83.	Mr. President and representatives, I bring to you the greetings and good wishes for the success of our deliberations from His Excellency President Mzee Jomo Kenyatta of the Republic of Kenya. That veteran fighter for freedom, liberty and independence for the oppressed people of the world now stands ready to fight for peace, liberty and justice for all nations, particularly individuals and minority groups who face oppression from any State.
84.	My delegation extends its felicitations to the newly- elected President of the General Assembly, Mr. Leopoldo Benites of Ecuador. His exceptional ability, breadth of vision and wide experience in the affairs of the United Nations should ensure the successful conclusion of the present session.
85.	To the outgoing President, Mr. Stanislaw Trepczynski of Poland, we express our deep gratitude for conducting the last session with dispatch, skill and success.
86.	My delegation deems it appropriate to welcome into our fold the new Members — namely, the Federal Republic of Germany, the German Democratic Republic, and the Commonwealth of the Bahamas. It is our conviction that their membership will strengthen the United Nations and promote effectively its fundamental objectives of peace, justice and co-operation. We hope that the stand of the United Nations for the promotion of justice and equality in the Territories under colonial domination or in the minority racist regimes in Africa will receive their unequivocal, sympathetic, and action-oriented support.
87.	Turning now to the seemingly intractable problem of the Middle East, I wish to express the deep concern of my country over the grave situation in the Middle East. In less than 25 years, this is the fourth full-scale war which has engulfed the people of the Middle East in untold suffering and destruction. Unless checked soon, it could easily develop into a global conflagration.
88.	We African countries are not big Powers; we do not possess arsenals of sophisticated weapons. But we are intensely interested in peace, justice, progress and good- neighbourliness. Our own economies can develop only in conditions of peace and harmony. Therefore, we must play an active and sustained role in bringing about an honourable, just and expeditious settlement to the Middle East crisis under a durable structure of peace. In our view, what is called for is a fresh initiative by the African countries, alongside the other nations, to bring about the desired peace. This would be complementary to any efforts of the Security Council to find a meaningful and just solution through purposeful initiatives.
89.	The current eruption of warfare should be terminated by cessation of hostilities, the immediate withdrawal of troops, and application of the following principles: first, the acquisition of territory by force of arms is inadmissible; secondly, all States in the region have a right to existence in conditions of peace and security; thirdly, the rights of the displaced Palestinians should under no circumstances be abused, overlooked, sacrificed or minimized; fourthly, the super-Powers should desist from accelerating an arms race in the whole region, because it eventually acts as a catalyst to warfare; and fifthly, an international system for guaranteeing the territorial inviolability and political independence of every State in the area, including measures of demilitarization and the establishment of zones of peace, if necessary, should be seriously considered.
90.	Kenya sincerely hopes that unnecessary loss of life and property on all sides will be averted through a cease-fire. It is high time that a permanent solution, which has long proved elusive in the halls and corridors of our Organization, was found — for the benefit of the peoples of that region and for world peace at large. The immediate national interests of foreign States should not be permitted to override the supreme necessity of restoring a lasting peace in the Middle East.
91.	Our yearly congregation in New York for the General Assembly session should not be merely an exercise in passing resolutions and declarations or exchanging impressive rhetoric and bitter polemics for consignment to the mushrooming archives of the United Nations. Urgent political issues of decolonization and restoration of peace require our urgent attention. Loud rumbles of economic discontent call for concerted action. Threats to peace need to be totally eliminated. Super-Power interests and covert collaboration should not be permitted to diminish the role of the United Nations in peace-keeping and in the processes of peace- building. The liberation of over 30 million Africans held in servitude in southern Africa should be accelerated by determined action on the part of the international community. The rapidly opening horizons in science and technology need to be applied to development for the eradication of poverty, disease, illiteracy and squalor.
92.	In short, the challenges to be faced are numerous and multidimensional. Our responsibilities, therefore, are all the greater. To meet them realistically, we must not remain locked in sterile debate, inordinate delay or ideological confrontation. That is the path to abdication of responsibility, chaos and eventual ruination.
93.	It is only proper that we should welcome the recent international detente, even if it does not mean a solution to most of the outstanding problems of this day and age. The dialogue of peace and co-operation between the United States and the Soviet Union should be seen as a hopeful development. Similarly, the meeting together of two big Powers, which are also permanent members of the Security Council — one from the East and the other from the West —  is a step in the right direction.
94.	The cessation of hostilities in, and the withdrawal of foreign troops from, Viet-Nam should help the cause of peace and rehabilitation in that war-ravaged part of the world.
95.	The process of reconciliation and normality between India and Pakistan should prove useful for building a durable structure of peace, progress and co-operation on the Indian subcontinent, encompassing as it does the great States of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.
96.	Tangible results from the difficult negotiations at the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe are expected to strengthen peaceful relations amongst States, which should cut across the military pacts conceived in the context of cold-war politics. The enlarged European Economic Community should act as an effective counterpoise to the unbridled ambitions of the super-Powers. Other regional groupings of newly-emergent nations have a similar role to play.
97.	The Assembly will readily understand Kenya's concern for the dire fate of millions of Africans who are condemned to slavery by Portuguese colonialism in Angola, Mozambique, and Guinea-Bissau, by the repression and terror of the apartheid regime in South Africa and Namibia and by the illegal rebel regime in Rhodesia.
98.	Before I dwell in some depth on the situation in southern Africa, I should like to hail the Declaration of Independence by the valiant freedom fighters of Guinea-Bissau. After decades of the slaughter of innocent men, women and children; after incalculable loss of property; after indescribable sufferings and deprivation, the gallant people of Guinea-Bissau have finally achieved their independence by armed struggle.
99.	Just as the Mau Maus of Kenya tore to shreds British colonial occupation in our forests, just as the Algerians defeated ,the French in the vast desert expanses of the Sahara, the people of Guinea-Bissau have now smashed the Portuguese colonialist presence in Guinea-Bissau by a relentless fight in the forests, plains and valleys of Guinea. That is an object lesson for the oppressed peoples of South Africa, Rhodesia and Namibia to take to the velds and karoos of southern Africa to win their independence if all peaceful methods fail to give them their inalienable birthright to freedom and sovereignty.
100.	Kenya pledges unreserved support to the people of Guinea-Bissau in consolidating their independence. Recognizing the new State is not sufficient in itself; we must ensure that it receives every form of moral and material support, particularly from the African and non-aligned countries that consistently supported the liberation struggle, in Guinea-Bissau. Kenya not only recognizes the new State of Guinea-Bissau, but is ready to offer any help that the new State may need.
101.	Africa holds no brief for violence. Africa wants a peaceful solution to problems of race and inequality in Territories under alien domination and minority racist regimes. If, however, all these methods fail, then no one should blame the Africans for raising the standard of rebellion and violence against the oppression, terror and bloodshed which is inflicted on them by unrepresentative and imposed orders. If it should prove necessary, Africa is ready to water the tree of liberty with blood. Responsibility for any ensuing racial conflagration must then be placed squarely at the door of the racists and the colonialists. Let that be very clearly understood both by the racists and by the world community.
102.	The conscience of the world has been outraged by the atrocities committed by the trigger-happy Portuguese soldiers in Mozambique. Defenceless, unarmed and innocent men, women and children have been butchered in the villages of Mozambique. These brutalities were exposed by reputable missionaries and by international journalists with impeccable credentials. It is probable that such massacres take place in great secrecy with calculated regularity in areas under Portuguese domination. This body must act to stop this wave of destruction, rape and plunder against the African population. The United Nations has a decisive role to play in this regard.
103.	The Portuguese should learn from their allies of 600 years, the British, who once held sway over a global empire over which the sun was supposed never to set. The winds of change swept away that myth and Britain realistically granted independence to almost all its colonies and Territories. Today the representatives of the liberated countries sit with Britain in the councils of the United Nations. In cordiality, and without bitterness over the past, they even have a club called the "Commonwealth".
104.	Portugal should also learn from France, another imperial Power that was forced to grant independence to numerous colonies in Africa and elsewhere.
105.	Portugal, in this day and age, lives in the dead dreams of the yesteryear of Vasco da Gama, when it thought that its writ spread from Europe across Africa to the Far East. That is amply demonstrated by the fact that even today two members sit in the Portuguese legislature who are supposed to represent Goa. That is indeed the height of absurdity. The impoverished, impostor Government of Caetano should now realise that the boundaries of Portugal do not extend beyond Europe. Unless Portugal wakes up from this Rip van Winkle sleep, it is in for rude shocks.
106.	We call upon the Church in Portugal and the enlightened opinion of the young and the intellectuals to join hands with us. Let us expose the fictitious nature and bankruptcy of the policies of the Portuguese regime which have spelled misery, bloodshed and ruin for millions of enslaved and helpless Africans.
