why did felix give a speech to the united nations

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Acts 24:22

way, he deferred them, and said, When Lysias the chief captain shall come down, I will know the uttermost of your matter. • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • (22) Having more perfect knowledge of that way . . .—Better, of the way. (See Note on .) The comparative implies a reference to an average standard. Felix was too well-informed to yield any answer to the declamatory statements of Tertullus. He saw that the prisoner was no common Sicarius, or leader of sedition. He knew something as to the life of the sect of Nazarenes. That knowledge may well have been acquired either at Jerusalem, which the procurator would naturally visit at the great festivals and other occasions, or at Cæsarea, where, as we know, Philip the Evangelist had, some twenty-five years before, founded a Christian community, which included among its members Cornelius and other Roman soldiers, or even, we may add, in the imperial capital itself. His wife Drusilla, also, the daughter of Herod Agrippa I., may have contributed something to his knowledge.

I will know the uttermost of your matter.—Leaving the general attack on the “way” of the Nazarenes, or Christians, Felix proposes to inquire into the actual circumstances of the case brought before him. It is remarkable that this adjournment leads to an indefinite postponement. Possibly the accusers felt that they had fired their last shot in the speech of Tertullus, and, seeing that that had failed, thought that the judge had made up his mind against them, and withdrew from the prosecution. The detention of the prisoner under such circumstances was only too common an incident in the provincial administration of justice in the Roman empire, as it has since been in other corrupt or ill-governed states.

. When Felix heard these things — Namely, the orator’s accusation and the prisoner’s defence; having more perfect knowledge of that way — Ακριβεστερον ειδως τα περι της οδου, having known more perfectly the things concerning the way, namely, the way of worship, mentioned by Paul, ( ,) or a more perfect knowledge of Jesus and his disciples than had been given him by the high-priest, the elders, and their orator; and knowing it not to be so mischievous a thing as these accusers suggested; he deferred them — This seems to be that interpretation of the clause which best accords with the original. Beza, Grotius, and many others, however, take the meaning of the clause to be, that Felix “would take an opportunity of being more particularly informed of this sect, and of its aspect on the public tranquillity; and that when Lysias should come down and give him an account of what he had observed concerning it, as well as of the circumstances attending Paul’s apprehension, &c., he would determine the affair.” “But it seems to me evident,” says Dr. Whitby, “that the original words cannot admit of this explication, namely, that Felix deferred them that he might have a more exact knowledge of Christianity; but that, having his residence at Cesarea, where Cornelius the centurion and his friends were converted, where Philip the evangelist dwelt, and where there were many disciples, ( ; ,) he had thus become acquainted with the way of Christianity.” But though Felix did not find any crime proved against Paul, yet he did not acquit him, because he was afraid of displeasing the Jews. Being, however, fully convinced (as it is evident he was) of his innocence, he ordered that he should not be confined too closely; but that his acquaintance should be allowed to visit him, or minister unto him; a liberty which we may be sure the brethren of Cesarea made good use of during his long imprisonment in that city.

24:22-27 The apostle reasoned concerning the nature and obligations of righteousness, temperance, and of a judgment to come; thus showing the oppressive judge and his profligate mistress, their need of repentance, forgiveness, and of the grace of the gospel. Justice respects our conduct in life, particularly in reference to others; temperance, the state and government of our souls, in reference to God. He who does not exercise himself in these, has neither the form nor the power of godliness, and must be overwhelmed with the Divine wrath in the day of God's appearing. A prospect of the judgment to come, is enough to make the stoutest heart to tremble. Felix trembled, but that was all. Many are startled by the word of God, who are not changed by it. Many fear the consequences of sin, yet continue in the love and practice of sin. In the affairs of our souls, delays are dangerous. Felix put off this matter to a more convenient season, but we do not find that the more convenient season ever came. Behold now is the accepted time; hear the voice of the Lord to-day. He was in haste to turn from hearing the truth. Was any business more urgent than for him to reform his conduct, or more important than the salvation of his soul! Sinners often start up like a man roused from his sleep by a loud noise, but soon sink again into their usual drowsiness. Be not deceived by occasional appearances of religion in ourselves or in others. Above all, let us not trifle with the word of God. Do we expect that as we advance in life our hearts will grow softer, or that the influence of the world will decline? Are we not at this moment in danger of being lost for ever? Now is the day of salvation; tomorrow may be too late. Having more perfect knowledge of that way - Our translation of this verse is very obscure, and critics are divided about the proper interpretation of the original. Many (Erasmus, Luther, Michaelis, Morus, etc.) render it, "Although he had a more perfect knowledge of the Christian doctrine than Paul's accusers had, yet he deferred the hearing of the cause until Lysias had come down." They observe that he might have obtained this knowledge not only from the letter of Lysias, but from public rumour, as there were doubtless Christians at Caesarea. They suppose that he deferred the cause either with the hope of receiving a bribe from Paul (compare ), or to gratify the Jews with his being longer detained as a prisoner. Others, among whom are Beza, Grotius, Rosenmuller, and Doddridge, suppose that it should be rendered, "He deferred them, and said, after I have been more accurately informed concerning this way, when Lysias has come down, I will hear the cause." This is doubtless the true interpretation of the passage, and it is rendered more probable by the fact that Felix sent for Paul, and heard him concerning the faith of Christ , evidently with the design to make himself better acquainted with the charges against him, and the nature of his belief.

Of that way - Of the Christian religion. This expression is repeatedly used by Luke to denote the Christian doctrine. See the notes on .

He deferred them - He put them off; he postponed the decision of the case; he adjourned the trial.

When Lysias ... - Lysias had been acquainted with the excitement and its causes, and Felix regarded him as an important witness in regard to the true nature of the charges against Paul.

I will know the uttermost ... - I shall be fully informed, and prepared to decide the cause. 22, 23. having more perfect knowledge of that—"the"

way—(See on [2106]Ac 19:23; and [2107]Ac 24:14).

When Lysias … shall come … I will how, &c.—Felix might have dismissed the case as a tissue of unsupported charges. But if from his interest in the matter he really wished to have the presence of Lysias and others involved, a brief delay was not unworthy of him as a judge. Certainly, so far as recorded, neither Lysias nor any other parties appeared again in the case. Ac 24:23, however, seems to show that at that time his prepossessions in favor of Paul were strong. Some understand by that way:

1. The custom or manner of the priests to calumniate Paul; or:

2. The religion of Moses, and how and in what it differed from the religion of Christ: either of which Felix might know, and by either of them conclude Paul to be innocent. But:

3. By that way, as frequently in this book, , and , is meant the Christian religion itself, which Felix, not only from Paul’s apology, and Lysias’s account of the whole matter, but by divers other means, (it having made so great a noise in the world), could not be ignorant of.

Some read, he deferred them till he could have a more perfect knowledge of that way, and till Lysias, the chief captain, should come down. For there being two things laid to Paul’s charge;

1. His evil opinions in matters of religion; and:

2. His causing a sedition: as to the first, Felix would not determine it till he had had better information about those things which St. Paul was accused for to hold. As to the latter, it being matter of fact, which Lysias was present at, he would hear his testimony or evidence, looking upon him as one indifferent and unconcerned between them.

And when Felix heard these things,.... Which were said on both sides, both by plaintiff and defendant, the charges brought against Paul, and his answer to them, as a judge ought to do:

having more perfect knowledge of that way; the Christian religion, which the Jews called heresy, and Paul had embraced; the sense is, either that he had a more perfect knowledge of it than he had before; and by what Paul had said, he saw that it was not contrary to the law, nor had any tendency to promote sedition and tumult; or rather, when he should have more perfect knowledge of this new way, called the sect of the Nazarenes, he would determine this cause, and not before: wherefore

he deferred them; put them off to longer time, and would make no decision in favour of one side or the other:

and said, when Lysias the chief captain shall come from Jerusalem to Caesarea,

I will know the uttermost of your matters: as for the way, or religion of the Christians, he proposed doubtless to consult other persons; and as for the profanation of the temple, and especially about stirring up of sedition, he would inquire of Lysias about that; and when he had got full information of these particulars, then he promised them to bring things to an issue, and finish the cause. {5} And when Felix heard these things, having more {n} perfect knowledge of way, he deferred them, and said, When Lysias the chief captain shall come down, I will know the uttermost of your matter.

(5) The judge suspends his sentence because the matter is doubtful.

(n) Felix could not judge whether he had done wickedly in the matter of his religion or not until he had a better understanding of the way which Paul professed: and as for other matters with regard to the charge of sedition, he considers it good to defer it until he hears Lysias, and therefore he gives Paul somewhat more liberty. . With the frank challenge to his accusers ( ) Paul closes his speech. But Felix, who declares that he wished still to institute a further examination of the matter with the assistance of Lysias, decides for the present on an adjournment: ἀνεβάλετο αὐτούς, ampliavit eos (both parties). He pronounced until further investigation the non liquet (Cic. Cluent. 28, Brisson. formul.), and for the time being adjourned the settlement of the accusation. See on the judicial term ἀναβάλλεσθαι (Dem. 1042 ult.), Wetstein, and Kypke, II. p. 123 f.

ἀκριβέστερον εἰδὼς τὰ περὶ τῆς ὁδοῦ] The only correct interpretation is: because he knew more exactly what referred to Christianity ( ). As Felix had been procurator for more than six years, and as Christianity was diffused everywhere in Judaea, even in Caesarea itself, it was natural that he should have an ἀκριβέστερον knowledge of the circumstances of that religion than was given to him in the present discussion; therefore he considered it the most fitting course to leave the matter still in suspense. In doing so he prudently satisfied, on the one hand, his regard for the favour of the Jews (comp. ) by not giving Paul his liberty; while, on the other hand, he satisfied his better intelligence about Christianity, by which, notwithstanding his badness in other respects, he felt himself precluded from pleasing the Jews and condemning the apostle. This connection, which in essentials the Vulgate, Chrysostom, Erasmus, Luther, Castalio, Wolf, and others (comp. Bengel: “consilia dilatoria, tuta mundo in rebus divinis”) have expressed, has been often mistaken. Beza and Grotius, followed by Rosenmüller, Heinrichs, and Ewald, regard ἀκριβέστερον … ὁδοῦ as part of the speech of Felix: “Ubi exactius didicero, quid sit de hac secta, et ubi Lysias venerit, causam illam terminabo” (Grotius). But so late a bringing in of the εἰπών is entirely without precedent in the N.T. (see also Bornemann, and Rosenmüller, Repert. II. p. 281 f.). Michaelis and Morus resolve εἰδώς by quamquam; notwithstanding his better knowledge of Christianity, Felix did not release Paul. But this resolution is the less suggested by the relation of the participle to the verb, as afterwards, , the specially mild treatment of the apostle is expressly stated. According to de Wette (comp. Wetstein), the sense is: “As he needed no further hearing of the accused, and it was only necessary now to hear the tribune.” But the reference to the tribune is only to be regarded as a welcome pretext and evasion; an actual hearing of Lysias would have been reported in the sequel of the history. Lastly, Kuinoel erroneously renders: when he had inquired more exactly, which εἰδώς does not mean.

τὰ καθʼ ὑμᾶς] your matters, not: your misdeeds (so Böttger, Beitr. II. p. 12, as a threat to the Jews), as if it were τὰ καθʼ ὑμῶν. On διαγνώσ., comp. .

. ἀνεβάλετο: ampliavit eos, a technical expression, only here in N. T., the judges were wont to say Amplius in cases where it was not possible to pass at once a judgment of condemnation or acquittal before further inquiry, Cic., In Verr., i., 29.—ἀκριβ.: “having more exact knowledge concerning the Way” than to be deceived by the misrepresentation of the Jews; he may have learnt some details of the Christian sect during his years of office from his wife Drusilla, or possibly during his residence in Cæsarea, where there was a Christian community and the home of Philip the Evangelist, and where Cornelius had been converted. This knowledge, the writer indicates, was the real reason: the reason which Felix alleged was that he required the evidence of Lysias in person. Wendt, Zöckler, Bethge, Nösgen take the words to mean that the address of Paul had offended Felix’s more accurate knowledge, and on this account he put off any decision. On the comparative see Blass, Gram., p. 139.—τὰ περὶ: characteristic of Luke and Paul, see p. 481.—διαγ. τὰ καθʼ ὑμᾶς: “I will determine your matter,” R.V., cf. , and see above on . τὰ καθʼ ὑμᾶς: probably refers to both accusers and accused. On τὰ before κατά characteristic of Luke see instance in Moulton and Geden, and Hawkins, Horæ Synopticæ, p. 38.

22–27. Adjournment of the cause. Felix’s treatment of St Paul

22. having more perfect knowledge of that way] Better “the way,” i.e. the Christian religion, for which this soon became the accepted name. See on . Felix was more likely to understand something of the relations between Judaism and Christianity, because he had a Jewish wife, Drusilla, daughter of Herod Agrippa I., one who had been brought by her position into connexion with the movements of the time.

For those introductory words of this verse represented in A.V. by “when he heard these things,” there is no Greek in the oldest MSS. Read (with Rev. Ver.) “But Felix, having, &c.”

When Lysias the chief captain shall come down] There had been nothing said in the letter of Lysias, so far as we have it, about his coming to Cæsarea, but no doubt he went often between Jerusalem and the residence of the governor. The language of this verse gives some support to the genuineness of . (See note there.)

I will know the uttermost of your matter] Better, “I will determine.” Cp. .

. Ἀνεβάλετο, he deferred them) Dilatory measures are the safe ones for the world in the case of Divine things.—ἀκριβέστερον, more accurately) Through these governors accurate knowledge of Christianity was carried to Rome.

Verse 22. - But Felix, having more exact knowledge concerning the Way, deferred them, saying for and whoa Felix heard these things having more perfect knowledge of that way, he deferred them, and said, A.V. and T.R.; determine for know the uttermost of, A.V. Having more exact knowledge, etc. At Caesarea, Felix must have seen and heard something of Christianity. The conversion of Cornelius with his household and friends, men belonging to the dominant Roman power; the work of Philip the evangelist, residing probably for some years at Caesarea, and working among Romans as well as Jews, must have given Felix some knowledge of "the Way." He would learn something, too, both of Judaism and Christianity from Drusilla, his wife (ver. 24, note). When Lysias... shall come (see vers. 7, 8, and note). I will determine (διαγνώσομαι); see above, , where the verb is in the active voice, and is rendered in the R.V. "to judge." The idea of the word is "to know with discrimination;" and this is the sense it has in medical writers, who use it very frequently; as e.g. Galen says, Πρῶτον γὰρ διαγνῶναι χρὴ τί ποτέ ἐστὶ πάθος (quoted by Hobart). Hence the "diagnosis" of an illness ( ). Acts 24:22 Deferred (ἀνεβάλετο)

Adjourned the case. Only here in New Testament.

I will know the uttermost (διαγνώσομαι)

Better, as Rev., I will determine. See on .

Seen in August 2011, Felix Finkbeiner has made it his life's goal to plant trees. And he is getting a lot of help.

THE PEOPLE V. CLIMATE CHANGE

Teenager Is on Track to Plant a Trillion Trees

Starting his project as a nine-year-old, Felix Finkbeiner aims to restore the world’s forests.

Children are not often invited to speak to the United Nations General Assembly. But there stood Felix Finkbeiner, German wunderkind in his Harry Potter spectacles, gray hoodie, and mop-top haircut—with a somber question about climate change.

“We children know adults know the challenges and they know the solutions,” he said. “We don’t know why there is so little action.”

The children came up with three possible reasons to explain the lapse, he said. One is differing perspectives on the meaning of the word “future.”

“For most adults, it’s an academic question. For many of us children, it’s a question of survival,” he said. “Twenty-one hundred is still in our lifetime.”

Another explanation is climate denial. The third possibility can be glimpsed in an animal parable about monkeys that made an especially sharp point in the way that only a child delivering the message can.

“If you let a monkey choose if he wants one banana now or six bananas later, the monkey will always chose the one banana now,” he said. “From this, we children understood we cannot trust that adults alone will save our future. To do that, we have to take our future in our hands.”

At the time of his speech, Finkbeiner was four years into leading a remarkable environmental cause that has since expanded into a global network of children activists working to slow the Earth’s warming by reforesting the planet.

Fuel their curiosity with your gift

Today, Finkbeiner is 19—and Plant-for-the-Planet, the environmental group he founded, together with the UN’s Billion Tree campaign, has planted more than 14 billion trees in more than 130 nations. The group has also pushed the planting goal upward to one trillion trees—150 for every person on the Earth.

The organization also prompted the first scientific, full-scale global tree count, which is now aiding NASA in an ongoing study of forests’ abilities to store carbon dioxide and their potential to better protect the Earth. In many ways, Finkbeiner has done more than any other activist to recruit youth to the climate change movement. Plant-for-the-Planet now has an army of 55,000 “climate justice ambassadors ,” who have trained in one-day workshops to become climate activists in their home communities. Most of them are between the ages nine and 12.

“Felix is a combination of inspirational and articulate,” says Thomas Crowther, an ecologist who conducted the tree count while working at Yale University in Connecticut. “A lot of people are good at one of those things. Felix is really good at both.”

It’s Not About Polar Bears

Plant-for-the-Planet came about as the result of a fourth grade school assignment in Finkbeiner’s hometown, Uffing am Staffelsee, south of Munich. The topic was climate change. To his nine-year-old worldview, that meant danger for his favorite animal, the polar bear. He consulted Google for his research. Google steered him elsewhere—to stories about Wangari Maathai, a Kenyan woman whose heroic campaign to recover barren land that had been sheared of trees resulted in the planting of 30 million saplings and won her, in 2004, the Nobel Prize.

“I realized it’s not really about the polar bear, it’s about saving humans,” Finkbeiner says in a telephone interview from Britain, where he is a student at the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies. His report about trees was a hit and as a dramatic close, Finkbeiner laid down the challenge to plant one million trees in Germany. No one expected anything to come of it.

Finkbeiner’s teacher asked him to present his talk again to other students and the headmaster, and two months later, he planted his first tree, a stunted, unimpressive crab apple, near the entrance to his school. If he had known then how much international media coverage that crab apple would receive, he says now, a little ruefully, he would have insisted his mother buy a more majestic first tree.

Looking back, a nine-year-old kid with a cherubic face, a natural gift for public speaking, and a one-million tree-planting challenge was irresistible to the world’s media. Word of Finkbeiner’s project spread rapidly. The next thing he knew, he was speaking to the European Parliament and attending UN conferences in Norway and South Korea. By the time he delivered his speech at the UN in New York in 2011, at the age of 13, Germany had planted its millionth tree, and Plant-for-the-Planet had been officially launched. It had a website and a full-time employee.

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The UN also handed over stewardship of its Billion Tree campaign to the group.

“I knew he was this legendary kid,” says Aji Piper, a 15-year-old tree “ambassador” in Seattle who met Finkbeiner in 2015. Piper, an activist and plaintiff in a children’s’ lawsuit against the United States government over climate change, regards Finkbeiner as a role model.

“We saw he was doing speeches. He was so young. Very impressive. That’s the skill level I want to get to.”

Finkbeiner has an answer for skeptics who doubt the science of climate change.

“If we follow the scientists and we act and in 20 years find out that they were wrong, we didn’t do any mistakes,” Finkbeiner told an Urban Futures conference in Austria last year. “But if we follow the skeptics and in 20 years find out that they were wrong, it will be too late to save our future.”

A Big Effort to Count Trees

The tree study came about as Plant-for-the-Planet’s ambitions expanded. One of the largest projects now is a reforestation effort underway on the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico. The group built a nursery that contains 300,000 seedlings of native trees and plans ultimately to plant 10 million trees by 2020.

Larger ambitions prompted new questions. Did the 14 billion trees already planted make any difference? Would 10 million in Mexico? Can planting keep up with the continuing deforestation around the world? No one knew. Scientists have long considered conducting a tree census, but until then, no one had done one. Enter Tom Crowther and his team at Yale.

“Felix asked the simple question: how many trees are there?” Crowther says. “Plant-for-the-Planet was certainly the inspiration for me.”

The two-year study, published in Nature in 2015, found that the Earth has 3 trillion trees—seven times the number of previous estimates. The study found that the number of trees on the planet since the dawn of agriculture 12,000 years ago has fallen by almost half—and that about 10 billion trees are lost every year. Planting a billion trees is a nice effort, but won’t make a dent.

“I thought they might be disheartened,” Crowther says. Instead, “they said, ‘Okay, now we have to scale up.’ They didn’t hesitate. They’re contacting billionaires all over the world. It is amazing.”

Scaling up means Plant-for-the-Planet now aims to plant one trillion trees. That’s 1,000 billion. Those trees could absorb an additional 10 billion tons of carbon dioxide every year; Finkbeiner says that will buy time for the world to get serious about reducing carbon emissions.

Meanwhile, he’ll keep giving speeches to the grownups.

“We’re going to be the victims of climate change. It is in our own self-interest to get children to act,” he says. “At the same time, I don’t think we can give up on this generation of adults and wait 20 or 30 years for our generation to come to power. We don’t have that time. All we can do is push them in the right direction.”

To save chestnut trees, we may have to ‘play God’

Madagascar’s sacred trees face existential threats in a changing world

4 solutions for trees and forests threatened by a hotter world

Tree-planting projects abound. Which should you support?

What's the oldest tree on Earth—and will it survive climate change?

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Plain Bible Teaching

Paul’s Message to Felix

After Paul was arrested in Jerusalem, he was taken to Caesarea where he had the chance to speak with Felix the governor. The apostle used this opportunity not to plead with the governor to release him, but to deliver a message from the gospel that Felix needed to hear.

“ But some days later Felix arrived with Drusilla, his wife who was a Jewess, and sent for Paul and heard him speak about faith in Christ Jesus. But as he was discussing righteousness , self-control and the judgment to come , Felix became frightened and said, ‘Go away for the present, and when I find time I will summon you’ ” (Acts 24:24-25).

The points that Paul discussed with Felix are necessary for all of us today. Let us briefly consider them:

Righteousness – This is about doing what God wants us to do. In the gospel, “ the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith ” (Romans 1:16-17). We are expected to obey the gospel (cf. Romans 6:17; Hebrews 5:9; 2 Thessalonians 1:8). John wrote, “ Little children, make sure no one deceives you; the one who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous ” (1 John 3:7). Righteousness is not a status that is conferred to us; rather, it is the way we live our lives.
Self-control – This is about not doing what God does not want us to do. Jesus said, “ If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me ” (Luke 9:23). We are expected to put away sin from our lives (Romans 6:6-7, 11-18; 1 John 2:1). We must “ live the rest of the time in the flesh no longer for the lusts of men, but for the will of God ” (1 Peter 4:2).
Judgment to come – This is about our accountability before God. He will judge us for our righteousness (doing what He wants us to do) and self-control (not doing what He does not want us to do). “ It is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment ” (Hebrews 9:27). When Paul wrote to the church in Corinth, he described this judgment: “ For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad ” (2 Corinthians 5:10). In the end, we will answer to the Lord for how we have lived up to His standard.

Interestingly, Luke indicated that Paul’s message to Felix was about “ faith in Christ Jesus ” (Acts 24:24). This means that faith is about more than just acknowledging Jesus as the Christ. Living righteously, exercising self-control, and making preparations for God’s judgment are part of the message of faith.

Paul wrote, “ Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves! ” (2 Corinthians 13:5). Are we living righteously? Are we exercising self-control? Are we prepared for the judgment? If not, then we might tremble as Felix did when the truth is taught (Acts 24:25, KJV). But we do not have to live in fear. We can live in such a way as to please the Lord and be ready for the final judgment, but we must be willing to make the necessary changes in our lives to conform to His will.

If you need to make changes in your life, do not be like Felix and put it off for a “ convenient season ” (Acts 24:25, KJV). James wrote, “ You do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away ” (James 4:14). Now is the time to be obedient to the Lord.

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Answering Basic Questions: Simple Explanations of Some Fundamental Bible Topics

Peter issued this challenge to all Christians: “ But sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence ” (1 Peter 3:15). However, many Christians feel unprepared to do this; therefore, many conversations that could potentially lead people to the truth never get started.

This book will help equip all Christians to start engaging in spiritual conversations with those around them by providing simple answers to some basic Bible questions. Being ready to give an answer does not mean having an answer to every possible question at the drop of a hat. Instead, it means being able to give a ready answer to questions that are fundamental to our faith that can open the door to further discussions and studies with those who are interested. By studying the material in this book and becoming familiar with the Scriptures cited in each answer, Christians will be better prepared and have more confidence when they discuss their faith with others.

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Children speak out about the climate crisis

Germany-based international campaign group Plant-for the-Planet aims to plant a trillion trees by 2030.

Jana steps onto the stage. She’s a bit nervous, as she scans her audience of about 100 chief executive officers and high-level company executives to which she is expected to give her speech. And she is only 12.

Jana tells the story of a young boy who had an idea that sounded both unrealistic and childish—to plant one trillion trees all around the world.

In 2007, nine-year-old Felix gave a presentation in his class about the climate crisis. While preparing this presentation, he read about Wangari Maathai, also called the “mother of trees”. The first female professor in Africa and a Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, Wangari Maathai empowered women in Africa by planting trees with them. Together, they planted 30 million trees.

At that time, Felix’s goal was to save the polar bear, his favourite animal. But soon, Felix understood that the climate crisis not only threatens polar bears, but all children around the globe. Reading Wangari Maathai’s story, Felix learned that trees help reduce climate change by capturing carbon.

At the end of his presentation, Felix said: “Let’s plant one million trees in every country of the world.” He really had no idea how many one million trees were. It was the largest number he could imagine, and he knew that his generation needed as many trees as possible.

His idea fascinated his classmates, other students, teachers and journalists. The children started a competition among German schools, and soon planted their millionth tree. But when the children were invited to speak at the United Nations General Assembly in New York, Felix was really excited. The children were going to be heard by the grown-ups and even Wangari Maathai would listen to his speech.

At the United Nations, Felix called on the world to plant a trillion trees: “It is now time that we work together. We combine our forces. Old and young, rich and poor. And together, we can plant a trillion trees.”

