Mr. President, Distinguished Delegates:
Twenty-seven years ago, as Emperor of Ethiopia, I mounted the rostrum in Geneva,
Switzerland, to address the League of Nations and to appeal for relief from the
destruction which had been unleashed against my defenceless 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: abjugation
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 honour 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 shad 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 sense as the forum where nations whose interests
clash may lay their cases before world opinion. It still provides the essential escape
valve without which the slow build-up of pressures would have long since resulted in
catastrophic explosion. Its actions and decisions have speeded the achievement of
freedom by many peoples on the continents of Africa and Asia. Its efforts have
contributed to the advancement of the standard of living of peoples in ad 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 highmindedness of men when brought into stark
confrontation with the issue of control over their security, and their property interests.
Not even now, when so much is at hazard would many nations willingly entrust their
destinies to other hands.

Yet, this is the ultimatum presented to us: secure the conditions whereby men will
entrust their security to a larger entity, or risk annihilation; persuade men that their
salvation rests in the subordination of national and local interests to the interests
of humanity, or endanger man's future. These are the objectives, yesterday unobtainable,
today essential, which we must labour to achieve.

Until this is accomplished, mankind's future remains hazardous and permanent peace
a matter for speculation. There is no single magic formula, no one simple step, no words,
whether written into the Organization's Charter or into a treaty between states, which
can automatically guarantee to us what we seek. Peace is a day-to day problem,
the product of a multitude of events and judgments. Peace is not an "is", it is a
"becoming." We cannot escape the dreadful possibility of catastrophe by miscalculation.
But we can reach the right decisions on the myriad subordinate problems which each new day
poses, and we can thereby make our contnbution 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 precedures 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 dunng 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 colour of a man's skin is of no more significance than the colour 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 Afnca 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 Afnca 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 honourable 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.
 

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