Very esteemed Mr. President;

Distinguished Representatives of the world community:

I have not come to speak about Cuba. I do not come into the heart of this Assembly to air a denunciation about the aggressions our small but dignified country has suffered for 20 years. Nor do I come with unnecessary adjectives to wound our powerful neighbors here in their own house.

We bring the mandate of the Sixth Conference of the Heads of State or Government of the Non-Aligned Movement, to present to the United Nations the outcome of their deliberations and the positions derived from them.

We are 95 countries, from every continent, and we represent the immense majority of humankind. We are united by the determination to defend collaboration among our countries, free national and social development, sovereignty, security, equality and free determination. We are associated in the endeavor to change the current system of international relations which are based on injustice, inequality and oppression. We act in international politics as an independent global factor.

Having met in Havana, the Movement has just reaffirmed its principles and confirmed its objectives.

We the Non-Aligned Movement countries insist that it is necessary to eliminate the abysmal inequality that separates the developed countries from the developing countries. We are fighting for that in order to abolish the poverty, hunger, disease and illiteracy that still plague hundreds of millions of human beings. We strive for a new world order, based on justice, equity and peace, that replaces the unjust and unequal system reigning today, in which, as proclaimed in the Declaration of Havana, “wealth continues to be concentrated in the hands of a few powers whose economies, founded on pillaging, are maintained thanks to the exploitation of the workers and the transfer and pillage of natural and other resources of the peoples of Africa, Latin America, Asia and other regions throughout the world”.

Among the problems we have to discuss during this session of the General Assembly, peace stands in the forefront of our concerns. The search for peace is also an aspiration for the Non-Aligned Movement and it has been the object of its attention at the Sixth Conference. But peace for our countries is indivisible. We want a peace which benefits to an equal degree the great and the small, the powerful and the weak, which covers all spheres in the world and reaches all of its citizens.

From its very inception, the Non-Aligned Movement considered that the principles of peaceful coexistence must form the cornerstone of international relations; they constitute the basis for strengthening international peace and security, the reduction of strain and the extension of that process to all the regions of the world and to all aspects of relations, and they must be applied universally in the relations amongst States. But at the same time, the Sixth Summit considered that those principles of peaceful coexistence also include the right of peoples under foreign and colonial domination to independence, sovereignty, the territorial integrity of States, the right of every country to put an end to foreign occupation and to the acquisition of territories by force, and to choose their own social, political and economic systems.

Only in such a manner would peaceful coexistence be able to become the basis for all international relations.

It cannot be denied. When the structure of the contemporary world is analyzed, we can see that those rights of our peoples are still not being guaranteed. We, the non-aligned countries know very well who our historical enemies are, where the threats are coming from, and how we should fight them. For that reason, in Havana we have agreed to reaffirm that:

"The quintessence of non-aligned politics, in accordance with its original principles and fundamental nature, allies the struggle against imperialism, colonialism, neocolonialism, apartheid, racism including Zionism and any form of aggression, occupation, domination, interference or foreign hegemony, as well as the struggle against the policies of great powers or blocs”.

We also understand that the Declaration of Havana associated the struggle for peace with “the political, moral and material support for movements of national liberation and the realization of joint actions to abolish colonial domination and racial discrimination”.

We, the Non-Aligned Movement countries, have always granted great importance to the possibility of and the necessity to ease tension among the great powers. Thus the Sixth Conference would indicate, with great concern, the fact that after the Colombo Summit a degree of stagnation was produced in the process of this easing of tensions, which has also been limited “both in its scope and in geographical terms”.

On the basis of this concern, the Non-Aligned Movement countries who have made disarmament and de-nuclearization one of the permanent and most outstanding objectives of their struggle and who had the initiative for the calling of the Tenth Extraordinary Session of the General Assembly on Disarmament, examined the results of the negotiations on strategic arms in their conference, along with the SALT-II agreements. They believe that those agreements constitute an important step in the negotiations between the two principal nuclear powers and that they could prepare the way for the broader negotiations that lead to general disarmament and to decreased tensions. But for NAM these treaties are nothing more than one part of the move forward towards peace. Even though the negotiations between the great powers constitute a decisive element in the process, the non-aligned countries reiterated once again that the endeavor to consolidate the easing of tensions, by extending it to all parts of the world and by preventing the nuclear threat, the accumulation of armaments and, finally, war, is a task in which all peoples should participate and exercise their responsibility.

Mr. President:

Basing ourselves on the conception of the universality of peace, and the necessity of associating the search for peace, extended towards every country, with the struggle for national independence, full sovereignty and equality among States, we, the Heads of State or Government who met at the Sixth Conference of Havana, are devoting our attention to the most pressing problems in Africa, Asia, Latin America and other regions. It is important to underline that we are coming from an independent position, one that is not connected to the policies that could derive from the contradictions between great powers. If despite this objective and apolitically committed approach, the review of international occurrences turns into an anathema against those who support imperialism and colonialism, that does nothing more than reflect the essential reality of the contemporary world.

Thus, upon beginning their analysis of the situation in Africa and after viewing the recorded advances in the struggle of African peoples for their emancipation, the Heads of State or Government emphasized, as the region’s fundamental problem, the need to rid the continent of colonialism, racism, racial discrimination and apartheid, especially in southern Africa.

It was indispensible to stress that the colonial and imperial powers were continuing in their aggressive policies for the purpose of perpetrating, recovering or broadening their domination and exploitation over the African nations.

This and nothing else marks the dramatic situation of Africa. The Non-Aligned Movement can do nothing but condemn the attacks on Mozambique, Zambia, Angola, Botswana, the threats to Lesotho, the permanent destabilization attempts in that region, the role played by the racist regimes of Rhodesia and South Africa. The need to urgently achieve the full liberation of Zimbabwe and Namibia is not only a cause for NAM or the more progressive forces in our era, these days it constitutes international community agreements through the United Nations, and it involves unavoidable duties the violation of which also presupposes the need for international denunciation. Therefore, when the Heads of State or Government approved in the Final Declaration to condemn by name a group of western countries, in the first place the United States, for their direct and indirect collaboration in the maintaining of the racist oppression and criminal policies of South Africa and, when on the other hand they recognized the role played by NAM countries, the United Nations, the African Unity Organization, the socialist countries and the Scandinavian countries and other democratic and progressive forces in support of the peoples of Africa, in all of this there is minimal manifestation of ideological inclination; it is simply the true expression of objective reality. To condemn South Africa without mentioning those that made its criminal policy possible would have been incomprehensible.