Things then started to slowly fall into place. In 2011, UN Environment handed over its Billion Tree Campaign to the children and youth, and promoted the children’s campaign Stop talking. Start planting, opening doors to reach influential people. Through a Memorandum of Understanding, UN Environment and the Plant-for-the-Planet Foundation continue to collaborate.

“Awareness of the need for forest action has never been greater,” says UN Environment ecosystems expert Tim Christophersen. “We are seeing positive momentum and opportunity to take action on forests worldwide—driven by governments, civil-society organizations and businesses. We now need to systematically scale up and replicate solutions and empower all actors to restore degraded forests and landscapes. We can bring at least 350 million hectares under active restoration in the coming decade.”

At UN Environment, forests are a major front of action in the global fight against catastrophic climate change—thanks to their unparalleled capacity to absorb and store carbon. The UN-REDD Programme , a joint undertaking of the Food and Agriculture Organization, the United Nations Development Programme and UN Environment to fight deforestation and forest degradation, was developed to advance the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and to foster innovative and collaborative approaches to address the existential challenge of climate change.

Every month, some of the 70,000 children and youths who have joined Plant-for-The-Planet as climate justice ambassadors take photos with important persons, covering the adult’s mouths with their hands. Others, like Jana, give speeches. To help governments around the world limit global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial era levels, Jana set out to convince business leaders to do their share. “Climate politics needs new supporters: you, the companies,” she argues.

She also tells them how children like herself plant trees at Plant-for-the-Planet Academies and collect money to plant trees at a larger scale. On the Yucatán peninsula in Mexico, more than a hundred workers plant more than 5,000 trees per day. They plant native species, take care of every single seedling and reach survival rates of 94 per cent.

But it’s obvious that this can only be one reforestation project. Many more are needed globally. Twenty-seven African nations have promised, through AFR100 , to plant 111 million hectares with trees, which equates to around 55 billion trees, and more nations have promised to plant 188 million hectares of forests through the Bonn Challenge . The shared goal: to plant 350 million hectares with new trees by 2030, an area bigger than India.

Meanwhile, children like Jana will continue to promote tree planting. After her speech, a newspaper published the headline: “12-Year-Old Steals the Show from Politics & Business Elites”. Jana needs the attention. It’s about her future.

For further information, please contact Tim Christophersen

On 1 and 2 December 2018, UN Environment and partners are organizing the Global Landscapes Forum in Bonn, Germany to exchange solutions for restoration, forestry and sustainable landscapes management.

Biodiversity

Further Resources

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UN Environment’s 2008 Plant a Billion campaign
Forests provide a critical short-term solution to climate change
Forests: A natural solution to climate change, crucial for a sustainable future
The United Nations Collaborative Programme on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries
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A man sits with two small children and a dog on his lap as a woman stands behind them and smiles.

One memorable speech can turn around a faltering campaign − how Nixon did it with his ‘Checkers’ talk

Professor Emeritus of Communication, American University School of Communication

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Twenty years before Watergate , then-Sen. Richard Nixon’s national political ambitions were in peril. He was accused of dipping into a private, $18,000 slush fund to cover expenses, and doubts about the propriety of his conduct intensified as the 1952 presidential election campaign unfolded.

Nixon was able to preserve what became a long career in national politics – and kept the vice presidential spot on that year’s Republican national ticket – with a talk on television and radio in which Checkers, his family’s cocker spaniel, figured memorably.

What is known as Nixon’s “Checkers” speech was without precedent, and it came at a moment when television was just beginning to have an impact on American political life.

Although popular memory of the speech has faded, the episode offers a reminder, perhaps loosely relevant these days to President Joe Biden, about how political firestorms – and demands that a controversial candidate quit a national party ticket – can in some circumstances be neutralized.

The “ Checkers ” case is also a reminder that a whiff of scandal isn’t necessarily destructive to a political campaign.

A man lies in a reclining chair and holds a dog up to his face in a black and white photo.

Nixon at a crossroads

The 1952 Republican ticket, led by Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, won a 39-state landslide over the Democrats’ presidential nominee, Gov. Adlai E. Stevenson of Illinois. The sweep of the Eisenhower-Nixon victory was an outcome no pollster had anticipated, as I note in my 2024 book, “ Lost in a Gallup: Polling Failure in U.S. Presidential Elections .”

But a Republican victory hardly seemed assured in mid-September 1952, when the New York Post reported that Nixon, then 39, had benefited from a private fund set up by supporters to cover expenses incurred as a U.S. senator from California.

The then-liberal Post said the fund was supported by a “millionaire’s club” of Californians and was “devoted exclusively to the financial comfort of Sen. Nixon.” The nest egg allowed Nixon to live in style well beyond what a senator’s salary – $12,500 annually, or about $145,000 these days – could support, the Post alleged.

Nixon was caught unawares and denied wrongdoing. He was slow to realize that the Post’s disclosure threatened his political career. Not only did it raise doubts about the senator’s judgment, the report appeared to contradict Eisenhower’s pledge to crack down on scandal, corruption and unethical conduct in Washington.

Nixon not only seemed to be “damaged goods,” as Tom Wicker wrote in his biography of Nixon . He was suddenly “a liability” to Eisenhower, a five-star general and America’s preeminent military hero of World War II.

Calls for Nixon to vacate the Republican ticket arose quickly, emanating even from within the Republican party and its Eastern establishment wing. Former New York Gov. Thomas E. Dewey, a two-time loser in campaigns for the U.S. presidency, urged Nixon to quit.

Nixon soon was the target of jeering audiences at campaign stops. Many reporters covering the candidate figured he would have to quit. Demands that he do so began appearing in newspapers that supported Eisenhower.

The Washington Post, for example, said Nixon’s quitting “would provide the Republican party an unparalleled opportunity to demonstrate the sincerity of its campaign against loose conduct and corruption in government.” The New York Herald Tribune, a voice of Eastern establishment Republicanism, called for Nixon “to make a formal offer of withdrawal from the ticket.”

Eisenhower, meanwhile, was lukewarm about Nixon’s remaining on the ticket and extended little more than half-hearted support to his running mate as the controversy deepened. He called on Nixon to make full disclosure about the fund.

A turnaround with Checkers

Nixon’s response was to plead his case to Americans by radio and television from a broadcast studio in Los Angeles. His half-hour speech was paid for by the Republican National Committee and aired live on Sept. 23, 1952, five days after the New York Post’s report about the fund.

Nixon during the broadcast was by turns adamant, self-pitying and partisan. His wife, Pat, was seated nearby in an armchair that was mostly out of camera range. She looked stricken the few times the camera turned her way.

Nixon emphasized his modest background and lifestyle, mentioning that his wife did not own a mink coat, an artifact of luxury at the time. Instead, Nixon said, she wore a “respectable Republican cloth coat.”

He described in detail his possessions and liabilities, saying, “It isn’t very much. But Pat and I have the satisfaction that every dime that we’ve got is honestly ours.”

Nixon said he had granted no “special favors” to the 76 contributors who donated as much as $1,000 to the fund, which had been set up two years before. Its singular purpose, Nixon asserted, was to help cover expenses “that I did not think should be charged to the taxpayers of the United States.”

The fund’s single largest expenditures were reported to be $6,100 for stationery and $3,430 for travel. “Not one cent” went for personal use, Nixon said.

Little of what Nixon described seemed to support the New York Post’s claims of a fund set up for his “financial comfort.”

Nearly 20 minutes into his remarks, Nixon invoked Checkers, a passage that helped win for the speech an enduring place in American political lore.

A Nixon supporter in Texas had gifted the pet to Nixon’s family after he heard a radio broadcast in which Pat Nixon said her daughters would like to have a dog.

Not long afterward, Nixon said during the speech, “we got a message from Union Station in Baltimore, saying they had a package for us. We went down to get it. You know what it was?

"It was a little cocker spaniel dog, in a crate … sent all the way from Texas, black and white, spotted. And our little girl Tricia, the six-year-old, named it Checkers,” Nixon said.

“And you know,” he added, “the kids, like all kids, loved the dog, and I just want to say this, right now, that regardless of what they say about it, we are going to keep” Checkers.

Two men in suits gesture toward each other in a black and white photo.

A ‘political masterstroke’

The writer George D. Gopen , in assessing the speech years later , said the reference to Checkers allowed Nixon’s daughters metaphorically to “burst onto the scene, unseen, to dominate our consciousness, playing with their dog.”

“That is great thinking and really good writing,” he wrote.

In the immediate aftermath of the speech, Robert Ruark , a syndicated columnist, wrote that Nixon had effectively “stripped himself naked for all the world to see, and he brought the missus and the kids and the dog … into the act.” Nixon had aligned himself with mainstream Americans in what Wicker described as a “political masterstroke.”

Nixon closed by inviting viewers and listeners to help decide his political fate by sending letters and telegrams not to Eisenhower but to members of the Republican National Committee. Tell them, Nixon said, “whether you think I should stay on or whether I should get off. And whatever their decision is, I will abide by it.”

Americans responded by the tens of thousands, expressing support for Nixon. Members of the Republican National Committee voted without objection to keep him on the ticket.

The outcome was perhaps encouraged by less-sensational disclosures at the time that Stevenson, the Democratic presidential nominee, had supported supplementary income funds for appointees to state positions in Illinois and that his running mate, Sen. John Sparkman, had kept his wife on his congressional payroll for 10 years.

The day after the speech, Eisenhower met Nixon in West Virginia and declared his running mate vindicated. “Why, you’re my boy!” the Herald Tribune quoted the general as saying.

A political disaster had been averted. Nixon served two terms as vice president in Eisenhower’s administrations and twice won the presidency before resigning in August 1974 over the Watergate scandal .

Nixon’s rescuing himself in the 1952 election was notable and perhaps instructive, suggesting that a creative, high-profile and timely response can prevent sensational allegations from overwhelming a beleaguered candidacy , much as they nearly did to Nixon.

The lessons of 1952, of course, are only superficially germane to Biden’s predicament in the aftermath of his recent disastrous debate with former President Donald Trump. Even though the long-ago Checkers speech offers no sure road map to surviving a political crisis, it does represent intriguing context to 2024.

It is certainly noteworthy that Biden in recent days has sought out a variety of audiences , including those of a television network , in an urgent gambit to preserve his candidacy for reelection.

Although Biden rejects their findings, polls make clear Biden’s not succeeding , that a Checkers-like redux is not in the offing.

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Political history
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POWER PLANTER: Felix Finkbeiner

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Champion for Trees

A teen battles climate change with a plan to plant a trillion trees around the globe, essential question: what actions can individuals take to help protect the environment.

When Felix Finkbeiner was in fourth grade, his teacher assigned a simple class project: Research climate change and give a presentation. The 9-yearold student from Germany focused on trees’ role in protecting the planet. He concluded his presentation by challenging classmates to plant 1 million trees in their country.

Felix led the charge by planting a crab apple tree at his school in 2007. Other schools joined in to see which could plant the most trees. They set up a website to track their tree tally. German newspapers covered their progress. By 2008, Felix’s idea had blossomed into a global movement, called Plant for the Planet.

When Felix Finkbeiner was in fourth grade, his teacher gave the class a project. They had to research climate change and give a presentation. Nine-year-old Felix talked about how trees protect the planet. His presentation ended with a challenge. He asked his classmates to plant 1 million trees in their country, Germany.

Felix led the charge. He planted a crab apple tree at his school in 2007. Other schools joined in to see which could plant the most trees. They set up a website to track their tree count. German newspapers covered their progress. By 2008, Felix’s idea had grown into a global movement. It’s called Plant for the Planet.

Plant for the Planet’s “Stop Talking, Start Planting” campaign encourages climate action.

Plant for the Planet organizes kids to plant trees in countries all over the world—a small step that could help in a big way. “Anyone anywhere can plant a tree,” says Felix. “It’s a beautifully simple and positive action.”

So far, volunteers with the group have planted 14.2 billion trees worldwide. Now 19, Felix has set a mind-boggling new goal: Plant 1 trillion trees—about 150 for every person on the planet—to fight climate change.

Plant for the Planet organizes kids to plant trees in countries all over the world. This small step could help in a big way. “Anyone anywhere can plant a tree,” says Felix. “It’s a beautifully simple and positive action.”

Volunteers with the group have been busy. So far, they’ve planted 14.2 billion trees worldwide. Felix, now 19, has set an amazing new goal to fight climate change. He wants to plant 1 trillion trees. That’s about 150 for every person on the planet.

PLANET IN PERIL

For the past hundred years, Earth’s average temperature has been steadily increasing. Scientists have found that human actions are driving the planet’s climate to change. Burning fossil fuels—such as coal, oil, and gas—for energy releases greenhouse gases , like carbon dioxide. These gases build up in Earth’s atmosphere and form an invisible blanket around the planet, trapping heat from the sun.

Earth’s rising temperatures can lead to heat waves and droughts. It can also cause ice caps and glaciers to melt. Meltwater flows into the ocean, raising sea levels and increasing coastal flooding. To slow climate change, people must reduce production of greenhouse gases or find a way to remove them from the atmosphere. That’s where trees come in.

Earth’s average temperature has been steadily rising for the past hundred years. Scientists have found that human actions are driving the planet’s climate to change. Humans burn fossil fuels, such as coal, oil, and gas, for energy. This releases greenhouse gases, like carbon dioxide. These gases build up in Earth’s atmosphere. They form an invisible blanket around the planet and trap heat from the sun.

Earth’s rising temperatures can lead to heat waves and droughts. It can cause ice caps and glaciers to melt. Meltwater flows into the ocean. This raises sea levels and increases flooding along coasts. To slow climate change, people have to act. They must lower production of greenhouse gases or find a way to take them out of the atmosphere. That’s where trees come in.

Students attend a workshop in Togo, a country in West Africa.

LEAFY GUARDIANS

INSPIRATION: Kenyan environmentalist Wangari Maathai led a campaign to plant 30 million trees.

While researching climate change for his fourth-grade assignment, Felix came across the work of Kenyan environmentalist Wangari Maathai. She led a successful campaign to plant 30 million trees in parts of Africa that had been stripped of their forests.

Felix also learned that trees absorb carbon dioxide from the air and store it in their tissues ( see Soaking Up Carbon ). Trees use sunlight to convert carbon dioxide and water into sugar and oxygen. Through this process, called photosynthesis , they make their own food.

Forests all over the world have been shrinking rapidly as people cut down trees for lumber or to make room for buildings or farmland. Inspired by Maathai, Felix decided to rally kids to restore their countries’ forests and help protect the planet.

For his fourth-grade project, Felix researched climate change. He came across the work of Wangari Maathai. This environmentalist from Kenya set out to plant 30 million trees in parts of Africa. These areas had been stripped of their forests. Her campaign was a success.

Felix also learned that trees soak up carbon dioxide from the air. They store it in their tissues ( see Soaking Up Carbon ). Trees use sunlight to change carbon dioxide and water into sugar and oxygen. This process is called photosynthesis . That’s how trees make their own food.

Forests all over the world have been shrinking quickly. People cut down trees for lumber or to make room for buildings or farmland. Felix was inspired by Maathai. So he decided to get kids working together. They could bring back their countries’ forests and help protect the planet.

SOAKING UP CARBON

Trees can store carbon for long periods, helping to keep it out of the atmosphere. Here’s how carbon moves through forests.

GOING GLOBAL

In 2008, Felix was elected to the junior board of the United Nations (U.N.) Environment Programme. At a conference in South Korea, he explained his proposal to kids from around the world. When he finished, 500 students from 58 countries had pledged to get a million trees planted in their home countries.

In 2010, Germany became the first nation to reach the 1-million-tree mark. The following year, Felix addressed the U.N. in New York City. He explained that many adults don’t take climate change seriously enough because its worst consequences won’t happen in their lifetimes. “For us children, it’s a question of survival,” he told global leaders. “We cannot trust that adults alone will save our future. We have to take our future in our own hands.”

Felix’s speech impressed U.N. leaders so much that they put Plant for the Planet in charge of the U.N.’s own tree-planting campaign, which had a goal of 1 billion trees.

In 2008, Felix was elected to the junior board of the United Nations (U.N.) Environment Programme. He spoke at a conference in South Korea. He explained his idea to kids from around the world. Five hundred students from 58 countries joined his plan. They pledged to get a million trees planted in their home countries.

In 2010, Germany became the first nation to plant 1 million trees. The next year, Felix spoke to the U.N. in New York City. He explained that many adults don’t take climate change seriously enough. That’s because its worst effects won’t happen in their lifetimes. “For us children, it’s a question of survival,” he told global leaders. “We cannot trust that adults alone will save our future. We have to take our future in our own hands.”

Felix’s speech greatly impressed U.N. leaders. They put Plant for the Planet in charge of the U.N.’s own tree-planting campaign. It had a goal of 1 billion trees.

SPEAKING OUT: Felix, 13, addresses the United Nations in 2011.

HOW MANY TREES?

The new goal was a big one. But would a billion trees be enough to make a difference in slowing climate change? To find out, Felix’s organization needed to know how the number of trees on Earth changes over time.

Ecologist Tom Crowther, who was then based at Yale University in Connecticut, and a group of colleagues decided to help Plant for the Planet get some answers. “We thought this would be a quick project,” says Crowther. “But then we looked and realized that nobody had addressed these questions reliably.”

The new goal was a big one. But would a billion trees be enough to slow climate change? To find out, Felix’s group needed the answer to another question: How does the number of trees on Earth change over time?

Ecologist Tom Crowther was based at Yale University. He and his colleagues decided to help Plant for the Planet get some answers. “We thought this would be a quick project,” says Crowther. “But then we looked and realized that nobody had addressed these questions reliably.”

The organization hosts workshops that train students to be climate justice ambassadors.

Crowther’s team gathered data from studies in which people on the ground had counted trees one by one on more than 400,000 plots of land around the world, covering a total area of 4,300 square kilometers (1,660 square miles). They paired that data with satellite images to get detailed global estimates of tree density ( see The World’s Trees ). They determined that the planet has 3 trillion trees, and the number is dropping by 10 billion per year. At that rate, the world’s forests will disappear in 300 years.

Crowther dreaded delivering the news to Plant for the Planet. “I thought it was going to be horrible, saying, ‘I hate to tell you, but a billion trees isn’t going to do anything,’” he says. It turns out he shouldn’t have worried. “They said, ‘Fantastic, finally we have reliable numbers to use to scale up our efforts.’ The way they took the information and ran with it was inspirational,” says Crowther.

Crowther’s team gathered data from past studies. People on the ground had counted trees one by one on more than 400,000 plots of land around the world. They’d covered 4,300 square kilometers (1,660 square miles). The team put that data together with satellite images. This helped them to figure out the number of trees all around the globe ( see The World’s Trees ). They found that the planet has 3 trillion trees. The number is dropping by 10 billion per year. At that rate, the world’s forests will disappear in 300 years.

Crowther was nervous about giving the news to Plant for the Planet. “I thought it was going to be horrible, saying, ‘I hate to tell you, but a billion trees isn’t going to do anything,’ ” he says. But he shouldn’t have worried. “They said, ‘Fantastic, finally we have reliable numbers to use to scale up our efforts.’ The way they took the information and ran with it was inspirational,” says Crowther.

THE WORLD’S TREES

The map below shows the density of trees in each country, measured in trees per square kilometer. What are some factors that might affect the density of trees in a particular country?

Felix and his collaborators decided that slowing climate change would require not 1 billion new trees but 1 trillion. That number might soak up roughly a quarter of all the carbon dioxide emitted each year. Crowther is now working on precise measurements of how much carbon trees can store so that the project can make sure their latest goal is on target.

“Trees alone can’t solve the climate crisis,” says Felix, “but they can buy us more time. The more we make use of their abilities, the better off we’ll be.”

Felix and his helpers decided that 1 billion new trees wouldn’t slow climate change. They needed 1 trillion. That number might soak up about a quarter of all the carbon dioxide released each year. Crowther is now working on finding out exactly how much carbon trees can store. Then the project can make sure their new goal is on target.

CORE QUESTION: How did Felix and his collaborators evaluate whether their project would be effective?

Copa America

Ecuador part ways with Felix Sanchez following Copa America exit

Ecuador has parted ways with coach Felix Sanchez following their exit from the 2024 Copa America.

The decision was confirmed following their defeat against Argentina in the quarter-final of the United States tournament.

Ecuador were beaten 4-2 on penalties against reigning champions Argentina after a 1-1 draw in normal time.

The Ecuadorian Football Federation (FEF) announced in a statement that they have terminated “the contractual relationship” with Sanchez and dismissed his coaching staff.

The FEF expressed gratitude to Sanchez and his team “for their work and professionalism” and wished them “success in their future projects”.

Sanchez, 48, was appointed to lead Ecuador on a four-year contract in March 2023.

The Spaniard previously managed Qatar for five years between 2017 and 2022, winning the 2019 AFC Asian Cup and leading the team at the 2022 World Cup. However, his contract was not renewed after Qatar lost all their Group A matches in the tournament on home soil.

Sanchez has been relieved of his duties despite sitting above Brazil, Paraguay , Chile , Bolivia and Peru in the 2026 World Cup CONMEBOL qualification standings.

During his tenure, Sanchez won 10 of his 19 games in charge of Ecuador.

Copa America 2024 bracket: Full knockout stage schedule

Does this come as a surprise?

Analysis by Jack Lang

It is hard not to feel for Sanchez here. Looking past Copa America for a second, Ecuador sit fifth in the South American World Cup qualifying, above Brazil. That’s despite starting the campaign on minus three points for a rules violation in the previous cycle. La Tri beat a tricky Uruguay at home and pushed Argentina all the way in a 1-0 defeat in Buenos Aires, a performance that earned Sanchez praise.

The feeling a few weeks ago was that Ecuador were really building towards something under him, after he took charge in March 2023. He brought the 17-year-old Kendry Paez into the side last year — a popular move — and had begun to renovate other areas of the team, putting faith in younger players like Jeremy Sarmiento , Willian Pacho and John Yeboah .

Even if performances at the Copa America did not quite live up to pre-tournament expectations — they only really clicked in the 3-1 win against Jamaica — Sanchez must surely have thought he had enough credit in the bank to survive the penalty shootout defeat to Argentina, especially after such a brave second-half display.

(Juan Mabromata/AFP via Getty Images)

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Atoms for Peace speech

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United States History - Atoms for Peace

U.S. Pres. Dwight D. Eisenhower delivering his Atoms for Peace speech to the United Nations, Dec. 8, 1953.

Atoms for Peace speech , speech delivered to the United Nations by U.S. Pres. Dwight D. Eisenhower on December 8, 1953. In this address, Eisenhower spelled out the necessity of repurposing existing nuclear weapons technology to peaceful ends, stating that it must be humanity’s goal to discover “the way by which the miraculous inventiveness of man shall not be dedicated to his death, but consecrated to his life.” The speech marked one of the earliest calls to curb the global nuclear arms race , and it inspired the creation of the International Atomic Energy Agency in 1956.

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Alerts in effect, eleanor roosevelt and the universal declaration of human rights.

President Harry Truman had appointed Eleanor Roosevelt to the United States delegation to the United Nations in December 1945. Soon after her return the following February from London, where the General Assembly first convened, she received a call from UN Secretary-General Trygve Lie, telling her that he had appointed her to the nuclear commission charged with creating the formal human rights commission.

April 29, 1946, at New York’s Hunter College, Henri Laugier, the assistant secretary-general for social affairs, called the first session of the nuclear commission to order. Laugier hoped the delegates would remember that “the free peoples” and “all of the people liberated from slavery, put in you their confidence and their hope, so that everywhere the authority of these rights, respect of which is the essential condition of the dignity of the person, be respected.” Their work “would start [the UN] on the road which the Charter set for it.” He concluded:

You will have before you the difficult but essential problem to define the violation of human rights within a nation, which would constitute a menace to the security and peace of the world and the existence of which is sufficient to put in movement the mechanism of the United Nations for peace and security. You will have to suggest the establishment of machinery of observation which will find and denounce the violations of the rights of man all over the world. Let us remember that if this machinery had existed a few years ago . . . the human community would have been able to stop those who started the war at the moment when they were still weak and the world catastrophe would have been avoided.

As soon as Laugier finished his remarks, Dr. C. L. Hsia, from China, nominated ER to chair the commission. All the delegates promptly endorsed his recommendation. ER, who did not anticipate this responsibility, promised to “do my best, although my knowledge of parliamentary law is somewhat limited.” She recognized “that we are all conscious of the great responsibility which rests upon us . . . . to help the United Nations achieve its primary objective of keeping the peace of the world by helping human beings to live together happily and contentedly.” Once the “nuclear” commission agreed on the structure the permanent commission should adopt, it adjourned.

ECOSOC had presented the HRC with three tasks: “a draft International Declaration, a draft covenant, and provisions for the implementation.” This was not easy work. It challenged the Commission to craft a vision, develop legally binding protocols acceptable to all member states, and structure an International Court of Human Rights. Political discord surfaced immediately, both within the Commission itself and within the American delegation.

When the permanent Human Rights Commission convened in the fall of 1946, it promptly elected ER as its chair. For the next two years, ER dedicated most of her energy to commission duties. This required fierce patience and determination.

Concerns regarding national sovereignty, real or imagined, also threatened to destroy the HRC’s work. ER responded to these fears by urging the HRC to reorder its plan of work. Rather than focus on crafting a legally binding International Bill of Rights, the HRC should work on all three ECOSOC tasks simultaneously. The delegates agreed and created subcommittees for each task. They then appointed ER to chair the subcommittee charged with drafting the Declaration.

Throughout these often exhaustive debates, ER strove to remind the HRC, and ultimately the UN itself, that the Declaration must serve as a counterforce to the fear and horror exposed by World War II. She insisted that the Declaration be written in clear accessible language so that it might be readily embraced by peoples of the world. She exerted similar pressure on the U.S. State Department, arguing that for the declaration to have any impact it must not be seen as an American or western dominated document. In the process, she played the key role in convincing the State Department to expand its concept of human rights from a concept of merely political and civil rights to include economic, social, and cultural rights.