107.	The non-aligned countries which held a summit meeting last month in Algiers adopted a resolution which urged all members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization [NATO] to expel or suspend Portugal from NATO unless it terminates its colonial wars in Africa, stops the massacre of Africans, withdraws its troops from African
soil and grants independence to its colonies [see A/9330 and Corr. 1, pp. 36-38]. The reasons for that move are very clear. NATO arms intended for Europe release weapons in Portuguese possession for prosecuting Portuguese colonial wars in Africa. Portuguese officers trained under NATO programmes are known to be transferred later to the African theatre of war. They are therefore used, not for the purpose originally intended, but for maintaining the colonialization of Africans. These arms are not used for the avowed aim of protecting the freedom and liberty of Europeans, but rather to promote the suppression of human rights, democracy and freedom in Africa.
108.	In the face of Portuguese brutalities in Africa, no member of NATO can support the use of herbicides, defoliants and exceedingly potent chemical weapons for the mass destruction of people and crops. Many members of NATO themselves suffered from Hitlerite oppression which they eventually defeated through enormous sacrifices in life, limb and property. Our struggle against the alien regimes that are essentially Hitlerite in character and content is similar. Therefore, members of NATO should stand behind us in our legitimate struggle; for what is good for freedom- loving Europeans is equally good for the oppressed Africans. It is clear for them to see that Portugal is committed to a cause that is futile and a war it can never win. Let NATO members therefore play a rightful role in this shameful episode of Portuguese colonization of African Territories.
109.	Kenya is gratified that progressive countries like Norway and Denmark are now openly questioning in the NATO Councils the wisdom of the Portuguese colonial war effort in Africa. Other countries, like Sweden, the Netherlands and those in the socialist camp, have stepped up their moral and material assistance to the liberation movements in Africa. To all these countries we express our deepest gratitude. To the others that do not yet support us, we address an appeal to emulate the worthy example of the countries sympathetic to our cause.
110.	We also welcome the support that organizations like the World Council of Churches, the Anti-Apartheid Movement and many other private and public institutions are giving to the cause of freedom and independence in our continent of Africa.
111.	Here I should like directly to address France, a country which is associated with the noble sentiments of liberty,
equality and fraternity of mankind. Has France forgotten or neglected these ideals, which contributed to its greatness? If not, it should come out in the open with a clean conscience and bring pressure to bear upon Portugal to terminate the massacre of the black people in Africa and to grant them their inalienable right to freedom and independence.
112.	I ask Britain, which is credited with democratic traditions, rule of law and humanitarianism, not to disown its time-honoured values. The United Kingdom should not be seen to be associating with countries like Portugal, which systematically practise genocide and slavery in Africa.
113.	The great country of the United States, whose modern democracy was laid down by men like Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln, should not disgrace the glorious principles which were laid down by these men. It should not be associating with a puny Power like Portugal, which has spread terror and rained death and destruction on our continent.
114.	All these great and self-confessed Christian nations should not fold their hands and sit back oblivious to the decimation of the black people in Africa by the brutal and dehumanizing policies of Portugal. Kenya urges all of them to suspend or expel Portugal from membership in NATO unless it complies with the principles and purposes for which the Organization was established.
115.	The Decolonization Mission of the Organization of African Unity [OA U], on which Kenya had the privilege of serving, highlighted the plight of subjugated Africa during its sojourn to numerous world capitals. World attention is now focused on the sufferings of Africans under colonial regimes. The United Nations-sponsored International Conference of Experts for the Support of Victims of Colonialism and Apartheid in Southern Africa, which was held earlier this year in Oslo, was indeed successful. More such conferences should be held throughout the world to keep this issue alive and under constant review by world leaders.
116.	The Cabora Bassa hydroelectric project in the Tete province of Mozambique is conceived as a master-plan to settle millions of poor whites from Portugal so that they can enrich themselves through the toil, tears and sweat of the Africans. This will enable the whites to carry on indefinitely the oppression of the blacks and, through the exploitation of the vast mineral resources of this Territory, to fill the coffers of metropolitan treasuries in Europe.
117.	Although technically it would be a good project for a free, democratic Mozambique, at this juncture it is wrong to support it because it will strengthen Portuguese colonialism in Africa. It was for that reason that the OAU Decolonization Mission requested Western Governments, institutions, bankers and investors to desist from taking part in this project. We are grateful to the Governments which heeded our appeal; I must single out for special mention many Swedish and Italian firms which withdrew their participation from the Cabora Bassa project. We request those who did not do so to examine their conscience and help Africa's cause. We are merely asking for the postponement of their collaboration, not for their permanent exclusion from the project. When Mozambique attains independence, it can proceed to completion. At that time we shall appreciate it.
118.	Kenya also urges the isolation of and a comprehensive boycott against Portugal. The Security Council should act decisively to repel threats to international peace and security posed by Portuguese colonialism in Africa. An arms embargo against Portugal is called for. Brutalities and excesses of the Portuguese troops in Africa should continue to be exposed in the hope that the outraged world conscience will be galvanized into effective action against the colonialists in Africa. Concrete and meaningful steps are necessary to break the growing alliance between Portugal, South Africa and Rhodesian whites.
119.	In South Africa a most explosive and dangerous situation obtains. As if the massacre of Africans in 1960 at Sharpeville was not enough, the South Africans indiscriminately slaughtered workers at Carletonville last month when they were protesting against unjust employment conditions in South African mines. This demonstrates that the bloodthirsty minority regimes of southern Africa have an insatiable appetite for death and destruction of the Africans.
120.	South Africa has created certain "Bantustans" as homelands for the black people of South Africa. This is an entirely erroneous description because all the land in South Africa belongs to the Africans. We are told that the "Bantustans" are independent entities designed to ensure equal and separate development. But this is deception at its highest and arrant nonsense aimed at hoodwinking the world. In actual fact, the "Bantustans" are reservoirs of black majority population strategically located in arid regions on which the whites can swoop down at will and forcibly take away African labour to mines, factories, homes of the whites and other such places. They are festering sores of unemployment, discontent and squalor where no development in any form or shape has taken place. They are like cattle-pens from which the desired number of animals are taken for slaughter to make vast profits for sustaining the apparatus of apartheid.
121.	Vorster hopes to control the "Bantustans" by creating divisions amongst them and the liberation movements. His designs are to play one against the other and to see blacks fight against black brethren while the whites prosper and look at black men killing black men.
122.	The concept of "Bantustans" is the most pernicious evil conceived by the human mind. The world body must reject it outright.
123.	With regard to Rhodesia, the Kenya Government recommends the convening of a round-table conference of all the interested parties to work out a constitutional arrangement for the granting of independence to the African majority under an equitable electoral system. The Africans, whose political destiny is at stake, must participate fully and freely in such negotiations. Those incarcerated in Smith's prisons ought to be released. Restrictions on African political movement and organization must be lifted. All discriminatory laws should be repealed in recognition of the right of the Africans to freedom and independence. South African military and police contingents have no business in Rhodesia. Those are fundamental conditions for an equitable and a lasting settlement to the Rhodesian problem.
124.	On Namibia, we shall support fully all the efforts of the United Nations to maintain a physical foot-hold for the purpose of promoting African majority rule and independence. Eviction of illegal South African presence from that Territory is imperative. It is our feeling that direct negotiations with South Africa as to the future of Namibia have proved fruitless. They should therefore be discontinued and other concrete alternatives tried.
125.	I may be asked, quite legitimately, why the African countries have now seen fit to maintain a militant stance towards the colonial and minority racist regimes in Africa. Our answer is that all peaceful methods have been tried without success, and the patience of the oppressed peoples is mounting to a breaking-point.

126.	Free Africa's call, in the Lusaka Manifesto on Southern Africa,  was rejected by Vorster. This was an appeal for a peaceful solution on the basis of freedom, equality and democratization of the rigid apartheid system within South Africa. The United Nations, the non-aligned world and OAU made several appeals for peaceful accommodation which were rejected outright by South Africa. Free Africa was ready to discuss ways and means of democratizing the internal situation in South Africa in a peaceful manner for the amelioration of the conditions of the black people.
127.	This meant discussions on the system of apartheid and its eventual abolition. It, too, was of no avail. Vorster's reaction was to rain insults and aggression on free African countries to the north. The territorial integrity of Zambia, the United Republic of Tanzania and Zaire was violated by joint action of the South African, Rhodesian and Portuguese militarists. In the face of this intransigence, does Africa really have a choice other than that of an armed struggle?
128.	Permit me now to say a few words about our steadfast commitment to the non-aligned movement. We are convinced that this movement has been a dynamic force for promoting peace, justice and understanding in contemporary international affairs. It is a solid front against colonialism, racism, exploitation and inequality. It has a definite role to play for the economic and social welfare of the non-aligned States.