Out of the Sixth Summit, with more force and urgency than ever before, arises the necessity to put an end to a situation which involves not only the rights of the peoples of Zimbabwe and Namibia to their independence and the unpostponable requirement for black South African men and women to attain the status that considers them to be equal and respected human beings, and which also assures the conditions of respect and peace for all the region’s countries.

The continuing support for national liberation movements, the Patriotic Front and SWAPO, was a decision that was as unanimous as it was predictable. And let us make it perfectly clear: this is not a matter of expressing the unilateral preference for solutions through armed conflict. It is true that the Conference entrusted the people of Namibia and SWAPO, its authentic and only representative, with having intensified armed struggle and moving forward with it, and it asked for total and efficacious support for that form of combat. But that is due to the racist South Africans having closed off any road for true negotiations and for attempts at negotiated solutions which went no further than mere stratagems.

The attitude in the face of Commonwealth decisions in their meetings in Lusaka last August, oriented towards calling for a conference by the British Government as the authority in Southern Rhodesia to discuss the problems of Zimbabwe, served to confirm that the non-aligned countries are not opposed to solutions that may be achieved without armed struggle, provided that they are able to arise from a true government of the majority and in these independence is attained in a form which satisfies the combatant peoples, and that this is done according to the resolutions of agencies such as the AUO, the United Nations and our Non-Aligned Movement.

Mr. President:

The Sixth Conference once again had to lament that Resolution 1514 of the UN General Assembly on the granting of independence to colonial countries and peoples had not been applied to the Western Sahara. We must remember that the decisions of NAM and UN Resolutions such as No. 331 of the General Assembly in particular, have reaffirmed the inalienable right of the people of the Western Sahara to free determination and to independence In this problem Cuba feels a special responsibility because it had been member of the United Nations Commission that carried out the research on the Western Sahara; this permitted our representatives to verify the total decision of the Saharawi people for self-determination and independence. We reiterate here that the NAM position is not a position of antagonism towards any country. In the salute to the agreement reached between the Republic of Mauritania and the POLISARIO Front, and to the Mauritanian decision to withdraw their forces from the territory of the Western Sahara, and in the fact of deploring the extension of the armed Moroccan occupation in the southern sector of Western Sahara previously administered by Mauritania, this should be seen as the application of our principles and of the UN agreements. Therefore, the Conference expressed its hope that the ad hoc AUO Committee would permit assuring the peoples of the Sahara that they would exercise their right to free determination and independence within the shortest time possible.

The same principle and the same position determined the agreements on Mayotte and the islands of the Malgache Archipelago and their necessary reintegration, respectively, to the Comoros and to Madagascar.

Mr. President:

There is no doubt that the problem of the Middle East has become one of the most worrying in contemporary times. The Sixth Summit examined this problem in its dual dimension.

On the one hand, the Conference reaffirmed that the determination of Israel to continue its policy of aggression, expansionism and colonial settlement of the occupied territories, with the backing of the United States, constitutes a serious threat to world peace and security.

At the same time, the Conference examined the problem from the angle of the rights of the Arab countries and of the issue of Palestine.

For NAM, the issue of Palestine lies at the core of the Middle Eastern problem. Both make up a comprehensive whole and cannot be solved separately.

The basis of just peace in the region commences with the total and unconditional withdrawal of Israel from all occupied Arab territories and it presupposes, for the Palestinian people, the return of all their occupied territories and the recovery of their inalienable national rights, including the right of returning to their homeland, to free determination and the establishing of an independent State in Palestine, in accordance with Resolution 3236 of the General Assembly. That implies the illegality and nullity of measures adopted by Israel in the occupied Palestinian and Arab territories, as well as their establishing colonies or settlements on Palestinian land and on the lands of other Arab territories, the immediate dismantling of which is a requirement for the solution to the problem.

As I stated in my speech at the Sixth Summit: “…we are not fanatics. The revolutionary movement has been brought up in the hatred of racial discrimination and pogroms of any kind, and from the depths of our souls, we repudiate with all our strength the ruthless persecution and genocide which, in its time, Nazism unleashed against the Jewish people. But I can find nothing more similar to that in our contemporary history than the eviction, persecution and genocide that is being carried out today against the Palestinian people by imperialism and Zionism. Stripped of their lands, driven out of their own homeland, dispersed throughout the world, they are an impressive example of abnegation and heroism, and they are the living symbol of the greatest crime of our times.” (APPLAUSE)

Can anyone be surprised then that the Conference should be obliged, for reasons not arising from any political prejudice but from the objective analysis of the facts, to point out that United States policy plays a fundamental part in preventing the establishment of just and complete peace in the region, by allying itself with and backing Israel and by working to obtain partial solutions favoring Zionist aims and ensuring the fruits of Israeli aggression at the cost of the Arab peoples of Palestine and of the entire Arab nation?

The facts, and only the facts, led the Conference to condemn US policies and maneuvers in the region.

When the Heads of State or Government came to consensus in the condemnation of the Camp David Agreements and the Egyptian-Israeli Treaty of March 1979, behind these formulations were long hours of careful examination and useful exchanges that allowed the Conference to consider those treaties, not just as the total abandonment of the Arab countries’ cause but as an act of complicity with the continued occupation of Arab territories. The description is harsh, but it is truthful and fair. It is not the people of Egypt which were submitted to the opinion of the Movement’s agencies. The Egyptian people have the respect of each of our countries and the solidary of all our peoples. The same voices that were heard denouncing the Camp David Agreements and the Egyptian-Israeli Treaty praised Gamal Abdel Nasser, founder of the Movement and carrier of the combative traditions of the Arab nation. Nobody can claim not knowing about the historical role played by Egypt in Arab culture and development, or about the country’s merits as founder and promoter of non-aligned countries.

The problems of Southeast Asia also occupied us at the Conference. The growing conflicts and tensions that have been taking place there are a threat to peace and this needs to be avoided.

Similar concerns were expressed at the Sixth Summit on the situation in the Indian Ocean. The declaration of this area as a zone of peace, approved eight years ago by the UN General Assembly, has not achieved its objectives. Military presence is not being reduced in that zone, it is being increased. Military bases are now stretching over to South Africa and they additionally serve to be vigilant on African liberation movements. Talks between the United States and the Soviet Union are still suspended, in spite of recent agreements between the two countries to discuss taking them up again. As a result of all this, the Sixth Summit proffered an invitation to all interested States to work effectively for the objectives of the declaration of the Indian Ocean as zone of peace.

