Mr. President, Distinguished Delegates:
Twenty-seven years ago, as Emperor of Ethiopia, I
mounted the rostrum in Geneva, Switzerland, to address the League of Nations and
to appeal for relief from the destruction which had been unleashed against my
defenseless nation, by the Fascist invader.I spoke
then both to and for the conscience of the world. My words went unheeded, but
history testifies to the accuracy of the warning that I gave in 1936.
Today, I stand before the world organization which has succeeded to the
mantle discarded by its discredited predecessor. In this body is enshrined the principle
of collective security which I unsuccessfully invoked at
In 1936, I declared that it was not the Covenant of the League that was at stake,
but international morality. Undertakings, I said then, are of little worth if
the will to keep them is lacking. The Charter of the United Nations expresses
the noblest aspirations of man: abjuration of force in the settlement of
disputes between states; the assurance of human rights and fundamental freedoms
for all without distinction as to race, sex, language or religion; the
safeguarding of international peace and security.
But these, too, as were the phrases of the Covenant, are only words; their
value depends wholly on our will to observe and honor them and give them
content and meaning. The preservation of peace and the guaranteeing of man's
basic freedoms and rights require courage and eternal vigilance: courage to
speak and act - and if necessary, to suffer and die - for truth and justice;
eternal vigilance, that the least transgression of international morality shall
not go undetected and unremedied. These lessons must
be learned anew by each succeeding generation, and that generation is fortunate
indeed which learns from other than its own bitter experience. This
Organization and each of its members bear a crushing and awesome
responsibility: to absorb the wisdom of history and to apply it to the problems
of the present, in order that future generations may be born, and live, and
die, in peace.
The record of the United Nations during the few short years of its life
affords mankind a solid basis for encouragement and hope for the future. The
United Nations has dared to act, when the League dared not in
The United Nations continues to sense as the forum where nations whose
interests clash may lay their cases before world opinion. It still provides the
essential escape valve without which the slow build-up of pressures would have
long since resulted in catastrophic explosion. Its actions and decisions have
speeded the achievement of freedom by many peoples on the continents of Africa
and
For this, all men must give thanks. As I stand here today, how faint, how
remote are the memories of 1936.How different in 1963 are the attitudes of men.
We then existed in an atmosphere of suffocating pessimism. Today, cautious yet
buoyant optimism is the prevailing spirit. But each one of us here knows that
what has been accomplished is not enough.
The United Nations judgments have been and continue to be subject to
frustration, as individual member-states have ignored its pronouncements and
disregarded its recommendations. The Organization's sinews have been weakened,
as member-states have shirked their obligations to it. The authority of the
Organization has been mocked, as individual member-states have proceeded, in
violation of its commands, to pursue their own aims and ends. The troubles
which continue to plague us virtually all arise among member states of the
Organization, but the Organization remains impotent to enforce acceptable
solutions. As the maker and enforcer of the international law, what the United
Nations has achieved still falls regrettably short of our goal of an
international community of nations.
This does not mean that the United Nations has failed. I have lived too long
to cherish many illusions about the essential highmindedness
of men when brought into stark confrontation with the issue of control over
their security, and their property interests. Not even now, when so much is at
hazard would many nations willingly entrust their destinies to other hands.
Yet, this is the ultimatum presented to us: secure the conditions whereby
men will entrust their security to a larger entity, or risk annihilation;
persuade men that their salvation rests in the subordination of national and
local interests to the interests of humanity, or endanger man's future. These
are the objectives, yesterday unobtainable, today essential, which we must
labor to achieve.
Until this is accomplished, mankind's future remains hazardous and permanent
peace a matter for speculation. There is no single magic formula, no one simple
step, no words, whether written into the Organization's Charter or into a
treaty between states, which can automatically guarantee to us what we seek.
Peace is a day-to-day problem, the product of a multitude of events and
judgments. Peace is not an "is", it is a "becoming." We
cannot escape the dreadful possibility of catastrophe by miscalculation. But we
can reach the right decisions on the myriad subordinate problems which each new
day poses, and we can thereby make our contribution and perhaps the most that
can be reasonably expected of us in 1963 to the preservation of peace. It is
here that the United Nations has served us - not perfectly, but well. And in
enhancing the possibilities that the Organization may serve us better, we serve
and bring closer our most cherished goals.
I would mention briefly today two particular issues which are of deep
concern to all men: disarmament and the establishment of true equality among
men. Disarmament has become the urgent imperative of our time. I do not say
this because I equate the absence of arms to peace, or because I believe that
bringing an end to the nuclear arms race automatically guarantees the peace, or
because the elimination of nuclear warheads from the arsenals of the world will
bring in its wake that change in attitude requisite to the peaceful settlement
of disputes between nations. Disarmament is vital today, quite simply, because
of the immense destructive capacity of which men dispose.
The real significance of the treaty is that it admits of a tacit stalemate
between the nations which negotiated it, a stalemate which recognizes the
blunt, unavoidable fact that none would emerge from the total destruction which
would be the lot of all in a nuclear war, a stalemate which affords us and the
United Nations a breathing space in which to act.