129.	I should also reiterate Kenya's unswerving support for OAU. It is our ultimate hope for the liberation and economic advancement of our continent of Africa. It is our instrument for forging continental African unity in every field. Under its banner, we shall continue to fight for intensification of inter-African trade, investments and cooperation at all levels, and for a united front in international organizations to achieve equality, justice and development in the whole continent in general.
130.	In the larger sphere, Africa is determined unitedly to press for its relationship with the European Economic Community in accordance with the political and economic interests of our peoples. We shall not allow ourselves to be dictated to by the rich and powerful nations to suit their policies and objectives at our expense. Our resources and potentialities are plentiful and our scope for economic cooperation unlimited. Therefore, we need not entertain any feelings of despondency or helplessness in this regard.
131.	That was our stand at the recent historic joint annual meeting of the World Bank-International Monetary Fund and its affiliates in Nairobi from 24 to 28 September this year. I call that conference historic because a meeting of this magnitude and size was held for the first time on African soil. The official opinion was that this huge conference was successfully organized. We are naturally gratified by this impartial evaluation. We can assure the international community that we shall do everything in our power to ensure the success of future meetings in Nairobi. It is indicative of our belief that major conferences need not be confined to established centres, like New York, Geneva and Vienna and others in the Western world. Other capitals which can offer the necessary facilities should also be given the chance to play host to important meetings. This is a reflection of the universal nature of our Organization.
132.	In that spirit Kenya is privileged to play host to the United Nations Environment Programme [UNEP] in Nairobi. The Kenya Government has made available ample facilities for accommodation, communications and services for the successful establishment of UNEP, which was formally opened last week in Nairobi by His Excellency Mzee Jomo Kenyatta, President of the Republic of Kenya.
133.	May I take this opportunity to express the gratitude of the Kenya Government and people to all the countries that supported our offer of Nairobi, Kenya, as the site for UNEP.
134. I wish to express our deepest sympathy to the victims of the Sudano-Sahelian famine which has now assumed catastrophic proportions in Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal and Upper Volta. The Kenya Government is currently considering on a basis of urgency what aid it can give to the victims of this unprecedented drought. They can rest assured of our support to the best of our capability. We urge the United Nations, OAU, and all other interested organizations to join hands in combating the consequences of this natural disaster. It is a grim reminder that the international community should set up a long-range, permanent arrangement to meet such catastrophes in the future in any region of the world.
135.	Before I conclude, I deem it important to appeal to all countries to respect human rights without any reservations. Any change of government, or accession to power by any political party in any State should not be used as a licence to wipe out opponents or to unleash terror and bloodshed. Each national of every State, irrespective of colour, religion, sex or political persuasion, has a God- given right to life and protection under the due process of law. We cannot acquiesce in any political murder, massacre or repression in any part of the world. After all, shorn of all the technicalities and diplomatic jargon, this is the central message of our Charter and of the many conventions that have been adopted by the General Assembly.
136.	Finally, Kenya would like to see the United Nations remain in outlook and action a positive, active and dynamic force for justice, fair play and humanity. That must remain our guiding philosophy as the United Nations triumphantly marches from strength to strength in the face of many odds ahead.


1.	 On behalf of the people and Government of the Republic of Honduras, I begin my statement by addressing to each of the representatives and those nations they worthily represent a cordial and fraternal greeting. Linked with it is our hope that true success and positive achievements will result from the deliberations of the twenty-eighth session of the General Assembly of the United Nations.
2.	Honduras is deeply gratified that a Latin American possessing the competence and ability of Leopoldo Benites has been elected to preside over this world assembly. The great honour conferred on the sister Republic of Ecuador is shared by us, and we promise him the constant co-operation of the delegation of Honduras in his delicate tasks and the heavy duties entrusted to him by the Assembly. We are also glad to express our appreciation to all the representatives of the Governments of the world and in particular of the Latin American group of States for having elected Honduras to one of the vice-presidencies of the General Assembly. This again bespeaks our solidarity with the President of the Assembly in our fraternal commitment to the ideals of the Charter.
3.	The formal work of the General Assembly began under the best of auspices. The simultaneous admission of the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic, decided upon at our opening meeting, was an event whose true importance is to enrich and enhance the faith placed in the Organization by all its Members and to nurture the hope of those that are not yet Members that it will perpetuate and increase human welfare and development with universal representation.
4.	We are also happy to greet warmly the admission of the independent State of the Commonwealth of the Bahamas.
5.	May we take this opportunity to stress our good will and our desire that other countries still absent from our midst be admitted soon, and our hope that we shall also very soon see here legitimate representatives of both Koreas, in keeping with their own decisions, as well as of Bangladesh, of the peoples that are fighting in a just struggle for self-determination and recognition as nations and of those that are living the tragedy of domestic division which stands in the way of their occupying the places that Honduras would like to see them occupy. Over and above any ideological differences, we should like to see them here defending their points of view and their ideas as to how we can make the world a better and safer place to live in.
6.	My delegation congratulates the Secretary-General, Mr. Waldheim, on the constant dedication and effectiveness with which he has devoted himself to carrying out the heavy responsibilities of his post, as clearly reflected in the introduction to his report on the work of the Organization [A/9001/Add. 1].
7.	We are grateful that much progress has been made in the political field through the efforts of the Secretary- General and particularly in the search for peace in areas of conflict. We also take note of the significant progress achieved in the field of human welfare, where a balanced economic development of peoples is sought to serve as an adequate basis for world peace with justice.
8.	The United Nations Development Programme has been a most effective instrument of co-operation in our development and planning. Honduras has achieved much thanks to its help, and we place our faith in the future of its action to the benefit of our people.
9.	We owe an enormous debt of gratitude to the developed countries which, having become great economic Powers, generously contribute to speeding up the basic programmes that have a bearing on the domestic development of our countries. Our appreciation is all the greater for those countries which, despite their own domestic needs, sacrifice part of their capital to help the peoples which are fighting for their own development. However, we believe that more effective work could be done if the assistance given to achieve the targets were more significant.
10.	We in the developing countries depend to a large extent on international co-operation. Yet, our own administration is struggling hard, through effort and sacrifice, to ensure that this circumstance is only temporary.
11.	It is no less true that we, the developing countries, are markets that consume large amounts of the industrial output of the developed countries, and at the same time we offer our natural resources as our contribution to their high standard of living.
12.	Acceptance of this interdependence, both on the part of the wealthy and on the part of the needy countries, can lead to a just and reasonable understanding that should govern our efforts to achieve an equality that will culminate in the full development of mankind.
13.	As far as my nation is concerned, our permanent and dedicated aspiration is to live in peace. We have placed our faith in the constant rule of law and in the action of the international organs of which we are members, primarily the United Nations. And we have done so in the hope that deliberations at the conference tables will increasingly replace confrontations on the battlefield.
14.	However, we should recall that in many cases and places the pacifying action of the United Nations, which
is the basic mission of the institution, is limited by factors ranging from the lack of legal instruments of action in the hands of the Organization to simple stubbornness of the parties.
15.	Because of these problems, we believe it extremely important to seek the means whereby to strengthen the Organization, to give it more material possibilities of ensuring implementation of its resolutions, to adapt it to the reality of a changing world so that it will continue to be, as it has thus far been, the main beacon of hope of mankind. We believe that this calls imperatively for a revision of the Charter. We understand that such a revision cannot be removed from the realities of the world, and the great Powers should keep their privileges, their actions being so important for mankind in the preservation of peace. However, it is not possible for the Organization to be effective, as we would wish it, unless it is endowed with the powers and instruments to ensure respect for and compliance with its resolutions. We believe this capacity to be extremely important when resolutions are decided by an almost unanimous vote and seek only to ensure the implementation of the principles of the Charter, to which we have all freely subscribed as a norm governing our international conduct, and which at times are hindered by the unilateral decision of a country which breaks its promises. For those reasons, Honduras would support any initiative tending to strengthen the capacity of action of the Organization through a revision of the Charter or through any other adequate machinery.
16.	May I inform this Assembly of our views regarding the matter which is uppermost in the minds of our people and Government at this historic moment. I refer to the dispute that since 1969 has existed between Honduras and El Salvador. My delegation is extremely gratified to be able to say that the record of the session held by the Special Commission of the Thirteenth Meeting of Consultation of Ministers of Foreign Affairs of Latin America, on 20 and 21 August, contained an agreement concerning the procedure for the conclusion of a general peace, friendship and boundary treaty which, taking into account the seven specific resolutions adopted by the Organ of Consultation of the Organization of American States [OAS], will put an end to all disputes between the two countries.
17.	My delegation wishes to express its appreciation to the enlightened Government of Mexico and to our sister Republics of Central America for the continued and devoted attention they have given this problem and for their permanent collaboration in the search for adequate solutions.