For ER, her work with the HRC provided the opportunity to address issues she championed as First Lady (poverty alleviation, access to education, conflict resolution, and civil rights) as well as the issues she addressed as a delegate to the General Assembly (refugee concerns, humanitarian relief, and the reconstruction of war-torn Europe).

She saw this as real political work rather than a mere intellectual exercise. “Many of us thought that lack of standards for human rights the world over was one of the greatest causes of friction among the nations,” she told readers of Foreign Affairs, “and that recognition of human rights might become one of the cornerstones on which peace could eventually be based.”

She viewed the crafting of the declaration as “a very grave responsibility.” The peoples of the world, many of whose lives seemed to teeter between hope and fear, “look upon us, regardless of the governments we spring from, as their representatives, the representatives of the peoples of the world, and for that reason, I hope that every one of us is going to feel, in the consideration of the question of how we constitute the full Commission and of how we recommend that the work shall be undertaken.”

Though not legally binding, ER thought the declaration could push the world away from war. If it could establish “basic standards” which would guide the United Nations in “promoting and encouraging respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms for all,” it would have the ”moral” force necessary to “guide and [inspire] individuals and groups throughout the world . . . to promote respect for human rights.”

Responding to a wave of pressure from President Truman and Secretary of State George C. Marshall to launch a moral offensive against the USSR, she agreed to deliver a keynote address at the Sorbonne in Paris in September 1948. She titled her remarks, “The Struggle for Human Rights.”

By the time ER assumed the podium that fall, domestic politics and international tensions combined forces to hinder the Declaration’s adoption. The subcommittee had distributed its draft of the Declaration (which the Soviet bloc had not endorsed) for member nations’ review in the spring. Over the summer, the Soviets blockaded Berlin, communist-supported unions struck in Italy and France, the Arab-Israeli conflict escalated, Mao tse Tung battled nationalist forces in China, and American political parties splintered.Calling “the preservation of human freedom” “one of the greatest issues of our time,” ER told the overflow audience the world still struggled to rebound from the violence and coercion of wartime totalitarian governments and that only the Declaration had the “moral force” to shift the discussion away from the “reaction, retreat, and retrogression” of the past.” The world must take the time “to think carefully and clearly on the subject of human rights, because in the acceptance and observance of these rights lies the root, I believe, of our chance for peace in the future, and for the strengthening of the United Nations organization to the point where it can maintain peace in the future.”

ER’s address at the Sorbonne set the tone for the forthcoming deliberations on the drafting of the declaration. The drafting process involved eighty-five working sessions (many lasting until well past midnight) in which new delegates revisited each word of the Declaration’s thirty articles. Discussions over the right to education, to an adequate standard of living, and to old-age pensions ran late into 1948, making ER worry that the committee might not act in time to have the declaration approved by the General Assembly. She discussed these deliberations so frequently in “My Day” that her column became both a primer on human rights and a sustained call for endorsement. Indeed, she became so outspoken in her advocacy that her column took on a bluntness she rarely displayed. Increasingly frustrated with Soviet delaying tactics, she made her grievances public, telling her readers, “One would admire Soviet persistence in sticking to their point if it were not for the fact that so often the point is not worth sticking to.”

ER drove the committee hard. December 9, ER confided to her aunt:

[T]he Arabs & Soviets may balk—the Arabs for religious reasons, the Soviets for political ones. We will have trouble at home for it can’t be a U.S. document & get by with 58 nations & at home that is hard to understand. On the whole I think it is good as a declaration of rights to which all men may aspire & which we should try to achieve. It has no legal value but should carry moral weight.

The General Assembly adopted the Declaration the following day.

HRC, Nuclear Commission, 1st Meeting, Summary Record, 29 April 1946, (E/HR/6/1 May 1946), 1-3, Franklin D. Roosevelt Library.

Eleanor Roosevelt, “The Promise of Human Rights,” by Eleanor Roosevelt, Foreign Affairs, April, 1948, in Allida Black, (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999), 156-168.

Eleanor Roosevelt, “The Struggle for Human Rights” Speech at the Sorbonne, Paris, September 28, 1948, in Allida Black, , 900-905.

Eleanor Roosevelt, , December 4, 1948 in Allida Black, , 962-963.

Eleanor Roosevelt to Maude Gray, December 9, 1948, Franklin D. Roosevelt Library.

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The Truman Doctrine

Defense and War
Foreign Policy
March 12, 1947

Introduction

Allies during the Second World War, the United States and the Soviet Union fell out quickly once it ended. By late 1945 and early 1946, concern had already arisen about Soviet attitudes and actions in Europe. In response to a request from the State Department, in February 1946, George Kennan (1904–2005), the Chargé at the American Embassy in Moscow, sent a telegram that offered an explanation for Soviet actions. Quickly dubbed the “ Long Telegram ,” its analysis and recommendations, along with a version that Kennan published in the journal Foreign Affairs under the pseudonym Mr. X, became the basis for the policy of containment that in one way or another guided America’s actions toward the Soviet Union until the end of the Cold War. A manifestation of containment was the so-called Truman Doctrine announced by President Truman about a year after Kennan sent his response to Washington. Like containment, the Truman Doctrine became a fundamental part of America’s response to the confrontation with the Soviet Union. From the beginning, both containment and the Truman Doctrine had critics (see Walter Lippman’s The Cold War and Henry Wallace’s speech ). As the Cold War continued, it became a struggle not just between two political and military powers but between two ways of life or which of the two could better meet human needs. Even the quality of American and Soviet kitchens and what that represented could be part of the debate.

Congressional Record , 80 th Congress, First Session, Document 171, 1–4. Available at “The Truman Doctrine and the Beginning of the Cold War,” Elsey Papers, Truman Library. https://goo.gl/Zvw3pu. The policy expressed in this speech, in particular Truman’s claim that “I believe that it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures,” soon became known as the “Truman Doctrine.”

The gravity of the situation which confronts the world today necessitates my appearance before a joint session of the Congress.

The foreign policy and the national security of this country are involved.

One aspect of the present situation, which I wish to present to you at this time for your consideration and decision, concerns Greece and Turkey. . . .

The Greek Government has . . . asked for the assistance of ex-perienced American administrators, economists and technicians to in-sure that the financial and other aid given to Greece shall be used effectively in creating a stable and self-sustaining economy and in im-proving its public administration.

The very existence of the Greek state is today threatened by the terrorist activities of several thousand armed men, led by Communists, who defy the government’s authority at a number of points, particularly along the northern boundaries. A Commission appointed by the United Nations Security Council is at present investigating disturbed conditions in northern Greece and alleged border violations along the frontier between Greece on the one hand and Albania, Bulgaria, and Yugoslavia on the other.

Meanwhile, the Greek Government is unable to cope with the situation. The Greek army is small and poorly equipped. It needs supplies and equipment if it is to restore the authority of the government through- out Greek territory. . . .

The British Government, which has been helping Greece, can give no further financial or economic aid after March 31. Great Britain finds itself under the necessity of reducing or liquidating its commitments in several parts of the world, including Greece.

We have considered how the United Nations might assist in this crisis. But the situation is an urgent one requiring immediate action, and the United Nations and its related organizations are not in a position to extend help of the kind that is required. . . .

Greece’s neighbor, Turkey, also deserves our attention.

The future of Turkey as an independent and economically sound state is clearly no less important to the freedom-loving peoples of the world than the future of Greece. The circumstances in which Turkey finds itself today are considerably different from those of Greece. Turkey has been spared the disasters that have beset Greece. And during the war, the United States and Great Britain furnished Turkey with material aid. Nevertheless, Turkey now needs our support.

Since the war Turkey has sought financial assistance from Great Britain and the United States for the purpose of effecting that modernization necessary for the maintenance of its national integrity.

That integrity is essential to the preservation of order in the Middle East.

The British government has informed us that, owing to its own difficulties, it can no longer extend financial or economic aid to Turkey.

As in the case of Greece, if Turkey is to have the assistance it needs, the United States must supply it. We are the only country able to provide that help.

I am fully aware of the broad implications involved if the United States extends assistance to Greece and Turkey, and I shall discuss these implications with you at this time.

One of the primary objectives of the foreign policy of the United States is the creation of conditions in which we and other nations will be able to work out a way of life free from coercion. This was a fundamental issue in the war with Germany and Japan. Our victory was won over countries which sought to impose their will, and their way of life, upon other nations.

To ensure the peaceful development of nations, free from coercion, the United States has taken a leading part in establishing the United Nations, The United Nations is designed to make possible lasting freedom and independence for all its members. We shall not realize our objectives, however, unless we are willing to help free peoples to maintain their free institutions and their national integrity against aggressive movements that seek to impose upon them totalitarian regimes. This is no more than a frank recognition that totalitarian regimes imposed on free peoples, by direct or indirect aggression, undermine the foundations of international peace and hence the security of the United States.

The peoples of a number of countries of the world have recently had totalitarian regimes forced upon them against their will. The Government of the United States has made frequent protests against coercion and intimidation, in violation of the Yalta agreement, in Poland, Rumania, and Bulgaria. I must also state that in a number of other countries there have been similar developments.

At the present moment in world history nearly every nation must choose between alternative ways of life. The choice is too often not a free one.

One way of life is based upon the will of the majority, and is dis-tinguished by free institutions, representative government, free elec-tions, guarantees of individual liberty, freedom of speech and religion, and freedom from political oppression.

The second way of life is based upon the will of a minority forcibly imposed upon the majority. It relies upon terror and oppression, a controlled press and radio; fixed elections, and the suppression of personal freedoms.

I believe that it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures.

I believe that we must assist free peoples to work out their own destinies in their own way.

I believe that our help should be primarily through economic and financial aid which is essential to economic stability and orderly political processes.

The world is not static, and the status quo is not sacred. But we cannot allow changes in the status quo in violation of the Charter of the United Nations by such methods as coercion, or by such subterfuges as political infiltration. In helping free and independent nations to maintain their freedom, the United States will be giving effect to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations.

It is necessary only to glance at a map to realize that the survival and integrity of the Greek nation are of grave importance in a much wider situation. If Greece should fall under the control of an armed minority, the effect upon its neighbor, Turkey, would be immediate and serious. Confusion and disorder might well spread throughout the entire Middle East.

Moreover, the disappearance of Greece as an independent state would have a profound effect upon those countries in Europe whose peoples are struggling against great difficulties to maintain their freedoms and their independence while they repair the damages of war.

It would be an unspeakable tragedy if these countries, which have struggled so long against overwhelming odds, should lose that victory for which they sacrificed so much. Collapse of free institutions and loss of independence would be disastrous not only for them but for the world. Discouragement and possibly failure would quickly be the lot of neighboring peoples striving to maintain their freedom and independence.

Should we fail to aid Greece and Turkey in this fateful hour, the effect will be far reaching to the West as well as to the East.

We must take immediate and resolute action. . . .

Everson v. Board of Education of the Township of Ewing

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Haile Selassie's address to the United Nations, 1963

Spoken to the United Nations General Assembly on October 4, 1963. This speech is typically credited as the inspiration for Bob Marley 's hit song " War ". The translation is that provided by the United Nations, running concurrent with his speech.

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 Geneva. Here, in this Assembly, reposes the best - perhaps the last - hope for the peaceful survival of mankind.

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 Palestine, in Korea, in Suez, in the Congo. There is not one among us today who does not conjecture upon the reaction of this body when motives and actions are called into question. The opinion of this Organization today acts as a powerful influence upon the decisions of its members. The spotlight of world opinion, focused by the United Nations upon the transgressions of the renegades of human society, has thus far proved an effective safeguard against unchecked aggression and unrestricted violation of human rights.

The United Nations continues to serve 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 Asia. Its efforts have contributed to the advancement of the standard of living of peoples in all corners of the world.

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 high mindedness 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 judgements. 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.

Ethiopia supports the atmospheric nuclear test ban treaty as a step towards this goal, even though only a partial step. Nations can still perfect weapons of mass destruction by underground testing. There is no guarantee against the sudden, unannounced resumption of testing in the atmosphere.

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 Africa has emerged during the past decade, a fresh attack has been launched against exploitation, wherever it still exists. And in that interaction so common to history, this in turn, has stimulated and encouraged the remaining dependent peoples to renewed efforts to throw off the yoke which has oppressed them and its claim as their birthright the twin ideals of liberty and equality. This very struggle is a struggle to establish peace, and until victory is assured, that brotherhood and understanding which nourish and give life to peace can be but partial and incomplete.

In the United States of America, the administration of President Kennedy is leading a vigorous attack to eradicate the remaining vestige of racial discrimination from this country. We know that this conflict will be won and that right will triumph. In this time of trial, these efforts should be encouraged and assisted, and we should lend our sympathy and support to the American Government today.

Last May, in Addis Ababa, I convened a meeting of Heads of African States and Governments. In three days, the thirty-two nations represented at that Conference demonstrated to the world that when the will and the determination exist, nations and peoples of diverse backgrounds can and will work together. in unity, to the achievement of common goals and the assurance of that equality and brotherhood which we desire.

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 Asia which this Organization provides, the goal, for many, might still lie ahead, and the struggle would have taken far longer. For this, we are truly grateful.

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 Portugal and South Africa are prepared to commit economic or physical suicide if honorable and reasonable alternatives exist. I believe that such alternatives can be found. But I also know that unless peaceful solutions are devised, counsels of moderation and temperance will avail for naught; and another blow will have been dealt to this Organization which will hamper and weaken still further its usefulness in the struggle to ensure the victory of peace and liberty over the forces of strife and oppression. Here, then, is the opportunity presented to us. We must act while we can, while the occasion exists to exert those legitimate pressures available to us, lest time run out and resort be had to less happy means.

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 Asia have struggled to attain is reflected in expanded membership in the institutions which make up the United Nations, confidence will come just that much harder. Unless the rights of the least of men are as assiduously protected as those of the greatest, the seeds of confidence will fall on barren soil.

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 Geneva in 1936, there was no precedent for a head of state addressing the League of Nations. I am neither the first, nor will I be the last head of state to address the United Nations, but only I have addressed both the League and this Organization in this capacity.

The problems which confront us today are, equally, unprecedented. They have no counterparts in human experience. Men search the pages of history for solutions, for precedents, but there are none.

This, then, is the ultimate challenge. Where are we to look for our survival, for the answers to the questions which have never before been posed?

We must look, first, to Almighty God, Who has raised man above the animals and endowed him with intelligence and reason. We must put our faith in Him, that He will not desert us or permit us to destroy humanity which He created in His image.

And we must look into ourselves, into the depth of our souls. We must become something we have never been and for which our education and experience and environment have ill-prepared us. We must become bigger than we have been: more courageous, greater in spirit, larger in outlook. We must become members of a new race, overcoming petty prejudice, owing our ultimate allegiance not to nations but to our fellow men within the human community.

Original:

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This work is also in the public domain if it meets one of the following criteria:

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Translation:

Pursuant to UN available in only, these documents are in the public domain worldwide:

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The Struggle for Human Rights (1948)

[Sorbonne, Paris, Sept. 28, 1948. This speech is also know as “The Struggles for the Rights of Man.”]

Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt

I have come this evening to talk with you on one of the greatest issues of our time—that is the preservation of human freedom. I have chosen to discuss it here in France, at the Sorbonne, because here in this soil the roots of human freedom have long ago struck deep and here they have been richly nourished. It was here the Declaration of the Rights of Man was proclaimed, and the great slogans of the French Revolution--liberty, equality, fraternity--fired the imagination of men. I have chosen to discuss this issue in Europe because this has been the scene of the greatest historic battles between freedom and tyranny. I have chosen to discuss it in the early days of the General Assembly because the issue of human liberty is decisive for the settlement of outstanding political differences and for the future of the United Nations.

The decisive importance of this issue was fully recognized by the founders of the United Nations at San Francisco. Concern for the preservation and promotion of human rights and fundamental freedoms stands at the heart of the United Nations. Its Charter is distinguished by its preoccupation with the rights and welfare of individual men and women. The United Nations has made it clear that it intends to uphold human rights and to protect the dignity of the human personality. In the preamble to the Charter the keynote is set when it declares: “We the people of the United Nations determined...to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small, and ... to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom.” This reflects the basic premise of the Charter that the peace and security of mankind are dependent on mutual respect for the rights and freedoms of all.

One of the purposes of the United Nations is declared in article 1 to be: “to achieve international cooperation in solving international problems of an economic, social, cultural, or humanitarian character, and in promoting and encouraging respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion.”

This thought is repeated at several points and notably in articles 55 and 56 the Members pledge themselves to take joint and separate action in cooperation with the United Nations for the promotion of “universal respect for, and observance of, human rights and fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion.”

The Human Rights Commission was given as its first and most important task the preparation of an International Bill of Rights. The General Assembly which opened its third session here in Paris a few days ago will have before it the first fruit of the Commission’s labors in this task, that is the International Declaration of Human Rights.

This Declaration was finally completed after much work during the last session of the Human Rights Commission in New York in the spring of 1948. The Economic and Social Council has sent it without recommendation to the General Assembly, together with other documents transmitted by the Human Rights Commission.

It was decided in our Commission that a Bill of Rights should contain two parts:

1. A Declaration which could be approved through action of the Member States of the United Nations in the General Assembly. This Declaration would have great moral force, and would say to the peoples of the world “this is what we hope human rights may mean to all people in the years to come.” We have put down here the rights that we consider basic for individual human beings the world over to have. Without them, we feel that the full development of individual personality is impossible.

2. The second part of the bill, which the Human Rights Commission has not yet completed because of the lack of time, is a covenant which would be in the form of a treaty to be presented to the nations of the world. Each nation, as it is prepared to do so, would ratify this covenant and the covenant would then become binding on the nations which adhere to it. Each nation ratifying would then be obligated to change its laws wherever they did not conform to the points contained in the covenant.

This covenant, of course, would have to be a simpler document. It could not state aspirations, which we feel to be permissible in the Declaration. It could only state rights which could be assured by law and it must contain methods of implementation, and no state ratifying the covenant could be allowed to disregard it. The methods of implementation have not yet been agreed upon, nor have they been given adequate consideration by the Commission at any of its meetings. There certainly should be discussion on the entire question of this world Bill of Human Rights and there may be acceptance by this Assembly of the Declaration if they come to agreement on it. The acceptance of the Declaration, I think, should encourage every nation in the coming months to discuss its meaning with its people so that they will be better prepared to accept the covenant with a deeper understanding of the problems involved when that is presented, we hope, a year from now and, we hope, accepted.

The Declaration has come from the Human Rights Commission with unanimous acceptance except for four abstentions—the U.S.S.R., Yugoslavia, Ukraine, and Byelorussia. The reason for this is a fundamental difference in the conception of human rights as they exist in these states and in certain other Member States in the United Nations.

In the discussion before the Assembly, I think it should be made crystal clear what these differences are and tonight I want to spend a little time making them clear to you. It seems to me there is a valid reason for taking the time today to think carefully and clearly on the subject if human rights, because in the acceptance and observance of these rights lies the root, I believe, of our chance for peace in the future, and for the strengthening of the United Nations organization to the point where it can maintain peace in the future.

We must not be confused about what freedom is. Basic human rights are simple and easily understood: freedom of speech and a free press; freedom of religion and worship; freedom of assembly and the right of petition; the right of men to be secure in their homes and free from unreasonable search and seizure and from arbitrary arrest and punishment.

We must not be deluded by the efforts of the forces of reaction to prostitute the great words of our free tradition and thereby to confuse the struggle. Democracy, freedom, human rights have come to have a definite meaning to the people of the world which we must not allow any nation to so change that they are made synonymous with suppression and dictatorship.

There are basic differences that show up even in the use of words between a democratic and a totalitarian country. For instance “democracy” means one thing to the U.S.S.R. and another to the U.S.A. and, I know, in France. I have served since the first meeting of the nuclear commission on the Human Rights Commission, and I think this point stands out clearly.

The U.S.S.R. Representatives assert that they already have achieved many things which we, in what they call the “bourgeois democracies” cannot achieve because their government controls the accomplishment of these things. Our government seems powerless to them because, in the last analysis, it is controlled by the people. They would not put it that way - they would say that the people in the U.S.S.R. control their government by allowing their government to have certain absolute rights. We, on the other hand, feel that certain rights can never be granted to the government, but must be kept in the hands of the people.

For instance, the U.S.S.R. will assert that their press is free because the state makes it free by providing the machinery, the paper, and even the money for the salaries for the people who work on the paper. They state that there is no control over what is printed in the various papers that they subsidize in this manner, such, for instance, as a trade-union paper. But what would happen if a paper were to print ideas which were critical of the basic policies and beliefs of the Communist government? I am sure some good reason would be found for abolishing that paper.

It is true that there have been many cases where newspapers in the U.S.S.R. have criticized officials and their actions and have been responsible for the removal of those officials, but in doing so they did not criticize anything which was fundamental to Communist beliefs. They simply criticized methods of doing things, so one must differentiate between things which are permissible, such as criticism of any individual or of the manner of doing things, and the criticism of a belief which would be considered vital to the acceptance of Communism.

What are the differences, for instance, between trade-unions in the totalitarian states and in the democracies? In the totalitarian state a trade-union is an instrument used by the government to enforce duties, not to assert rights. Propaganda material which the government desires the workers to have is furnished to the trade-unions to be circulated to their members.

Our trade-unions, on the other hand, are solely the instruments of the workers themselves. They represent the workers in their relations with the government and with management and they are free to develop their own opinions without government help or interference. The concepts of our trade-unions and those in totalitarian countries are drastically different. There is little mutual understanding.

I think the best example one can give of this basic difference of the use of terms is “the right to work”. The Soviet Union insists that this is a basic right which it alone can guarantee because it alone provides full employment by the government. But the right to work in the Soviet Union means the assignment of workers to do whatever task is given to them by the government without an opportunity for the people to participate in the decision that the government should do this. A society in which everyone works is not necessarily a free society and may indeed be a slave society; on the other hand, a society in which there is widespread economic insecurity can turn freedom into a barren and vapid right for millions of people. We in the United States have come to realize it means freedom to choose one’s job, to work or not to work as one desires. We, in the United States, have come to realize, however, that people have a right to demand that their government will not allow them to starve because as individuals that cannot find work of the kind they are accustomed to doing and this is a decision brought about by public opinion which came as a result of the great depression in which many people were out of work, but we would not consider in the United States that we have gained any freedom if we were compelled to follow a dictatorial assignment to work where and when we were told. The right of choice would seem to us an important, fundamental freedom.

I have great sympathy with the Russian people. They love their country and have always defended it valiantly against invaders. They have been through a period of revolution, as a result of which they were for a time cut off from outside contact. They have not lost their resulting suspicion of other countries and the great difficulty is today that their government encourages this suspicion and seems to believe that force alone will bring them respect.

We, in the democracies, believe in a kind of international respect and action which is reciprocal. We do not think others should treat us differently from the way they wish to be treated. It is interference in other countries that especially stirs up antagonism against the Soviet Government. If it wishes to feel secure in developing its economic and political theories within it territory, then it should grant others that same security. We believe in the freedom of people to make their own mistakes. We do not interfere with them and they should not interfere with others.

The basic problem confronting the world today, as I said in the beginning, is the preservation of human freedom for the individual and consequently for the society of which he his a part. We are fighting this battle again today as it was fought at the time of the French Revolution and at the time of the American Revolution. The issue of human liberty is as decisive now as it was then. I want to give you my conception of what is meant in my country by freedom of the individual.

Long ago in London during a discussion with Mr. Vyshinsky, he told me there was no such thing as freedom for the individual in the world. All freedom of the individual was conditioned by the rights of other individuals. That, of course, I granted. I said: “We approach the question from a different point of view; we here in the United Nations are trying to develop ideals which will be broader in outlook, which will consider first the rights of man, which will consider what makes man more free: not governments, but man.”

The totalitarian state typically places the will of the people second to decrees promulgated by a few men at the top.

Naturally there must always be consideration of the rights of others; but in a democracy this is not a restriction. Indeed, in our democracies we make our freedoms secure because each of us is expected to respect the rights of others and we are free to make our own laws.

Freedom for our peoples is not only a right, but also a tool. Freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of information, freedom of assembly—these are not just abstract ideals to us; they are tools with which we create a way of life, a way of life in which we can enjoy freedom.

Sometimes the processes of democracy are slow, and I have known some of our leaders to say that a benevolent dictatorship would accomplish the ends desired in a much shorter time than it takes to go through the democratic processes of discussion and the slow formation of public opinion. But there is no way of insuring that a dictatorship will remain benevolent or that power once in the hands of a few will be returned to the people without struggle or revolution. This we have learned by experience and we accept the slow processes of democracy because we know that short-cuts compromise principles on which no compromise is possible.

The final expression of the opinion of the people with us is through free and honest elections, with valid choices on basic issues and candidates. The secret ballot is an essential to free elections but you must have a choice before you. I have heard my husband say many times that a people need never lose their freedom if they kept their right to a secret ballot and if they used that secret ballot to the full.

Basic decisions of our society are made through the expressed will of the people. That is why when we see these liberties threatened, instead of falling apart, our nation becomes unified and our democracies come together as a unified group in spite of our varied backgrounds and many racial strains.

In the Unites States we have a capitalistic economy. That is because public opinion favors that type of economy under the conditions in which we live. But we have imposed certain restraints; for instance, we have anti-trust laws. These are the legal evidence of the determination of the American people to maintain an economy of free competition and not to allow monopolies to take away the people’s freedom.

Our trade-unions grows stronger because the people come to believe that this is the proper way to guarantee the rights of the workers and that the right to organize and to bargain collectively keeps the balance between the actual producer and the investor of money and the manager in industry who watches over the man who works with his hands and who produces the materials which are our tangible wealth.

In the United States we are old enough not to claim perfection. We recognize that we have some problems of discrimination but we find steady progress being made in the solution of these problems. Through normal democratic processes we are coming to understand our needs and how we can attain full equality for all our people. Free discussion on the subject is permitted. Our Supreme Court has recently rendered decisions to clarify a number of our laws to guarantee the rights of all.

The U.S.S.R. claims it has reached a point where all races within her borders are officially considered equal and have equal rights and they insist they have no discrimination where minorities are concerned.

