Lebanon and the terrorists in June 1972 brought to the fore Egypt's role as guardian and protector of the organizations. Realizing that the terrorist movement might find itself obliged to quit Lebanese territory, the Egyptian President took action to forestall any Lebanese attempt to harm the terrorists. Mahmoud Riad, Secretary of the League of Arab States, was sent as a special mediator. President El-Sadat was not content with that. He sent his personal representative to Beirut in order to exert pressure on the Lebanese Government not to cancel the Cairo agreement of November 1969, which provided for the terrorists' presence in Lebanon.
102.	Egypt's leaders address the terrorist bodies at all their conferences. In any clash between the terrorists and their victims, the Government sponsors the terrorists' cause. In September 1970 a Pan American aircraft landed in Cairo, where the hijackers calmly blew it up in the sight of the authorities. When the Jordanian Defense Minister was murdered as a guest on Egyptian soil, his hosts allowed the murderers to go free.
103.	In Lebanon there are 5,000 terrorists, whose constant activity is undisturbed by the authorities. Under the Cairo agreement between Lebanon and the terrorist organizations, the Lebanese Government granted the terrorists legal recognition, freedom to organize and a base for activity against Israel. Beirut is the seat and center of terrorist planning and propaganda. It is from Beirut that groups set out with detailed plans to commit murder and hijackings and set off explosions in Europe and elsewhere. It was in Beirut and Baalbek that Kozo Okamoto received shelter and training for his assault on the airport at Lod.
104.	Syria was the first Arab State which supported terrorist activities from the outset. President Al-Assad said on 2 September 1971 in the weekly journal Al Mussawar that:
"... the fedayeen are to be found in more than one area of Syria, and they have absolute freedom of movement on the Syrian front. Moreover,"-said President Al-Assad-"we encourage and stimulate them and often we complain that they are not sufficiently active . . .".
105.	Libyan support for terrorist assaults in the Middle East and Europe needs no documentation. President Qaddafi's admiration of the Munich murderers was rhapsodic and explicit.
106.	Whatever the position may be with other terrorist groups, there is no truth or value in a discussion of Arab terrorism which does not face the fact that it is a recognized arm of Arab Governments in a policy of war against Israel. These organizations could not exist, still less function, without the shelter, support, endorsement, financial aid, arms, training facilities and territorial bases supplied by certain Arab States. All the activities of these organizations without exception violate the principles which the signatories of the Charter including Arab signatories-pledged themselves to defend. It is not an accident that the Governments which sponsor Arab terrorist organizations are unable to fulfill normal international obligations. The Arab Governments have not signed the Tokyo Convention;  they have not signed the Montreal Convention;? they have not responded to the Secretary-General's proposal for drawing the attention of the twenty-seventh session of this Assembly to the problem of international terrorism [A/8791 andAdd.lJ.
107.	Now. whether or not the General Assembly can take effective action in this matter, it does at least possess the capacity of accurate judgment. Such honorable words as "liberation", "resistance", "commando" have no application and have never before been applied to attempts to liquidate a lawful sovereignty, to compound the Nazi assault on Jewish survival and to wage a campaign of indiscriminate assault against civilians in the Middle East and elsewhere.
108.	The attitude of Arab Governments towards Arab terrorists is today a graver obstacle to peace than the admittedly disparate positions of the parties to the problems of withdrawal, boundaries, navigation, peace, etc. I say in all frankness: I cannot today believe that Egypt and Syria are willing, or that Lebanon is able, to make peace with Israel; and in that profound skepticism the attitude of those movements to terrorism plays the central role.
109.	The discussion must inevitably take us back to a consideration of the word "Palestine" that appears as the title of the terrorist organizations. Now, is it true that there is a distinct people deprived of self-determination, languishing in poverty, squalor and humiliation, dependent on organized violence as its sole prospect of redemption? Nothing could be further from the truth.