18.	My delegation reiterates its faith that the negotiations at present taking place in Mexico City will, through the channels of law and justice, be successful and thus return the Central American area to normalcy.
19.	From the very beginning of our independent life, our laws have recognized the equality of men irrespective of differences in race, colour or religion. Hence, Honduras offers its support and co-operation to all those who endeavour to eliminate racial discrimination in all its forms and manifestations, particularly those who are dedicated to the eradication of the vile system of apartheid.
20.	From the beginning of our independent life, Honduras has also been found among the leaders in the anti-colonialist struggle. It therefore offers its co-operation and support to those peoples which are struggling for their right to govern themselves and to shake off the colonial yoke.
21.	My delegation would like very specially to refer to the problem of Gibraltar, a British colony, located on Spanish soil, over which Spain's full sovereignty must be recognized. Honduras entirely shares the arguments adduced by the Minister for External Affairs of Spain, don Laureano Lopez Rodo, when he spoke to this Assembly on the subject [2133rdmeeting], and we declare our readiness to co-operate in restoring Gibraltar fully to Spanish sovereignty and authority.
22.	Of the subjects on the agenda of the twenty-eighth session of the General Assembly, there are a number which, because of their special importance and the significance which Honduras attaches to them, we feel impelled to mention specifically and make known our views upon them.
23.	Mankind is confronted by the fear of extinction if the political forces were, with the instruments of mass destruction available to them, to unleash a new worldwide conflagration. But to this fear is added the fact that we are all victims of the harmful effects of nuclear weapons tests. Therefore, we must add our voice to those of the many countries which have urged the nuclear Powers to find bilateral or multinational understandings likely to end this threat once and for all. With its voice and vote, Honduras will support any initiative to that end. For similar reasons, we shall do likewise with regard to all those initiatives designed to do away with inhuman chemical and bacteriological weapons or to achieve a treaty on general and complete disarmament.
24.	As so often before, the General Assembly will continue its examination of the many and complex aspects of the conflict in the Middle East, particularly at this moment when it has become even more acute because of the fresh resort to the use of weapons against man in that region. We believe that this delicate question calls for a clear statement from us to the effect that we are friends of Israel and friends of the Arab countries and that nothing would please us better than to be able to contribute to putting an end to the prolonged conflict. We believe that it is indispensable to strengthen with new instruments the Secretariat so that it can continue its peace-making efforts, and we would be extremely happy if the Security Council itself would hand down an authentic interpretation of the conflicting provisions of its resolution 242 (1967) and thus give new means of action to the Jarring mission.
25.	We must clearly and simply state that the policies of Honduras in these matters, both inside and outside the Central American area, are based on principles that we consider inalienable and that we believe should be stressed. Honduras cannot agree to, nor will it ever accept, the acquisition of territory by force or threat. Honduras considers that the dignity of the human person must always be respected, even in cases of belligerency or war. Honduras considers that it is the right of all nations to live in peace, within secure and legally determined borders which accurately mark the limits of it national sovereignty.
26.	In this connexion I think I ought to recall that, at the present stage of history, security does not come from mere tactical positions; it might have done so when conventional war defined frontiers, but not when it is the law that must prevail. The security of a frontier, we believe, can flow only from a juridical determination of it and the obligation that all parties respect the existence of such borders.
27.	With regard to international terrorism, the entire world is expecting some concrete results from our deliberations. We noted with regret how little was done during the twenty-seventh session on this matter, despite the very obvious concern shown by world public opinion. We understand that it is difficult to reach agreement since there are complex factors hindering a general understanding. To the assessments and definitions of the political terrorism of individuals a counterpart is sought in assessments of the actions of States. But we believe that, while that procedure of analysis is resorted to, little progress can be made. But there are specific aspects on which the views of all Governments are almost unanimous. Cases such as the hijacking of planes, diplomatic security, the unlawful use of the mail and other examples could be tackled outside the context of the general problem and could be the subject of agreement and even lead to treaties that would be a true achievement and a definitive step towards satisfying world aspirations for something to be done by this Organization on these problems that affect us all. The delegation of Honduras would co-operate in the taking of such steps by the Assembly.
28.	Finally, my delegation expresses the hope that the deliberations of the General Assembly during the twenty- eighth session, which has begun so successfully under your wise guidance, will, in this delicate historical moment for humanity, lead to concrete steps and resolutions that will stress the lofty principles and postulates of international ethics contained in the Charter, thus giving mankind renewed hopes that man, imbued with the spirit of coexistence and understanding that must always prevail in this hall, will through constant international effort, succeed in making the world a more just and worthy place in which to live.


 1. First of all, may I, on my own behalf and that of my delegation, extend our felicitations to our President on his unanimous election to preside over the twenty-eighth session of the General Assembly. Undoubtedly, it was his deep knowledge of the ways of nations and his wide experience of procedures derived from his close association with our Organization that commended his election to his high office.
2.	I would also like to join other speakers in paying a tribute to his predecessor, the distinguished Deputy Foreign Minister of the People's Republic of Poland, Mr. Stanislaw Trepczynski, for the skill, and understanding with which he directed this Assembly.
3.	A frequent but very pleasant task is the welcoming of new Members. It is a salutary reminder that prognostications about the growing irrelevancy of the United Nations are not all that widely shared and that, for all its many shortcomings, most nations believe that international relations would be fraught with even graver perils without it.
4.	This year we have admitted three new Members. The first, the Bahamas, enters our ranks by virtue of having gained its independence, and I would like to congratulate the Bahamas and its people on their new status.
5.	The admission of the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic marks the happy resolution of what had for over two decades been a delicate and intractable European problem. For the first time in centuries peace is now more assured than ever before at any time in Europe's strife-torn history. Conflicts and profound disagreements there certainly will be, but their resolution by recourse to arms is a fear that appears to have receded into the realm of the implausible. For all practical purposes
 Europeans believe they have at last outlawed war among themselves.
6.	I wish I could be assured of as happy a prospect for the third world. The killing, the dying and the destruction have yet to come to an end in the less-developed world as they have in Europe. Since 1945 much of the third world has been plagued by violent conflicts. It has been estimated that 95 per cent of the major and minor wars since 1945 have been in the under-developed countries. They have ranged from anti-colonial wars and wars of intervention to insurgencies, civil wars, wars of liberation and disputes between third-world countries. These, far from diminishing, have tended to increase during the past decade and have been and are being fought largely with increasingly expensive weapons supplied by, or bought from, the developed world.
7.	Some of the crucial items on our agenda, which' have repeatedly come before us, year after year, relate to disputes involving violence in the third world. The most serious of these is the Arab-Israeli conflict. The detente between the big Powers, though it has enhanced immeasurably the prospects of global peace and eased cold-war pressures on weaker nations, has however not in any way enhanced hopes for peace in the Middle East.
8.	I have on previous occasions reiterated my Government's position on the Middle East conflict. I do so again, but with a growing feeling that reiteration of one's position will not materially affect the steadfast positions of the parties directly involved in the conflict. Since the detente of the big Powers precludes the Arab-Israeli dispute from ever becoming, or being allowed to become, a casus belli between the great Powers, they are not under the same pressure as they were in years past to take any major initiative in regard to this protracted conflict.
9.	The initiative must therefore come, as it has in the case of the two German Republics, in the case of Viet-Nam and in the case of big-Power conflicts and rivalries, primarily from the parties to the conflict. What these new Middle East initiatives should be only the parties concerned can determine, and all that we, conscious of our limitations, can do is to ensure by our demeanour that we do not exacerbate this protracted and tragic conflict.
10.	However, before such initiatives can be seriously taken, two barriers need to be cleared. The first is psychological. As long as the parties to the conflict believe. - that war and not negotiations will ultimately resolve their problem, peace will remain as elusive as ever. The second relates to basic principles. Before there can be any serious negotiation there must be a clear assurance that settlement would be in accordance with principles basic to our

Organization. The territorial integrity of the States concerned and their security cannot be qualified as the price of a settlement. Any negotiations postulated on the basis of victors and defeated is doomed to failure.
11.	In the case of South Africa, Namibia, Rhodesia and Portuguese possessions in Africa, the other unresolved items on our agenda, the white minorities have yet to be convinced that the alternative to coming to terms with the dispossessed black peoples is eventually a Viet-Cong type of involution. Until that alternative becomes credible, persuasion and resolutions by this Assembly, though they may make the transgressor cautious, will not convince the dominant white minority that accommodation of the aspirations of the black peoples is the only rational solution.
12.	Those, then, are some of the perennial issues plaguing the third world, issues which accord between the great Powers has, for the most part, left unresolved and is unlikely to solve. While we welcome the accord as a positive contribution to world peace and a rational ordering of international life, we should not forget that it is what it says it is-merely a detente between the big Powers to ensure that their conflicts do not escalate into mutually annihilating confrontations, and that their global interests and the delicate balancing of forces are not upset by the problems and disputes of smaller nations. That beady-eyed approach is a necessary corrective to the euphoria that the big-Power accord appears to have generated in some of us. The accord is not concerned, except perhaps incidentally, with sorting out the difficulties and problems of small nations.