The Sixth Summit analyzed other problems of regional and world interest, such as those affecting security and cooperation in Europe; the problem in the Mediterranean where tension persists, is now increased as a result of Israel’s political aggression and the backing given them by certain imperialist powers.

We took time to study the situation in Cyprus, still partially occupied by foreign troops, and Korea which is still divided in spite of the wishes of the Korean people to peacefully reunite their homeland, something that led NAM to reaffirm and broaden resolutions in solidarity, directed towards the realization of the aspirations of both peoples.

It would be impossible to refer to all the political decisions of the Sixth Summit. To carry that out would prevent us from dealing with what we consider to be one of the most fundamental aspects of our Sixth Summit: its economic projection, the clamor of developing peoples who are tired of their backwardness and of the ills leading to that backwardness. Cuba as the host nation will deliver the Final Declaration to all the member countries of the international community along with the additional resolutions of the Conference. But before communicating to you how the non-aligned countries view the world economic situation, and what their demands and hopes are, I am permitted to take up some more minutes to inform you of the Final Declaration’s approach in regards to the Latin American issues of the moment.

The fact that the Sixth Summit took place in a Latin American country gave the Heads of State or Government meeting there the opportunity to remember that the people of that region commenced their efforts for independence at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Nor have they forgotten that, as the Declaration states: “Latin America was one of the regions in the world that had historically suffered most by the aggression of imperialism, colonialism and neocolonialism of the United States and Europe ". It was necessary to stress to the Conference participants that the remnants of colonialism, neocolonialism and national oppression are still in place in that land of struggles. Therefore the Conference issued pronouncements in favor of the eradication of colonialism in all its forms and manifestations, it condemned the existence of military bases in Latin America and the Caribbean, such as those in Cuba and Puerto Rico, and once again it demanded that the parts of their territories occupied by those bases against the will of their peoples should be returned to them by the Government of the United States and the other colonial powers.

Experiences in other areas led the Heads of State or Government to reject and condemn the attempt to create a so-called “Security Force” in the Caribbean, a neocolonial mechanism incompatible with the sovereignty, peace and security of the countries.

Upon asking that the Falkland Islands be returned to the Republic of Argentina, upon reiterating its support for the inalienable right of the people of Belize to their free determination, independence and territorial integrity, the Conference corroborated once again what its Declaration defined as the quintessence of being non-aligned. Pleased, it confirmed the fact that as of the first of October the treaties on the Panama Canal, signed between the Republic of Panama and the United States, gave full backing to those treaties, demanding that they would be respected in their wording and in their spirit, and it called on all the States in the world to adhere to the treaty protocol concerning the permanent neutrality of the Panama Canal.

Despite the pressures, the threats and the praise given, and the stubbornness of the US government in insisting that the problems of Puerto Rico should be considered domestic American problems, the Heads of State or Government reiterated their solidarity with the struggle of the people of Puerto Rico and with their inalienable right to the free determination of independence and territorial integrity and they urged the Government of the United States of America to abstain from all political or repressive maneuvers tending to perpetuate the colonial situation of that country. (APPLAUSE)

There is no more honorable homage than this to the liberating traditions of Latin America and to the heroic Puerto Rican people who in these days are celebrating the “Grito de Lares” which almost 100 years ago expressed their indomitable call for liberty.

In referring to the Latin American reality, the Heads of State or Government, who had already analyzed the significance of the liberating process occurring in Iran, could not abstain from referring to the revolutionary overturning of Grenada and the extraordinary victory of the people of Nicaragua and its vanguard, the Sandinista National Liberation Front (APPLAUSE), and to emphasize the enormous historical significance this event has for the peoples of Latin America and the world. The Heads of State or Governments also underlined something that is becoming a new occurrence in Latin American relations and which serves as an example for other regions in the world: the way that the governments of Panama, Costa Rica and Mexico work together in solidarity, as do the countries of the sub-regional Andean Pact (Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela) to attain the just solution for the Nicaraguan problem, as well as the solidarity Cuba has been historically providing for the cause of that people.

I must confess that those approaches on Latin America would have been enough for the Cuban people to justify all the efforts and hard work done by hundreds of thousands of men and women from our country in their endeavor to make it possible for Cuba to welcome with dignity all the brother and sister countries of the Non-Aligned Movement at the Havana Summit. But there was much more for Cuba. There is something which we would like to thank you for right here, on the podium of the United Nations, on behalf of our people. In Havana the Cuban people received support for their right to choose the political and social system upon which they have decided, in their claim for the territory occupied by the Guantánamo Base and in the condemnation of the blockade that the US Government still would like to use to isolate us and with which it hopes to destroy the Cuban Revolution. (APPLAUSE)

We appreciate in its profound sense and universal resonance the denunciation which the Movement has just made in Havana against the acts of hostility, pressures and threats of the United States against Cuba, describing them as a flagrant violation of the UN Charter and of the principles of international law, as well as a threat to world peace. Once again we respond to our brothers and sisters and we assure the world community that Cuba shall continue being faithful to the principles of international solidarity.

Mr. President:

History has taught us that access to independence of a people who have freed themselves from the colonial or neocolonial system is the final act of a long struggle and at the same time the first act of a new and difficult battle. Because the independence, sovereignty and liberty of our peoples, apparently free, are under continuous threats by the external control of their natural resources, by the financial impositions of official international agencies and by the precariousness of their economies depleted of sovereign plenitude.

Therefore, at the very beginning of their analysis of world economic problems, on the one hand the Heads of State or Government:

"Once again solemnly underlined the supreme importance of consolidating political independence via economic emancipation…and they reiterated that the existing international economic system went against the basic interests of developing countries, that it was profoundly unfair and incompatible with the development of non-aligned countries and other developing countries and did not contribute to the elimination of the economic and social ills afflicting those countries…”

And on the other hand, they emphasized:

"The historic mission that the Non-Aligned Movement should be undertaking the struggle for achieving the economic and political independence of all developing countries and their peoples; to exercise full and permanent sovereignty and control over their natural resources and of every kind over their economic activities; and to promote deep-rooted restructuring by the establishment of the New Economic Order ".

To conclude with these words:

"The struggle to eliminate the injustice of the existing international economic system and to establish the New International Economic Order is an integral part of the struggle of the people for political, economic, cultural and social liberation ".