This is a laudable objective but there are other aspects of the development of freedom for the individual which are essential before the mere absence of discrimination is worth much, and these are lacking in the Soviet Union. Unless they are being denied freedoms which they want and which they see other people have, people do not usually complain of discrimination. It is these other freedoms—the basic freedoms of speech, of the press, of religion and conscience, of assembly, of fair trial and freedom from arbitrary arrest and punishment, which a totalitarian government cannot safely give its people and which give meaning to freedom from discrimination.

It is my belief, and I am sure it is also yours, that the struggle for democracy and freedom is a critical struggle, for their preservation is essential to the great objective of the United Nations to maintain international peace and security.

Among free men the end cannot justify the means. We know the patterns of totalitarianism—the single political party, the control of schools, press, radio, the arts, the sciences, and the church to support autocratic authority; these are the age-old patterns against which men have struggled for three thousand years. These are the signs of reaction, retreat, and retrogression.

The United Nations must hold fast to the heritage of freedom won by the struggle of its peoples; it must help us to pass it on to generations to come.

The development of the ideal of freedom and its translation into the everyday life of the people in great areas of the earth is the product of the efforts of many peoples. It is the fruit of a long tradition of vigorous thinking and courageous action. No one race and no one people can claim to have done all the work to achieve greater dignity for human beings and greater freedom to develop human personality. In each generation and in each country there must be a continuation of the struggle and new steps forward must be taken since this is preeminently a field in which to stand still is to retreat.

The field of human rights in not one in which compromise on fundamental principles are possible. The work of the Commission on Human Rights is illustrative. The Declaration of Human Rights provides: “ Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own.” The Soviet Representative said he would agree to this right if a single phrase was added to it—“in accordance with the procedure laid down in the laws of that country.” It is obvious that to accept this would be not only to compromise but to nullify the right stated. This case forcefully illustrates the importance of the proposition that we must ever be alert not to compromise fundamental human rights merely for the sake of reaching unanimity and thus lose them.

As I see it, it is not going to be easy to attain unanimity with respect to our different concepts of government and human rights. The struggle is bound to be difficult and one in which we must be firm but patient. If we adhere faithfully to our principles I think it is possible for us to maintain freedom and to do so peacefully and without recourse to force.

The future must see the broadening of human rights throughout the world. People who have glimpsed freedom will never be content until they have secured it for themselves. In a true sense, human rights are a fundamental object of law and government in a just society. Human rights exist to the degree that they are respected by people in relations with each other and by governments in relations with their citizens.

The world at large is aware of the tragic consequences for human beings ruled by totalitarian systems. If we examine Hitler’s rise to power, we see how the chains are forged which keep the individual a slave and we can see many similarities in the way things are accomplished in other countries. Politically men must be free to discuss and to arrive at as many facts as possible and there must be at least a two-party system in a country because when there is only one political party, too many things can be subordinated to the interests of that one party and it becomes a tyrant and not an instrument of democratic government.

The propaganda we have witnessed in the recent past, like that we perceive in these days, seeks to impugn, to undermine, and to destroy the liberty and independence of peoples. Such propaganda poses to all peoples the issue whether to doubt their heritage of rights and therefore to compromise the principles by which they live, or try to accept the challenge, redouble their vigilance, and stand steadfast in the struggle to maintain and enlarge human freedoms.

People who continue to be denied the respect to which they are entitled as human beings will not acquiesce forever in such denial.

The Charter of the United Nations is a guiding beacon along the way to the achievement of human rights and fundamental freedoms throughout the world. The immediate test is not only the extent to which human rights and freedoms have already been achieved, but the direction in which the world is moving. Is there a faithful compliance with the objectives of the Charter if some countries continue to curtail human rights and freedoms instead of to promote the universal respect for an observance of human rights and freedoms for all as called for by the Charter?

The place to discuss the issue of human rights is in the forum of the United Nations. The United Nations has been set up as the common meeting ground for nations, where we can consider together our mutual problems and take advantage of our differences in experience. It is inherent in our firm attachment to democracy and freedom that we stand always ready to use the fundamental democratic procedures of honest discussion and negotiation. It is now as always our hope that despite the wide differences in approach we face in the world today, we can with mutual good faith in the principles of the United Nations Charter, arrive at a common basis of understanding. We are here to join the meetings of this great international Assembly which meets in your beautiful capital city of Paris. Freedom for the individual is an inseparable part of the cherished traditions of France. As one of the Delegates from the United States I pray Almighty God that we may win another victory here for the rights and freedoms of all men.

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Presidential Speeches

October 1, 1990: address to the united nations, about this speech.

George H. W. Bush

October 01, 1990

Bush emphasizes the need for a stronger United Nations in the post-Cold War era. He also highlights the importance of free elections and action against Iraq.

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Mr. President, thank you very much. Mr. Secretary-General, distinguished delegates to the United Nations, it is really a great privilege to greet you today as we begin what marks a new and historic session of the General Assembly. My congratulations to the Honorable Guido De Marco on your election, sir, as President of the General Assembly. And on a personal note, I want to say that, having witnessed the unprecedented unity and cooperation of the past 2 months, that I have never been prouder to have once served within your ranks and never been prouder that the United States is the host country for the United Nations.

Forty-five years ago, while the fires of an epic war still raged across two oceans and two continents, a small group of men and women began a search for hope amid the ruins. And they gathered in San Francisco, stepping back from the haze and horror, to try to shape a new structure that might support an ancient dream. Intensely idealistic and yet tempered by war, they sought to build a new kind of bridge: a bridge between nations, a bridge that might help carry humankind from its darkest hour to its brightest day.

The founding of the United Nations embodied our deepest hopes for a peaceful world, and during the past year, we've come closer than ever before to realizing those hopes. We've seen a century sundered by barbed threats and barbed wire give way to a new era of peace and competition and freedom.

The Revolution of '89 swept the world almost with a life of its own, carried by a new breeze of freedom. It transformed the political climate from Central Europe to Central America and touched almost every corner of the globe. That breeze has been sustained by a now almost universal recognition of a simple, fundamental truth: The human spirit cannot be locked up forever. The truth is, people everywhere are motivated in much the same ways. And people everywhere want much the same things: the chance to live a life of purpose; the chance to choose a life in which they and their children can learn and grow healthy, worship freely, and prosper through the work of their hands and their hearts and their minds. We're not talking about the power of nations but the power of individuals, the power to choose, the power to risk, the power to succeed.

This is a new and different world. Not since 1945 have we seen the real possibility of using the United Nations as it was designed: as a center for international collective security.

The changes in the Soviet Union have been critical to the emergence of a stronger United Nations. The U.S.-Soviet relationship is finally beyond containment and confrontation, and now we seek to fulfill the promise of mutually shared understanding. The long twilight struggle that for 45 years has divided Europe, our two nations, and much of the world has come to an end.

Much has changed over the last 2 years. The Soviet Union has taken many dramatic and important steps to participate fully in the community of nations. And when the Soviet Union agreed with so many of us here in the United Nations to condemn the aggression of Iraq, there could be no doubt -- no doubt then -- that we had, indeed, put four decades of history behind us.

We are hopeful that the machinery of the United Nations will no longer be frozen by the divisions that plagued us during the cold war, that at last -- long last -- we can build new bridges and tear down old walls, that at long last we will be able to build a new world based on an event for which we have all hoped: an end to the cold war.

Two days from now, the world will be watching when the cold war is formally buried in Berlin. And in this time of testing, a fundamental question must be asked, a question not for any one nation but for the United Nations. And the question is this: Can we work together in a new partnership of nations? Can the collective strength of the world community, expressed by the United Nations, unite to deter and defeat aggression? Because the cold war's battle of ideas is not the last epic battle of this century.

Two months ago, in the waning weeks of one of history's most hopeful summers, the vast, still beauty of the peaceful Kuwaiti desert was fouled by the stench of diesel and the roar of steel tanks. Once again the sound of distant thunder echoed across a cloudless sky, and once again the world awoke to face the guns of August.

But this time, the world was ready. The United Nations Security Council's resolute response to Iraq's unprovoked aggression has been without precedent. Since the invasion on August 2d, the Council has passed eight major resolutions setting the terms for a solution to the crisis.

The Iraqi regime has yet to face the facts, but as I said last month, the annexation of Kuwait will not be permitted to stand. And this is not simply the view of the United States; it is the view of every Kuwaiti, the Arab League, the United Nations. Iraq's leaders should listen: It is Iraq against the world.

Let me take this opportunity to make the policy of my government clear. The United States supports the use of sanctions to compel Iraq's leaders to withdraw immediately and without condition from Kuwait. We also support the provision of medicine and food for humanitarian purposes, so long as distribution can be properly monitored. Our quarrel is not with the people of Iraq. We do not wish for them to suffer. The world's quarrel is with the dictator who ordered that invasion.

Along with others, we have dispatched military forces to the region to enforce sanctions, to deter and, if need be, defend against further aggression. And we seek no advantage for ourselves, nor do we seek to maintain our military forces in Saudi Arabia for 1 day longer than is necessary. U.S. forces were sent at the request of the Saudi Government, and the American people and this President want every single American soldier brought home as soon as this mission is completed.

Let me also emphasize that all of us here at the U.N. hope that military force will never be used. We seek a peaceful outcome, a diplomatic outcome. And one more thing: In the aftermath of Iraq's unconditional departure from Kuwait, I truly believe there may be opportunities for Iraq and Kuwait to settle their differences permanently, for the states of the Gulf themselves to build new arrangements for stability, and for all the states and the peoples of the region to settle the conflicts that divide the Arabs from Israel.

But the world's key task -- now, first and always -- must be to demonstrate that aggression will not be tolerated or rewarded. Through the U.N. Security Council, Iraq has been fairly judged by a jury of its peers, the very nations of the Earth. Today the regime stands isolated and out of step with the times, separated from the civilized world not by space but by centuries.

Iraq's unprovoked aggression is a throwback to another era, a dark relic from a dark time. It has plundered Kuwait. It has terrorized innocent civilians. It has held even diplomats hostage. Iraq and its leaders must be held liable for these crimes of abuse and destruction. But this outrageous disregard for basic human rights does not come as a total surprise. Thousands of Iraqis have been executed on political and religious grounds, and even more through a genocidal poison gas war waged against Iraq's own Kurdish villagers.

As a world community, we must act not only to deter the use of inhumane weapons like mustard and nerve gas but to eliminate the weapons entirely. And that is why, 1 year ago, I came to the General Assembly with new proposals to banish these terrible weapons from the face of the Earth. I promised that the United States would destroy over 98 percent of its stockpile in the first 8 years of a chemical weapons ban treaty, and 100 percent -- all of them -- in 10 years, if all nations with chemical capabilities, chemical weapons, signed the treaty. We've stood by those promises. In June the United States and the Soviet Union signed a landmark agreement to halt production and to destroy the vast majority of our stockpiles. Today U.S. chemical weapons are being destroyed.

But time is running out. This isn't merely a bilateral concern. The Gulf crisis proves how important it is to act together, and to act now, to conclude an absolute, worldwide ban on these weapons. We must also redouble our efforts to stem the spread of nuclear weapons, biological weapons, and the ballistic missiles that can rain destruction upon distant peoples.

The United Nations can help bring about a new day, a day when these kinds of terrible weapons and the terrible despots who would use them are both a thing of the past. It is in our hands to leave these dark machines behind, in the Dark Ages where they belong, and to press forward to cap a historic movement towards a new world order and a long era of peace.

We have a vision of a new partnership of nations that transcends the Cold War: a partnership based on consultation, cooperation, and collective action, especially through international and regional organizations; a partnership united by principle and the rule of law and supported by an equitable sharing of both cost and commitment; a partnership whose goals are to increase democracy, increase prosperity, increase the peace, and reduce arms.

And as we look to the future, the calendar offers up a convenient milestone, a signpost, by which to measure our progress as a community of nations. The year 2000 marks a turning point, beginning not only the turn of the decade, not only the turn of the century, but also the turn of the millennium. And 10 years from now, as the 55th session of the General Assembly begins, you will again find many of us in this hall, hair a bit more gray perhaps, maybe a little less spring in our walk; but you will not find us with any less hope or idealism or any less confidence in the ultimate triumph of mankind.

I see a world of open borders, open trade and, most importantly, open minds; a world that celebrates the common heritage that belongs to all the world's people, taking pride not just in hometown or homeland but in humanity itself. I see a world touched by a spirit like that of the Olympics, based not on competition that's driven by fear but sought out of joy and exhilaration and a true quest for excellence. And I see a world where democracy continues to win new friends and convert old foes and where the Americas -- North, Central, and South -- can provide a model for the future of all humankind: the world's first completely democratic hemisphere. And I see a world building on the emerging new model of European unity, not just Europe but the whole world whole and free.

This is precisely why the present aggression in the Gulf is a menace not only to one region's security but to the entire world's vision of our future. It threatens to turn the dream of a new international order into a grim nightmare of anarchy in which the law of the jungle supplants the law of nations. And that's why the United Nations reacted with such historic unity and resolve. And that's why this challenge is a test that we cannot afford to fail. I am confident we will prevail. Success, too, will have lasting consequences: reinforcing civilized standards of international conduct, setting a new precedent in international cooperation, brightening the prospects for our vision of the future.

There are 10 more years until this century is out, 10 more years to put the struggles of the 20th century permanently behind us, 10 more years to help launch a new partnership of nations. And throughout those 10 years, and beginning now, the United Nations has a new and vital role in building towards that partnership. Last year's General Assembly showed how we can make greater progress toward a more pragmatic and successful United Nations. And for the first time, the U.N. Security Council is beginning to work as it was designed to work. And now is the time to set aside old and counterproductive debates and procedures and controversies and resolutions. It's time to replace polemic attacks with pragmatic action.

And we've shown that the U.N. can count on the collective strength of the international community. We've shown that the U.N. can rise to the challenge of aggression just as its founders hoped that it would. And now is the time of testing. And we must also show that the United Nations is the place to build international support and consensus for meeting the other challenges we face.

The world remains a dangerous place; and our security and well-being often depends, in part, on events occurring far away. We need serious international cooperative efforts to make headway on the threats to the environment, on terrorism, on managing the debt burden, on fighting the scourge of international drug trafficking, and on refugees, and peacekeeping efforts around the world.

But the world also remains a hopeful place. Calls for democracy and human rights are being reborn everywhere, and these calls are an expression of support for the values enshrined in the United Nations Charter. They encourage our hopes for a more stable, more peaceful, more prosperous world.

Free elections are the foundation of democratic government and can produce dramatic successes, as we have seen in Namibia and Nicaragua. And the time has come to structure the U.N. role in such efforts more formally. And so, today I propose that the U.N. establish a Special Coordinator for Electoral Assistance, to be assisted by a U.N. Electoral Commission comprised of distinguished experts from around the world.

As with free elections, we also believe that universal U.N. membership for all states is central to the future of this organization and to this new partnership we've discussed. In support of this principle and in conjunction with U.N. efforts to reduce regional tensions, the United States fully supports U.N. membership for the Republic of Korea. We do so without prejudice to the ultimate objective of reunification of the Korean Peninsula and without opposition to simultaneous membership for the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

Building on these and other initiatives, we must join together in a new compact -- all of us -- to bring the United Nations into the 21st century, and I call today for a major long-term effort to do so. We should build on the success -- the admirable success -- of our distinguished Secretary-General, my longtime friend and yours, my longtime colleague I might also say, Javier Perez de Cuellar. We should strive for greater effectiveness and efficiency of the United Nations.

The United States is committed to playing its part, helping to maintain global security, promoting democracy and prosperity. And my administration is fully committed to supporting the United Nations and to paying what we are obliged to pay by our commitment to the Charter. International peace and security, and international freedom and prosperity, require no less.

The world must know and understand: From this hour, from this day, from this hall, we step forth with a new sense of purpose, a new sense of possibilities. We stand together, prepared to swim upstream, to march uphill, to tackle the tough challenges as they come not only as the United Nations but as the nations of the world united.

And so, let it be said of the final decade of the 20th century: This was a time when humankind came into its own, when we emerged from the grit and the smoke of the industrial age to bring about a revolution of the spirit and the mind and began a journey into a new day, a new age, and a new partnership of nations.

The U.N. is now fulfilling its promise as the world's parliament of peace. And I congratulate you. I support you. And I wish you Godspeed in the challenges ahead.

Thank you very, very much.

More George H. W. Bush speeches

Soldado de las Ideas

Search form, speeches and statements, speech made by commander-in-chief fidel castro ruz at the un headquarters, us, on september 26, 1960, date: .

Mr. Chairman,

Distinguished Delegates,

Although it is said I make long speeches, there is no reason for you to worry. I shall do my best to be brief and state what we see as our duty to say here. I shall also speak slowly to help the interpreters.

Maybe some think we are very angry at the treatment given to the Cuban delegation. We are not. We do understand the reasons why things happen. That is why we are not angry and nobody should worry that Cuba will not make also its modest contribution in the effort to have understanding in the world.

But, yes, we shall speak in clear terms.

It is expensive to send a delegation to the United Nations. We underveloped countries do not have a lot of money to spend, except for speaking clearly at this gathering of the representatives of nearly all the countries of the world.

Previous speakers have expressed here their concern over problemss affecting the whole world. We are concerned over those problems, but also, in the case of Cuba, there is a particular circumstance, and it is that now Cuba should be a reason for concern to the world because, as rightly stated by different delegates, the Cuba problem is among the current issues in today´s world. Besides the issues worrying everybody today, there are problems Cuba and our people are worried about.

There is talk of a universal desire for peace, which is the desire of all peoples and thus also the desire of our people. But such peace the world wants to preserve is the peace we Cubans have not had for a long time now. The perils other peoples of the world may see as more or less distant are problems and concerns that are very present for us. And it has not been easy to come to this Aseembly to explain Cuba´s problems. It has not been easy for us to come here.

I do not know whether we are privileged. Are we, the Cuban delegation, the representatives of the worst type of government in the world? ¿Do we, the representatives of the Cuban delegation, deserve to be mistreated as we have been? ¿And why precisely our delegation? Cuba has sent many delegations to the United Nations; Cuba has been represented by many persons and, yet, it was us to whom exceptional measures were applied, including confinement to the island of Manhattan, an instruction to all hotels that no room was to be rented to us, hostility and, under the pretext of security, isolation.

Perhaps none of you, distinguished representatives ... you, who are not representing anybody personally but your respective countries and thus are concerned over things which happen to each of you due to what each of you represents upon arriving at this City of New York, has endured such a personally and physically humiliating treatment as the one endured by the head of the Cuban delegation.

I am not rocking the boat here in this Assembly. I am just stating facts. It was about time also we had the opportunity to speak. For many days, there has been talk and newspaper coverage about us and we have remained silent. We cannot defend ourselves from attacks here, in this country. This is our chance to tell the truth and we shall tell it.

Humiliating personal treatment, extortion attempts, eviction from the hotel where we were staying and, after going to another hotel, we have done everything possible to avoid problems and have refrained from going out at all, gone to no other place but to a few sessions of this UN Assembly and only accepted to attend a reception at the embassy of the Soviet government. But this was not enough for us to be left alone.

There were many Cuban immigrants here, in this country. In the last 20 years, over 100 000 Cubans have come to this country from their homeland, where they would have wanted to stay for good and to which they are hoping to return, as always do those who due to social or economic reasons have been forced to leave their homes. That Cuban community worked here and abode and they continue to abide by the law and, naturally, had good feelings for their country and for the Revolution. They never had any problems. But, one day, other type of visitors began arriving in this country: War criminals began arriving; individuals who, in some cases, had murdered hundreds of our fellow Cubans, began arriving. Soon, they were encouraged by publicity here, they were encouraged by the authorities here and, of course, such encouragement results in their behavior and they have provoked frequent incidents with the Cuban community, who had been working honestly in this country for so many years.

One of such incidents, provoked by those who feel supported by systematic anti-Cuban propaganda here and the complicity of the authorities, led to the death of a girl. It was a regrettable ocurrence and everybody should regret it. The culprits were in no way Cubans residing here. The culprits were, in no way at all, ourselves, the members of the Cuban delegation and, still, you all should have seen those newspaper reports saying that “pro-Castro groups” had killed a 10-year-old girl. And with that characteristic hypocricy of those having to do with relations between Cuba and

this country, a White House spokesman readily made statements to everybody about the incident and almost, almost, blamed the Cuban delegation. And, of course, His Excellency the US delegate to the United Nations would promptly join the farse by sending to the Venezuelan government a message of condolences for the victim´s relatives, as if he felt obliged to give explanations from the United Nations about something on which, virtually, the Cuban delegation was to be blamed.

But that was not all. After we were forced to leave a hotel in this city and went to the UN Headquarters, while other efforts to find accommodation were being made, one hotel, a modest hotel in this city, a black Harlem hotel, offered accommodation to us. That answer came as we were talking to His Excellency the General Secretary. But a State Department official did everything possible to prevent us from staying in that hotel. Then, as if by work of magic, there were available hotels in New York. And it included hotels that had previously refused to accommodate the Cuban delegation which were now offering to receive us, even for free. But we, as a matter of elementary reciprocity, accepted to go to the Harlem hotel. We thought we had the right to expect to be left alone. But, no, we were not.

After we moved to Harlem, and as we could be stopped from staying there, slanderous campaigns started. They began spreading around the world the news that the Cuban delegation had gone to stay in a brothel. To some, a humble US black Harlem hotel must be a brothel. And they have also been trying to defame the Cuban delegation, even by showing no respect to the ladies who are its officials or assistants.

If we were men as bad as they are trying to depict us in every way, imperialism would have not lost hope, as it has for so long already, to buy us out or seduce us in one way or another. But as it has lost hope long ago (and there wasn´t ever any reason to harbor it), or at least after saying that the Cuban delegation had found accommodation in a brothel, they should admit that imperialisr financial capital is a whore who cannot seduce us. And I am not talking about Jean Paul Sartre´s The Respectful Prostitute.

The Cuba problem. Maybe some of you are well informed; maybe others are not. It all depends on the sources of information but, no doubt, to the world, the Cuba problem, which came up in the last two years, is a new problem. The world did not have many reasons to know Cuba existed. To many, it was something like an apprendix of the United States. Even, to many citizens of this country, Cuba was a US colony. It did not appear as such in the maps, where our color was different from the United States´. But in actual fact it was.

And how was it our country ended up being a US colony? Not due to its origin, for sure. The United States and Cuba were colonized by different men. Cuba´s ethnic and cultural roots are very different and such roots took hold for centuries. Cuba was the last country in the Americas to get rid of Spanish colonialism, of the Spanish colonial yoke, and this is said with no animosity toward His Excelllency the representative of the Spanish government. And, as Cuba was the last to get free, it had to fight the hardest.

Spain had only one possession left in the Americas and it defended it stubbornly and with determination. Our people, whose numbers were just a little more than a million then, had to face on their own, for nearly thirty years, an army regarded as one of the strongest in Europe. To fight such a small national population, the Spanish government would mobilize as many troops as all those which had fought during the South Amercan independence wars combined. Up to half a million Spanish soldiers came to stop the heroic and unbending resolve of our people to attain their freedom. .

For thirty years, Cubans, on their own, fought for their independence. Those thirty years were also the time during which the love of freedom and independence took hold in our country. But Cuba was a fruit, in the view of a US president in the early Nineteenth Century, John Adams, like an apple hanging from the Spanish tree, which when ripe would fall into the hands of the United States. And Spanish power had waned in our country. Spain had already no more men or economic resources to continue the war in Cuba. Spain was defeated. The apple, so it seemed, was ripe, and the US government held out its hands.

Not one but several apples fell into its hands. Puerto Rico, heroic Puerto Rico, that had started its war for independence at the same time as Cubans, fell; the Philipines fell; and some other possessions fell. But the plan to dominate our country could not be the same. Our country had made a great stand and world opinion supported it. A diferent plan had to be designed.

The Cubans who had fought for our independence, those who were bleeding and dying then, came to believe in good faith that US Congress Joint Resolution of April 20, 1898 stating Cuba was and had the right to be free and independent.

The US people supported the Cuban struggle. That Joint Resolution was a US Congress law which declared war on Spain. But such an illusion ended up in great deceit. After two years of military occupation of our country, the unexpected took place: Just when the people of Cuba were drafting, in a Constituent Assembly, the Constitution of the Republic, a new US Congress bill proposed by Senator Platt, whose name is a sad memory for Cuba, was voted into law. It stated that the Cuban Constituent Assembly had to attach an appendix to the Constitution saying that the US government would have the right to intervene in Cuban political life and, also, the right to lease certain parts of the island´s territory for naval or coal stations.

That is to say, based on a law coming from the legislative body of a foreign nation, the Cuban constitution had to include such a provisíon, and our Constituent Assembly lawmakers were told very clearly that the occupation forces would not withdraw if the Amendment was not accepted. That is to say, the right to intervene and the right to lease naval bases or stations was forcibly imposed on our country by the legislative body of a foreign nation.

It is good that the peoples who have just joined this organisation, those who are now starting their independent lives, do know the history of our country in view of the similarities they may find with their own. Or, if they do not, maybe they shall be found by their children or grandchildren, although I don´t think we will have to wait that long.

Thus started the new colonization of our country and the purchase of its most fertile lands by US companies, toghether with concessions over its natural resources and mines; concessions over utilities for their operation and profiting; and trade and all kinds of concessions; and all this, together with the constitutional right (which had been forcibly imposed) to invervene in our country, turned it into a US colony after having been a Spanish colony.

Colonies have no say; colonies are not known in the world until they have a chance to express themselves. That´s why our colony was unknown to the world and the problems of our colony were not known to the world. Geography texts included one more flag, one more coat of arms; geograhy maps showed one more color; but there wasn´t an independent republic there. Let nobody be mistaken; if we let ourselves be mistaken we are just making fools of ourselves. Let nobody be mistaken. It was not an independent republic: It was a colony where the US ambassador was in charge.