13.	True, the accord decreases the cold-war pressures to which many small nations were subjected during the past two decades, pressures which they unwillingly succumbed to or which they evaded by necessary, though not always commendable, deviousness. In that sense the accord gives the third world countries a respite from cold war pressures and greater freedom to find their own remedies for their accumulating problems.
14.	Our problems, namely the problems of the third world, are multiplying to near unmanageable proportions and many of them overshadow in importance and significance many other problems that have occasioned as much inspired rhetoric in the past. Today, for example, the spectre of famine haunts many parts of the third world. The rising hopes that the "green revolution" would assuage hunger in the developing world appear to be receding. Something like half of the world's population today is said to be hungry at a time when possibly another billion will join the human race during the next 10 years. Most of the increase in population and hunger is in the third world and it is there too that population increase, made possible through economic, social and health improvements, has also multiplied the sum of human misery. Despite creditable growth rates, unemployment is many steps ahead of economic growth-as much as 20 per cent in many countries. Despite an impressive performance in the spread of literacy, there are today 100 million more illiterates in the third world than there were 20 years ago. The third world's rural crisis is aggravated by a spreading urban crisis. The advanced countries, too, have their urban crisis but it is
of a different order from that confronting third world cities. The third world cities are becoming refugee camps for the rural poor whom the land can no longer sustain and for ambitious rural youths who bitterly discover, too late, that cities provide only limited opportunities for people with general rural skills. The cities demand specialized urban skills and those that lack these skills turn to crime and violence as possible alternatives. The third world cities are what might be called accidental cities. They have size without a corresponding economic function. Politically and socially the cities of the third world are political time- bombs.
15.	All these problems derive principally from uncontrolled population growth which, paradoxically, is aggravated by unplanned but progressive social and economic measures, by increased food supply, and by modernization of institutions without modernization of minds. In a free contest the dismal fact is that population can always outstrip economic growth and so, unless the third world drastically restrains population growth, economic growth and humanitarian measures could well result not in greater happiness but in increasing misery.
16.	The reprieve we have from cold-war pressures could give us an opportunity to consider more single-mindedly than we have in the past those fundamental problems without the resolution of which all other problems remain intractable. Admittedly there is less drama involved in considerations of economic and population problems. Such problems do not lend themselves readily to mind-arresting rhetoric, but for the hungry billions today speculating where their next meal is to come from, and for the other billion waiting in the wings to greet the thirty-eighth session of this Assembly, our rhetoric may be no more than food for despair and fuel for sweeping anger.
17.	But the fact remains that our population is increasing catastrophically and that could be the genesis for a new cold war as intense and possibly more dangerous than the ideological cold war which we have tried to cope with in the past three decades and which we have now left behind us. The increase in population and the insatiable needs of developed countries have raised the spectre of near exhaustion of natural resources. There is a wringing of hands over the so-called energy crisis, over a water crisis, and over possible shortages of meat, fish and grain and of a number of strategic raw materials. It is, of course, open to dispute whether we have already reached or will reach such a crisis.
 It is sufficient that many nations believe that with rising populations they are entering an era of scarce natural resources, and so long as that belief persists it will be real and that will affect their political behaviour.
18.	Since the conquest of other peoples' land to acquire and control resources, as in the past, is no longer practical or, in the long run, economical, the sea, covering more than 70 per cent of the earth's surface, is increasingly seen as the new El Dorado. Some claim that there is more wealth in the sea than on the land. This, though unsubstantiated by facts, is indicative of the sort of fever the scramble for the wealth of the sea could generate. Today, mankind gets from the sea about 25 per cent of its protein, about 17 to 19 per cent of its oil and 6 per cent of its gas. Though minerals now extracted from the sea-bed account for only 2 per cent
of the ore produced on land, there are mind-spinning estimates of many trillions of tons of ooze and nodules containing manganese, iron, copper and nickel.
19.	Undoubtedly the sea may be tomorrow's economic frontier and a possible source for as many bloody conflicts as the carve-up of the earth's surface has generated throughout mankind's history. Hitherto, the ocean has for the most part remained no-man's-land, and therefore all-men's land, simply because mankind had not the means effectively to seize and occupy the sea. Today, many nations have the means, or think they have the means.
20.	So it is this contention that mankind, whose ancestors abandoned the sea millions and millions of years ago, is turning towards the sea again, possibly to reproduce all the foolishness and madness entailed in the carving up of the land. Not many people are aware that the first skirmishes have already begun in the battle for the sea. Gunboats have steamed off the shores of Asia, Africa and the Americas to assert or contest claims of possession. Far more serious disputes have occurred off the Icelandic coasts. There are also disputes pertaining to over-fishing and the possible annihilation of certain species of marine life-in particular, whales. The International Court of Justice was recently called upon to adjudicate on France's right to test nuclear weapons in the Pacific. Pollution of the sea by shipping, the discharge of industrial waste and the burial of nuclear waste-in fact, the growing tendency to treat the sea as humanity's garbage can-are potential sources of conflict.
21.	These are in addition to the importance traditionally attached to the sea for communication, trade and war. The trade routes that link nations are still primarily sea routes. Marine transportation accounts for 78 per cent of the physical volume of foreign trade freight and 68 per cent of freight in terms of cost. Sea transport is still the cheapest form of transport and is likely to remain so with the development of super-tankers and containerization.
22.	It is also noticeable that in recent years the great Powers are once again emphasizing sea-power as a more effective way of manifesting strength and exercising influence in times of peace. Since the sea is for the most part unencumbered by national frontiers, this is one arm of power which can circumscribe the globe in relative freedom. This includes nuclear-powered submarines, equipped with long-range multiple-warhead missiles and fortified by silos and military installations buried in the sea-bed and directed by sensitive electronic devices.
23.	So I believe we have already entered the era of ocean politics and ocean economics. The stakes are enormous, and the conflicts arising from ocean politics may be the more important issues that in future will harass the United Nations. The law in regard to the sea has not developed beyond the vague simplicity of the decalogue. There is practically no law for exploration and exploitation of its resources beyond the limits of national jurisdiction. The law in regard to the extent of such national jurisdiction is founded on nothing more convincing than arbitrary proclamations and new papal bulls.
24.	At the same time it is recognized that the simple concept of the freedom of the seas as enunciated by eminent jurists and scholars in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, like that of Hugo Grotius, requires reinterpretation and elaboration in the light of present-day reality.
25.	Ocean politics and economics are essentially new manifestations of power which we have to learn to cope with. They are untrodden territory, where paths can lead to dead ends and dangerous precipices as well as to reassuring pastures and woodlands. There is a Chinese saying that every journey begins with the first step and that the first step determines the destination. So if the first step we take at the forthcoming Third United Nations conference on the Law of the Sea, scheduled to start this year, thrusts us into the jungles of sterile contention and even open conflicts, then, as with the dividing up of the land, the carving up of the seas may well be history written in blood. If the trendy thing is for each coastal State to grab what it can on the basis of the principle of "finders, keepers", then the sea must eventually become the possession of a handful of rich and powerful nations having the technological capabilities and the requisite armoury successfully to assert the dismal proposition that "might is right".
26.	The other approach is to treat the oceans as the common property of mankind-of coastal States and land-locked States, of poor nations and rich nations and of the most developed and the least developed. I realize that the translation of this same ideal — in the long run, a practical ideal — into detailed policies tailored to suit the different and special interests of so many nations will not be all that simple. But it will be in the real and long-term interests of smaller and weaker nations not to lose sight of the fact that if the wealth of the sea is not made available fairly to all, then in the nature of things it must go unfairly to the few who are rich, strong and technologically equipped to enclose the seas as private property or to those who claim special rights and privileges over the riches of the oceans merely through the accident of geographical location. The rational approach to the problems of the sea is not without risks and difficulties, but they are far easier to cope with than those arising in a free-for-all scramble to carve up the seas.


52.	 Mr. President, those of us who know you well take a special pride in your elevation to the presidency of the General Assembly at its twenty-eighth session. The people of Ecuador share the honour which your personal qualities have justly earned.
53.	The international climate is charged with confidence and hope. Attitudes of hostility which once seemed to bean organic part of our generation's life are now giving way to patient dialogue. The Viet-Nam cease-fire, the American-Chinese encounter, the summit meetings at Moscow and Washington, the German agreements and the European treaties have been succeeded by a cease-fire in Laos, by talks between North and South Korea, and by contacts between the three States of the Indian subcontinent. The Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe is at work, bringing a tragic era of confrontation to its end.