Here is our opportunity and our challenge. If the nuclear powers are
prepared to declare a truce, let us seize the moment to strengthen the institutions
and procedures which will serve as the means for the pacific settlement of
disputes among men. Conflicts between nations will continue to arise. The real
issue is whether they are to be resolved by force, or by resort to peaceful
methods and procedures, administered by impartial institutions. This very
Organization itself is the greatest such institution, and it is in a more
powerful United Nations that we seek, and it is here that we shall find, the
assurance of a peaceful future.
Were a real and effective disarmament achieved and the funds now spent in
the arms race devoted to the amelioration of man's state; were we to
concentrate only on the peaceful uses of nuclear knowledge, how vastly and in
how short a time might we change the conditions of mankind. This should be our
goal.
When we talk of the equality of man, we find, also, a challenge and an
opportunity; a challenge to breathe new life into the ideals enshrined in the
Charter, an opportunity to bring men closer to freedom and true equality. and thus, closer to a love of peace.
The goal of the equality of man which we seek is the antithesis of the
exploitation of one people by another with which the pages of history and in
particular those written of the African and Asian continents, speak at such
length. Exploitation, thus viewed, has many faces. But whatever guise it
assumes, this evil is to be shunned where it does not exist and crushed where
it does. It is the sacred duty of this Organization to ensure that the dream of
equality is finally realized for all men to whom it is still denied, to
guarantee that exploitation is not reincarnated in other forms in places whence
it has already been banished.
As a free
In the
Last May, in
On the question of racial discrimination, the Addis Ababa Conference taught,
to those who will learn, this further lesson: That until the philosophy
which holds one race superior and another inferior is finally and permanently
discredited and abandoned: That until there are no longer first-class and
second class citizens of any nation; That until the color of a man's skin is of
no more significance than the color of his eyes; That until the basic human
rights are equally guaranteed to all without regard to race; That until that
day, the dream of lasting peace and world citizenship and the rule of
international morality will remain but a fleeting illusion, to be pursued but
never attained; And until the ignoble and unhappy regimes that hold our
brothers in Angola, in Mozambique and in South Africa in subhuman bondage have
been toppled and destroyed; Until bigotry and prejudice and malicious and
inhuman self-interest have been replaced by understanding and tolerance and
good-will; Until all Africans stand and speak as free beings, equal in the eyes
of all men, as they are in the eyes of Heaven; Until that day, the African
continent will not know peace. We Africans will fight, if necessary,
and we know that we shall win, as we are confident in the victory of good over
evil.
The United Nations has done much, both directly and indirectly to speed the
disappearance of discrimination and oppression from the earth. Without the
opportunity to focus world opinion on Africa and
But more can be done. The basis of racial discrimination and colonialism has
been economic, and it is with economic weapons that these evils have been and
can be overcome. In pursuance of resolutions adopted at the Addis Ababa Summit
Conference, African States have undertaken certain measures in the economic
field which, if adopted by all member states of the United Nations, would soon
reduce intransigence to reason. I ask, today, for adherence to these measures
by every nation represented here which is truly devoted to the principles
enunciated in the Charter.
I do not believe that
Does this Organization today possess the authority and the will to act? And
if it does not, are we prepared to clothe it with the power to create and
enforce the rule of law? Or is the Charter a mere collection of words, without
content and substance, because the essential spirit is lacking? The time in
which to ponder these questions is all too short. The pages of history are full
of instances in which the unwanted and the shunned nonetheless occurred because
men waited to act until too late. We can brook no such delay.
If we are to survive, this Organization must survive. To survive, it must be
strengthened. Its executive must be vested with great authority. The means for
the enforcement of its decisions must be fortified, and, if they do not exist,
they must be devised. Procedures must be established to protect the small and
the weak when threatened by the strong and the mighty. All nations which
fulfill the conditions of membership must be admitted and allowed to sit in
this assemblage.
Equality of representation must be assured in each of its organs. The possibilities
which exist in the United Nations to provide the medium whereby the hungry may
be fed, the naked clothed, the ignorant instructed,
must be seized on and exploited for the flower of peace is not sustained by
poverty and want. To achieve this requires courage and confidence. The courage,
I believe, we possess. The confidence must be created, and to create confidence
we must act courageously.
The great nations of the world would do well to remember that in the modern
age even their own fates are not wholly in their hands. Peace demands the
united efforts of us all. Who can foresee what spark might ignite the fuse? It
is not only the small and the weak who must scrupulously observe their
obligations to the United Nations and to each other. Unless the smaller nations
are accorded their proper voice in the settlement of the world's problems,
unless the equality which Africa and
The stake of each one of us is identical - life or death. We all wish to live.
We all seek a world in which men are freed of the burdens of ignorance,
poverty, hunger and disease. And we shall all be hard-pressed to escape the
deadly rain of nuclear fall-out should catastrophe overtake us.
When I spoke at