It isn’t necessary to demonstrate here up to what point the existing international economic system is profoundly unfair and incompatible with the development of underdeveloped countries. The figures have already been so highly publicized that we don’t have to do that. It is being discussed whether the number of malnourished persons on our planet is only 400 million or whether it has gone up again to 450 million, depending on the information in certain international documents. Four hundred million starving men and women is already a terribly accusatory number.

What nobody questions is that all the hopes that were unfurled before developing countries appear failed and cancelled at the end of this second decade of development.

It has been acknowledged by the Director General of the FAO Council that "progress continues being deceptively slow when compared to the long term development objectives agreed in the International Development Strategy, in the Declaration and Action Plan on the Establishment of the New International Economic Order and in the Resolution of the World Food Conference and at several subsequent conferences ". In these last 10 years, the modest average annual increase of 4% that was proposed to resolve some of the most urgent problems of world hunger and to bring us closer to still reduced levels of consumption is far from having been achieved in agricultural and food production in the developing countries. As a result of this, according to FAO developing country imports of foods which now constitute an aggravating element on their balances of owed payments, will very soon reach such proportions that they will become unmanageable. Faced with this, the official commitments of foreign aid for the agriculture of developing countries are decreased.

This panorama cannot be made to look any better. Sometimes certain official documents show circumstantial increases in the agricultural production in certain areas of the underdeveloped world, or they emphasize temporary increases in the prices of some agricultural articles. But these are a matter of transitory advances and ephemeral advantages. Revenues for the agricultural exports of developing countries continue being unstable and insufficient when compared to their needs for importing food, fertilizers and other consumables in order to increase their own production. The production of food per inhabitant in Africa during 1977 was 11% less than it was 10 years ago.

Backwardness is constant in agriculture and the industrialization process isn’t moving forward either. And it cannot move forward because for most of developed countries the industrialization of developing countries is seen as a threat.

In 1975 in Lima, the World Conference for Industrialization proposed that we, the developing countries, have the goal of reaching the year 2000 contributing 25% of all manufactured products in the world. But progress since Lima, right up to today, has been insignificant, since if we don’t accept the measures proposed by the Sixth Summit Conference and we don’t put into practice an urgent program for rectifying the economic policies of most developed countries, that goal will also remain unfulfilled. We are barely at the point of producing 9% of all manufactured products in the world.

Our dependence is once again expressed in the fact that we, the countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America, import 26% of the manufactured products entering into international commerce and we only export 6.3 %.

One would say that there is a certain process of industrial expansion, but it isn’t happening at the pace needed or in the key industries of the industrial economy. The Havana Conference indicated that. World distribution of industry, the so-called industrial re-deployment, cannot consist of a new confirmation of the profound economic inequalities which originated in the colonial era of the nineteenth century. At that time we were condemned to be the producers of raw materials and cheap agricultural products. Nowadays they want to use the abundant labor force and the extremely low salaries of the developing countries in order to transfer the industries involving lesser technology to them, the industries with the lowest productivity rates and the ones polluting the air the most. This is something we categorically reject.

The market economy developed countries today are absorbing over 85% of the world’s manufactured products, including industrial production using the highest technology. They also control over 83% of industrial exports: 26% of these exports are going to the developing countries whose markets they monopolize. The most serious aspect of that dependent structure is that the things we import, in other words not just the capital assets but also consumer articles, are being produced according to the demands, needs and technologies of the countries having the greatest industrial development, and the patterns of consumer society which, in this manner, are brought in through the cracks in our trade, infect our own societies and thereby a new element is added to the already permanent structural crisis.

A result of all this, as the Heads of State or Government in Havana stated, is that the existing breach between the developed and the developing countries not only survives but has substantially increased. The relative participation of developing countries in world production decreased considerably during the last two decades, and this has even more disastrous consequences on the phenomena of malnutrition, illiteracy and unhealthy conditions.

There were some who wanted to resolve the tragic problem of humanity with drastic measures to reduce population. They remember that wars and epidemics helped reduce populations in other eras. They want even more: they want to attribute underdevelopment to the demographic explosion.

But the demographic explosion is not the cause; it is the consequence of underdevelopment. Development shall act at the same time as it brings solutions for poverty and contributes, through education and culture, to our countries achieving rational and proper growth rates.

In a recent report, the World Bank points to an even more serious prospect. It is said that it is possible that when we arrive at the year 2000, we will have 600 million inhabitants continuing to live on the Earth in absolute poverty.

Mr. President, Representatives:

The situation of backward agriculture and industry, a situation which developing countries haven’t been able to escape, is without a doubt the result of unfair and unequal international relations, as the Sixth Summit points out. But now, as the Declaration of Havana also points out, we have to add the prolonged international economic crisis.

I won’t be dwelling on this aspect very much. We will specify now that we, the heads of State or Government, have considered that the crisis of the international economic system is not temporary but it constitutes a symptom of structural maladjustments and an imbalance that are a part of its very nature; that imbalance has been aggravated by the refusal of developed market economy countries to curb their external imbalances and their high inflation and unemployment levels; that inflation has precisely happened in those developed countries which are now resistant to applying the only measures that could eliminate it. Furthermore, because it is something to which we must refer later and which was also recorded in the Havana Declaration, we point out that this crisis is also the result of the persistent lack of equity in international economic relations; therefore if this imbalance is resolved, as we propose, it would contribute to easing that crisis and move it further away.

What are the principal determinations that the representatives of the Non-Aligned Movement had to formulate in Havana?

In Havana we condemned the persistent rerouting of human and material resources towards the non-productive and wasteful arms race so dangerous for humankind (APPLAUSE). And we demanded that a considerable part of the resources now being used for weapons, particularly by the principal powers, be directed towards economic and social development.

We have expressed our serious concerns about the insignificant progress in negotiations directed to the application of the Declaration and Action Plan on the establishment of the New International Economic Order. We point to the fact that this is due to the lack of the political will of most developed countries, and we expressly censure the dilatory, diversionist and divisive tactics adopted by those countries. The failure of the Fifth Session of UNCTAD served to demonstrate that situation.