54.	Let us leave the historians to define the precise point at which the international journey took a new direction — and the causes which inspired the change. In the meantime the results are tangible and impressive, although not yet universal. In some discussions — but not in all — the old vocabularies of abuse are being softened by a welcome air of civility. It is generally understood that coexistence must be based on a separation between viewpoints and relationships. Even when Governments differ in their ideas, their viewpoints and their policies, in their social structures and in their international orientations, they can, nevertheless, foster good relations even across the gulf of their divergences. It was the cold-war philosophy that insisted on ideological agreement or political harmony as the condition of good relations between States. The detente accepts and admits no such condition. It respects and transcends diversities of interest and outlook. Indeed, the logical conclusion of the detente is the universality of international relations. Fidelity to detente requires all States to cultivate normal relations with each other, irrespective of differences and even of conflicts in their interests or policies. At a time when States which have real conflicts of ideology, policy and interest are establishing relations with each other, it would be a grotesque paradox if States which have never had any reason to quarrel about anything were induced to weaken or to sunder their mutual ties.
55.	But we shall not do service to the spirit of detente if we carry our satisfaction beyond the point of reason and truth. Free dialogue and compromise have prevailed in many disputes, but they are still rejected in others, and the victories of international conciliation in the past few years have all been won outside the United Nations structure. This indicates that the growth of world community is painfully slow, Indeed, our Secretary-General, with admirable realism, has found it necessary, in the introduction to his annual
report o n the work of the Organization [A/9001/Add. 1], to warn us of some of the shortcomings in the work of the United Nations so far. The truth is that, while quiet, bilateral diplomacy has recorded many triumphs, strident, polemical, public debate has not brought any good result on any issue at any time. The lesson is plain. The central role of this Organization should be to promote agreements between parties to a conflict irrespective of their voting strength, and not to try to adjudicate between conflicting views on the mere basis of numerical weight. The United Nations, in short, should have a diplomatic and not a parliamentary vocation. This point was stated with great precision by the Foreign Minister of Canada. I quote his words:
"... we must try to avoid barren and abrasive confrontations, which are frequently the result of formal voting processes. Consensus is another and often surer route —  Consensus does not mean the imposition of the will of the majority on a reluctant minority which feels its vital interests are at issue; it means the shared recognition of what should and can be done." [2126th meeting, para. 60.1
56.	Now here, in a few words, is a basic evaluation of what may be wrong with United Nations techniques. The result is not only that successes have come outside these walls; failures have abounded within them. The discussions on international terrorism by our Ad Hoc Committee ended in fiasco, as had the debate in the General Assembly after the Munich outrage last year. In Rome the International Civil Aviation Organization sat for many weeks without being allowed to agree on any amendments to the Hague or Montreal Conventions. All Members of the United Nations are united in their ability to discuss each other's imperfections. There are majorities to be had for selective political judgements against those who do not belong to a large voting bloc. But majorities cannot always be found for objective, temperate statements free of denunciation and invective.
57.	The Secretary-General's introduction to the annual report reminds us that the efforts of the United Nations in political conciliation are, in his words, "complementary" to "the normal bilateral dealings of Governments" [A/9001/ Add. 1, p. 5]. That is true. I also think that it is true that an attempt by all the Arab Governments to escape from the duty of engaging in "the normal bilateral dealings of Governments" to a constant reliance on public debate is one of the sources of the continuing deadlock in the Middle East. Indeed, every procedure and attitude that has proved its efficacy in other disputes has so far been ignored or rejected in our region.
58.	Would we not do well then to listen to the counsel of two statesmen whose names are pre-eminent in the history of the recent detente. Chancellor Willy Brandt of the Federal Republic of Germany has told this Assembly that
".. . it is primarily direct peace talks between the Arab countries concerned and Israel that will best secure a balance of the elementary interests of both sides." [2128th meeting, para. 63.]
And Mr, Kissinger, Secretary of State of the United States, has reminded us that not even the strongest of great Powers can "substitute for the efforts of those most directly involved" [2124th meeting, para. 56],
59.	The absence of negotiation in the Middle East is the gravest obstacle to the termination of regional tension. But it is not the parent cause of the tension. The root of the conflict lies deeper; the root of the conflict lies in the refusal of Arab Governments to come to terms with Israel as a sovereign nation rising from the depths of Middle Eastern history to resume its place in the universal community. Not one of the Arab Governments whose representatives have spoken from this rostrum about withdrawal from territories held since 1967 has said that in order to achieve their territorial claims the Arab States would recognize Israel's rightful place amongst the free nations of the area and establish permanent peace, friendship, commerce and normal relations with Israel similar, for example, to the relations which exist between the States of Western Europe, which only a short time ago were locked in hostility and war. Many Arab spokesmen say the opposite. The Foreign Minister of Egypt, Mr. El Zayyat, has stated in the Security Council and elsewhere that beyond the 1967 armistice lines lie the frontiers proposed in a United Nations recommendation of 1947 [resolution 181 (II)], which Egypt and other Arab Governments destroyed, as they had promised, "by blood and fire", and these in his learned view are the only legal frontiers. Nor would this be the end of Israel's dismantlement. An article in the official Cairo newspaper Al Gum-huriya only several days ago tells us that
"The withdrawal of Israel from all the conquered Arab territories is an initial demand of the Arab States presented as a part of the comprehensive programme aimed at putting an end to the Zionist settlement in Palestine."
60.	From such statements it is not hard to deduce the meaning of the phrase about the "legitimate aspirations of the Palestine Arab people" when employed by those in whose eyes the sole representatives of that people are the organizations which carry out murder and banditry all over the world but usually at a discreet distance from the Middle East,
61.	The plain fact is that the present Arab leadership is not satisfied with the verdict of history which has led to the constitution of 18 Arab States in an area of II million square kilometres with a population of 100 million. Arab leadership seems to be in an excited imperialist mood. It demands the elimination of Israel, a non-Arab nation, older in its roots within the Middle East than any other, more venerable than any other in the lineage of spirit and tongue that ties it to that soil, unexampled in the persistence of its national identity.
62.	Israel is the very heart and core of Middle Eastern history; but Israel is a Jewish and not an Arab entity. Therefore, there are Arab leaders who cannot sustain its sovereign presence: it must be either physically eliminated or swallowed up in something else so that its "Israel hood" would vanish under some Arab combination or domination. In its philosophy national freedom in the Middle East is an exclusive Arab right — to be monopolized, and not to be shared. There are other expressions of this hegemonistic and exclusive spirit —  in Arab policy in the Persian Gulf and in the posturing of Colonel Qaddafi as he flaunts his opulent purse across the world. But it is in the Israeli context that the tendency to see sovereignty in the Middle East as an Arab monopoly has had its most ominous effects.
63.	Now, what I have said is admittedly a stringent view of what Arab Governments seek to achieve. But unfortunately it is sustained by a great array of official statements. It is confirmed by the implacable warfare to which Israel, alone amongst all the States of the world, has been subjected since its birth. It is nourished by outrages such as the shooting in the head of the 11 Israeli athletes, tied hand and foot, on the floor of a helicopter in Munich one year ago. Such acts are possible only if the victims are regarded by the assassins as lying outside and beyond any human context. And, indeed, the Arab hostility towards Israel today joins hands with another and deadlier hatred to which it is akin. For where else, Members of the United Nations, other than in Cairo, can you imagine the publication by writers close to the seat of power of an article which I hold in my hand and from which I read the concluding extract:
"In the whole world people have ended by understanding that Hitler was right, for the Jews are vampires which suck the blood of humanity. They wish to destroy the world, but the world vomits them. They have been chased from land to land; they were burned in the ovens of Hitler — 1 million, 2 million, 6 million. Would that he had accomplished it fully!"
That is what Al Akhbar wrote on 19 August this year.
64.	"Would that [Hitler] had accomplished it fully!" This particular extract is only one example of hundreds of Nazi publications that have made Cairo a world centre of anti-Semitic ideology. As we listen to these obscenities on Cairo Radio, as we bury our dead after Munich or Lod, as we recall wars, assaults, boycotts and threats over these 25 years, as we read of the Covenant of the so-called "Palestine Liberation Organization", which asserts that only Arabs have sovereign rights in the Middle East, can we be reproached if we see ourselves as the target of a particularly virulent hatred, at variance with all humane values and vastly removed from anything that can be called detente?
65.	In short, one of the components of Israel's policy —  and I say this in great frankness —  is a profound scepticism about the basic intention of Arab States to respect Israel's sovereignty, its national identity, its cultural legacy, its place in the Middle East and the world. There is one thing, and one thing alone, that could undermine that scepticism: negotiation.