110.	There are some 2-3/4 million Palestine Arabs in the world today. Three quarters of them are in the original territory of Palestine, on both sides of the Jordan that is to say, under Jordanian rule or within the area at present under Israel's jurisdiction. The other quarter are in Kuwait, Lebanon, Syria and Saudi Arabia. Moreover, 1,300,000 Palestine Arabs now hold Jordanian citizenship, which has been available to them since 1950, when Jordan annexed the territories of the west bank with the consent of the Palestinian leaders.
111.	For the entire period of the armistice regime between 1949 and 1967 all Palestine Arabs-except a few hundred thousand who are citizens of Israel were living under Arab sovereignty and Arab flags. In other words, the question of their civic and political identity was a matter for determination by Arab Governments and authorities alone.
112.	The Kingdom of Jordan was a Palestinian State, in the double sense that a majority of its citizens were Palestinians and a majority of all the Palestinians in the world were citizens of that State.
113.	In a final peace settlement a new permanent boundary will be drawn between Israel and its eastern neighbor. Some hundreds of thousands of Palestine Arabs would in all conditions be a community within the State of Israel; this is normal. There is no such thing as 100 per cent self- determination, although the Arab nation comes closer to that figure than any other in history. Those Palestinian Arabs who will be outside Israel's permanent boundary once it is drawn will be free to determine their future in conjunction with the Arab Governments and peoples concerned.
114.	As recently as 8 September 1972, the Israeli Prime Minister made it plain that in her conception of a peace agreement there would have to be important modifications of the previous armistice lines in order to preserve security and to avoid new wars. But she added that it was not her conception that under such an agreement the vast majority of all the Palestine Arabs in the administered territories would have to fall within Israeli jurisdiction.
115.	It follows, therefore, that the political status of the Palestine Arabs would find its solution within a peace settlement. Now, here is the most drastic paradox of all: the "Palestine Liberation" organizations are the implacable opponents of an Arab peace with Israel. Yet nothing but peace with Israel can clarify the political and civil destiny of the Palestine Arabs in a manner compatible with Israel's sovereignty and security, with regional peace and with their own basic interests.
116.	In the meantime, this community is not languishing in despair and poverty: there is a new freedom of movement and contact. The national product of the Samaria-Judea-Gaza areas, administered by Israel since 1967, in which a million Arabs live, has nearly doubled since 1968. The per capita income has risen from £1 670 in 1968 to £1 1,100 in 1972. The agricultural product has tripled. There were less than 4,000 private vehicles in 1969; there are nearly 7,000 today. There were 3,000 television sets there in 1967; today there are 40,000. Fifty thousand workers find labor opportunities in the Israeli market, from which they bring back £ 1300 million a year. There is no unemployment. Wage levels have trebled since 1967. The value of exports from these territories has risen from £ 1220 million to £ 1305 million.
117.	Perhaps more significant than the language of statistics is the spectacle of human contact, commerce and exchange that brings hundreds of thousands of Israelis and hundreds of thousands of Palestine Arabs into a normal and fruitful communion the like of which never existed before.
118.	In the latter half of 1971, 200,000 Arabs from neighboring countries freely crossed the Jordan bridges towards Israel. It is not inconceivable that, when the agreed peace boundary is drawn, the relations between Israel and its eastern Arab neighbors could evolve across open boundaries into something like the community structure in parts of Western Europe today.
119.	So while Arab terrorists in Beirut and European capitals manufacture their bombs and plot their assassinations, the majority of the Palestinian Arabs are living solid lives enriched by a widening contact with their neighbors still clouded, of course, by a lack of political definition, but nevertheless alive with the hope and prospect of a peaceful regional future.
120.	There is, of course, hardship in every sector of Middle Eastern life. But there is not one single problem of the Palestinian Arabs that can be advanced towards a solution by the action of the terrorist groups. There is not one single legitimate interest of the Palestinian Arabs that would not come to reasonable satisfaction in a negotiated peace settlement between Israel and its neighbors. The terrorist groups are not only the enemies of law and order across the Middle East and in many parts of the world: they also alienate the Palestine Arabs from their true interest and their authentic vocation.
121.	The problem of curbing the terrorists is now our most urgent preoccupation. We are resolved to resist and weaken them in our region. We believe that national, regional and international action against Arab terrorism is an indispensable prelude to the fruitful exploration of peaceful prospects for the Middle East.