We do not feel embarassed for saying it because, in contrast to such shame, we are proud to be able to say that today no embassy is ruling our people! Our people are being ruled by the people! (APPLAUSE)

Again, the Cuban nation had to fight to attain such independence. It did after seven years of bloody tyranny. By whom was it tyrannized? It was tyrannized by those in our country who were nothing but the tools of the ones that controlled our country economically.

How can any unpopular regime which harms the interests of the people stay in power except by force? Is it necessary that we tell the representatives of our sisterly peoples of Latin America here what military tyrannies are like? Do we have to tell them how those tyrannies have been propped up? Do we have to tell them about the history of several such tyrannies, which are already classic? Do we have to tell them which forces support them? What domestic and international interests support them?

The military clique who opressed our country was supported by the most reactionary circles in the nation and, above all, by foreign economic interests that controlled the Cuban economy. Everyone knows, and we understand that even the US government itself admits to it, everybody knows that was the kind of government monopolies like. Why? Because all demands by the people are repressed by force. It was by force that strikes calling for better living conditions were repressed; it was by force that peasant movements calling for lands were repressed; it was by force that the loftiest aspirations of the nation were thwarted.

That is why governments ruling by force were the oncs US policy leaders liked. That is why governments ruling by force stayed in power for so long and governments ruling by force are still in power in the Americas. Of course, circumstances always determine whether they will have US government support or not.

For instance, now they are saying they are against one of those governments that rule by force: The Trujillo government. But they are not saying they are against another of such goverments, the government of Nicaragua or, for example, the one in Paraguay. The government of Nicaragua is no longer a government ruling by force but a monarchy, almost as constitutional as that of Great Britain, where power is handed down from one generation to the next. And that would have also been the case of our country. That was the government ruling by force led by Fulgencio Batista, the government in Cuba US monopolies liked, but, of course, not the type of good government for the Cuban people, and the Cuban people, through the loss of many lives and much sacrifice, ousted it.

What did the Revolution find upon attaining power in Cuba? What wonders did the Revolution find in Cuba upon attaining power? First, it found there were 600 000 able Cubans who had no jobs, they were unemployed; proportionally, they were as many as the number of unemployed persons in the United States during the big crisis, that crack which brough a near catastrophe to this country, and that level of unemployment was permanent in our country. Three million out of a population of a little more than six didn´t have electricity or any of the benefits and comforts of electricity; 3.5 million out of a total of a little more than 6 million were living in huts, barracks and slums without the least habitability. In the cities, rents took up to one third of family incomes. Both electricity bills and rents ranked among the highest in the world. Thirty-seven point-five percent of our population were illiterate; they didn´t know how to read and write. Seventy percent of our peasant children had no teachers. Two percent of our population suffered from TB, that is, 100 000 persons in a total of a little more than 6 million. Ninety-five percent of our countryside children had worms. Thus, the infant mortality rate was very high. The life expectancy was very low. On the other hand, 85% of small farmers paid leases for the lands they tilled which accounted for 30% of their gross income, while 1.5% of all land holders owned 46% of the whole territory of our nation. Of course, comparisons based on the number of hospital beds against the number of people in a country make no sense, if such comparisons are made with countries where medical care is reasonably guaranteed.

Utility services such as electricity trusts and telephone companies were owned by US monopolies.

Many banks, much of import trade, oil refineries, most of sugar production, Cuba´s most fertile lands and the most important industries of all kinds were owned by US companies. In the last ten years, from 1950 to 1960, the balance of payments has favored the US over Cuba by 1 billion dollars.

Not to mention the millions and hundreds of millions of dollars stolen from state coffers by the corrupt rulers of the tyranny that were deposited in US or European banks.

One billion dollars in ten years. A Caribean poor and underdeveloped country with 600 000 unemployed people was financing the development of the most industrialized country in the world.

That was the situation we found and it is not unknown to many of the countries represented in this Assembly because, after all, what we have said about Cuba is nothing but a general x-ray diagnosis that can be given on most of the countries represented here.

What was the choice for the Revolutionary Government? Betray the people? Of course, in the eyes of the president of the United States, what we have done for our people is a betrayal to them, and most certainly it would not be so if instead of being loyal to our people we had been loyal to the big US monopolies that were exploiting our country´s economy. At least, it should be stated for the record which were the “wonders” the Revolution found when it came to power, which are nothing but the wonders of imperialism; they are nothing but the “wonders” of the “free world” for us, the colonized countries!

Nobody can blame us for the 600 000 unemployed people in Cuba, the 37.5% of illiterates among the population, the 2% of TB patients and the 95% of children with parasites that existed in Cuba. No! Up to then, we had not had any say in the fate of our country; up to then, the fate of our country had been in the hands of rulers who served monopoly interests; up to then, monopolies had a say in our country. Were they disturbed by anybody? No! Nobody disturbed them. Were they bothered by anybofy? No! Nobody bothered them. They were able to do their job and thus we found the deeds by monopolies.

What reserves did the nation have? When tyrant Batista siezed power there were $500 million in national reserves. That was a good amount which could have been invested in the country´s industrial development. When the Revolution came to power, our reserves had dwindled to 70 million.

Was there an interest in the industrial development of our country? No! Never! That is why we have been so surprised and we are still surprised at listening to the great concerns of the US government for the fate of Latin American, African and Asian countries. And we were still surprised because, after 50 years, we could see the results there.

What has the Revolutionary Government done? What crime has the Revolutionary Government committed to justify the treatment we have been given here and to have so powerful enemies as it has been evidenced we have here?

Did problems with the United States start right from the start? No! Was it that we, after attaining power, were willing to have international conflicts? No! No revolutionary government that comes to power wants to have international conflicts. What it wants is devoting itself to the solution of its own problems; what it wants is implementing a platform, as do governments really interested in the progress of their countries.

The first event we saw as an unfriendly action was that the doors of this country were left wide-open to a full bunch of murderers who had sunk our country in blood; they had murdered hundreds of defenseless peasants, systematically tortured prisoners for many years and indiscriminately killed people, and they were recieved here with open arms. And that intrigued us. Why such an unfriendly action by the US authorities toward Cuba? Why such an act of hostility? We just didn´t understand it fully then; now, we do see the reasons. Was such policy in line with a correct treatment of Cuba, with US-Cuba relations? No, the affront was to us, and the affront was to us because the Batista regime stayed in power with US support; the Batista regime stayed in power with the help of tanks, planes and weapons supplied by the US government; the Batista regime stayed in power through an army whose officers were trained by a US government military mission, and we expect no US official dares to deny such facts.

Even, when the Rebel Army reached Havana, the US military mission was in that city´s main army camp. That army had collapsed; that army had been overrun and defeated. We could have very well regarded those foreign officers who had been there, helping and training the enemies of the people, as war prisoners. But that was not our decision; we just requested the officers of that mission to return home as, after all, we didn´t need their training and their trainees there had been defeated.

Here is a documment (he shows it). Don´t be surprised at how it looks, as it is a torn paper. It is an old military agreement under which the Batista tyranny would get much assistance from the US government, and it is worthwhile reading what Article 2 of this agreement states:

“The Government of the Republic of Cuba undertakes to make good use of the assistance it receives from the Government of United States of America, in conformity with this Agreement, so as to implement defense plans accepted by both governments under which the two governments shall participate in important missions for the defense of the Western Hemisphere; and, unless it is previously agreed to by the Government of the United States of America ... –I repeat--, “... and, unless it is previously agreed to by the Government of the United States of America, such assistance shall not be used to other ends except those for which it was provided.”

The assistance was used to fighting Cuban revolutionaries; so it was agreed to by the US government. And, although a few months prior to the end of the war this country decreed an embargo on arms being sent to Batista, after a little more than six years of military assistance, and after that arms embargo had been solemnly declared, the Rebel Army got evidence, documentary evidence, that the tyranny´s forces had been supplied again with 300 rockets to be launched from aircraft.

When comrades staying in the US revealed those documents to US public opinion, the only thing this country´s government would say was that we were wrong, that it had not re-supplied the tyranny´s army but, simply, replaced some rockets of another caliber which could not be launched from its planes by other rockets that could be launched from the tyranny´s planes and those, by the way, were actually launched against us while in the mountains. It is a sui generis way of explaining contradictions when they turn unexplainable. According to its argument, it was not assistance but some sort of “technical assistance.”

Then why, in view of such precedents, which angered our people, and, as everybody knows, and it is known to the most innocent person here, and considering also the military hardware revolution in these modern times, that those weapons from the last war are completely obsolete for modern warfare, were they sent? With 50 tanks or armored cars and a few old planes you cannot defend a continent, you cannot defend a hemisphere. But such weapons can be used to oppress unarmed people, they can be used to intimidate the people. They can be used for what they are: They can be used to defend monopolies. That is why it would be better to define such hemispheric defense pacts as US monopoly defense pacts.

The Revolutionary Government began taking its early steps. The first thing it did was to lower by 50 percent rents paid by households. It was a very just measure because, as we said earlier, there were families paying up to one third of their income in rents. And the people had been victimized by much real estate speculation and there had been huge speculation with urban plots to the detriment of people´s income. But, when the Revolutionary Government lowered rents by 50%, some got angry; yes, a few who owned those apartment buildings got angry. But the people went out to the streets joyfully, as it would happen in any country, just here in New York also, if all families are benefitted by a 50- percent rent cut. But that did not bring about any problem with monopolies. Some US companies had large buildings but, in relative terms, they were a few.

Then another law was passed: It was a law canceling the concessions the tyrannic Batista government had given to the telephone company that was a US monopoly. Availing themselves of the defendlessness of the people, they had got profitable concessions. The Revolutionary Government wrote off those concessions and reset telephone bills to their previous amounts. Thus the first conflict with US monopolies began.

The third measure was to lower electricity bills, which were among the highest in the world. That was the second conflict with US monopolies. We were being seen already as Communists; they were already painting us red, just because we had clashed with US monopoly interests.

But there came the third law, which was indispensable and inevitable; it was inevitable for our country and it will be inevitable, sooner or later, for all the peoples of the world ... at least for all the peoples of the world who have not passed it yet: The Agrarian Reform Law. Of course, in theory, everybody agrees with the agrarian reform. Nobody dares to deny it; only ignorant people would dare to deny that the agrarian reform is, for the underdeveloped countries of the world, an essential requisite for economic development. In Cuba, even large land holders agreed with the agrarian reform, but only with an agrarian reform in their own way, like the agrarian reform being upheld by many theorists. It is an agrarian reform in their own way and, above all, one that is not implemented in their own way or any way while it can be avoided! It is something accepted by UN economic agencies, something nobody is arguing about anymore. In our country, it was indispensable: Over 200 000 peasant families lived in the Cuban countryside with no lands to grow essential food products.

Without the agrarian reform, our country would not have been able to take the first step toward development. And, yes, we took that step: We carried out an agrarian reform. Was it a radical one? It was a radical agrarian reform. Was it very radical? It was not a very radical agrarian reform. We carried out an agrarian reform based on our development needs, based on our agricultural development possibilities. That is, an agrarian reform to deal with the issue of landless peasants, to deal with the issue of supplies of indispensable food products, to deal with rampant unemployment in the countryside, to put an end to the terrible poverty we had seen in the countryside areas of our country.

And thus came the first real problem. The same had happened also in the neighboring Republic of Guatemala. When the agrarian reform was carried out in Guatemala, problems came up in Guatemala. And I am warning this in full candor to the delegates of Latin America, Africa and Asia. The day you embark on a just agrarian reform, get ready for confrontations similar to ours, particularly if the best and largest farms are in the hands of US monopolies, as it was the case in Cuba (LONG APPLAUSE.)

Maybe we shall be accused later of giving bad advice in this Assembly and, certainly, that is not our intention. ... surely, it is not our purpose to let anybody sleepless. We are just giving facts, though facts are enough to make anybody go sleepless.

The payment question was raised immediately. A barrage of notes from the US State Department came. They never asked us about our problems, never; not even out of commiseration or for the big share of responsibility they had. They would not ask how many people were starving in our country, how many TB patients we had, how many people were jobless. No. Was there a show of solidarity toward our needs? Never. All talks with US government representatives were about the Telephone Company, about the Electricity Trust, and about the issue of US company lands.

How could we pay? Of course, the first question was what were we going to pay with; not how, but with what. Do you think it would be possible that a poor and underdeveloped country with 600 000 jobless people and large numbers of illiterate and sick persons, whose reserves had been depleted, and which had contributed to the economy of a powerful country with $10 billion in 10 years, had cash to pay for the lands that would be expropriated under the agrarian law, or even that it could pay for them under the terms intended to be applied to such payment?

What did the State Department tell us it wanted concerning affected US interests? Three things: Swift payment ..., “swift, efficient and just payment.” Do you understand such language? “Swift, efficient and just payment.” It means “pay right now, in dollars, the amount we ask for our lands.” (APPLAUSE.)

We were not 150% Communist yet (LAUGHTER.) We were getting a little redder hue. We were not confiscating lands. Simply, we were proposing to pay for them in 20 years, in the only way we could pay for them, that is, in bonds that would fall due in 20 years; they would carry a 4.5-percent interest and be payed back yearly.

How could we pay for the lands in dollars? How could we pay for them immediately? And how could we pay the amounts that would be asked for them? It was absurd. Anyone would see that, under such circumstances, we had to choose between carrying out the agrarian reform or not. If we chose not to, our country´s terrible economic situation would last indefinitely. If we carried it out, we were risking the emnity of the government of the powerful neighbor to the north.

We carried out the agrarian reform. Of course, for a representative of, let´s say, The Netherlands, or any European country, the boundaries we set for farms would be almost surprising. Surprising due to their expanse. The largest expanse set under our agrarian law was around 400 hectares. In Europe, 400 hectares are a really large land holding. In Cuba, where there were US monopoly concerns holding up to 200 000 hectares ... Two hundred thousand hectares! (I repeat just in case someone thinks he didn´t get the number right). In Cuba, an agrarian reform that reduced the maximum expanse to 400 hectares was an inadmissible law to those monopolies.

But the thing is in our country not only lands were owned by US monopolies. The biggest mines were also in the hands of those monopolies. Cuba, for instance, produces much nickel; all nickel was taken by US concerns. And during the Batista tyranny Moa Bay, a US company, had got such a profitable concession that (listen carefully) it would pay back a $120 million investment in just five years; it was a $120 million investment to be payed back in five years.

Who had granted such a concession to Moa Bay through the auspices of the ambassador of the US government? Just the Fulgencio Batista tyrannical government, the government which was there to protect monopoly interests. And this certainly happened. It was completely tax free. What would those companies leave to us Cubans? The mining pits, a depleted land, and no contribution to the economic development of our country at all.

And the Revolutionary Government passed a Law of Mines

imposing on those monopolies a 25-percent tax for the export of those ores. Actions by the Revolutionary Governement had turned too bold already. They had clashed with the interests of the international electricity trust; they had clashed with the interests of the international telephone trust; they had clashed with the interests of international mining trusts; they had clashed with the interests of the United Fruit Company; and, virtually, they had clashed with the most powerful US interests which, as you know, are closely interwined. And it was too much for the US government or, rather, the representatives of US monopolies. And so, it was the beginning of a new period of harassment of our Revolution. Would anyone who analyzes facts objectively, anyone who tries to think honestly and not to think as told by UPI or AP but with his own head, and to draw conclusions based on his own reasoning and reach an unprejudiced, sincere and honest opinion of things, believe that the actions taken by the Revolutionary Government were enough to decree the destruction of the Cuban Revolution? No. But those interestes affected by the Cuban Revolution were not concerned over Cuba´s case; the measures by the Revolutionary Government would not ruin them. That was not the issue. The issue was those very interests owned the wealth and natural resources of most of the peoples of the world. And the Cuban Revolution had to be punished for its stance. Punitive actions of all kinds, including the destruction of those daring men, had to be the response to the boldness of the Revolutionary Government.

We swear on our honor that we hadn´t had a chance yet to even exchange a single letter with the distinguished prime minister of the Soviet Union Nikita Krushchev. That is, when the US press and the international news agencies that inform the world were thinking already that Cuba was a red government, a red menace 90 miles off the US shores, a government controlled by Communists, the Revolutionary Government had not had even a chance to establish diplomatic or trade relations with the Soviet Union.

But hysteria knows no boundaries. Out of hysteria, the most unbelievable and absurd things can be said. Of course, nobody here should expect we shall say mea culpa. No mea culpa. We don´t have to apologize to anybody. We have been fully aware of what we have been doing and, specially, very sure we have the right to do it (LONG APPLAUSE.)

And threats against our sugar quota started; it was the uttering of the philosophy, the cheap philosophy, of imperialism showing its selfish and exploitative kindness, showing its kindness toward Cuba, as they were granting us a privileged price for sugar, and it was a sort of subsidy for Cuban sugar, which was not so sweet for Cubans because we Cubans did not own the best sugar lands nor did we own the best sugar factories. Also, that statement concealed the true history of Cuban sugar, of the sacrifices that had been imposed on Cuba, of the times Cuba had been harmed economically. Earlier, it had not been a question of quotas but of tariffs. Under one of those laws or agreements that are entered between the “shark” and the “sardine,” the US, through a pact they called a “reciprocity” agreement, got a series of franchises for its products to compete easily with and oust from the Cuban market the goods of their British or French “friends,” a usual thing among “friends.” In exchange for that, there were certain tariff concessions for our sugar that, incidentally, could be changed unilaterally if so decided by the US Congress or administration. And that´s what happened.

When they thought it was good for their interests, they would raise tariffs and our sugar could not go to the US market or it did under unfavorable terms. In war times, they would lower tariffs. Of course, as Cuba was the closest sugar supplier such a supply source had to be guaranteed. Tariffs were lowered, production was encouraged and during the war years, when the sugar price was skyrocketing all over the world, we were selling our sugar to the United States cheaply even when we were the only source of supply.

Then the war ended and thus came collapses in our economy. Mistakes with the sale of that commodity made in this country were paid for by us. Prices skyrocketed at the end of World War I, there was a huge encouragment of production, and, later, a sharp drop in prices that ruined Cuban sugar factories which then, very easily, landed in ... whose hands? In the hands of US banks, because, when Cuban entities went bankrupt US banks in Cuba reaped the benefits.

And that situation continued until the 1930s and the US government, trying to find a way to concile its supply interests with those of its domestic producers, created a quota system. Supposedly, that quota would be based on the historical market shares of different suppliers and, in the case of our country, its historic US market supply share had been nearly 50 percent. But, when quotas were set, our share was cut to 28%, and the benefits we had got under that law, the few ones we had got under it, were gradually eliminated in later laws and, of course, the colony relied on the metropolis; the economy of the colony had been structured by the metropolis. The colony was to be subdued by the metropolis, and if the colony took measures to get free the metropolis would act to crush it. Knowing that our economy relied on its market, the US government began issuing a series of warnings that we would be deprived of our sugar quota while other things, actions by contrarrevoltuonaries, were taking place in the United States.

One afternoon, an aircraft coming over the sea from the north overflew one of our sugar factories and dropped a bomb. It was a strange event, an usual thing, but, of course, we knew where those aircraft were coming from.

Another afternoon, a plane overflew our sugar cane fields and dropped some little incendiary bombs. And what had begun as sporadic actions became a usual practice.

One afternoon when, by the way, many US tourism agents were visiting our country when the Revolutionary Government was trying to promote tourism as a national income source, a US-made aircraft, like those that fought in the last war, flew over Havana and dropped leaflets and a few hand grenades. Of course, some anti-aircraft volleys were fired. The result was over 40 victims hit by the grenades dropped from by plane and anti-aircraft fire as some rounds (as you know) blow up when hitting a hard surface. The result was over 40 victims, including girls with their bellies ripped off, and old men and women. Was it the first time for us? No. Children, elderly persons and men and women had been torn apart in our villages in Cuba many times by US-made bombs that had been supplied to tyrant Batista.

Once, 80 workers died when a boat loaded with Belgian weapons that had docked in Cuba blew up suspiciously, very suspociouly, after the US government had made great efforts to prevent the Belgian government from selling weapons to us. There were dozens of war victims, eighty families who lost their dear ones in the blast. Forty victims as a result of an aircraft that simply overflew our country. Ah! US government authorities were denying that such planes were taking off from the US, but the aircraft was just stationed in a hangar, and it was only when a Cuban magazine showed a picture of the plane that the US authorities seized it and, of course, they stated it wasn´t important, that the victims had not been the result of bombs but of anti-aircraft fire, and those who had done such terrible things, the ones who had committed that crime, were just free here in the United States, where they were not even bothered in the aftermath of those acts of aggression.

Your Excellency, I avail myself of this occasion to tell His Excellency the US representative that many mothers in the Cuban countryside and many Cuban mothers are still awaiting your messages of condolences for their children killed by US bombs (APPLAUSE.)

Aircraft were flying in and out. There was no evidence. Well, it depends on what is seen as evidence. There was that aircraft photographed and seized here but, well, they were saying it had not dropped bombs. It is not known how US authorities were so well informed. Pirat aircraft continued overflying our country and dropping incendiary devices. Millions and millions of Cuban pesos were lost in burning sugar cane fields. Many among the people (yes, the humble people!) were witnessing the destruction of a wealth which was now theirs, and they got burns and lesions while facing repeated and continued bombings by pirate aircraft.

Until one day, when the bomb to be dropped on one of our sugar factories went off and blew up the aircraft, and the Revolutionary Governement was able to find parts of the pilot´s body who, incidentally, was a US pilot whose documents were seized, and we had the aircraft and all the evidence on where it had taken off from. That aircraft had flown in-between two US bases. Now it could not be denied those aircraft were taking off from the US. Ah!

Now faced with irrefutable evidence, the US governmenr gave an explanation to the government of Cuba! Its stance was not as during the U-2 incident. When it was proved the aircraft were coming from the United States, the US government did not state its right to set our sugar cane fields afire. This time they apologized to us and said they were very sorry. We were so lucky after all! Because when the U-2 incident took place the US government did not apologize then. It proclaimed its right to overflow the Soviet territory! Bad luck for the Soviets! (APPLAUSE.)

But we do not have a strong anti-aircraft defense and the aircraft overflights continued, until the sugar harvest was over. There were no more sugar canes and the bombings ceased. We were the only country in the world going through such harassment, although I remember well that, during his Cuba visit, President Sukarno told us that no, that we should not think we were the only ones, that they had also had some problems with some US planes overflying their country also. I don´t know whether I´ve been indiscreet. I hope not (LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE.)

But the fact is that, at least in this peaceful hemisphere, we were a country which, being at war with nobody, was enduring a ceaseless harassment by pirate aircraft. Could those aircraft fly in and out the US territoriy freely? Well, we invite delegates to think a little, and we also invite the US people, if by any chance the US people have the opportunity to be informed about the things that are being said here, to think about the fact that, according to the very statements of the US government, this country´s territory is well surveilled and protected from any air raid, that the US territory defense is impregnable, that the defense of what they call the “free” world (though, at least for us, it wasn´t free until January 1, 1959) is impregnable, that such territory is very well defended. If that is the case, how come not only subsonic planes but also small aircraft flying a mere 150 miles per hour can fly in and out the US territory undisturbed, fly past two bases and fly back past two bases without the US government even noticing those aircraft are coming in and out its territory? It means one of two things: Either the US government is lying to the US people and the US is open to air raids or the US government is an accessory to such air raids (APPALUSE.)

There were no more air raids and economic aggressions started. Which was one of the arguments given by those opposing the agrarian reform? They were saying the agrarian reform would bring chaos to farming, that production would drop a lot, that the US government was worried over Cuba not being able to meet its supply commitmtents to the US market. First argument –and it is good that at least the new delegations here get familiar with some arguments as, maybe, one day they will have to respond to similar ones: The agrarian reform would ruin the country. It did not. If the agrarian reform had ruined the country, if agricultural production had gone down, then the US government would not have needed to carry out its economic aggression.

Were they being honest by saying that the agrarian reform would bring production drops? Maybe they were! It is logical you believe things you have conditioned your mind to believe in. Possibly, they thought that, without the all-powerful monopolies, we Cubans would not be able to produce sugar. That´s possible! Perhaps they even expected we would ruin the country. And, of course, had the Revolution ruined the country the United States would not have needed to attack us, it would have left us alone; the US government would have been seen as a very noble and good government, and we would have been regarded as men who had ruined the nation, and that would have been a very good example that you should not carry out revolutions, because revolutions ruin countries. That was not the case! There is evidence revolutions do not ruin countries, and such evidence has just been provided by the US government. It has proved many things but, among others, it has proved revolutions do not ruin countries and that it is imperialist governments who can really try to ruin countries! .

Cuba had not gone bankrupt; it had to be ruined. Cuba required new markets for its products and, honestly, we can ask any delegation here which of them would not want their country to be able to sell the things it produces or that its exports increase? We wanted to expand our exports. That is what all countries want; it must be a universal law.

Only selfish interest may oppose the general interest in trade, which is one of the oldest aspirations and needs of humanity.

And we wanted to sell our products and went out for new markets and signed a trade agreement with the Soviet Union under which we would sell 1m tons of sugar and buy certain amounts of Soviet goods or products. Of course! Nobody would say that´s wrong. There may be some who would not do it so as not to run counter certain interests. Actually, we didn´t need permission from the State Department to sign a trade agreement with the Soviet Union, as we saw and we see ourselves and shall continue seeing ourselves always as a truly free country.

When sugar stocks began dwindling, for the benefit of our economy, we then got a swipe: Upon the request of the US executive, Congress passed a law by virtue of which the president or the executive was empowered to narrow the limits, as it thought fit, of sugar imports from Cuba. The economic weapon was being wielded against our Revolution. The justification for such attitude had already been concocted by the media. The campaign had been going for a long time already, and you know perfectly well that, here, monopolies and publicity are absolutely identified. The economic weapon was wielded, our sugar quota was swung down by nearly a million tonnes (it was an amount of sugar already produced to go to the US market) so as to deprive our country of resources for its development, to render our country impotent, to reach political aims. Such measure was explicitly forbidden by Regional International Law. As all Latin American delegates attending this Assembly know, economic aggression is explicitly condemned by Regional International Law. Still, the United States violated such right, it wielded the economic weapon, and wrote off nearly 1m tonnes of our sugar quota. End of story. It could do it.