We confirmed that the unequal exchanges in international economic relations, enunciated as an essential characteristic of the system, have become even more unequal, if that is even possible. While prices for manufactured goods, capital assets, food products and the services we import from developed countries are continuously increasing, in exchange they come to a standstill and are submitted to the never-ending fluctuations of prices of the primary products which we export. The relationship of exchange has worsened. We put special emphasis on the fact that protectionism, which was one of the elements aggravating the Great Depression of the 1930s, has again been inserted into a number of developed nations. The conference expressed regret that in the GATT negotiations, the developed countries belonging to it didn’t take into account the interests and the concerns of the developing countries, especially of the least developed countries.

The Conference also denounced how certain developed countries are intensifying the use of domestic subsidies for determinate products to the detriment of productions that are of interest for developing countries.

The Conference deplored the deficiencies in the scope and functioning of the Generalized System of Preferences and in this vein it condemned the discriminatory restrictions in the US Foreign Trade Act, as well as the inflexible position of certain developed countries which prevented the reaching of an agreement on these problems at the Fifth UNCTAD Session.

We expressed our concern on the constant deterioration of the international monetary situation, the instabilities in the types of exchange among the principal reserve currencies and inflation which accentuate the imbalance of the world economic situation, create additional difficulties for developing countries, diminish the real value of their export revenues and reduce that of their foreign currency reserves. We indicate as a negative factor the disorganized growth of international monetary resources, basically through the use of devalued US dollars and other reserve currencies. We note that, while the imbalance in international monetary relations increases accumulated foreign debt of developing countries up to over 300,000 million dollars, international financial bodies and the private banks raise the interest rates, shorten the amortization periods for loans and thereby financially suffocate developing countries; all of this constitutes a coercive element in negotiations, as the Conference denounced, something that allows them to obtain additional political and economic advantages at the expense of our countries.

The Conference took into account the neocolonial endeavor to prevent developing countries from permanently and effectively exercising their full sovereignty over their natural resources, and it reaffirmed that right. For that reason, it supported the efforts of developing countries producing raw materials to get fair and profitable prices for their exports and to improve their export revenues in real terms.

Furthermore, the Conference paid more attention than ever on the strengthening of economic relations and to the scientific-technical and technological transfers of developing countries amongst each other. The concept of what could be called “collective self-support”, in other words mutual support and the collaboration among developing countries so that they could depend, in the first instance, on their own collective strengths, takes on substance in the Declaration of Havana, something it never had before. Cuba, as the President of the Movement and the coordinator-country, proposes to carry out, along with the Group of 77, all the necessary efforts in order to give impetus to the Action Plan outlined by the Conference, in matters of economic cooperation.

However, we do not conceive of that “collective self-support” as anything resembling autocracy; we see it as a factor in international relations that puts into play all the possibilities and resources of this considerable and important part of humanity, we the developing counties, in order to incorporate it into the general stream of resources and the economy which, for its part, could mobilize both in the capitalist bloc as in the socialist countries.

Mr. President:

The Sixth Summit rejected the attempts of some developed countries that would like to use the energy issue to divide the developing countries.

The energy problem can only be examined in its historical context, taking into account on the one hand how the consumer models of some of the developed countries led to the dilapidation of hydrocarbons, and at the same time alerting about the role of plunderers played by the transnational enterprises, beneficiaries until recent times of the supplies of cheap energy, the ones who were using it irresponsibly. Transnationals simultaneously exploit producers and users, obtaining extraordinary and unjustified benefits from both of them, while at the same time wanting to blame developing countries, the oil exporters of the current situation.

Allow me to remind you that in my inaugural words at the conference I indicated the agonizing situation of non-oil-producing developing countries, especially those that are less developed, and I expressed the certainty that oil-producer non-aligned countries would find formulae to contribute to the mitigation of the unfavorable situation of those countries being hard hit today by world inflation and by exchange imbalance, who suffer from serious deficits in their balance of payments and considerable increases in their foreign debt. But that does not exclude the central responsibility of the developed countries, their monopolies and their transnational enterprises.

After considering the problem of energy with this approach, the Heads of State or Government highlighted that it should be the subject of discussions within the context of world negotiations taking place in the United Nations, with the participation of every country and relating the energy problem with all the problems of development, with financial and monetary reform, world trade and raw materials, in such a manner so that a global analysis is done on all aspects associated with the establishment of a new international world economic order.

In the review of the principal problems affecting developing countries in the world economic sphere, it was necessary to examine the functioning of the transnational enterprises. Once again their policies and practices were declared as unacceptable. The search for benefits was ascribed to be responsible for the depletion of resources, upsetting the economy and violating the sovereignty of developing countries, that it infringed on the rights of the peoples to free determination, interfering with the principles of non-intervention in the matters of the States and frequently recurring to blackmail, corruption and other undesirable practices by which they wished to subordinate, by which they are subordinating the developing countries to the industrialized countries.

Faced with insufficient progress in the United Nations in the task of preparing the Code of Conduct which regulates the activities of transnational enterprises, the Conference reaffirmed the urgency for this matter to be concluded rapidly, for the purpose of providing the international community with a juridical instrument that would serve, at least, to monitor and regulate transnationals’ activities, in accordance with the objectives and aspirations of developing countries.

Upon recording all the overwhelming negative aspects of the economic situation of developing countries, the Sixth Summit drew special attention to the problems accumulating over the lesser-developed developing countries which are in disadvantageous conditions, without seacoasts and others in isolated inland areas, and the Summit asked for the adoption of urgent and special measures to mitigate these conditions.

Mr. President and Representatives: such is the not very optimistic and rather bleak, dark panorama which the member countries of the Non-Aligned Movement faced in their meeting in Havana.

But the Non-Aligned Movement did not succumb to frustration or exasperation, something that would be explainable. At the same time as they drew up strategic conceptions that would let them move forward with their struggle, the Heads of State or Government reiterated their demands and defined their positions.

The first fundamental objective in our struggle lies in reducing, to the point of elimination, the unequal exchange prevailing today, which converts international trade into a profitable vehicle for the additional pillaging of our resources. Today we exchange one hour of work of developed countries for 10 hours of work of the underdeveloped countries.

The non-aligned countries demand that serious attention be paid to the Integrated Program for Basic Products which, up until now, has been manipulated and covered up in the so-called North-South negotiations. Likewise they ask that the Common Fund, planned as an instrument for stabilization in order to establish permanent correspondence between prices received for their products and prices for their imports and which have barely been able to be integrated, receives a real boost. For non-aligned countries this correspondence which permanently associates the prices of their exported goods with the prices for basic equipment, industrial products and technological raw materials being imported from developed countries, constitutes an essential pivot for all future economic negotiations.