122.	I have spoken of psychological and human obstacles on the road to peace. Some of these obstacles could easiK be removed. I refer, for example, to the problem of prisoners of war.
123.	There are 10 Israeli prisoners of war in Egyptian hands; they have been there for two and a half to three years. On the other hand, Israel holds 61 Egyptian prisoners of war, most of whom have been in captivity for nearly three years. Syria has been holding three Israeli prisoners of war for the last two and a half years. Israel holds 45 Syrian prisoners of war. Israel also holds 10 Lebanese prisoners of war.
124.	With the cease-fire well into its third year we propose the mutual release and repatriation of all prisoners of war. The arithmetical advantage is overwhelmingly on the Arab side; but in the broader human sense everyone would gain.
125.	The Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War of 12 August 1949 lays down in article 118 that: "Prisoners of war shall be released and repatriated without delay after the cessation of active hostilities." This provision of the Geneva Convention is clear and definite. In accordance with it there should have been a release of prisoners when the cease-fire entered into force on 7 August 1970.
126.	Articles 109 and 110 of the Convention provide that prisoners of war who are seriously wounded or who are seriously sick must be sent back to their own country even before the cessation of active hostilities.
127.	It is reported that Egypt considers the six pilots amongst the Israeli prisoners that it has captured as being of greater importance than the 60 Egyptian prisoners held by Israel, who are mostly ordinary soldiers. But this is certainly not a humane approach to the problem. All prisoners of war, irrespective of rank, must be released in accordance with the letter and spirit of the Geneva Convention. A gesture of goodwill by Egypt and Syria on behalf of 115 Arabs and 13 Israeli prisoners would help diminish the acute lack of confidence which now obstructs any progress towards peace. What valid argument can there possibly be against this course?
128.	At the same time our Jewish destiny and responsibility inspire our concern for the plight of the small Jewish minority in Syria where 4,500 Jews are held as helpless hostages, forbidden to depart, discriminated against, humiliated, their movement restricted, essential services denied them, their property confiscated, and their livelihood in constant jeopardy.
129.	The plight of Syrian Jewry has been brought to the United Nations General Assembly and its Committees in the past. Two years ago committees to help the Jews of the Arab countries arose in 25 different countries in four continents, and an international committee came into existence. Some of the Arab countries responded to the humanitarian pressure of world public opinion and permitted the Jews who had remained in their territories to leave. Only Syria has persisted in its present position. Public opinion should not rest or remain silent until the imprisoned are released and the Jews of Syria permitted to reach safety.
130.	Year in and year out the problem of the Jewish community in the Soviet Union comes to the General Assembly and its Committees.
131.	The history of the Jews in Russia is a continuous chain of hardship and suffering from the days of the Tsars until the present time. Recently their urgent aspiration to emigrate to their historic homeland has broken through the barrier of silence. Thousands have reached Israel, where they have been received with a deep poignancy arising from a long separation. Many people of goodwill throughout the world saw in the emigration of these Jews, however few, a sign of broader tolerance and humane understanding.
132.	But there has now been a setback; while still permitting the emigration of thousands of Jews, the Soviet authorities have placed limitations on the freedom of movement of scores of thousands in disregard of their fundamental human rights. Many have been arrested just for wishing to go to Israel and have been sentenced to imprisonment. The Soviet information media publish calumnies, slanders and incitement against them.
133.	Many of those who register in the emigration offices are dismissed from employment and thus lose their livelihood. An open anti-Semitic campaign is being conducted, and in the period 1971-1972 alone, dozens of anti-Semitic books have been published in the Soviet Union, in addition to the anti-Jewish campaign conducted by the press and official media of information.
134.	And now as part of the attempt to dissuade Jews from submitting applications for exit permits to Israel, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics decided on 3 August to impose a special tax on Jews with higher education who wish to go to Israel. This effectively deprives thousands of people of any possibility and any hope ever to join their families and to realize their national aspiration. A scale has been established for each level of education, sometimes reaching $25,000 and more per person.