How could Cuba defend itself under such circumstances? Appealing to the UN? Appealing to the UN to denounce political and economic aggressions? To denounce air raids by pirate aircraft and denounce economic aggression, as well as constant US government interference in our country´s politics, the subvertion campaigns being carried out against the Revolutionary Government of Cuba?

We appealed to the UN. The UN has powers to discuss these questions; the UN is, among international organizations, the highest authority; the UN even has higher authority than the OAS. And, moreover, we wanted the issue to be known in the UN, as we understand the economic situation of the peoples of Latin America, the reliance on the US of the economies of the peoples of Latin America. The UN knew about the issue and requested an investigation by the OAS; and the OAS held a session. Fine. What was to be expected? That the OAS would protect the country under attack, that the OAS would condemn political aggressions against Cuba and, above all, that the OAS would condemn economic aggressions against our country. That could be expected. After all, we were just a small people of the Latin American community; we were, after all, one more people who were being attacked. We were neither the first nor the last in such predicament, because Mexico had been attacked more than once, and it had been so by the force of arms. During a war, it was deprived of much of its territory and during that time the heroic sons and daughters of Mexico stormed out of Chapultepec Castle wrapped in the Mexican flag instead of surrendering. Those are the heroic children of Chapultepec! (APPLAUSE.)

And that was not the only aggression, it was not the only time US infantry troops trampled upon Mexican soil. There was an intervention in Nicaragua and Augusto César Sandino resisted heroically for seven years. Cuba went through an intervention more than once, as did Haiti and Santo Domingo. There was an intervention in Guatemala. Who would honestly dare to deny here the involvement of the United Fruit Company and the US State Department in the outsting of the legitimate government of Guatemala? I understand some see it as their official duty to be discreet on this matter, and that they even come here and deny it; but deep in their minds they do know we are stating facts.

Cuba was not the first country to be attacked. Cuba was not the first country facing the danger of aggression. In this hemisphere, everybody knows the US government always imposed its law: The law of the strongest; that´s the law of the strongest through which it has been destroying Puerto Rican nationhood and it continues its domination over that sisterly island! That´s the law by virtue of which it grabbed the Panama Canal and it it keeping the Panama Canal.

It was nothing new. Our country should have been defended, but it was not defended. Why? What´s important here is going to the heart of the matter and not to formalities. If we stick to the written papers, we are safe; if we see facts, we are not safe at all. Because realities prevail over the rights enshrined in international codes; and such realities are that a small country, which was under the attacks of a powerful government, was not defended and could not be defended.

What, in turn, came out of Costa Rica? Ah, the results from Costa Rica were such a miracle of ingenuity! In Costa Rica, the US or, rather, the US government, was not condemned ... Allow me to say our good feelings toward the US people should not be mistaken. There was no condemnation of the US government for 60 pirate aircraft incursions, it was not condemned for its economic aggression or for many other aggressions. No. They condemned the Soviet Union. So remarkable! We had not been the target of any aggression by the Soviet Union; no Soviet plane had violated our airspace and, yet, in Costa Rica, the Soviet Union was condemned for interference. The Soviet Union had limited istelf to saying that in case of a military aggression against our country Soviet gunners (speaking figuratively) could support the country under attack.

Since when has support to a small country that is facing a possible aggression by a powerful country been defined as interference? Because the law includes the so-called impossible conditions: If a country considers it is incapable to commit a given crime, then it is enough to say: “There is no possibility whatsoever that the Soviet Union supports Cuba, because there is no possibility that we attack the small country.” But that principle was not stated. The principle of condemning interference by the Soviet Union was stated.

Any mention of the bombings in Cuba? None. (APPLAUSE) Of the aggressions against Cuba? None.

Surely, there is something we should remember and somehow it should be of concern to us all. All of us, without any exceptions among those present here, are the actors and participants of a transcendental moment in the history of mankind. Sometimes, apparently, criticisms are not heard, that is, criticism and a condemnation for our deeds, seemeningly, are not realized by us, and that happens mainly when we forget that in the same way we´ve had the privilege of being actors during this transcendental

moment of history, some day history shall also hand down its judgement on us for our deeds. And on the defenselessness of our country at the Costa Rica meeting. That´s why we smile, because history shall judge such episode.

And I am not saying this out of sourness; it is hard to condemn men. Very often, men act according to circumstances, and we, knowing which was the history of our country and also being the exceptional witnesses to the on-going experiences of our country, understand how terrible the submission of the economy and general life of nations to foreign economic power is. Suffice it to say simply that our country got defenseless and, also, that there is an interest in not bringing the Cuba issue to the UN, perhaps because there is the notion it is easier to reach a mechanical majority vote at the OAS. And such fear is not so easy to understand after all, as we has seen that here too, at the UN, mechanical majority votes have worked many times.

And, in full respect toward this institution, I must say here that is why the peoples, and the Cuban people, yes, our people, those people who are there back home, but people who have learned so much and who are a people, and we say this proudly, who are up to the role they are playing now and to the heroic struggle they are waging ... our people, who have learned in the school of recent international events, know that, in the final analysis, after their rights have been negated, when aggressive forces are about to pounce on them, they shall make the ultimate choice and the heroic choice of resisting when their rights are not guaranteed either at the OAS or the UN. (LONG APPLAUSE)

That is why we small countries aren´t so sure yet our rights shall be preserved; that is why, when we small countries want to be free, we know we are doing it at our peril. Because, actually, when the people are united, when they are defending a true right, they can rely on their own strength because, of course, it is not a group of men ruling a country, as it has been intended to depict us. It is the people ruling a country; it is all the people in very close ranks having great revolutionary awareness and upholding their rights. And that should be known by the enemies of the Revolution and of Cuba, and if they are ignoring it they are making a regrettable mistake.

Those are the circumstances under which the Cuban revolutionary process has been taking place; the situation we found in our country; the reasons there have been problems. And, still, the Cuban Revolution is changing what was a hopeless country in the past, a country where part of the population was illiterate; it is turning it into a nation which shall be soon one of the most advanced and developed peoples in this continent.

In just 20 months, the Revolutionary Government has opened 10 000 new schools, meaning that in such a short time the number of countryside schools created in 50 years has been doubled. And, today, Cuba is already the first country in the Americas to have met all its schooling needs, with teachers even in the most remote mountain areas.

In such a short time, the Revolutionary Government has built 25 000 homes in rural and urban areas; 50 new townships are emerging now in our country; the most important military fortresses are now the schools for thousands of students and, for next year, our people are readying themselves to wage their great battle against illiteracy, with the ambitious goal of teaching all illiterate persons how to read and write by next year and, to such end, teacher, student and workers´ organizations, that is, the whole people, are getting ready for a great campaign, and Cuba shall be the first country in the Americas that, in a matter of months, will be able to say it has no illiterates at all.

Our people are now being given care by hundreds of physicians who have been sent to the countryside to fight diseases such as parasitism snd improve health conditions in the nation.

Concerning another question, that is, the preservation of natural resources, we can also say here that, in just one year, and under the most ambitious project for preserving natural resources ever implemented in this continent, the US and Canada included, over 50 million wood trees have been planted.

Youths who were neither working nor studying have been organized by the Revolutionary Government and now they are doing useful work for the country while being trained for productive labor.

Agricultural production in our country has increased right from the start –an almost unique feat. An increase in agricultural production was scored from the beginning. Why? First, because the Revolutionary Government gave small farmers who had been paying rents the titles of their lands and, at the same time, preserved large-scale production through farming production cooperatives; that is, big company production continued with cooperatives and this has made it possible to use state-of-the-art technologies in our agricultural production; and there has been a rise in production right from the start.

And we have made all such efforts at social wellbeing, as teachers, housing and hospitals, without sacrificing development resources, because now the Revolutionary Government is implementing an industrialization program in the country, and the first factories are being erected in Cuba already.

We have spent resources rationally in our country. For instance, in the past, Cuba imported $35 million worth of cars but $5 million in tractors. An essentially agricultural nation was importing seven times more cars than tractors. We have reversed that and we are importing seven times more tractors than cars.

Nearly $500 million were recovered from politicians who had enriched themselves during the tyranny. Almost $500 million in goods and in cash; that´s the full worth of what was recovered from corrupt politicians who had been plundering our country for seven years. A correct investment of such goods, wealth and resources is allowing the Revolutionary Government, which is implementing a plan for industrialization and expansion of our farming activities, to build houses and schools, send teachers to the country´s most isolated areas and provide medical care there, that is, to carry forward a social development program.

And it is just now, as you know, that the US government has proposed a plan at the Bogota meeting. But is it an economic development plan? No. It proposed a social development plan. What does that mean? Well, also a program to build homes, to build schools, to build roads. But would that solve the problem in any way? How can you solve social problems without an economic development program? Is there an intent to deceive the peoples of Latin America? What will the families who dwell in those houses live on --if such houses are built? What shoes, clothes and food

will the children going to those schools have? Ins´t it known that when families have no clothes or shoes for their children they do not send them to school? Where will the money to pay teachers come from? Where will the money to pay physicians come from?

Where will the money to pay for drugs come from? Do you want to have a good way for saving drugs? Improve nutrition among the people; the better people are nourished the greater hospital savings will be.

So, in the face of the tremendous reality of undervevelopment, the US government is coming forward now with a social development program. Of course, its concern over Latin American problems is something. Until recently, it had not been concerned at all. What a coincidence it is being concerned now over those problems! And, possibly, they will say that any resemblance with the fact that such concern has come after the Cuban Revolution is purely coincidental.

So far, the only interest of monopolies has been to exploit underveloped countries. But the Cuban Revolution came, and monopolies got concerned, and while we are being attacked economically and there is an effort to crush us, on the other hand, pittances are being offered to the peoples of Latin America. It is not resources for economic development, which is what Latin America wants, but it is being offered resources for social development, for houses where jobless men shall live, for schools children will not go to, and for hospitals that would not be so needed if there was a little better nutrition in Latin America.

After all, and even though some comrades from Latin America think it is their duty to be discreet, the Cuban Revolution should be welcomed because, as least, it has brought about a concern of monopolies for returning just a small portion of the natural resources and of the toil of Latin American peoples they have been taking! (APPLAUSE.)

The fact we are not included for such assistance does not worry us. We do not get angry over such things; we have been solving those very school, housing and other problems for a long time now. But we think perhaps somebody has doubts as to us making propaganda here, as the president of the United States said some would come to this rostrum to make propaganda. And, certainly, there is a permanent invitation for any UN comrade to visit Cuba. We don´t close the doors to anybody there, nor do we confine anybody´s movements; any person in this Assembly may visit Cuba and see thing for himself. You are familiar with that Bible chapter about St Thomas, who said seeing is believing. I think it was St. Thomas.

And, after all, we can invite any journalist or any member of a delegation to visit Cuba and see what the people are capable of doing with their own resources when they are invested honestly and rationally.

But we are not only solving our housing and schooling problems but also our development problems, because social problems shall never be solved without tackling the development issue.

But, what´s the situation? Why doesn´t the US government want to talk about development? Simply, because the US government doesnt want trouble with monopolies, and monopolies demand natural resources and investment markets for their capitals. That´s the big contradiction; that is why the true solution to problems is not sought; that is why no public development investment plan is tried in underdeveloped countries.

And this should stated here crearly because, in the final analysis, we undeveloped countries are in the majority here --just in case somebody does not know it-- and, after all, we are seeing what is happening in underdeveloped countries.

But a real solution to the problem is not sought, and there is always talk here of private capital involvement. Of course, that means markets for surplus capital investments, those investments that are paid back within 5 years.

The US government cannot propose a public investment program because that would alienate it from its reason to be, that is, US monopolies.

No further analysis is needed; that is why no real economic development program to preserve our lands in Latin America, Africa and Asia is promoted. It is for excess capital investmenrts.

So far, we have referred here to our country´s problems. Why have such problems not been solved? Just because we do not want to solve them? No. The government of Cuba has always been willing to discuss its issues with the US government, but the US government has not wanted to discuss its problems with Cuba, and it should have its reasons for not wanting to discuss issues with Cuba.

This is the note sent by the Revolutionary Government of Cuba to the US government on January 27, 1960. I reads as follows:

“Through diplomatic negotiations, differences in views that may exist between both governments can be solved effectively through such negotiations. The government of Cuba is fully willing to discuss, unreservedly and quite amply, all differences, and it states explicitly its view there are no obstacles whatsoever to the holding of such negotiations through any of the traditionally adequate instruments and means to such end. Based on mutual respect and reciprocal benefits, the government of Cuba wishes to have and expand diplomatic and economic relations with the government and the people of the Unied States, and it understands that, under such premises, the traditional friendship between the peoples of Cuba and the United States is indestructible.”

And, on February 22 this year, the following was stated:

“The Revolutionary Government of Cuba, in line with the purpose of resuming through diplomatic channels the already-initiated negotiations on pending issues between Cuba and the United States of America, has decided to appoint a commission with powers to such effect so that it starts discussions in Washington on a date acceptable to both parties.

“But the Revolutionary Government of Cuba wishes to state that a resumption and further development of such negotiations shall take place only if your country´s administration or Congress does not take any unitaleral measure prejudging the results of the above-mentioned negotiations or harming the Cuban economy or the Cuban people. It seems obvious it should be added that adherence by the government of Your Excellency to this viewpoint would not only contribute to an improvement in relations between our respective countries but also reaffirm the spirit of fraternal friendship that has bound and is binding our peoples. That would also make it possible for both governments to examine calmly and most flexibly the issues which have affected the traditional relations between Cuba and the United States of America.”

Which was the answer from the US government?

“The Government of the United States cannot accept the negotating terms stated in the note of Your Excellency to the effect that no unilateral meaures are to be taken by the government of the United States that may harm the Cuban economy or that of its people, either by the legislative or the executive. As stated by President Eisenhower on January 26, the US government shall remain free, while exercising its own overeignty, to take the steps it deems necessary, being aware of its international obligations, to defend the legitimate rights or interests of its people.”

That is, the US government shall not bother to discuss with a small country, Cuba, its differences in relations.

What hopes can the Cuban people have concerning a solution to these problems? Well, all the facts we have been able to describe here are running counter a solution to such problems, and it is good the UN takes this very much into account, because the government of Cuba and the people of Cuba are essentially concerned about the aggressive path being taken by US government Cuba policies, and it is good we all are well informed.

First, the US government considers it has the right to promote subversion in our country; the US government is helping in the creation of subversive movements against the Revolutonary Government of Cuba and we are denouncing it here, in this General Assembly, and we want to denounce specifically that, for instance, in a Caribbean island which is Honduran territory and is known as Swan Island, the US government has grabbed manu military that island; US marines are stationed there, even when it is a territory of Honduras, thus violating international law and depriving a sisterly people of part of their territory; and, in violation of international radio broadcast conventions, they have set up a powerful radio station and put it in the hands of war criminals and subversive groups they are supporting in that country. Also, there is training being given there to promote subservion and promote armed landings in our island.

It would be good that the delegate of Honduras to the General Assembly reivindicate here the right of Honduras to that chunk of its territory, but that´s a matter concerning him. What concerns us is that a small part of a sisterly country has been taken away, as pirates would do, from that country by the US government and it is being used as a base for subversion and attacks against our territory. And I am requesting that this denunciation we are making in the name of the government and people of Cuba is taken for the record.

Does the US government think it has the right to promote subversion in our country, in violation of all international agreements and of radio broadcasting space? Would that mean in any way that the Revolutionary Government of Cuba also has the right to promote subversion in the United States? Does the US government think it has the right to violate the radio broadcasting space, greatly harming our radio stations? Would that mean the government of Cuba also has the right to violate the radio broadcasting space?

What right can the US government have over ourselves or over our island which allows other peoples to demand equal respect? Swan Island should be returned to Honduras, because the US has never had any jurisdiction over that island (APPLAUSE.)

But there are even more alarming circumstances for our people. It is known that, under the Platt Amendment, forcibly imposed on our people, the US government abrogated itself the right to establish naval bases in our territory. It was a right imposed by force and it is being kept by force.

A naval base in the territory of any country is a reason for just concern. First, the concern that a country which is implementing and aggressive and war-mongering international policy has a base there, at the heart of our island, which exposes our island to the perils of any international conflict, of any nuclear conflict, with us having absolutely nothing to do with such a problem, as we have absolutely nothing to do with US government problems and the crises being provoked by the US government. And, yet, there is a base there, at the heart of our island, that poses a danger for us in case of any armed conflict.

But is that the only peril? No! There is a peril which worries us even more, as it is closer to us. The Revolutionary Government of Cuba has stated repeatedly its concern over the possibility that the imperialist government of the United States uses that base, located in our territory, for a self-inflicted aggression that justifies an attack against our nation! I repeat: The Revolutionary Government of Cuba is extremely concerned, and it is stating it here, that the imperialist government of the United States uses a self-inflicted aggression as a pretext in an effort to justify an attack on our country! And such concern of ours is growing bigger and bigger because there is more aggressiveness and symptoms are more alarming.

This is, for instance, a UPI newscable received in our country. It reads:

“Admiral Harley Burke, the US naval operations chief, says that if Cuba would try to occupy the Guantánamo Naval Base, ´we shall fight. back´” In an interview published by U.S. News and World Report,”(excuse me for any defect in my pronounciation) Burke was asked whether the Navy was worried about the prevailing situation in Cuba under the Castro regime. ´Yes, our Navy is worried, not for our Guantánamo Base but for the whole Cuban situation,´ Burke answered. The admiral adds that all US army corps are worried. ´Is it due to Cuba´s strategic position in the Caribbean?´ Burke was asked. ´Not particularly,´ he said. “It is a country whose people were usually friendly to the United States, who liked our people and we also liked them. In spite of that, there is an individual who has come up with a group of hardline Communists bent on changing everything. Castro has taught people to hate the United States and done much to ruin his country.´ Burke said ´we would react promptly if Castro would take some decision against the Guantánamo Base. If they try to take it by force, we shall fight back,’ he added. Questioned whether the threat uttered by Krushchev that Soviet rockets would support Cuba had made him think about such decision twice, the admiral said: ´´No, because he wouldn´t fire the rockets; he knows very well he would be destroyed if he did so.´“

He means Russia would be destroyed.

First of all, I should emphasize that, for this gentleman, having increased industrial production by 35% in our country, having given jobs to another 200 000 Cubans and having solved the great social problems in our country are equivalent to “ruin the country.” And based on such “arguments,” they abrogate themselves the right to create conditions for an aggression.

See the calculation he is making, a really dangerous calculation, because this gentleman is virtually calculating that, in case of an attack against us, we are going to be alone. It is just a calculation by Mr. Burke, but let´s imagine Mr. Burke is wrong. Let´s imagine that Mr. Burke, though an admiral and soon, is wrong. (Voices from the Soviet delegation and Krushchev himself and applause are heard.)

Then Admiral Burke is toying irresponsibly with the fate of the world. Admiral Burke and all those in his aggresive war-mongering group are toying with the fate of the world, and actually it would not be worthwhile worrying about the fate of each of us. But we believe that we, the representatives of the various peoples of the world, do have a duty to worry about the fate of the world, and we have a duty to condemn all those toying irresponsibly with the fate of the world! Because they are not toying only with the fate of our people: they are toying with the fate of their own people and they are toying with the fate of all the peoples of the world! Or is it this Admiral Burke thinks we are still living in the times of harquebuses? Or is it this Admiral Burke hasn´t realized finally we are living in the atomic era, with a disastrous destructive force that would have not been imagined even by Dante or Leonardo da Vinci in spite of their great imagination, because it is above anything man was ever able to imagine? However, he is calculating and, of course, United Press has already spread the news all over the world. The magazine will be in the stands soon. The campaign is already under way; preparations for hysteria are already under way; the imaginary danger of an action by us against the base is already being reported.

And this is not all. Yesterday, another UPI report appeared with statements by a US senator whose name is pronounced, or so it seems to me, as Stail Bridge, and I understand he is a member of the US Senate Armed Services Committee, and he said today: “The US must make preparations at its Guantánamo Naval Base in Cuba no matter what.” And added: “We must go as far as it takes to defend the huge US facility. There we have naval forces, we have marines and, were we attacked, I certainly would defend it because I think it is the most important base in the Caribbean.”

This member of the Senate Armed Services Committe would not rule out completely the use of atomic weapons in case of an attack against the base.

What does this mean? This means that not only hysteria is being created, that not only opinions are being influenced systematically, but that we are being threatened even with the use of atomic weapons. And, actually, among the many things crossing our minds, one is asking this Mr. Bridge whether he is not ashamed when threatening a small country like Cuba with atomic weapons. (LONG APPLAUSE.)

For our part, and in full respect, we must tell him that the problems of the world cannot be solved by uttering threats and spreading fear, and that our modest and small people ... and what can we do about it? ... are here, whether he likes it or not, and the Revolution will go on, whether he likes it or not; and also, our modest and small people must accept their fate and are not cowed by his nuclear weapon use threats at all.

What does that mean? There are many countries in the world having US bases but, at least, and as far as we know, those bases are there not against the very governments which gave them such concessions. Our case is the most tragic one: It is having a base in our island territory against Cuba and against the Revolutionary Government of Cuba. That is, it is in the hands of those declaring themselves as enemies of our country, enemies of the Revolution and enemies of our people. In all the history of bases existing in the world today, Cuba´s case is the most tragic one: It is a base imposed in our indubitable territory far from US shores, against Cuba, against the people; it is being imposed forcibly and as a threat to and a concern for our people.

That is why we must state here, first, that such attack gibberish is intended to create hysteria and the conditions for aggressions against our country; that we have never talked about nor uttered ever a single word implying the idea of any kind of attack against the Guantánamo Naval Base. Because nobody is having a greater interest than us in not giving imperialism pretexts to attack us, and we are stating this here most emphatically; but we are also declaring that, as that base has become a threat to the safety and tranquility of our country and a threat to our people, the Revolutionary Government is considering very seriously to request, under the principles of international law, the withdrawal of US government navy and army forces from that portion of our territory (LONG APPLAUSE.) And the imperialist US government shall have no choice but to withdraw those forces, because, how will it justify in the eyes of the world its right to install an atomic base or a base which brings peril to our people in a portion of our territory, in an indubitable island which is the territory in the world where the Cuban people live? How will it justify in the eyes of the world any right to exert sovereignty on a portion of our territory? What will it tell the world to justify such arbitrariness? And, as it will not be able to justify such right in the eyes of the world, the time our government requests it, in line with international law, the US government shall have to abide by such law.

But this Assembly should be very well informed about Cuba´s problems because we must be vigilant against deceit and confusion. We must explain all these problems very clearly, because the security and fate of our country are at stake. And that is why we are asking these words go very much for the record, particularly if it is remembered that bad opinions or misinterpretations of Cuba´s problems by politicians in this country are showing no signs to get better.

Right here, for instance, I have statements by Mr. Kennedy that would astonish anybody. Concerning Cuba, he has said:

“We must exert all the OAS force to prevent Castro from interfering in other Latin American governments and bring freedom back to Cuba.” They are going to bring freedom back to Cuba!

“We must state our intent of not allowing the Soviet Union to turn Cuba into its Caribbean base and apply the Monroe Doctrine.”

Just in the middle of the Twentieth Century, or a little bit later, this candidate is talking about the Monroe Doctrine!

“We must make Premier Castro understand we intend to defend our right to the Guantánamo Naval Base.” He is the third, the third person to refer to the issue. “And we should make the Cuban people know we sympathize with their legitimate economic aspirations ...,” How come they did not sympathize before? “ ... that we know about their love of freedom, and that we shall never be satisfied until democracy is back in Cuba ...” What democracy? Democracy “made” in the imperialist monopolies of the US government?

“The forces fighting for freedom in exile ...” --here you should pay attention so as to understand later why planes are flying from US territory to Cuba; pay attention to what has been said by this gentleman--“... and in the Cuban mountains should be sustained and supported, and, in other Latin American countries, Communism should be kept confined and it should not be allowed to expand.”

If Kennedy were not an ignorant and illiterate millionaire, (APPLAUSE) he would realize it is not possible to carry out a revolution against peasants in the mountains with the support of large land holders, and that each time imperialism has tried to promote counterrevolutionary groups peasant militias, in a matter of days, have defeated them. But it seems he read, or saw in a Hollywood novel or in some movie, some story about guerrillas and believes that, socially speaking, it is possible to wage guerrilla warfare in Cuba today.

In any case, it is disheartening, but still, nobody should think these views on Kenendy´s statements mean we somewhat like the other one, Mr. Nixon, (LAUGHTER) at all, because Nixon has made similar statements. To us, they both lack political brains.

So far, we have expounded our country´s problem, which is our essential duty upon coming to the United Nations. But we do understand we would be a little selfish if our concerns were only about our specific case. It is also true we have spent most of our time informing this Assembly about the Cuba case, and we don´t have much time for discussing other matters about which we want to speak just briefly.

But Cuba´s case is not the only one. Thinking of Cuba´s case only would be a mistake. Cuba´s case is that of all underdeveloped peoples. Cuba´s case is like that of Congo´s, Egypt´s, Algeria´s or western Iran´s; (APPLAUSE) and, well, it is like the case of Panama, which wants its canal back; like the case of Puerto Rico, whose national identity is being destroyed; like the case of Honduras, part of whose territory is being seggregated; and, well, although we haven´t mentioned other countries specifically, Cuba´s case is the case of all underdeveloped and colonized countries.

The problems of Cuba we were describing could be easily found all over Latin America. Monopolies control economic resources in Latin America, and when they do not own mines directly, they do mining operations, as it happens with copper in Chile or Peru or Mexico, or with sync in Peru and Mexico, or with oil in Venezuela; or it is because they own utilities, utility companies as in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Peru, Ecuador and Colombia; or they own telephone services, as in Chile, Brazil, Peru, Venezuela, Paraguay and Bolivia; or they trade in our products, as is the case of coffee from Brazil, Colombia, El Salvador, Costa Rica and

Guatemala; or in bananas, which are harvested, traded and also transported by the United Fruit Company in Guatemala, Costa Rica and Honduras; and as is the case of cotton in Mexico or cotton in Brazil. And monopolies control the country´s leading industries.