66.	For recent international experience teaches us that negotiation is not simply a procedural method: it is a principle of coexistence. Negotiation does not merely photograph established positions; it leads them towards mutual accommodation. It puts hopes and suspicions to their only viable test. At the negotiating table the discourse between the parties ceases to be rhetorical, abrasive and polemical. It becomes pragmatic, concrete, empirical. A unique kind of solidarity asserts itself between the negotiators, who become subject to the mystique of potential success and put forth their maximal effort to avoid a final break. Precisely because negotiation has such far-reaching effects, the Arab refusal to negotiate without prior conditions arouses far-reaching suspicions.
67.	We have long been convinced of the need to undertake a detailed negotiation ranging freely across all the problems at issue. If this aim has not been fulfilled, we share the
universal regret — but we disclaim culpability. We have accepted Security Council resolution 242 (1967), which calls for the establishment of permanent peace by agreement between Member States in the Middle East, including withdrawal of forces from territories occupied since 1967 to secure and recognized boundaries to be determined in the peace agreement. We proposed detailed agendas for discussion with Egypt and Jordan, We accepted Ambassador Jarring's proposal, rejected by Egypt in March 1968, for convening Israeli and Egyptian representatives in conferences under his auspices to discuss a peace settlement. When four eminent Heads of African States visited our region in 1971, they submitted six proposals in writing, to which my Prime Minister made written and appropriate response on 28 November 1971.5 The African Presidents reported that this reply, together with that of Egypt, constituted a sufficient basis to justify negotiation. We stand by those replies today. In particular, we responded to the suggestion of the African Presidents which reads as follows:
"Acceptance by the two parties that 'secure and recognized boundaries' be determined in the peace agreement".
68.	In 1971, when it was pointed out that direct contact might not yet be easily acceptable to Arab Governments, we agreed to the United States procedure for proximity talks. When it was then suggested that it might be difficult to conceive a sudden transition from total deadlock to total peace, we accepted the idea of a Suez agreement involving the opening of the Canal under Egyptian administration, with a limited, agreed withdrawal of Israeli forces, even ahead of a peace settlement. We stipulated that this would not be the final withdrawal, but a phase leading to further negotiations in which the permanent and final line would be agreed upon between the parties.
69.	Throughout all this period we abstained — as we still do — from changing the political and juridical status of the administered territories, and have not closed any options for a negotiated peace. We opened the river crossings and cease-fire lines to a free movement of hundreds of thousands of Arabs from areas outside Israeli jurisdiction — and indeed from all over the Arab world. We placed the Holy Places of Christendom and Islam under the administration of Christian and Moslem authorities and proposed that this principle be given appropriate statutory expression in a peace agreement. In October 1972 I suggested a meeting with Foreign Minister Riad in New York "in order to break out of old deadlocks into a new vision and a new hope". We utilized the good offices of foreign statesmen and other visitors to convey to Cairo and other Middle Eastern capitals our proposals for contact and dialogue in any form and at any level agreeable to the other side. We welcomed the Secretary-General of the United Nations on his visit to Member States in the Middle East, and appreciated his testimony to the will for peace that, in his words, he found in his contacts with the Government of Israel.
70.	That is not an exhaustive list of all the soundings and gestures that we have made in an effort to generate a process of negotiation. Nor have we decided to despair of the
prospect. But can anyone seriously believe that all these initiatives, all these responses — none of which was put in ultimative form — offered no opening whatever through which Arab Governments genuinely desiring peace could seek or accept a dialogue with us?
71. The Arab reactions to these and other initiatives have always included refusals to negotiate; or refusals to acknowledge Israel's statehood at all; or an insistence that Arab positions be accepted in advance by Israel as a condition of negotiation; or a demand that the situation which preceded and in large measure provoked the war of 1967 be meticulously restored.
72.	Now, there is one important thing to be noted about those positions. If all or any of them had been adopted by Governments in America, Europe and East Asia in the past few years, there would be no agreements for the General Assembly to welcome and no detente for anybody anywhere lo celebrate.
73.	I turn from the past to the future. It is natural for the Israeli Government to use this opportunity of making a precise definition of the principles which move its policy. That policy is frequently and grossly misrepresented, especially at conferences from which we are excluded while our adversaries command the scene. Our policy is to seek peace and security. If the Israeli mind is intensely preoccupied with the problem of security, it is because of the particular memories that converge upon us. On one level of recollection we come face to face with a recent experience that no other family of the human race has ever undergone. The fires are out in the gas chambers, and the ashes are silent in European fields. But the memory of our 6 million kinsmen, brutally wiped off the slate of life, and the terrible agony of the million Jewish children butchered in the year of martyrdom abide with us, vivid, stark, unforgotten. And on the other level of memory there is the experience of 25 years in which our nation's progress has been secured only at a heavy price of suffering and death,
74.	A people that has undergone such affliction and borne such loss is bound by historic duty lo insist on a very precise craftsmanship in the construction of peace. It will not do simply to reproduce the vulnerable and explosive situation which threatened world peace six years ago. Israel's statehood, its Jewish vocation, its name and flag and tongue are a part of the international reality now and for all time. They are axiomatic, and it is our business to maintain them in growing security.
75.	We are asked whether we seek peace. The answer is, Yes, that is our central aim, the destination of all our policies and hopes. Peace does not only involve a documentary acknowledgement of rights. It signifies the permanent end of conflict, and the proof of its authenticity must be sought in human terms. Peace means open frontiers across which peoples can seek commerce and contact with each other in mutual accessibility and thus give depth and meaning to formal governmental engagements.
76.	Should we not look hard and long at the European example? The aim should be a community of sovereign States in the Middle East, as in Benelux and the European communities. With our eastern neighbour, once the boundary is determined, we should seek a system of relations based on separate sovereignties but with a high measure of social and economic integration. The remarkable ease and cordiality of access between Israelis and the mass of Palestinian Arabs today should be preserved and consolidated in a peace settlement. The squalid conspiracies of Arafat and Habash, with their grenades, daggers, bombs and guns, do not represent the views or interests of the million non-Israeli Arabs west of the Jordan living in peaceful interaction with Israelis today. That is why terrorist violence has no expression there.
77.	We are asked if we accept negotiation. The answer is, Yes, by any procedure mutually agreed upon. The negotiation is between the sovereign States of the area. We must be concerned to insulate our region from the rivalries and competitions of the Powers. The Middle East, after generations of servitude, is now free. It should not seek new. hegemonies and new servitudes at the expense of its newly won independence.
78.	What about Security Council resolution 242 (1967)? The answer is, Yes, we accept it as the basis for negotiation with Egypt and Jordan, and our memorandum of 4 August 1970 remains in force. It is vital to understand what the resolution says and what it does not say. The resolution rules out withdrawal except in the context of a "just and lasting peace". It does not require any unconditional Israeli action without balancing actions on the Arab side. And it specifically makes provision for the establishment of secure and recognized boundaries by agreement between Member States. When Arab Governments persuade international conferences to say that resolution 242(1967) requires immediate and unconditional withdrawal from all the territories, they commit a triple forgery within a single sentence and put our documentary consensus in jeopardy. But as it stands and as it is written it is a documentary basis for negotiation,
79.	Do we accept the principle of withdrawal? Yes. In the context of a permanent peace Israeli forces would withdraw to the positions and boundaries determined mutually by the peace agreements. Our policy is not unilateral annexation but the negotiation of agreements on the final boundary. That position is in full accord with the intentions of those who drafted and sponsored Security Council resolution 242 (1967). One of them, Assistant Secretary Sisco, said publicly in 1970:
"That resolution did not say withdrawal to the pre-June 5 line, The resolution said the parties must negotiate to achieve agreement on the so-called final, secure and recognized borders. In other words the question of the final borders is a matter of negotiation between the parties."
80.	We are asked about the Palestinian Arabs. If the idea is Palestine instead of Israel, our answer, of course, is, No. There is nothing "instead" of Israel either in universal history or in modern political reality. The question whether the Arabs have 18 or 19 States does not stand on an equal plane with Israel's solitary domain of nationhood and existence. But if the issue is Palestine side by side with Israel, the answer is that in peace negotiations with Jordan Israel's permanent boundary would be determined. It is not our governmental consensus to seek such boundary changes as would bring all or most of the Arabs of the West Bank and
their populated territories under Israeli sovereignty or citizenship. The majority of Jordan's population are Palestinians, and most of the Palestinians are Jordanian citizens. Thus an Israel-Jordan peace settlement would enable most of the Palestine Arabs east and west of the Jordan to affirm their identity and citizenship within an Arab framework. It is for Arabs and not Israelis to determine the precise constitutional structure of our eastern neighbour. In a peace settlement the area of the former Palestine Mandate on both sides of the Jordan between the desert and the sea would have two States — Israel and an Arab State which would be a Palestinian Arab State in its composition whatever its name or constitutional structure. It would be normal for Palestinian Arabs to be included in the Jordanian delegation that would negotiate peace with Israel.