135.	It seems to us that the Soviet argument on the brain drain is not relevant or applicable here. The Soviet Union is not one of the needy developing countries, and Israel is not offering Jewish members of the scientific professions who come from the Soviet Union superior financial rewards. Israel is only able to give them a home, where they will feel as Jews who are not being discriminated against.
136.	Likewise irrelevant is the argument that graduates are obliged, as it were, to repay the cost of their education.
137.	The noted Soviet demographer, Urlanis, states in an article published on 26 July 1970 in Literaturnaya Gazeta that, in the conditions obtaining in the Soviet Union, the average university graduate repays by four years' work the State's investment in his training. The majority of scientists have thus already repaid that investment many times over by their creativity, their invention, their research and their professional work. The decree is not only a harassment of thousands of Jews, it is a serious infringement of intellectual freedom and scientific liberty. It creates the enslavement of scientists and intellectuals whose only crime is that they have studied and worked and contributed to the progress of their country, and today obey the call of their historic consciousness and wish to pursue their intellectual and social vocation elsewhere.
138.	Scientific personalities and institutions across the world have reacted with astonishment and indignation to this limitation of intellectual freedom. It is precisely because we wish to see a greater harmony between East and West, between the Soviet Union and the West, in all fields, including that of science, that we raise our voice in protest against this superfluous obstacle to international understanding.
139.	The General Assembly moves towards its agenda in an atmosphere of crisis for international institutions. There was never a time when a universal framework for international relations was more objectively necessary than today. Yet the concept of international organization is still surrounded by apathy and doubt. The United Nations should act with consistent purpose within the real limits of its capacity and strength. It should reinforce its role in international development in the light of the difficulties and dislocations revealed at the third session of UNCTAD in Santiago. It should take a careful course on the problems of the environment which were impressively brought to light at the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm in June. We must not allow an exaggerated ecological alarmist to act as a brake on accelerated development: for poverty and backwardness in most of the world have a more polluting effect on the life of our age than the excesses of industrialization in a small part of it. We should complete it universality by the admission of Bangladesh to membership. And we must not discredit our protest against racial discrimination in the southern parts of Africa by a craven silence about the brutal and capricious persecution of Asians undertaken by the present ruler of Uganda. The distribution of tasks and responsibilities between sovereign Governments and international institutions requires a delicate exercise in understanding. The United Nations must become an instrument for solving conflicts, not an arena for waging them. It should take a diplomatic, not a parliamentary view. Its task is to provide and promote consensus and agreement, not to take refuge in illusions of enforcement or adjudication. If we temper ambition with restraint we may yet endow this Organization with a constructive purpose and enlarge its humane role in the history of our turbulent age.


Mr. President, may I at the outset, on behalf of my delegation and personally, offer you our warmest congratulations on being elected to preside over the twenty-seventh regular session of the General Assembly of the United Nations. Your unanimous choice as President is a tribute paid at one and the same time to the heroic Polish people and to you, whose prestige and competence are guarantees of the successful conduct of the work of the Assembly.
125.	I should also like to pay a tribute to Mr. Kurt Waldheim, and to inform him of how much my Government appreciates his constant and devoted efforts to achieve detente and international co-operation. In these delicate circumstances where, in a world ravaged by conflict, there is at last a slight glimmer of peace, we are happy to find in our Secretary-General all the necessary qualifications to assist us together to find the appropriate ways and means of keeping alive and even increasing that glimmer of peace for the greater welfare of mankind.
126.	At the same time, I should like to endorse, with great gratitude, what has been said by eminent representatives who have preceded me, in paying tribute also to our outgoing President, Mr. Adam Malik, for his patient and unflagging efforts in the search of a just and lasting peace in the world, and particularly, in our region of South-East Asia.
127.	While I am addressing you, the Khmer people, innocent victims of an unjustified and unjustifiable foreign aggression, is still suffering in its own flesh and blood. Its sufferings are such that neither the comfort nor the ultramodern installations of this glass palace, nor the distance that separates me from my country, can banish from my mind the image of the ghastly spectacle of the exactions committed by the invaders against our civilian population: women mourning their husbands; children, their mothers; monks, their monasteries that have been devastated; and the refugees, their lost homes.