The developing countries demand that the countries which have generated inflation and which stimulate it with their policies adopt the necessary measures to control it, thereby ceasing the aggravation of the results of non-equitable exchange.

The developing countries demand, and they maintain their struggle to obtain this, that the industrial articles from their incipient economies have access to developed country markets; that the dissolute protectionism reintroduced into the international economy and which threatens to lead us again into a disastrous economic war is eliminated; that Generalized Preferential and not Reciprocal Tariffs are applied across the board, without deceitful lies, as a manner of permitting the development of their young industries, without their being smothered in the world market by the superior technological resources of the developed economies.

The non-aligned countries believe that the negotiations which are about to culminate on the Law of the Sea cannot serve to ratify the existing imbalances in marine resources, as certain developed countries would like to see, but instead they have to be the vehicle for equitable rectification. The Conference on the Law of the Sea has served once more to highlight the imperial arrogance and decision of some countries that, placing their technological possibilities above the spirit of comprehension and agreement being asked for by the developing countries, threaten to proceed unilaterally to carry out mining operations on the seabed.

The debt of developing countries has now reached the figure of 335,000 million dollars. It is calculated that the total payment for services on the foreign debt amounts to over 40,000 million every year, representing over 20% of their annual exports. Moreover, average per capita incomes in the developed countries are now fourteen times greater than those in underdeveloped countries. This situation is untenable today.

The developing countries need the establishment of new financing systems which would give them the necessary financial resources for the continuous and independent development of their economies. This financing should be long-term and charge low interest. The use of these financial resources must be at the complete disposition of the developing countries so that they may establish in their economies the system of priorities corresponding to their industrial development plans and so that these financial funds should not by absorbed by the transnationals, as it occurs today with the transnationals reaping additional benefits by taking advantage of the supposed financial contribution to development in order to aggravate the deformation of their economies and to obtain maximum profits from the exploitation of resources.

The developing countries, and the Non-Aligned Movement on their behalf, demand that an important part of the immense resources being squandered today on the arms race should be devoted to development; at the same time this would contribute to pushing back the dangers of war and it would facilitate improving the international situation.

The non-aligned countries, expressing the positions of all developing countries, demand a new international monetary system that would block the disastrous fluctuations being suffered today by currencies prevailing in the international economy, especially the US dollar. This financial disorganization additionally strikes at developing countries that aspire to the creation of a new world monetary system where they would be able to speak and make decisions as the representatives of the greatest number of countries in the international community and of over 1,500 million men and women.

In short Mr. President and Representatives:

Unequal exchange is the ruination of our peoples. And it must end!

The inflation being exported to us is the ruination of our peoples. And it must end!

Protectionism is the ruination of our peoples. And it must end!

The imbalance existing in terms of the exploitation of marine resources is abusive. And it must be abolished!

The financial resources being received by developing countries are insufficient. And they must be increased!

The weapons expenditures are irrational. They must end and those funds must be used to finance development!

The international monetary system predominating today is bankrupt. And it must be replaced!

The debts of the countries which are relatively less-developed and in disadvantageous situations cannot be supported and have no solution. They must be cancelled! (APPLAUSE)

Indebtedness is economically overwhelming the rest of the developing countries. And it must be alleviated!

The economic abyss between the countries which are developed and those wishing to be developed, instead of diminishing, is growing in size. And it must disappear!

Such are the demands of the underdeveloped countries.

Mr. President, Representatives:

Attention to these demands, some of which have been presented systematically by developing countries at international forums, through the Group of 77 and NAM, would permit changing the path of the international economic situation, something that would offer developing countries the institutional conditions to organize the programs that would place them finally upon the road to development.

But even though all of these measures were brought into practice, even if the errors and vices of the present system of international relations were to be rectified, underdeveloped countries would still be lacking one decisive element: foreign funding.

All the domestic efforts, all the sacrifices that the peoples of developing countries make and are willing to make, all the opportunities to increase their economic potential that would be attained when the inequalities between export and import prices would be eliminated and the conditions under which their foreign trade would be improved, would of course not be enough. In the light of their real and current financial situations, they also need resources in such amounts that they would allow them to pay their debts at the same time and to undertake the enormous expenses which are required to make the leap to development on a world scale.

Here, as well, the figures are known much too well, and we don’t need to repeat them. The Sixth Summit concerned itself not only with the debts of the underdeveloped countries being practically untenable, but also that this debt would grow every year at a pace we could call “galloping”. And the information recently provided by the World Bank report, issued during the same days we were holding the Havana Conference, confirm that the situation grows more serious by the day. Just in 1978, the public foreign debt of 96 countries increased by some 51,000 million dollars. This rhythm raises the debt to the abovementioned astronomical figures.

Mr. President: we cannot resign ourselves to such a bleak scenario!

The most reputed economists, both in the West and those subscribing to Marxist concepts, admit that the form in which the international debt system of developing countries functions is completely irrational and that maintaining it threatens to bring on a sudden interruption which would endanger the entire precarious and unstable world economic balance.

Some have tried to explain the surprising economic fact that international banks continue supplying funds to countries which are technically bankrupt, furnishing the argument that this is a matter of making generous contribution to help those countries withstand economic difficulties. But that’s not the way it is. In reality it is a salvage operation of that same international capitalist order. In October of 1978, the European Communities’ Commission admitted in an enlightening manner:

"The current balance of the world economy depends to a considerable degree on the fact that the stream of private loans to non-oil-producer developing countries continues…at a scale unprecedented prior to 1974, and any impediment to this stream endangers said balance”.

World financial bankruptcy would be very tough, first of all for the underdeveloped countries and for the workers in developed capitalist countries. It would also affect the most stable socialist economies. But it is doubtful that the capitalist system could survive such a catastrophe. And it wouldn’t be difficult to assume that the resulting terrible economic situation would inevitably spawn a world war. They are already talking about special military forces that would occupy oil fields and the sources of raw materials.

But if concern for this bleak panorama is the duty of everyone, first of all it is the duty of those who possess the greatest amount of wealth and material wellbeing.

For us revolutionaries, in the long run, the prospect of a world without capitalism doesn’t scare us that much. (APPLAUSE)

It has been proposed that instead of the spirit of confrontation we use the sense of the interdependence of the world economy that allows us to combine the forces of all the economies to obtain common benefits; but the concept of interdependence is only acceptable when it is based on admitting the intrinsic and brutal injustice of current interdependency. Developing countries reject what is being proposed to them as “interdependency”, the acceptance of the unfair and arbitrary international division of labor that modern colonialism imposed upon them starting with the English Industrial Revolution and subsequently intensified by imperialism.