81.	The principles I have outlined today would, of course, have to be submitted to negotiation with the other side. Here I seek only to emphasize that our positions are legitimate, normal and conducive to a wide range of peaceful solutions. Indeed, they are identical with the principles adopted by many States which have been praised here for their contribution to the new detente. It is possible to agree with those positions or to differ from them. But we see a moral and intellectual affront in any tendency to portray them as eccentric, as immoderate and, more grotesquely, as intransigent, when they are quite clearly nothing of the kind.
82.	Least of all is there any justification for making them the basis for abusive or punitive formulations in obedience to the pressures of Arab States which decline negotiation, refuse peace, encourage international terrorism and seek to impose their own hostilities on other States in a manner prejudicial to the sovereignty and dignity of newly emerging nations.
83.	Whatever has divided them in the past, the Israeli and Arab nations cannot escape their common destiny. History and geography ensure their proximity. Experience teaches us that there are no irreconcilable conflicts. If the Arab Governments will take example and inspiration from the prevailing spirit of detente, they will find in Israel a willing partner for regional development and co-operation. There would be more benefit and, above all, more honour and dignity for them and for us in the exploration of a peaceful future than in the pursuit of an ineffective and sterile rancour, which has achieved and will achieve none of its objectives but which degrades our region's name and obstructs its better visions.
84.	We shall respond affirmatively to any efforts, such as those indicated by the United States, to assist in the search for just solutions and to generate a spirit of accommodation.
85.	Israel's relations with the European community will enter a new phase with the conclusion this year of an agreement constituting a free trade area within the Mediterranean context. If the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe succeeds in its task, the Mediterranean and Middle East will benefit from the resultant growth of continental harmony. We welcome the decision of the Conference to invite Israel to present its views on matters inscribed on the Conference agenda,
86.	A central theme of the dialogue on detente in Europe, in the European Security Conference and elsewhere is liberty of movement and freedom of intellectual expression. Unless some success is registered here, there will be scepticism about the authenticity and depth of the change in the international climate. Our concern for detente should not lead us to ignore the desperate bid for freedom by men such as Solzhenitsyn, Sakharov, Levich and other scientists and thinkers who fall under governmental harassment and oppression.
87.	The saga of Soviet Jewry belongs to this theme,
88.	During his visit to the United States this summer, the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Union of Soviet Socialists Republics, Mr. Leonid Brezhnev, made a number of declarations implying that there are almost no rejections of requests by Soviet Jews to be permitted to leave for Israel. To our regret, we cannot confirm such statements at a time when so many Jews in the Soviet Union are held against their will and call out to us daily in despair. They face powerful authorities in a struggle to exercise the right, granted fortunately to many thousands of others, to join their people and their families in Israel. Applicants for emigration have in some instances been dismissed from work and left without any means of livelihood. Media of information have incited against them. Administrative molestation has made their life unbearable. Dozens of Jews, amongst them a young woman, have been condemned to long years of suffering behind barbed wire. The penalties inflicted on these people are especially surprising in view of the fact that the right to leave for Israel has been recognized in principle and that other Jews have exercised it. It is difficult to understand or condone a policy granting exit permits to some Jews while at the same time creating cruel obstacles for many others.
89.	Nor can we pass in silence over the anti-Jewish incitement conducted openly or under the cover of propaganda directed against religion or against Zionism. This campaign is still carried on through governmental media of information and by means of propaganda publications and pseudo-scientific literature. In this manner anti-Semitic ideas are disseminated and injected into the masses of the Soviet Union's population.
90.	On 26 March this year a tribunal in the French capital determined that information material distributed by the Soviet Embassy contained slanders on the Jewish faith and incitement to racial discrimination, and found those responsible guilty. But the Soviet authorities have not applied the Soviet law against the disseminators of anti-Semitic propaganda,
91.	At the same time, the Jews of Syria and the remnant still left in Iraq are living in constant torment. Israel again appeals to world opinion which has already alleviated the plight of these helpless small minorities whose only salvation lies in emigration and the pursuit of a new life.
92.	This season of the year was darkened for us in 1972 by the fearful affliction and murder of our sportsmen who went to Munich in the shelter of the Olympic flag. This year the horizon is clouded again. The kidnapping of Jewish refugees by terrorists in Austria is a reproach to international institutions whose sterile discussion of International terrorism must have given more encouragement to terrorists than they would have derived even from the absence of discussion. The decision to close the camp at Schoenau defied our belief. I recall an unforgettable day there a few months ago. In a world convulsed by nihilism and violence, it was moving to see this oasis of humane values, dedicated to the impulses of compassion and solidarity which have so often become submerged in the torrent of twentieth-century life. The very name Schoenau was recited with pride by every Austrian whom I was privileged to encounter. Those who have passed through its gates have known great suffering and torment in the tempests which have shaken Europe in this generation. To abandon such an enterprise in deference to a pair of brutal gangsters has a terrifying meaning, It raises the question where the final human victory belongs. Can law and civility triumph if they are not strongly defended? Can a decent and rational public order take root in the world if indulgence beyond their own expectation is shown to those who put a pistol to the head of unarmed wayfarers? What will be the effect of the constant suspension of European legal systems in favour of early release and impunity for those who come to kill and maim and leave their trail of innocent blood behind?
93.	The issue is not only how the safe transit of Jews from the Soviet Union to Israel will be arranged, once the emigration has been authorized and the immigration approved. This is an acutely grave question, but it arises in an even graver context. What is the future of a world in which two pirates and criminals can bring a, proud nation, can bring sovereign governments to the acceptance of their terms? What are the implications of transactions and engagements between civilized governments and violent extortionists? Who is going to rule our world, governments or gunmen?
94.	The Council of Europe in its resolution entitled "Report on the responsibility of the Member States of the Council of Europe regarding the free movement of people in Europe", adopted on 1 October 1973, rightly expressed the hope that no government will regard itself as bound by a promise secured by extortion to terminate facilities for the transit of emigrants from the Soviet Union. All these human predicaments emerge from the developments in Vienna this week. When the civilized world stands with bowed head, along comes President El-Sadat to celebrate joyfully the triumph of the young gunmen over a few aging, weary Jews and over the sovereignty and law of an enlightened European State.
95.	Once it was an international offence to aid pirates. They were defined as humani generis hostis, enemies of the human race. Are we approaching a time when it will be an offence to resist them?
96.	Chancellor Brandt called from this platform for an effective convention against terrorism. But experience shows that if in this matter we aim at universality we shall not have the necessary parliamentary success. There is — let us face it — no effective anti-terrorist majority in the United Nations. That is an ominous truth, but nothing is gained by ignoring it.
97.	I ask myself therefore whether it would be more effective to follow the general traditions of international law by
convening like-minded interested States to discuss and formulate a convention against terrorism. The law of the seas and other instruments of international law and international co-operation evolved from the common action of a few States to which others came to adhere. Most of the historic international conventions were constructed in this way. Formulated by the few, they became the consensus of the many. The 43 States whose votes indicated their dissatisfaction with the results of last year's debate on terrorism might well consider meeting for common action, which would in the first place engage themselves and later attract a gradual but broad consensus.
98.	For it becomes more evident each day that the United Nations, frustrated in its activity in regional disputes, should concentrate more of its efforts on matters of planetary concern which require a unitary framework. Mankind has a long past and an uncertain future. Revolutions in science, in technology, in the use of energy, in industrial productivity, in demographic growth have moved forward at a rhythm too quick for the mind to absorb. Man is not at ease with his environment. The intellectual and spiritual consequences are deep. Our culture is dominated by a sense of fragmentation and instability. It expresses the special pathos of the twentieth century condition — the confidence of power and yet the sharp premonition of vulnerability both living within us, together, side by side.
99.	The United Nations may recapture some of its lost prestige and resonance if it gives first priority to those issues which have a planetary dimension. The law of the air and of the seas, the defence of air and water against pollution, the stimulation of economic growth in developing countries, the conservation of resources, the fight against famine, the establishment of a reserve of cereals in years of abundance for use in years of scarcity (following may I say, the thrifty example of our Israeli ancestor Joseph in ancient Egypt), the response to the call of hunger south of the Sahara, the response to the important initiative of President Echeverria of Mexico calling for a charter of economic rights and duties of States — those are some problems which can only be discussed and solved on a global scale. Too much of the time of the United Nations may have been spent on the regional disputes in which individual Governments have the last say — for the simple reason that they have the ultimate responsibility. In the meantime, problems have collected which because they belong equally to all nations, end up by belonging to none. Each of our national societies has its custodians and spokesmen. The question is who except the United Nations can speak for the City of Man? Who speaks in responsible tutelage of the atmosphere, the soil, the oceans, the unique life-supporting Earth?
100.	Perhaps mankind's dilemma is the United Nations opportunity. Let us, therefore, tread this ground firmly but with precision for this is the only planet that we have.