128.	In this abyss of suffering, where its North VietNamese neighbors have plunged it without reason, the Khmer people is struggling with courage and determination for its destiny, its survival and its very existence as a nation. It is that very conviction that is our strength, a moral strength that no subversive campaign and no weapon can weaken. In this struggle to liberate out country from the claws of foreign invaders that are militarily better equipped and better trained, the Khmer people needs, if not assistance, at least understanding and encouragement from all the peoples who have committed themselves formally to honoring the fundamental principles of the Charter of the United Nations.
129.	More than at any other time in its existence, the Khmer people has realized how great is the danger for mankind if the United Nations does not intervene to help to call an immediate halt to a systematic and foolhardy aggression on the part of North Viet-Nam against a peaceful people, whose only crime has been that of wishing to live in peace within its own frontiers and with good understanding with all nations, particularly, its neighbors, without any distinctions of ideology, race, religion or system of Government.
130.	A State that recovered its independence and sovereignty in 1953 and a Member of the United Nations since 1955, Cambodia then and the Khmer Republic now has given proof of being an exemplary Member, one which, in all circumstances, in peace as in war, has always scrupulously complied with the principles of the Charter and the agreements and commitments it has assumed. Unfortunately, our conduct did not prevent open aggression, an attack inflicted with impunity by the troops of North Viet-Nam and the Viet-Cong. This can be no other than deliberate aggression, since the Khmer Republic and the Democratic Republic of Viet-Nam have no common frontier, being separated one from the other by the Kingdom of Laos and the Republic of Viet-Nam.
131.	This aggression is all the more unjustifiable since it is against a neutral and peaceful State, a demographically and militarily weaker country that has never threatened any other nation. Deeply imbued with the principles of Buddha, the Khmer people, with its 3,500 monasteries and its 70,000 monks in a population of 7 million inhabitants that is, one monastery for each 2,000 inhabitants and one monk for each 100 persons is reputed to be one of the most peaceful peoples of the world.
132.	Furthermore, after the conclusion of the Geneva Agreements of 1954, my country has never joined any military pact and never authorized the installation of any foreign base of any sort on our territory until the last years of the 1960s when its ex-Head of State, Sihanouk, in a secret agreement, without the knowledge of the Khmer Government and Parliament, authorized the clandestine installation of sanctuaries for the North Viet-Minh and Viet-Cong. It was from those bases that the 60,000 North Vietnamese and Viet-Cong soldiers in March of 1970 launched their open attacks against Khmer army that had only 32,000 men, despite people's demonstrations in the provinces, as well as in the capital, that requested their withdrawal from Khmer territory.
133.	In the light of that situation, the Khmer people had no other choice but to organize itself for resistance, a national resistance that was and is a typical case of legitimate self-defense as provided for in the Geneva Agreements of 1954 as well as in the Charter of the United Nations.
134.	Evidence mounts day by day, attesting to the increased atrocities committed not only against our defense forces, but, over and above all, against our civilian population, our children, our Buddhist monks, our doctors, without counting the manifold destruction caused to our economic, cultural and social infrastructure, or the acts of terrorism committed against peaceful inhabitants in their towns and villages. This aggression, which is an obvious fact, is amply proved by the many captured weapons and documents as well as by the declarations of North Vietnamese and Viet-Cong prisoners held at present in Phnom Penh. A number of foreign observers that have free access to Khmer territory since April of 1970 no longer challenge the reality of this invasion despite the efforts of enemy propaganda to camouflage it by representing its four North Vietnamese divisions (the first, fifth, seventh and the ninth) and the C-40 Viet-Cong regiment as the so-called army of Sihanouk.
135.	In fact, besides those 60,000 North Vietnamese and Viet-Cong invaders, there are barely 30,000 "red Khmers", of which 6,000 rallied to the legal Government as of last 30 August. Furthermore, the latter are made up of disparate elements, the overwhelming majority of which do not even make use of the name of Sihanouk in their own propaganda within the country, knowing that that name is rejected by the Khmer people. Moreover, they constitute neither an army nor a political force, since they are used only for propaganda and as arms carriers for the aggressors, or are forced to perform minor tasks of supply and logistics.