If one wishes to prevent the confrontation and fighting, something that seems to be the only road open for developing countries, a road that offers long and difficult combat and whose proportions nobody could predict at this time, it is necessary that we all look for and find collaboration formulas to resolve the huge problems which, although they affect our peoples, cannot be resolved without affecting the more developed countries in some form or another.

Not so many years ago, we expressed that the irrational waste of material assets and the subsequent squandering of the economic resources of developed capitalist society was now unsustainable. If that is not so, what then has been the cause of the dramatic energy crisis we are experiencing? And who if not the non-oil producing underdeveloped countries are the ones that must withstand the worst consequences?

These opinions about the need to put an end to the squandering of the consumer societies are now generalized.

A recent UN document on Industrial Development states that:

"The forms of current life, especially in the industrialized countries, must perhaps have to experience a radical and painful change”.

It is clear that the developing countries cannot expect (nor are they expecting) that the transformations they would like to see happen and the financing they require would reach them as a gift derived from the mere analysis of international economic problems. In this process, a process involving contradictions, struggle and negotiation, the non-aligned countries must depend first on their own decisions and efforts.

 

That conviction clearly emerged from the Sixth Summit. In the economic section of the Final Declaration, the Heads of State or Government recognize the need to carry out in their countries the necessary economic and social structural changes, considering that this is the only form to eliminate the vulnerability present today in their economies and to convert simple statistical growth into true development. Only in that way, and so the Heads of State acknowledge, would the peoples be willing to pay the price being demanded of them as the main protagonists of the process. As we once stated: “If the system is socially fair, the possibilities of survival and economic and social development are incomparably greater”.

The history of my country is an irrefutable example of that.

The emerging and unpostponable necessity of providing a solution to underdevelopment, Mr. President, makes us return to the problem that we were dealing with just now, and we would like it to be the last one I present to this United Nations Thirty-Fourth General Assembly. I am referring to international funding.

We would say that one of the most serious phenomena accompanying the accelerated indebtedness of developing countries is constituted by the fact that the greatest part of the moneys that those countries receive from abroad have to be used to cover trade balances and negative current accounts, renewing debts and paying interest.

If we take the non-oil-exporting developing countries as an example, a situation I referred to at the Havana Conference, just in the last six years they have accumulated deficits in their balance of payments which surpass 200,000 million dollars.

Against all that, the investments truly needed by developing countries are enormous. And they need them precisely and in the first place almost without exception, in the least profitable branches and productions which do not attract private foreign investors and moneylenders.

In order to increase food production, for the objective of eliminating malnutrition in those 450 million people we have mentioned, we would have to provide new land and water resources. According to the calculations of experts, the total area of cultivated land in developing countries would have to increase by 76 million hectares in the next 10 years, and irrigated land would have to increase by over 10 million.

The rehabilitation of irrigation works requires looking after 45 million hectares. For that reason, the most modest calculations admit that international financial aid (and we refer to aid and not to the total flow of resources) has to increase annually to 8,000 or 9,000 million dollars in order to achieve the objective of having agriculture grow at a pace of between 3.5 and 4% in developing countries.

If we examine industrialization, calculations go far beyond those parameters. When the UN Industrial Development Conference drew up the goals we mentioned at its Lima meeting, it determined that funding should be at the heart of the international development policy and that by 2000 this should reach levels of 450,000 to 500,000 million dollars per year; of these, one third, or 150,000 to 160,000 million, will have to be funded from foreign streams.

But, Mr. President, development is not just agriculture and industrialization. Development is chiefly attention to human beings, human beings who have to be the protagonists and the final point for any effort involving development. Taking the example of Cuba, I would indicate that in the last five years our country has used an average of almost 200 million dollars per year in construction investments for education. Construction investment and equipment for public health is developed at an annual average of over 40 million. And Cuba is just one of the almost 100 developing countries and one of the smallest in terms of geography and population. Therefore one can estimate that in investments, in educational and public health services, the developing countries would need tens of thousands of millions of dollars more per year to overcome the results of backwardness.

That is the huge problem we are looking at.

Gentlemen: this problem of countries that are the victims of underdevelopment and insufficient development is not just our problem. It is a problem which affects the entire international community.

More than once it has been said that we have been forced into underdevelopment by colonization and imperialist neo-colonization. The task of helping us to come out of underdevelopment is then, in the first place, a historical and moral obligation of those who reaped the benefits from pillaging our wealth and exploiting our men and women for decades and centuries. (APPLAUSE) But at the same time, it is the task of humanity as a whole, and is what the Sixth Summit has placed on the record.

The socialist countries did not participate in plundering the world nor are they responsible for the phenomenon of underdevelopment. But they understand the obligation to help overcome it and they take on the task starting with the nature of their social system where internationalist solidarity is a premise.

Likewise, when the world waits for the oil-producer developing countries to also contribute to the universal stream of resources that must nourish foreign funding for development, it doesn’t do so for the historical obligations and duties cannot be imposed by anybody, but with hope and a duty of solidarity among underdeveloped countries. The great oil-exporting countries have to be aware of their responsibility.

Even the developing countries with a higher level must make their contribution. Cuba which isn’t speaking here on behalf of its interests and doesn’t defend any national objective is ready to contribute in the measure of its strengths, with thousands or tens of thousands of technicians: doctors, educators, agricultural engineers, hydraulic engineers, mechanical engineers, economists, middle technicians, skilled workers, etc.

For this reason, it is time that all of us join together in the task of taking entire peoples and hundreds of millions of human beings out of backwardness, poverty, malnutrition, disease, illiteracy, so that they can fully enjoy dignity and the pride of being called men and women. (APPLAUSE)

Therefore we must organize the resources for development, and that is our joint obligation.

Mr. President: there are so many special funds, multilateral, public and private funds, whose objective is to contribute to one or another aspect of development, be it agricultural, industrial, or dealing with compensating the deficits in payment balances, something that doesn’t seem very easy to me, bringing to the Twenty-Fourth Assembly the economic problems we discussed at the Sixth Summit, to formulate a concrete proposition for the establishing of a new fund.