Economies are completely reliant on monopolies! Ah! The day they also want to embark on an agrarian reform there will be trouble! They will be asked to make prompt, efficient and just payment. And, if inspite of it all, they carry out an agrarian reform, the delegate from the sisterly country who comes to the UN shall be confined to Manhattan, no hotel shall accommodate him, slanders shall fall on his head, and it is even possible he is manhandled by the police.

The Cuba problem is just an example of the situation in Latin America. And for how long will Latin America be waiting for its development? Well, it shall have to wait, in the view of monopolies, till the Greek calends.

Who is going to industrialize Latin America? The monopolies? No. There is a UN Economic Secretariat report explaining, also, how private investment capital is going, not to countries where it is most needed for creating basic industries, to contribute to development, but instead, and preferably, to the most industrialized countries because, as so it is said or believed, there is greater safety there. And, of course, even the UN Economic Secretariat has admitted there is no possibility of development with private investment capital, that is, with monopolies.

Development in Latin America must be carried out through public investments that are planned for and conceived with no political conditionings because, of course, we all like representing a free country and nobody likes representing a country which does not feel free. None of us likes that the independence of one´s country is subordinated to interests which are not the country´s. So assistance should include no political conditionings.

Is it we will not be offered any assistance? It doesn´t matter. We have not asked for it. But, in the interest of Latin American peoples, we do think it is our solidarity duty to say that assistance should be given with no political conditionings. There should be public investments for economic development, and not for “social development,” which has been the latest invention to hide the real need for economic development.

The problems of Latin America are like the problems of the world, of the rest of the world, of Africa and Asia. The world is distributed among monopolies. Those very monopolies you see in Latin America are also in the Middle East. There, oil is in the hands of monopoly companies controlled by financial interests in the US, Great Britain, the Netherlands, France ... That´s the case of Iran, Irak and Saudi Arabia. I mean, it is happening everywhere in the world. The same is happening, let´s say, in the Phillipines. The same is happening in Africa. The world is distributed among monopoly interests. Who would dare denying that historical fact? And monopoly interests do not want the peoples to develop. What they want is to exploit the natural resources of the peoples and exploit the peoples. And the sooner their investment capitals are paid back or amortized the better.

The problems the people of Cuba have been having with the imperialist US government are the same ones Saudi Arabia, or Iran, or Irak, would have if they nationalized their oil. Those are the same problems Egypt faced when it nationalized, and rightly so, the Suez Canal; the same problems Oceania faced when it wanted to be independent, that is, Indonesia, when it wanted to be independent; the same surprise invasion of Egypt, the same surprise invasion of Congo.

Have colonialists or imperialists ever lacked pretexts for invasions? Never! They have always resorted to some pretext. And which are the colonialist countries? Which are the imperialist countries? Four or five countries own things. Or, rather, not four or five countries but four or five groups of monopolies are the ones owing the wealth of the world.

If an alien from outer space came to this Assembly without having read Karl Marx´s Communist Manifesto or cable news from UPI, AP or other monopolistic media, and asked how the world is partitioned, how it is distributed, and saw in a map that wealth is distributed among the monopolies of four or five countries, he would say, without any further consideration: “The distribution of the world is not right; the world is being exploited.”

And here, where underdeveloped countries are in a great majority, he would be able to say: “A great majority of the peoples you represent are being exploited and they have been exploited for a long time. The form of exploitation has changed, but they continue being exploited.” That would be the verdict.

There is a statement in Premier Krushchev´s sppech that drew our attention very much due to its value: He said that “the Soviet Union has neither colonies nor foreign investments in any country.”

Ah! What a good place our world, now facing cataclysmic threats, would be if the delegates from all nations could say also: “Our country has no colonies nor does it have investments in any foreign country!” (APPLAUSE)

It is idle to keep on talking about it. That´s the core of the matter, and even the key for peace and for war, the key for the arms race or for disarmament. From the beginning of humanity, wars have started essentially due to one reason: The desire of some to plunder the wealth of others. When the philosophy of plundering is gone, the philosophy of war shall be no more! (APPLAUSE) When there are no more colonies, when there is no more exploitation of countries by monopolies, then humanity shall have reached a true time of progress!

As long as such step is not taken, as long as such time is not reached, the world will have to live always with the nightmare of being involved in any crisis, in an atomic war. Why? Because there are some having an interest in continued plundering; there are some having an interest in continued exploitation.

We have talked about the case of Cuba here. We have learned from our case, due to the problems we have had with our imperialism, that is, the imperialism which is against us ... But, after all, imperialisms are all the same, and they are all allies. A country exploiting the peoples of Latin America or of any other part of the world is an ally in the exploitation of the other peoples of the world.

There is something in the speech by the US president that really worried us. He said:

“In developing zones, we should try to promote peaceful changes, and also to assist in the implementation of their economic and social progress. To do that, to attain such change, the international community should be able to have a presence in cases it is needed by sending UN observers or forces.

“I would wish that Member States take positive measures concerning the suggestions stated in the report by the Secretary General for the training of qualified staff within the Secretariat to assist in meeting the needs for UN forces.”

That is, after considering that Latin America, Africa, Asia and Oceania are “development zones,” he is calling for the promotion of “peaceful changes” and, for that, he is even proposing the use of “UN forces” or “observers.” But the United States came to the world through a revolution against those who colonized it. The right of the people to get rid of colonial power or any other form of oppression through a revolution was enshrined even by the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776 in Philadelphia, and now the US government is calling for the use of UN forces to prevent revolutionary changes.

Now the Secretary General has suggested that Member States should be willing to meet future UN requests to contribute with keeping those forces. All countries represented here should meet such need by contributing with national contingents that could join those UN forces if need be. The time to do it is now, at this very Assembly. He assured countries now getting assistance from the United States of America to be in favor of the use of such assistance to help them in keeping contingents in the way suggested by the Secretary General. That is, he is saying to countries having bases and getting assistance there is a readiness to provide more assistance for the creation of that emergency force. In order to assist in the efforts by the Secretary General, the

United States of America is equally willing to provide great air and maritime support to transport contingents the UN asks for any future emergency situation. It means it is even offering its ships and aircraft for those emergency forces, and we wish to say here that fhe Cuban delegation shall not agree with such an emergency force until all the peoples of the world can be sure that those forces shall not be used in the service of colonialism and imperialism (APPLAUSE), and much less so when any of our countries may be at any time the target of the use of such forces in violation of the rights of our peoples.

There are several issues here various delegations have referred to already. Just due to lack of time, we only wish to express our view about the problem in Congo. It can be understood that, as our stance is against colonialism and the exploitation of undedeveloped countries, we condemn the way the UN forces intervention was carried out in Congo.

First, those forces did not go there to act against interventionist forces, which was the reason for calling them up. All the time needed for promoting the first dissension was given there. When this was not enough yet, time was given and an opportunity was favored for having the second dissension, and, finally, as radio stations and aerodromes were being seized there, the opportunity was favored for having the emergence of a third man, as those saviors that come up under such circumstances are called. We have known them too well already, because in the year of 1934, in Cuba, one of those saviors, called Fulgencio Batista, also emerged. In Congo, it is Mobutu. In Cuba, (Batista) was visiting the US embassy daily and it seems the one in Congo was doing the same. Is it because we are saying it? No. It is said, of all sources, by a magazine which is the biggest champion of monopolies and thus cannot be against them. It cannot support Lumumba, as it is against Lumumba and for Mobutu. But it also explains who he is, how he came up, how he worked, and, finally, in its last issue, Time magazine states: “Mobutu became a frequent visitor to the US embassy and held long talks with its officials. One afternoon last week, Mobutu held discussons with Camp Leopold officers and got their arousing support. That evening, he went to Radio Congo, the same Radio Congo station Lumumba had not been allowed to speack from and, simply, announced the army was taking power.”

Which means he did all that after frequent visits to and long talks with US embassy officials –it is being said by Time, which stands for monopolies.

Which means that colonialist interests have been clearly and evidently involved in Congo, and therefore it is our view that wrong things have been done, that colonialist interests have been favored and that all facts show the people of Congo are for and right is with the only leader, who stayed there defending the interests of his country, and that leader is Lumumba. (APPLAUSE)

If Afro-Asian peoples, in view of this situation and of this mysterious man who has come up there in Congo and been called upon to put aside the legitimate interests of the Congolese people and the legitimate governments of Congo, are able to make such legitimate powers reconcile themselves for the sake of the interests of Congo, so much for the better. But if such reconciliation is not reached, he who not only is having the support of the people and Parliament, but who has stood firmly in the face of monopoly interests and by the side of his people, should be seen as being right and having the law on his side.

Concerning the Algerian issue, we must say we fully support the right of the Algerian people to their independence, (APPLAUSE) and also, it has a touch of the ridiculous, like many other ridiculous things with an artificial life given by vested interests have. It is ridiculous to pretend that Algeria is part of the French nation. That has also been pretended by other countries to keep their colonies in the past. That thing called “integrism” failed historically. Let´s approach the question from the other end, that Algeria were the metropolis and declared that a piece of Europe was an integral part of its territory. That´s simply a feeble argument making no sense. Algeria, ladies and gentlemen, is part of Africa as France is part of Europe.

Yet, those African people have been waging a heroic struggle against the metropolis for several years now. Perhaps, as we are discussing here calmly, shrapnel and bombs of the French government or army are falling on Algerian villages and townships. And men are dying in a war about which there is no doubt whatsoever who is right and which can be ended taking into account even the interests of a minority, who are also the ones taken as a pretext to deny 90 percent of the population of Algeria their right to independence. Still, we are doing nothing. We went to Congo so quickly and we are showing so little desire to go to Algeria! (APPLAUSE) And, if the Algerian government (which is also a government as it is representing millions of Algerians who are fighting) requests UN forces to go there also, would we go as promptly? It would be good we went as promptly, but with different ends, that is, with the end of upholding the interests of the colony and not the interests of colonizers!

So we take sides with the Algerian people, as we take sides with the peoples still under the yoke of colonialism in Africa, and with the discriminated blacks of the Union of South Africa, and we are taking sides with the peoples wanting to be free, and not only politicially free, as it is very easy to hoist a flag and have a coat of arms and anthem and a color in a map, but economically free. Because there is a fact we all should have foremost in our minds, and it is there is no political independence without economic independence, that political independence is a lie if there no economic independence. And so, we support the aspiration to be politically and economically free, and not just having a flag and a coat of arms and representation at the United Nations. We want to uphold another right here, a right that has been proclaimed by our people at a big mass rally recently: The right of underdeveloped countries to nationalize, without indemnity, natural resources and monopoly investments in their respective territories. That is, we are calling for the nationalization of natural resources and foreign investments in underdeveloped countries.

And, if highly industrialized nations want to do it also, we shall not oppose it. (APPLAUSE)

For countries to be truly free politically, they must be truly free economically, and then they should be helped. We will be asked about the value of investments and we are asking about the amount of profits, the profits which have been taken away from underveloped peoples subdued by colonialism for decades, or even for centuries!

There is also a proposal by the head of the Ghanean delegation we wish to support. The proposal that the territory of Africa has no military bases and thus no nuclear arms bases; that is, a proposal to free Africa from the perils of an atomic war. Something has been done over Antarctica already. Why, while there is progress toward disarmament, don´t we make progress also to free certain regions of the world from the danger of nuclear war? Yes, Africa is being reborn, that Africa we are learning to know; not the Africa we were shown in maps, not the Africa we were shown in Hollywood movies and in novels, not that Africa where there were always half-naked tribes wielding spears who would run away at the first clash with the white hero, that white hero who got bigger as he killed more African natives. That Africa standing up here with leaders like Nkruma and Sekou Touré, or that Africa of the Arab world of Nasser; the true Africa, the oppressed continent, the exploited continent, the continent from where millions of slaves came, that Africa whose history is so full of suffering. With that Africa, to that Africa, we have a duty: Preserving it from the danger of destruction. Other peoples should make it up to Africa to some measure, the West should make it up to Africa for the great suffering it has brought to it, by preserving it from the danger of atomic war, by declaring Africa as a zone free from such danger; that no atomic bases are opened there and that, at least, the continent, until we can do something else, is the sancturary for preserving human life. (LONG APPLAUSE) We do support that proposal.

And, on the issue of disarmament, on the issue of disarmament we fully support the Soviet proposal --and we are not blushing here for supporting the Soviet proposal. We believe it is a correct, specific, defined and clear proposal.

For instance, we have read carefully the speech made here by President Eisenhower and, really, he didn´t talk about disarmament, about the development of underdeveloped countries or about the problem of the colonies. Actually, it would be good that the citizens of this country, who are so influenced by false propaganda, objectively read the speeches by the US president and the Soviet premier to realize where there is a sincere concern over the problems of the world, to see where things are said clearly and honestly and, also, to see who are those wanting disarmament and who are those not wanting disarmament and why.

The Soviet proposal is crystal clear. The Soviet statement has gone as far as it can get. Why the reservations when such a big issue as this one has never been discussed so clearly?

The history of the world has shown tragically that arms races have always led to war. But, still, nowhere in time has war meant so big a catastrophe for humanity as now and, consequently, never has responsibility been so big. And, concerning this issue which worries humanity so much, because its existence is virtually at stake with it, the Soviet delegation has put forward a proposal for total, complete and far-reaching disarmament. Who could ask for more? Ask for more, if you can! Ask for more guarantees, if you can! But the proposal is as clear and defined as it can be, and, historically, you cannot give a negative answer to it without taking the responsibility of risking war and war itself.

Why the desire to prevent the General Assembly from discussing the issue? Why doesn´t the US delegation want to discuss this matter among all of us? Is it we hold no views? Is it we should not know about the problem? Is it a commission should meet? Why isn´t the most democratic thing done? Namely, that the General Assembly, all delegates, discuss the disarmament issue here, and that everybody does air his views and it is known who is for disarmament and who is not, who wants to play with war and who doesn´t, and who is ignoring that aspiration of humanity. Because humanity should never be dragged into a catastrophe by selfish and mean interests! Humanity, our peoples, not us, must be saved from such catastrophe, so that everything human knowledge and intelligence have created is not used for the very destruction of humanity.

The Soviet delegation has spoken clearly, and I am being objective by saying this, and I urge you to discuss such proposals, and that everyone says what he thinks. Above all, this is not just a question for delegations: This is a question for public opinion! War-mongerers and militarists must be exposed and condemned by world public opinion! This is not a problem concerning minorities; it concerns the world. And war-mongerers and militarists must be unmasked and that´s a task for public opinion. It should be discussed not only in the plenary session: It should be discussed before the whole world. It should be discussed before the general assembly of the whole world because, in case of war, not only those responsible shall be exterminated. It will be the extermination of hundreds of millions of innocent people who are not to be blamed at all, and that´s why we, meeting here as the representatives of the world –or part of the world, as not all the world is represented here yet, and it will be so fully only when the People´s Republic of China is represented here!-- must take measures. (APPLAUSE) Of course, one fourth of the world is absent from this Assembly, but the part that is here has a duty to speak up clearly and not to hide, and to discuss everything, because this is too serious an issue, this is a more important problem, and discussing it shall entail more economic benefit than all other commitments as it is a commitment with preserving the life of humanity. Let us all discuss, and let us all talk about this problem and let us all endeavor for the sake of peace or, at least, to unmask militarists and war-mongerers. And, above all, if we underveloped countries want to cherish hopes for progress, want to have hopes that our peoples enjoy higher living standards, we must strive for peace and we must strive for disarmament, because one fifth of what the world is spending in weapons could be used to promote development in all underdeveloped countries at a 10-percent growth rate. Just one fifth! And, of course, the living standards in countries spending their resources in weapons could be raised.

But which are the obstacles facing disarmament? Who are those interested in being armed? Those with an interest in being armed to the teeth and the ones wanting to keep colonies, the ones wanting to keep monopolies, the ones wanting to keep Middle

Eastern oil and natural resources in Latin America, Africa and Asia in their hands, and, to keep them, they need force. And you know perfectly well those territories were occupied and colonized by virtue of the right of force; millions of men were enslaved by virtue of the right of force. And it is by force such exploitation is continued in the world. So those chiefly interested in having no disarmament are those interested in keeping force, to preserve their control over the natural resources and wealth of the peoples and over cheap labor in underdeveloped countries. We promised we would speak clearly, and truth should be told for what it is.

So, colonialists are the enemies of disarmament. We must struggle together with world opinion to impose disarmament on them, as we must struggle together with world opinion to impose on them the right of peoples to their political and economic liberation.

Monopolies are the enemies of diasarmament because, besides imposing such interests with weapons, the arms race has always been big business for monopolies. And, for instance, everybody knows that in this country big monopolies tripled their capitals after World War II. Like vultures, monopolies feed on the bodies of those killed in wars.

And war is business. Those doing business with war, those getting rich with war, must be unmasked. We must open the eyes of the world and tell it who are the ones trading in the fate of humanity, those trading in the peril of war, specially when war may be so terrible there will be no more hope of liberation or survival in the world after it.

And that is an endeavor we, as a small and underdeveloped country, are inviting, specially, other small and underdevloped peoples, as well as all this Assembly, to join, and to struggle and to bring the issue here; if we don´t, we won´t forgive ourselves for the consequences later if, due to our negligence or infirmity or weakness concerning this problem, the world is increasingly immersed in the perils of war.

There is one more point that, according to what we have read in some newspapers, was going to be one of the points by the Cuban delegation and, logically, it was the issue of the People´s Republic of China.

Other delegations have raised it already. We wish to state here that the fact a discussion of such problem has not even started here is actually a negation of the United Nations´ reason to be and essence. Why?

Because that´s what the US government wants. Why should the UN General Assembly give up its right to discuss that issue?

Many countries have joined this organization in recent years. Opposing a debate here on the righs of the People´s Republic of China, that is, of 99% of the inhabitants of a country of over 600 million, to be represented here is denying the realities of history, and denying occurrences and the facts of life themselves. It is simply absurd and ridiculous that such an issue is not even discussed. And for how long are we going to play that pitiful role of not even discussing this problem when we have here the representatives of, for instance, Spain´s Franco?

We would like to make a consideration on how the United Nations came into being.

It came into being after the struggle against fascism, after tens of millions of people died. And thus, out of a war that took so many lives, the organization emerged as a hope. Still, there are remarkable paradoxes. While US soldiers were dying in Guam, Guadalcanal or Okinawa, or in any of the many islands in Asia, other men were also falling in continental China fighting the same enemy. And those are the same men to whom the right to a discussion on their admission to the United Nations is being denied. And while in those days there were Blue Division soldiers fighting in the Soviet Union for fascism, the People´s Republic of China is being denied the right his case is debated here at the United Nations.

However, that regime which emerged as a result of German Nazism and Italian Fascism, which stormed power with Hitler´s guns and planes and Mussolini´s Blackshirts, was generously admitted to the United Nations.

China has one fourth of the world´s population. What government really represents those people, the largest in the world? Simply, the government of the People´s Republic of China. And there is still another regime, in the midst of a civil war which was interrupted by the interference of the US Seventh Fleet.

It is still worth asking here what is the right the navy of a country from another continent has to do that (and it is worthwhile repeating this here), at times there is so much talk of extracontinental interference; and we should be given an explanation why the fleet of an extracontinental country meddled there in an internal affair of China´s with the single aim of keeping a friendly group there and impeding the total liberation of the territory. But, as it is an absurd situation and an illegal situation from any viewpoint, the United States does not want a discussion about the issue of the People´s Republic of China. And, for the record, we wish to state our viewpoint here and our support to such debate and to the legitimate representatives of the Chinese people, who are the representatives of the government of the People´s Republic of China, having their seats at the United Nations General Assembly.

I understand perfectly well it is somewhat unlikely that anyone here can get rid of the stereotyped notions by which the representatives of nations are often judged. I must say we have come here with no prejudices, to discuss matters objectively, not fearing other people´s views or the consequences of our attitude.

We have been honest, we have been frank (with no franquismo), (APPLAUSE) because we don´t want to be an accessory to that great injustice being committed against many Spaniards who have been in jail in Spain for 20 or more years and who fought together with Americans in the Lincoln Battalion, the comrades of those very Americans who went there to be true to the name of that great American, Abraham Lincoln.

In sum, we shall trust reasoning and everybody´s honesty. There are aspects concerning these problems of the world with which we would like to summarize our thoughts, things that are indubitable. We have explained our problem here. It is one of the problems of the world. Those attacking us today are the ones helping to attack others in other parts of the world.

The US government cannot take sides with the Algerian people because it is an ally of the metropolis, France. It cannot take sides with the Congolese people because it is an ally of Belgium. It cannot take sides with the Spanish people because it is an ally of Franco. It cannot take sides with the Puerto Rican people, whose nationhood it has been destroying for 50 years. It cannot take sides with the Panamanians, who are claiming the Canal. It cannot be with the strengthening of civilian power in Latin America, Germany or Japan. It cannot take sides with peasants wanting lands because it is an ally of large land holders. It cannot take sides with workers demanding better living conditions anywhere in the world because it is an ally of monopolies. It cannot take sides with colonies seeking independence because it is an ally of colonizers.

That means it is with Franco, with colonization in Algeria, with colonization in Congo; it is with keeping its privileges and interests in the Canal, with colonialism all over the world. It is with German militarism and the resurgence of German militarism. It is with Japanese militarism and the resurgence of Japanese militarism.

The US government is ignoring the millions of Hebrews who were killed in European concentration camps by Nazis who are now regaining their influence in the German army. It is ignoring the Frenchmen who were killed in their heroic struggle against occupation. It is ignoring the US soldiers who died in the Sigfried Line, in the Ruhr or in the Rhine, or in the Asian fronts. It cannot be with the integrity and sovereignty of the peoples. Why? Because it needs to sever the sovereignty of peoples to keep its military bases, and each base is a knife stabbed on sovereignty, each base is a severance of sovereignty.

That is why it must be against the sovereignty of peoples; because it must sever sovereignty to continue its policy of bases encircling the Soviet Union. And we believe the US people are not being explained these matters well. It would be enough that the US people imagined what would come of their safety if the Soviet Union began establishing a ring of atomic bases in Cuba, Mexico or Canada. People in the US would feel unsafe, they would be uneasy.

World public opinion, which includes US public opinion, should be taught how to see problems from another angle, from the angle of others. Aren´t undeveloped peoples and revolutionaries depicted always as the aggressors, as the enemies of the US people? We cannot be the enemies of the US people because we have seen Americans like Carleton Beals, or Waldo Frank, and great and distinguished intellectuals like them, with tears in their eyes over the mistakes being made, over the lack of hospitality we experienced in particular. I see, in many US people, in the most humane and progressive and valuable US writers, the noble feelings of the early leaders of this country, of Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln. I´m saying this not demagogically but out of our sincere admiration for those who one day were able to free their people from the colony and to struggle, but not for their country to be now the ally of all the reacionaries of the world, the ally of all the gangsters of the world, the ally of large land holders, of monopolies, of exploiters, or militarists, of fascists, that is, not to be the ally of the most backward-minded and reactionary people but for their country to be always the champion of noble and lofty ideals.

We, by the way, know what they are going to tell the US people today, tomorrow and always about us to deceive them. It doesn´t matter. We are fulfilling our duty by expressing these feelings at this historic Assembly. We proclaim the right of peoples to their integrity, the right of peoples to their nationhood, and those knowing that nationalism means an endeavor to get back what is yours, your wealth and natural resources, are conspiring against nationalism.

In sum, we support all the noble aspirations of all peoples. That´s our position. We support and shall always support everything that is just, and be against colonialism, against exploitation, against monopolies, against militarism, against the arms race, against playing with war. We shall always be against those things. That shall be our position.

And, to conclude, and to fulfill what we deem as our duty, we will read to this Assembly the essential part of the Havana Declaration. You know the Havana Declaration was the response by the people of Cuba to the Costa Rica Letter. It was not a gathering of 10, 100 or 100 000 but of over a million Cubans. Those in doubt, may go there and count them at the next rally or general assembly we hold in Cuba; certainly, they will have the sight of an enthusiastic people and of a people with an awareness, a sight most likely they shall not have had before, one that only takes place when the people are fervently upholding their most sacred interests.

During that assembly to respond to the Costa Rica Letter, after a consultation with the people and as agreed by acclamation by them, these principles were proclaimed as the principles of the Cuban Revolution:

“The National General Assembly of the People of Cuba condems large land holding, the cause of poverty for peasants and a backward and inhumane agricultural production system; it condems hand-to-mouth wages and the iniquitous explotation of human labor by bastardly and privileged interests; it condems illiteracy, the lack of teachers, schools, physicians and hospitals, and the lack of protection for elderly persons that are rampant in the countries of the Americas; it condemns discrimination against Blacks and Indians; it condems women´s inequality and exploitation; it condems the political and military oligarchies that are keeping our peoples in poverty, preventing their democratic development and the full exercise of their sovereignty; it condems concessions on the natural resources of our countries to foreign monopolies as part of a submissive and treasonous policy that harms the interests of the people; it condems the governments which ignore the sentiments of their peoples so as to obey foreign orders; it condemns the systematic lies to the people by the media which are answerable to the interests of oligarchies and the policies of oppressive imperialism; it condems the monopoly over news by monopolistic news agencies, which are the tools of monopoly trusts and the agents of such interests; it condemns repressive laws prohibiting workers, peasants, students, intellectuals and the large majorities in each country to organize themselves and struggle for their social and patriotic reivindications; it condemns imperialist monopolies and companies that are constantly plundering our wealth, exploiting our workers and peasants, bleeding our economies and keeping them in backwardness and subordinating Latin American politics to their designs and interests.

“In sum, the National General Assembly of the People of Cuba condems exploitation of man by man and the exploitation of underveloped countries by imperialist financial capital.