136.	Obviously, the consequences of North Vietnamese aggression have been cruelly felt by the Khmer Republic and its people.
137.	About one third of the 181,000 square kilometers of the territory is still under the occupation by the forces of the aggressors, who have endeavored to sow terrorism and insecurity wherever they have been able to do so. Approximately one seventh of our population of 7 million are forced to live under the control of the enemy under a regime of terror imposed by the invaders.
138.	It is out of fear of suffering enemy occupation that our peasants, usually deeply attached to their rice fields and their native soil, have not hesitated to flee their lands in order to seek refuge in the zones controlled by the Government. Thus far, approximately 700,000 refugees have fled to the capital and the main provincial towns. This immense exodus has caused an imbalance in the demographic structure of the country, with over-population in that part of the territory which remains free and under- population in that part occupied by the aggressors.
139.	In August last, after having conducted massive bombing of the civilian population and used some hundred heavy ultramodern tanks against our defense forces, the North Vietnamese invasion forces used poisonous gas shells, which are weapons strictly prohibited by international conventions.
140.	The occupiers are attacking our communications lines, our works of art, our public utilities administrative buildings, hospitals, infirmaries, schools, plantations, plants, industrial enterprises, and so on.
141.	Furthermore, these invaders did not even respect the works being carried out under the auspices of the United Nations to help the developing countries. The most shocking proof of this was the attack planned and carried out in 1971 against the construction sites of the Prek Thnot Dam, which is located in the Province of Kompong Speu and is intended to irrigate vast areas of land for the benefit of the people.
142.	Therefore, our enemies do not even spare the undertakings of an economic and social nature of the United Nations itself.
143.	Special mention must also be made of the depredation and occupation of our monuments at Angkor by the Viet-Cong troops, contrary to international law, particularly the Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict, done at The Hague on 14 May 1954. The danger is all the greater since the invaders, after the armed occupation of that zone, have turned it into a veritable logistics and military base by digging bunkers and building other defenses without having shown the slightest regard for these vast monuments that are considered and admitted by all nations as being one of the richest cultural treasures of mankind.
144.	Since 11 June 1971, the Government of the Khmer Republic, profoundly concerned by the fate of these occupied monuments, appealed to all Governments and all men of goodwill all over the world to help neutralize the Angkor zone and place it under international control.
145.	In this connexion I should like to express, on behalf of my Government, our warmest thanks to Mr. Kurt Waldheim, our Secretary-General, and to Mr. René Maheu, the Director-General of UNESCO, for the great efforts they made before they succeeded in having the Angkor monuments listed under the special protection of the above- mentioned Convention.
146.	We are glad to mention that on 25 August last the period for objection to that listing expired. We therefore appeal to all the signatory States of this Convention, as well as to all the Governments of the world, actively to help from now on, by joint efforts within the framework of the Convention, to preserve these monuments from destruction and damage due to enemy occupation.
147.	For its part, the Khmer Government has taken all the necessary precautions under The Hague Convention to avoid any damage to this heritage of mankind.
148.	For all the reasons I have just mentioned, it appears to us urgent that the international community at last take effective action to put an end as soon as possible to North Viet-Nam and Viet-Cong aggression against the Khmer Republic. This foreign aggression, which is continuing even today with increased intensity, constitutes a grave threat not only to the existence of the Khmer people but also to that of all the neighboring peoples, which are peaceful and do not have any expansionist designs.
149.	In the Khmer Republic there is only one struggle: the national struggle of the Khmer people to free its country from these invaders. In the Khmer Republic today there is only one foreign aggression: the North VietNamese and Viet-Cong aggression, because there are neither American troops nor American military bases on our soil. In contending that they are "liberating" us, the foreign invaders are in fact only seeking to liberate the Khmer country from the Khmers. Is that not a true definition of annexationism, of colonialism or of imperialism?
150.	This aggression is in clear and open defiance of the Geneva Agreements of 1954 and of the fundamental principles of our Organization, which advocate respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of countries, large and small, non-interference in the domestic affairs of other countries, and non-aggression and peaceful coexistence among all political and social systems.