But there is no doubt that the funding problem needs to be discussed profoundly and fully, in order to find a solution. Besides the resources that are already organized through various banking channels, by concessions organizations, international agencies and private financing bodies, we need to discuss and decide on the way that, at the beginning of the next decade for development, its strategy would include the additional contribution of at least 300,000 million dollars at the real 1977 values, distributed in yearly amounts that should be at least 25,000 million right from the first years, to be invested in the underdeveloped countries. (APPLAUSE) This aid should be in the form of donations and long-term soft loans at minimum interest.

It is vital to mobilize these additional funds as the contribution of the developed world and countries with resources to the underdeveloped world in the next 10 years. If we want peace, we need these resources. If there are no resources for development, there will be no peace. Some will think we are asking for too much; I think the figure is still a modest one. According to statistics, as I stated at the Sixth NAM Summit inaugural ceremony, the world invests over 300,000 million dollars in military expenses every year. With 300,000 million dollars, in one year we could build 600,000 schools for 400 million children; or 60 million comfortable homes for 300 million persons; or 30,000 hospitals with 18 million beds; or 20,000 factories capable of generating jobs for over 20 million workers; or we could set up irrigation for 150 million hectares of land which with the proper technical level could feed 1,000 million people. This is what humanity squanders every year on the military. Besides, just consider the enormous amount of human resources, the youth, scientific and technical resources, fuel, raw materials and other assets. This is the fabulous price for there to be a climate of confidence and peace in the world.

The United States alone will be spending six times that figure on military activities in the ten year period of 1980 to 1990.

For 10 years of development, we’re asking for less than what is being spent today in one year by the Ministries of War and much less than one tenth of what will be spent in 10 years for military purposes.

Some may think the demand is irrational: what is truly irrational is the craziness of today’s world and the risks threatening humanity.

The enormous responsibility of studying, organizing and distributing that amount of resources must entirely be in the hands of the United Nations. The international community itself should be administering those funds, in conditions of absolute equality for each of the countries, be they contributors or beneficiaries, with no political conditions and with the amount of the donations having no bearing on the power of the vote to decide the opportunity for loans and the destination of funds.

Even though the flow of resources should be evaluated in financial terms, it shouldn’t just rely on that. It could also take the form of equipment, fertilizer, raw materials, fuel and complete plants, evaluated in terms of international commerce. Also, the assistance of technical personnel and the training of technicians should be considered as contributions.

Mr. President and Representatives: we are certain that if the UN Secretariat General, assisted by the Assembly President with all the prestige and weight of this organization, supported at the beginning as well by the influence given to this initiative by the developing countries and especially the Group of 77, the various factors we have mentioned would be called up to begin talks that would have no room for North-South antagonism or for what is called East-West antagonism; instead all the forces would come together in one common task, as a common duty and common hope. This idea that we are presenting now to the General Assembly could be crowned with success.

Because this is not a project that benefits only the developing countries; it would benefit every nation.

As revolutionaries we are not put off by the confrontation. We have faith in history and in the people. But as spokespersons and interpreters of the feelings of 95 countries, we have the responsibility of struggling for collaboration among the peoples. And that collaboration, if it were achieved on new and just bases, would benefit all the countries that today make up the international community. And it would especially benefit world peace.

In the short term, development can be a task that entails apparent sacrifices and even donations that seen irrecoverable. But the vast world living today in backward conditions, lacking acquisitive power, extremely limited in their capacity to consume, will incorporate with its development a flood of hundreds of millions of consumers and producers, the only thing capable of rehabilitating the international economy including that of the developed countries which are generating and suffering from the economic crisis today.

The history of international trade has shown that development is the most dynamic factor of world commerce. The greatest part of commerce in our day and age is carried out between fully industrialized countries. We can be certain that while industrialization and progress spreads more and more in the world, so too will trade exchanges grow and this is beneficial for everyone.

It is for that reason, on behalf of developing countries, that we ask for and advocate the cause of our countries. But we aren’t asking for any gifts. If we don’t find the proper solutions, we shall all be victims of the catastrophe.

Mr. President, distinguished Representatives:

Human rights are spoken about frequently, but we also have to talk about the rights of humanity.

Why do some people have to be barefoot while others drive around in luxury vehicles? Why do some people live to the age of 35 and others live to 70? Why do some have to be miserably poor while others are exaggeratedly wealthy?

I speak on behalf of the children of the world who don’t even have a crust of bread (APPLAUSE); I speak on behalf of the ill who have no medicine; I speak on behalf of those who have been denied the right to life and human dignity.

Some countries have the sea, others do not; some have energy resources, others don’t; some possess abundant land to produce food, others don’t; some are so saturated with machinery and factories that one cannot even breathe the polluted air (APPLAUSE), while others only possess their scrawny arms to earn their daily bread.

In short, some countries possess abundant resources and others possess nothing. What is the fate of these? To die of starvation? To be eternally poor? What good is civilization then? What good is man’s conscience? What good is the United Nations? (APPLAUSE) What good is the world? One cannot speak of peace on behalf of the tens of millions of human beings who die each year of starvation or of curable diseases throughout the world. One cannot speak of peace on behalf of the 900 million illiterate.

The exploitation of poor countries by rich countries must cease!

I know that in many poor countries there are also the exploiters and the exploited.

I address the rich nations so that they will contribute. I address the poor countries so that they will distribute.

Enough of words! We need deeds! (APPLAUSE) Enough of abstractions, we need concrete actions! Enough of talking about a new international economic order that no one can understand (LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE); we have to talk about a real and objective order that everyone understands!

I have not come here as a prophet of revolution; I have not come here to ask for or want the world to be violently thrown into confusion. We have come to speak of peace and collaboration among people, and we have come to warn everyone that if we do not resolve today’s injustices and inequalities peacefully and wisely, the future will be apocalyptic. (APPLAUSE)

The din of weapons, threatening language, and arrogance on the international scene must cease. Enough already with the illusion that the world’s problems can be solved with nuclear weapons. Bombs can kill the starving, the diseased and the ignorant but they cannot kill hunger, diseases or ignorance. Nor can they kill the fair sense of rebellion of the people; and in the holocaust the rich will also die, and the rich are the ones who have the most to lose in this world. (APPLAUSE)

Let’s bid farewell to weapons and let us devote ourselves in a civilized fashion to the most exhausting problems of our era. That is the most sacred responsibility and duty of every statesman in the world. Besides, that is the indispensable premise for human survival.

Thank you very much!

(STENOGRAPHIC VERSIONS – COUNCIL OF STATE)