Allow me, before reading my speech, to take this opportunity to offer you our respectful greetings and to say how honoured we feel to be here before the Fourth Committee to co-operate with it in the framework of the struggle for decolonisation. And at the same time, allow me, on behalf of our people and through the distinguished representatives of member countries here, to offer the fraternal and warm greetings of our African nation and our most sincere wishes for the continued success of the work of this United Nations Committee in the service of the liberation of peoples and in the service, therefore, of peace and genuine progress for the world.

For the second time, we have the signal honour to address the Fourth Committee of the United Nations General Assembly. We do so on behalf of our African people, in Guinea and Cape Verde, for whom our national party, the PAIGC, is the sole, legitimate and genuine representative. We do so with joy and in full awareness of the fact that you are our companions in struggle. This is a difficult but inspiring struggle for the liberation of peoples and of man from every kind of oppression, for the advent of a better mankind in a world of peace, security and progress.

Without forgetting the often remarkable role of Utopia in the furthering of human progress, we are, however, quite realistic. In fact we know that there are among you some representatives who, perhaps in spite of themselves, are bound to adopt an obstructive, if not negative, attitude when dealing with questions concerning our own national liberation struggle.

We venture to say ‘in spite of themselves’ since, over and above compelling reasons of state, it is difficult for us to believe that there can be responsible men who deep inside themselves are opposed to the legitimate aspirations of our African people to dignity, freedom, national independence and progress. So as the poet would say, in the era in which we live to show solidarity with those who are suffering and struggling for their liberation ‘it is no longer necessary to be courageous, it is enough to be honest’.