151.	This barbarous aggression, of which the Khmer people is the victim, has only one positive aspect, that of having awakened and consolidated our national consciousness in the face of the threats of the enemy from outside.
152.	That aggression, regardless of the atrocities committed, has still not sapped or weakened our firm determination to create a new society based upon the principles of democracy, that is, that all power comes from the people and that only the people is sovereign.
153.	Responding thus to the aspirations of its people, the Government of the Khmer Republic has specifically laid down the groundwork for democracy by establishing republican institutions.
154.	The Khmer people has definitively renounced a traditionally feudal monarchy and adopted a republican constitution on 30 April 1972, after a national referendum.
155.	In the presidential elections of 4 June 1972, the Khmer people by universal and direct suffrage elected Marshal Lon No! as the first President of the Republic. The first National Assembly and the first Senate of the Khmer Republic were respectively elected on 3 and 17 September last.
156.	This change of political regime was due to the fact that the Khmer people no longer wished to tolerate the excesses of its monarchs who, during 2,000 years, kept the people in slavery. All the Khmers remember the dictatorial methods with which the former King of Cambodia Norodom Sihanouk, who later became Head of State, led our country. We still remember too well the hundreds of Khmer patriots who were summarily and savagely executed on his orders, accused solely of being Communists and so forth, whereas in reality they merely opposed his anachro-nistic regime.
157.	I must restate that the removal of Sihanouk from power was not the result of a coup d'etat, as some of his friends of the moment contend, but it was a legal deposition, carried out in accordance with the constitution then in force. Raised to the highest office of the country by the Khmer Parliament 12 years ago, Sihanouk was deposed by that same Parliament by the unanimous vote of its members on 18 March 1970.
158.	All this shows how ridiculous and irrelevant were the words pronounced yesterday by the representative of the People's Republic of the Congo when he referred to my Government and our republican regime. That representative was hardly the one to refer to us as "a clique thrown out by the people" [2045th meeting, para. 238] and boast of the merits of a prince in exile when that representative himself represents a clique which, not long ago, eliminated a leader risen from the people, President Massemba Debat and as everyone knows by hardly democratic means.
159.	Does one call it "a clique thrown out by the people" when one speaks of a President of a Republic and a Parliament elected by universal and direct suffrage?
160.	Does one call a "legal Head of State" of a country a Head of State who, having betrayed the higher interests of his people, was deposed by the unanimous vote of the two Houses of Parliament?
161.	We deny that representative of the People's Republic of the Congo any right to interfere in the domestic affairs of our country or to claim to know them better than we do.
162.	In brief, in his zeal to plead in favor of a Government-in-exile that represents no one but itself and that was so truly "thrown out by the people" that it is still permanently located on foreign soil, Mr. Henri Lopes is doing less than justice to the People's Republic of China when he compares the rights of the latter in the United Nations with those of the so-called Royal Government of Sihanouk.
163.	Although deeply concerned over the bitter struggle to survive against an enemy which is particularly ferocious and which is determined to wipe it from the map of the world, my country has at no time overlooked or ignored its duties and its obligations as a Member of the United Nations. Thus my country continues and will continue unflaggingly to participate actively in the work of our Organization in the various fields of international cooperation.
164.	We remain fundamentally opposed to racial discrimination in all its forms or manifestations and wherever it may appear. It is in fact inadmissible that human beings today can still be victims of discrimination of any sort because they belong to one race or another, one religion or another, one color or another, or one ethnic group or another.
165.	The Khmer people has always rejected any form of discrimination, because nothing would, be more contrary to our Buddhist principles, which are primarily based upon tolerance, compassion and respect for all living beings.
166.	Thus, too, our traditions of resistance and particularly our present-day struggle to repulse the foreign invasion can only strengthen day by day our constant and sincere determination to uphold the genuine movements of liberation of peoples from the colonial yoke. What we refuse to accept is that the sacred term "the liberation struggle" should be used to camouflage the realities of aggression. We therefore strongly oppose those pseudo-liberator. movements which, under the pretext of freeing one country or another that has already gained its independence, interfere in the domestic affairs of that country and, in fact, practice expansionism and annexationism to the detriment of other countries.