“Consequently, the National General Assembly of the People of Cuba is proclaiming to the Americas --and it is proclaiming it here to the world:

“The right of peasants to have lands; the right of workers to enjoy the results of their labor; the right of children to education; the right of sick persons to medical and hospital care; the right of youths to work; the right of students to free, experimental and scientific education; the right of Blacks and Indians to the ´full dignity of man;´ the right of women to civil, social and political equality; the right of elderly persons to secure old age; the right of intellectuals, artists and scientists to strive, through their works, for a better world; the right of States to nationalize imperialist monopolies, thus recovering national wealth and resources; the right of countries to free trade with all the peoples of the world; the right of nations to their full sovereignty; the right of people to turn their army fortresses into schools and to arm their workers,” (as in this case we´ve got to be for weapons, in the sense of arming our people to defend ourselves from imperialist attacks), “peasants, students, intellectuals, and Blacks and Indians, and women, youths old persons, all those who have been oppressed and exploited, so that they themselves defend their rights and fate.”

Some wanted to know the line of the Revolutionary Government of Cuba. Well, this is our line!

Typewritten version of the Council of State

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Letters and Messages

Message to people of Holguin
August 29th 1947
November 2th 1948
20 de abril de 1956
SECOND EPISTLE
Proclamation by an adversary of the US government
Speech delivered at the funeral for the victims of the bombings to different airports of the republic held at the intersection of the Avenues 23rd and 12 in Havana across the Colon cemetery
Unpublished interview of Lisa Howard to Fidel Castro (1964): The US should live in peace with Cuba

Fragmento de Portada

October 26, 2011
April 13, 2009
May 7, 2010
Atilio Borón calls on the international community to reject current US escalation against Cuba
African Union calls on U.S. to end unjustified blockade of Cuba
Díaz-Canel says Cuba is waiting for U.S. response to the attack on embassy

Reflections

The victorious trip
NATO’s Genocidal Role
The Nobel Peace laureate

Soldier of Ideas

Address before the General Assembly of the United Nations, September 25, 1961

President John F. Kennedy New York City September 25, 1961

Mr. President, honored delegates, ladies and gentlemen:

We meet in an hour of grief and challenge. Dag Hammarskjold is dead. But the United Nations lives. His tragedy is deep in our hearts, but the task for which he died is at the top of our agenda. A noble servant of peace is gone. But the quest for peace lies before us.

The problem is not the death of one man--the problem is the life of this organization. It will either grow to meet the challenges of our age, or it will be gone with the wind, without influence, without force, without respect. Were we to let it die, to enfeeble its vigor, to cripple its powers, we would condemn our future.

For in the development of this organization rests the only true alternative to war--and war appeals no longer as a rational alternative. Unconditional war can no longer lead to unconditional victory. It can no longer serve to settle disputes. It can no longer concern the great powers alone. For a nuclear disaster, spread by wind and water and fear, could well engulf the great and the small, the rich and the poor, the committed and the uncommitted alike. Mankind must put an end to war--or war will put an end to mankind.

So let us here resolve that Dag Hammarskjold did not live, or die, in vain. Let us call a truce to terror. Let us invoke the blessings of peace. And as we build an international capacity to keep peace, let us join in dismantling the national capacity to wage war.

This will require new strength and new roles for the United Nations. For disarmament without checks is but a shadow--and a community without law is but a shell. Already the United Nations has become both the measure and the vehicle of man's most generous impulses. Already it has provided--in the Middle East, in Asia, in Africa this year in the Congo--a means of holding man's violence within bounds.

But the great question which confronted this body in 1945 is still before us: whether man's cherished hopes for progress and peace are to be destroyed by terror and disruption, whether the "foul winds of war" can be tamed in time to free the cooling winds of reason, and whether the pledges of our Charter are to be fulfilled or defied--pledges to secure peace, progress, human rights and world law

In this Hall, there are not three forces, but two. One is composed of those who are trying to build the kind of world described in Articles I and II of the Charter. The other, seeking a far different world, would undermine this organization in the process.

Today, of all days our dedication to the Charter must be maintained. It must be strengthened first of all by the selection of an outstanding civil servant to carry forward the responsibilities of the Secretary General--a man endowed with both the wisdom and the power to make meaningful the moral force of the world community. The late Secretary General nurtured and sharpened the United Nations' obligation to act. But he did not invent it. It was there in the Charter. It is still there in the Charter.

However difficult it may be to fill Mr. Hammarskjold's place, it can better be filled by one man rather than three. Even the three horses of the Troika did not have three drivers, all going in different directions. They had only one--and so must the United Nations executive. To install a triumvirate, or any panel, or any rotating authority, in the United Nations administrative offices would replace order with anarchy, action with paralysis, confidence with confusion.

The Secretary General, in a very real sense, is the servant of the General Assembly. Diminish his authority and you diminish the authority of the only body where all nations, regardless of power, are equal and sovereign. Until all the powerful are just, the weak will be secure only in the strength of this Assembly.

Effective and independent executive action is not the same question as balanced representation. In view of the enormous change in membership in this body since its founding, the American delegation will join in any effort for the prompt review and revision of the composition of United Nations bodies.

But to give this organization three drivers--to permit each great power to decide its own case, would entrench the Cold War in the headquarters of peace. Whatever advantages such a plan may hold out to my own country, as one of the great powers, we reject it. For we far prefer world law, in the age of self-determination, to world war, in the age of mass extermination.

Today, every inhabitant of this planet must contemplate the day when this planet may no longer be habitable. Every man, woman and child lives under a nuclear sword of Damocles, hanging by the slenderest of threads, capable of being cut at any moment by accident or miscalculation or by madness. The weapons of war must be abolished before they abolish us.

Men no longer debate whether armaments are a symptom or a cause of tension. The mere existence of modern weapons--ten million times more powerful than any that the world has ever seen, and only minutes away from any target on earth--is a source of horror, and discord and distrust. Men no longer maintain that disarmament must await the settlement of all disputes--for disarmament must be a part of any permanent settlement. And men may no longer pretend that the quest for disarmament is a sign of weakness--for in a spiraling arms race, a nation's security may well be shrinking even as its arms increase.

For fifteen years this organization has sought the reduction and destruction of arms. Now that goal is no longer a dream--it is a practical matter of life or death. The risks inherent in disarmament pale in comparison to the risks inherent in an unlimited arms race.

It is in this spirit that the recent Belgrade Conference--recognizing that this is no longer a Soviet problem or an American problem, but a human problem--endorsed a program of "general, complete and strictly an internationally controlled disarmament." It is in this same spirit that we in the United States have labored this year, with a new urgency, and with a new, now statutory agency fully endorsed by the Congress, to find an approach to disarmament which would be so far-reaching, yet realistic, so mutually balanced and beneficial, that it could be accepted by every nation. And it is in this spirit that we have presented with the agreement of the Soviet Union--under the label both nations now accept of "general and complete disarmament"--a new statement of newly-agreed principles for negotiation.

But we are well aware that all issues of principle are not settled, and that principles alone are not enough. It is therefore our intention to challenge the Soviet Union, not to an arms race, but to a peace race- -to advance together step by step, stage by stage, until general and complete disarmament has been achieved. We invite them now to go beyond agreement in principle to reach agreement on actual plans.

The program to be presented to this assembly--for general and complete disarmament under effective international control--moves to bridge the gap between those who insist on a gradual approach and those who talk only of the final and total achievement. It would create machinery to keep the peace as it destroys the machinery of war. It would proceed through balanced and safeguarded stages designed to give no state a military advantage over another. It would place the final responsibility for verification and control where it belongs, not with the big powers alone, not with one's adversary or one's self, but in an international organization within the framework of the United Nations. It would assure that indispensable condition of disarmament--true inspection--and apply it in stages proportionate to the stage of disarmament. It would cover delivery systems as well as weapons. It would ultimately halt their production as well as their testing, their transfer as well as their possession. It would achieve under the eyes of an international disarmament organization, a steady reduction in force, both nuclear and conventional, until it has abolished all armies and all weapons except those needed for internal order and a new United Nations Peace Force. And it starts that process now, today, even as the talks begin.

In short, general and complete disarmament must no longer be a slogan, used to resist the first steps. It is no longer to be a goal without means of achieving it, without means of verifying its progress, without means of keeping the peace. It is now a realistic plan, and a test--a test of those only willing to talk and a test of those willing to act.

Such a plan would not bring a world free from conflict and greed-- but it would bring a world free from the terrors of mass destruction. It would not usher in the era of the super state--but it would usher in an era in which no state could annihilate or be annihilated by another.

In 1945, this Nation proposed the Baruch Plan to internationalize the atom before other nations even possessed the bomb or demilitarized their troops. We proposed with our allies the Disarmament plan of 1951 while still at war in Korea. And we make our proposals today, while building up our defenses over Berlin, not because we are inconsistent or insincere or intimidated, but because we know the rights of free men will prevail--because while we are compelled against our will to rearm, we look confidently beyond Berlin to the kind of disarmed world we all prefer.

I therefore propose on the basis of this Plan, that disarmament negotiations resume promptly, and continue without interruption until an entire program for general and complete disarmament has not only been agreed but has actually been achieved.

The logical place to begin is a treaty assuring the end of nuclear tests of all kinds, in every environment, under workable controls. The United States and the United Kingdom have proposed such a treaty that is both reasonable, effective and ready for signature. We are still prepared to sign that treaty today.

We also proposed a mutual ban on atmospheric testing, without inspection or controls, in order to save the human race from the poison of radioactive fallout. We regret that the offer has not been accepted.

For 15 years we have sought to make the atom an instrument of peaceful growth rather than of war. But for 15 years our concessions have been matched by obstruction, our patience by intransigence. And the pleas of mankind for peace have met with disregard.

Finally, as the explosions of others beclouded the skies, my country was left with no alternative but to act in the interests of its own and the free world's security. We cannot endanger that security by refraining from testing while others improve their arsenals. Nor can we endanger it by another long, uninspected ban on testing. For three years we accepted those risks in our open society while seeking agreement on inspection. But this year, while we were negotiating in good faith in Geneva, others were secretly preparing new experiments in destruction.

Our tests are not polluting the atmosphere. Our deterrent weapons are guarded against accidental explosion or use. Our doctors and scientists stand ready to help any nation measure and meet the hazards to health which inevitably result from the tests in the atmosphere.

But to halt the spread of these terrible weapons, to halt the contamination of the air, to halt the spiralling nuclear arms race, we remain ready to seek new avenues of agreement, our new Disarmament Program thus includes the following proposals:

--First, signing the test-ban treaty by all nations. This can be done now. Test ban negotiations need not and should not await general disarmament. --Second, stopping the production of fissionable materials for use in weapons, and preventing their transfer to any nation now lacking in nuclear weapons. --Third, prohibiting the transfer of control over nuclear weapons to states that do not own them. --Fourth, keeping nuclear weapons from seeding new battlegrounds in outer space. --Fifth, gradually destroying existing nuclear weapons and converting their materials to peaceful uses; and --Finally, halting the unlimited testing and production of strategic nuclear delivery vehicles, and gradually destroying them as well.

To destroy arms, however, is not enough. We must create even as we destroy--creating worldwide law and law enforcement as we outlaw worldwide war and weapons. In the world we seek, the United Nations Emergency Forces which have been hastily assembled, uncertainly supplied, and inadequately financed, will never be enough.

Therefore, the United States recommends that all member nations earmark special peace-keeping units in their armed forces--to be on call of the United Nations, to be specially trained and quickly available, and with advanced provision for financial and logistic support.

In addition, the American delegation will suggest a series of steps to improve the United Nations' machinery for the peaceful settlement of disputes--for on-the-spot fact-finding, mediation and adjudication--for extending the rule of international law. For peace is not solely a matter of military or technical problems--it is primarily a problem of politics and people. And unless man can match his strides in weaponry and technology with equal strides in social and political development, our great strength, like that of the dinosaur, will become incapable of proper control--and like the dinosaur vanish from the earth.

As we extend the rule of law on earth, so must we also extend it to man's new domain--outer space.

All of us salute the brave cosmonauts of the Soviet Union. The new horizons of outer space must not be driven by the old bitter concepts of imperialism and sovereign claims. The cold reaches of the universe must not become the new arena of an even colder war.

To this end, we shall urge proposals extending the United Nations Charter to the limits of man's exploration of the universe, reserving outer space for peaceful use, prohibiting weapons of mass destruction in space or on celestial bodies, and opening the mysteries and benefits of space to every nation. We shall propose further cooperative efforts between all nations in weather prediction and eventually in weather control. We shall propose, finally, a global system of communications satellites linking the whole world in telegraph and telephone and radio and television. The day need not be far away when such a system will televise the proceedings of this body to every corner of the world for the benefit of peace.

But the mysteries of outer space must not divert our eyes or our energies from the harsh realities that face our fellow men. Political sovereignty is but a mockery without the means of meeting poverty and illiteracy and disease. Self-determination is but a slogan if the future holds no hope.

That is why my nation, which has freely shared its capital and its technology to help others help themselves, now proposes officially designating this decade of the 1960s as the United Nations Decade of Development. Under the framework of that Resolution, the United Nations' existing efforts in promoting economic growth can be expanded and coordinated. Regional surveys and training institutes can now pool the talents of many. New research, technical assistance and pilot projects can unlock the wealth of less developed lands and untapped waters. And development can become a cooperative and not a competitive enterprise-- to enable all nations, however diverse in their systems and beliefs, to become in fact as well as in law free and equal nations.

My country favors a world of free and equal states. We agree with those who say that colonialism is a key issue in this Assembly. But let the full facts of that issue be discussed in full.

On the one hand is the fact that, since the close of World War II, a worldwide declaration of independence has transformed nearly 1 billion people and 9 million square miles into 42 free and independent states. Less than 2 percent of the world's population now lives in "dependent" territories.

I do not ignore the remaining problems of traditional colonialism which still confront this body. Those problems will be solved, with patience, good will, and determination. Within the limits of our responsibility in such matters, my Country intends to be a participant and not merely an observer, in the peaceful, expeditious movement of nations from the status of colonies to the partnership of equals. That continuing tide of self-determination, which runs so strong, has our sympathy and our support.

But colonialism in its harshest forms is not only the exploitation of new nations by old, of dark skins by light, or the subjugation of the poor by the rich. My Nation was once a colony, and we know what colonialism means; the exploitation and subjugation of the weak by the powerful, of the many by the few, of the governed who have given no consent to be governed, whatever their continent, their class, their color.

And that is why there is no ignoring the fact that the tide of selfdetermination has not reached the Communist empire where a population far larger than that officially termed "dependent" lives under governments installed by foreign troops instead of free institutions-- under a system which knows only one party and one belief--which suppresses free debate, and free elections, and free newspapers, and free books, and free trade unions--and which builds a wall to keep truth a stranger and its own citizens prisoners. Let us debate colonialism in full--and apply the principle of free choice and the practice of free plebiscites in every corner of the globe.

Finally, as President of the United States, I consider it my duty to report to this Assembly on two threats to the peace which are not on your crowded agenda, but which causes us and most of you, the deepest concern.

The first threat on which I wish to report is widely misunderstood: the smoldering coals of war in Southeast Asia. South Viet-Nam is already under attack--sometimes by a single assassin, sometimes by a band of guerrillas, recently by full battalions. The peaceful borders of Burma, Cambodia, and India have been repeatedly violated. And the peaceful people of Laos are in danger of losing the independence they gained not so long ago.

No one can call these "wars of liberation." For these are free countries living under their own governments. Nor are these aggressions any less real because men are knifed in their homes and not shot in the fields of battle.

The very simple question confronting the world community is whether measures can be devised to protect the small and the weak from such tactics. For if they are successful in Laos and South Viet-Nam, the gates will be opened wide.

The United States seeks for itself, no base, no territory, no special position in this area of any kind. We support a truly neutral and independent Laos, its people free from outside interference, living at peace with themselves and their neighbors, assured that their territory will not be used for attacks on others, and under a government comparable (as Mr. Khrushchev and I agreed at Vienna) to Cambodia and Burma.

But now the negotiations over Laos are reaching a crucial stage. The cease-fire is at best precarious. The rainy season is coming to an end. Laotian territory is being used to infiltrate South Viet-Nam. The world community must recognize--and all those who are involved--that this potent threat to Laotian peace and freedom is indivisible from all other threats to their own.

Secondly, I wish to report to you on the crisis over Germany and Berlin. This is not the time or the place for immoderate tones, but the world community is entitled to know the very simple issues as we see them. If there is a crisis it is because an existing peace is under threat, because an existing island of free people is under pressure, because solemn agreements are being treated with indifference. Established international rights are being threatened with unilateral usurpation. Peaceful circulation has been interrupted by barbed wire and concrete blocks.

One recalls the order of the Czar in Pushkin's "Boris Godunov:" "Take steps at this very hour that our frontiers be fenced in by barriers. . . . That not a single soul pass o'er the border, that not a hare be able to run or a crow to fly."

It is absurd to allege that we are threatening a war merely to prevent the Soviet Union and East Germany from signing a so-called "treaty" of peace. The Western Allies are not concerned with any paper arrangement the Soviets may wish to make with a regime of their own creation, on territory occupied by their own troops and governed by their own agents. No such action can affect either our rights or our responsibilities.

If there is a dangerous crisis in Berlin--and there is--it is because of threats against the vital interests and the deep commitments of the Western Powers, and the freedom of West Berlin. We cannot yield these interests. We cannot fail these commitments. We cannot surrender the freedom of these people for whom we are responsible. A "peace-treaty" which carried with it the provisions which destroy the peace would be a fraud. A "free city" which was not genuinely free would suffocate freedom and would be an infamy.

For a city or a people to be truly free they must have the secure right, without economic, political or police pressure, to make their own choice and to live their own lives. And as I have often said before, if anyone doubts the extent to which our presence is desired by the people of West Berlin, we are ready to have that question submitted to a free vote in all Berlin and, if possible, among all the German people.

The elementary fact about this crisis is that it is unnecessary. The elementary tools for a peaceful settlement are to be found in the charter. Under its law, agreements are to be kept, unless changed by all those who made them. Established rights are to be respected. The political disposition of peoples should rest upon their own wishes, freely expressed in plebiscites or free elections. If there are legal problems, they can be solved by legal means. If there is a threat of force, it must be rejected. If there is desire for change, it must be a subject for negotiation, and if there is negotiation, it must be rooted in mutual respect and concern for the rights of others.

The Western Powers have calmly resolved to defend, by whatever means are forced upon them, their obligations and their access to the free citizens of West Berlin and the self-determination of those citizens. This generation learned from bitter experience that either brandishing or yielding to threats can only lead to war. But firmness and reason can lead to the kind of peaceful solution in which my country profoundly believes.

We are committed to no rigid formula. We see no perfect solution. We recognize that troops and tanks can, for a time, keep a nation divided against its will, however unwise that policy may seem to us. But we believe a peaceful agreement is possible which protects the freedom of West Berlin and allied presence and access, while recognizing the historic and legitimate interests of others in insuring European security.

The possibilities of negotiation are now being explored; it is too early to report what the prospects may be. For our part, we would be glad to report at the appropriate time that a solution has been found. For there is no need for a crisis over Berlin, threatening the peace-- and if those who created this crisis desire peace, there will be peace and freedom in Berlin.

The events and decisions of the next ten months may well decide the fate of man for the next ten thousand years. There will be no avoiding those events. There will be no appeal from these decisions. And we in this hall shall be remembered either as part of the generation that turned this planet into a flaming funeral pyre or the generation that met its vow "to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war."

In the endeavor to meet that vow, I pledge you every effort this Nation possesses. I pledge you that we will neither commit nor provoke aggression, that we shall neither flee nor invoke the threat of force, that we shall never negotiate out of fear, we shall never fear to negotiate.

Terror is not a new weapon. Throughout history it has been used by those who could not prevail, either by persuasion or example. But inevitably they fail, either because men are not afraid to die for a life worth living, or because the terrorists themselves came to realize that free men cannot be frightened by threats, and that aggression would meet its own response. And it is in the light of that history that every nation today should know, be he friend or foe, that the United States has both the will and the weapons to join free men in standing up to their responsibilities.

But I come here today to look across this world of threats to a world of peace. In that search we cannot expect any final triumph--for new problems will always arise. We cannot expect that all nations will adopt like systems--for conformity is the jailor of freedom, and the enemy of growth. Nor can we expect to reach our goal by contrivance, by fiat or even by the wishes of all.

But however close we sometimes seem to that dark and final abyss, let no man of peace and freedom despair. For he does not stand alone. If we all can persevere, if we can in every land and office look beyond our own shores and ambitions, then surely the age will dawn in which the strong are just and the weak secure and the peace preserved.

Ladies and gentlemen of this Assembly, the decision is ours. Never have the nations of the world had so much to lose, or so much to gain. Together we shall save our planet, or together we shall perish in its flames. Save it we can--and save it we must--and then shall we earn the eternal thanks of mankind and, as peacemakers, the eternal blessing of God.

IMAGES

DR Congo leader, at UN, accuses Rwanda of aggression
Felix Frankfurter quote: Freedom of speech and of the press are
CUBA
United Nations Speech
United Nations Speech
World leaders give speeches at the United Nations

VIDEO

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COMMENTS

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The 13-year-old tree ambassador
It's not every day that a 13-year-old boy gets a chance to address the United Nations General Assembly. But Felix Finkbeiner is no ordinary teenager.Finkbeiner is already the head of his own organization, Plant for the Planet, dedicated to planting millions of trees all around the world.At the U.N. earlier this month, Finkbeiner had one item on his agenda: taking adults to task for their lack ...
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September 25, 1961: Address to the UN General Assembly
President Kennedy addressed the UN General Assembly on the topic of nuclear disarmament and world peace. He urged the nations to reduce their arsenals, cooperate with each other, and respect the sovereignty of all states.
Address to the United Nations General Assembly
President Kennedy spoke before the UN on September 25, 1961, one week after the death of Secretary-General Hammarskjold, to endorse disarmament and challenge the Soviet Union to a "peace race." He also addressed the crises in Berlin, Laos, and South Vietnam.
Why did felix give a speech to the united nations
Felix gave a speech to the UN because he felt that the negative effects of global warming required proper and strict action. He wrote a report years before that inspired him to fight climate change and save the people.
What Is the United Nations? Its History, Its Goals and Its Relevance
At last year's General Assembly, President Donald J. Trump delivered a speech that sharply criticized multilateralism, a cornerstone of the international cooperation espoused by the United ...
One memorable speech can turn around a faltering campaign − how Nixon
In the immediate aftermath of the speech, Robert Ruark, a syndicated columnist, wrote that Nixon had effectively "stripped himself naked for all the world to see, and he brought the missus and ...
Champion for Trees Biology Article for Students
Felix's speech impressed U.N. leaders so much that they put Plant for the Planet in charge of the U.N.'s own tree-planting campaign, which had a goal of 1 billion trees. In 2008, Felix was elected to the junior board of the United Nations (U.N.) Environment Programme. He spoke at a conference in South Korea.
Ecuador part ways with Felix Sanchez following Copa America exit
Ecuador has parted ways with coach Felix Sanchez following their exit from the 2024 Copa America. The decision was confirmed following their defeat against Argentina in the quarter-final of the ...
United Nations (UN)
The United Nations (UN) was the second multipurpose international organization established in the 20th century that was worldwide in scope and membership. Its predecessor, the League of Nations, was created by the Treaty of Versailles in 1919 and disbanded in 1946. Headquartered in New York City, the UN also has regional offices in Geneva ...
Felix Finkbeiner addresses United Nations with speech to open the
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Atoms for Peace speech
Atoms for Peace speech, speech delivered to the United Nations by U.S. Pres. Dwight D. Eisenhower on December 8, 1953. In this address, Eisenhower spelled out the necessity of repurposing existing nuclear weapons technology to peaceful ends, stating that it must be humanity's goal to discover "the way by which the miraculous inventiveness of man shall not be dedicated to his death, but ...
Eleanor Roosevelt and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
April 25, 1945, representatives from fifty nations convened in San Francisco to organize the United Nations. Over the course of nine weeks, the delegates debated what the scope and the structure of this new body should be. June 26, they adopted the United Nations Charter, Article 68 of which mandated that the General Assembly "set up ...
The Truman Doctrine
A manifestation of containment was the so-called Truman Doctrine announced by President Truman about a year after Kennan sent his response to Washington. Like containment, the Truman Doctrine became a fundamental part of America's response to the confrontation with the Soviet Union. From the beginning, both containment and the Truman Doctrine ...
Haile Selassie's address to the United Nations, 1963
sister projects: Wikidata item. Spoken to the United Nations General Assembly on October 4, 1963. This speech is typically credited as the inspiration for Bob Marley 's hit song "War". The translation is that provided by the United Nations, running concurrent with his speech. Twenty-seven years ago, as Emperor of Ethiopia, I mounted the rostrum ...
Why did Felix give a speech to the United Nations?
Why did Felix give a speech to the United Nations? He wanted to tell his teacher about climate change. He wrote a report years before that inspired him to fight climate change. He wanted experience making a presentation in front of world leaders. He needed to overcome his fear of making speeches.
HarvestFW
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The Struggle for Human Rights (1948)
The United Nations must hold fast to the heritage of freedom won by the struggle of its peoples; it must help us to pass it on to generations to come. The development of the ideal of freedom and its translation into the everyday life of the people in great areas of the earth is the product of the efforts of many peoples.
October 1, 1990: Address to the United Nations
About this speech. George H. W. Bush. October 01, 1990. Source National Archives. Bush emphasizes the need for a stronger United Nations in the post-Cold War era. He also highlights the importance of free elections and action against Iraq. Presidential Speeches | George H. W. Bush Presidency October 1, 1990: Address to the United Nations ...
Speech at the UN Headquarters, US, on September 26, 1960
And, of course, His Excellency the US delegate to the United Nations would promptly join the farse by sending to the Venezuelan government a message of condolences for the victim´s relatives, as if he felt obliged to give explanations from the United Nations about something on which, virtually, the Cuban delegation was to be blamed.
Address before the General Assembly of the United Nations, September 25
Together we shall save our planet, or together we shall perish in its flames. Save it we can--and save it we must--and then shall we earn the eternal thanks of mankind and, as peacemakers, the eternal blessing of God. Listen to the speech. View related documents. President John F. Kennedy New York City September 25, 1961.