167.	With regard to the so-called "divided-country problem", the Khmer people welcome with satisfaction the latest developments towards detente and peaceful coexistence of those with different political and social systems. In accordance with our own aspirations for peace and international co-operaticfn, we trust that that trend towards reconciliation will be strengthened on the basis of reciprocity, mutual respect and the principles established to govern relations among States, pending a reunification that must be achieved according to the principles of self- determination, without foreign interference and, if necessary, with the assistance of international organizations.
168.	As one of the peoples that has suffered from acts of terrorism on the part of our invaders, the Khmer people can only express its gratitude for any initiative taken to prevent such crimes against humanity. Our delegation hopes that without passion or prejudice, the United Nations, aware of what has occurred, will give urgent attention to this problem in order scientifically to devise appropriate and suitable concrete means to combat effectively this type of crime, condemned as it is by all civilized peoples.
169.	While welcoming the recent developments leading to the reduction of tension in the world, and particularly in Asia, we must voice our hope for a successful conclusion of the talks on general and complete disarmament.
170.	With regard to the conflict in Viet-Nam, we are relieved to note that a number of initiatives for peace have been undertaken, not only by the great Powers, including the United States of America and the Soviet Union, but also on the part of the countries of the Association of South-East Asian Nations, namely, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines and Singapore.
171.	The Government of the Khmer Republic feels that the Vietnamese conflict cannot be successfully and justly solved unless there is a global solution, namely, a general cease-fire in the whole Indochinese peninsula, followed by the withdrawal of foreign troops from each of the three countries: the Kingdom of Laos, the Republic of Viet-Nam and the Khmer Republic.
172.	We are always ready to contribute to a peaceful settlement in order to ensure the withdrawal of all foreign troops from Khmer territory on the basis of the Geneva Agreements of 1954 and in accordance with the joint communique in May 1970 at the Djakarta Conference on Cambodia. The Khmer problems will be solved by the Khmers themselves, without any foreign interference.
173.	The situation in the Khmer Republic is a typical case of foreign aggression, open and blatant, against a people that has not crossed its frontiers by one millimeter to threaten any other country or attack it.
174.	Such a situation must be one that confronts the world with a moral issue.
175.	A small country such as mine must wonder whether the innocence of a people and its scrupulous respect for the principles of the Charter and of international law could be considered to be sufficient guarantees of peace or whether the crime of aggression is to continue to go unpunished after 27 years of the existence of the United Nations.
176.	As I said earlier, at this very moment while I am addressing you, my compatriots are still suffering in their struggle to defend a cause that could not be more just or legitimate. Your words, Mr. President, spoken on ^September, echo particularly our own hearts when, speaking of Poland, you said:
"My country owes its existence, its freedom, its independence and its present dynamic development to great effort on the part of its people, but also to tremendous sacrifices. This unites us with the many peoples of the different continents for whom the struggle for freedom was a struggle for national existence." [2032nd meeting, para. 55.]
111. The Khmer people is today doing nothing but fighting for its national existence; and it was in that spirit that Marshal Lon Nol, President of our Republic, when speaking to the Deputies on 14 September last on the occasion of the opening of the National Assembly, said:
"The North Vietnamese and Viet-Cong Communists that so savagely attacked our country have not only sown death and ruin but, over and above all, they have showed the criminal intention of killing our new Republic at its inception. They want to restore a reactionary regime that is obedient to them and that has worked to ensure their expansionist and imperialist aims. They have imposed on us a war without mercy. The Khmer people has, however, taken up the challenge. Young and old, civilians and soldiers, all have rallied to the defense of their country in danger. Their sacrifices have allowed our nation to reject the foreign yoke and to live freely and independently thus far."
178.	For these reasons, the Khmer people are fighting and will fight with determination and energy against the foreign invaders. Like all peoples throughout universal history, the
-Khmer people continues to have faith in the sacred principles which are the foundation of our Organization and of the dignity of man.