UN Human Rights Treaties

United Nations GENERAL ASSEMBLY THIRTY-FIFTH SESSION Official Records* THIRD COMMITTEE 64th meeting held on Friday, 21 November 1980 at 10.30 A.m. New York SUMMARY RECORD OF THE 64th MEETING Chairman: Mr. GARVALOV (Bulgaria) CONTENTS AGENDA ITEM 12: REPORT OF THE ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COUNCIL (continued) Distr. GENERAL A/C.3/35/SR.64 8 December 1980 ENGLISH ORIGINAL: SPANISH 80-57693 A/C.3/35/SR.64 English Page 2 The meeting was called to order at 10.50 a.m. AGENDA ITEM 12: REPORT C? THE ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COUNCIL (continued) (A/35/Add.2, 18, 22, 23 and Corr.l, 27, 28, 33, 34, 37 and Corr.1; A/35/120, 148, 199, 231, 259, 260, 265, 266, 270, 272, 273, 336, 340, 348, 363, 405, 419, 426, 431, 1*50, 522, 543 and Corr.l, 614, 622; A/C.3/35/1, 10, 11, 12; E/1980/14; E/CN.4/1365, E/CN.4/1366; A/C.3/35/L.52, L.54, L.60, L.6l, L.64, L.66, L.68, L.69, L.70 and L.71) 1. Mr. GHIRDA (Romania), referring to the report contained in document E/1981/3, said that the social aspects of development should include the implications and consequences of measures relating to the establishment of the new international economic order. Careful consideration of that idea would provide a basis for an exchange of views on the practical means of improving and adapting social development activities rapidly and efficiently so that they could fully meet the requirements of the new international economic order as reflected in the new Strategy. The considerations on the role or the legislative bodies of the United Nations system amply demonstrated that efforts must be made to see that the mandate of those organs was carried out better than at present and thus met Member States' expectations. In his opinion social development problems had not been given the attention they deserved in the Committee. The report contained sufficient facts and comments to enable Member States to find solutions acceptable to all which, once adopted, could be implemented by the legislative bodies and by the functional commissions as well as by the United Nations Secretariat. In that connexion, he referred to paragraph 80 of the report, which recommended, inter alia, that the Third Committee should regain its primary responsibility for social development and that the Committee should reorient its discussions to involve actual problems of genuine social concern, such as employment, education, nutrition, health, housing and the well-being of children. 2. He reiterated the desire which his delegation had expressed more than once in various international fora that the dialogue on the strengthening of the role of the United Nations in international life in general should be continued and amplified. A promising step in the right direction had already been made, as paragraph 101 of document E/1981/3 expressed the view that the Commission on the Status of women should continue to provide leadership and act as a catalyst in exercising its mandate of advising the Economic and Social Council on measures to promote women's rights in the political, economic, social and cultural fields. On that basis, the Group of 77 had been able to include in the resolution concerning the results of the World Conference of the United Nations Decade for Women an important provision regarding the necessity of adopting measures to strengthen the role of the Commission on the Status of Women and that of the Centre for Social Development and Humanitarian Affairs in Vienna. 3. Further examination of the recommendations contained in the report as well as the present debate in the Committee would lead to valuable conclusions which would permit concrete proposals concerning ways of implementing the existing recommendations to be made by the Commission for Social Development at its A/C.3/35/SR.64 English Page 3 (Mr. Ghirda, Romania) February 1981 session and by the Economic and Social Council at its session of April-May 1981. He also believed that, if they thoroughly studied document E/1981/3, the specialized agencies would be able to make a new contribution which would enable the General Assembly to adopt, at its thirty-sixth session, practical measures that would meet the expectations of those who hoped to see significant improvements in the field of social development activities. 4. Mrs. CASTILLO (Dominican Republic), after referring to the gap between the developed and the developing countries, said that thanks to the assistance it had received, her country was recovering from the economic crisis which had been triggered by the hurricanes that had struck it in 1979 and 1980, the decline in its exports and soaring fuel prices. She stressed the urgent need to introduce a new look in world economic relations by making appropriate structural changes. The role of the United Nations system in matters relating to international negotiations and the provision of technical assistance should be expanded. Mankind's economic, social and cultural problems must be resolved so as to eliminate, among other evils, that of people being forced to emigrate to other countries in order to earn a living. In that connexion, she trusted that the various Governments would be interested enough in the draft international convention on the protection of the rights of all migrant workers and their families for it to be discussed and adopted at the forthcoming sessions of the General Assembly. 5. Whereas, 27 months earlier, the Dominican Republic had had a repressive regime, the present Government respected and protected human rights. Nevertheless, there were economic difficulties in producing the goods and services the nation needed in order to improve its standard of living. It would be desirable to establish regional technical and financial co-operation systems to promote the most urgently needed businesses and industries. Latin America faced major problems and it was very important that countries should co-operate, in order to overcome them. In that connexion she drew attention to the bilateral co-operation agreements which the Dominican Republic had signed with Colombia and Venezuela. Lastly, she expressed support for the exchange of information on banned unsafe pharmaceutical products and for international co-operation in the control and suppression of the drug traffic, an area in which her country had shown itself to be very competent. 6. Mr. HEPBURN (Bahamas), referring to the question of drug abuse, said that there were three areas of particular importance to the international community: production, demand and traffic. His country could not be included in the first category since it was not and never had been a producer of narcotic raw materials. Nor did it come under the second heading because it was not at present a consumer of illicit narcotic drugs. Its concern was with the third area, drug trafficking, for, regrettably, it had become an involuntary conduit between the producers of illicit narcotic raw materials from South America and elsewhere and the exceptionally large market in North America. 7 The geography of the Bahamas readily lent itself to the illicit drug traffic for it was an archipelagic composed of hundreds of small islands, of which only the major ones were inhabited. Private aircraft, yachts and freighters used the uninhabited islands as safe havens for the exchange of illicit narcotics and money. A/C.3/35/SR.64 English Page 4 (Mr. Hepburn, Bahamas) Illicit drugs were also brought into the Bahamas on regular commercial aircraft by various means. The Generally accepted fact that transit countries inevitably became victim countries was the reality with which the Bahamas must now contend. Its security and stability were already threatened, end the Government feared that outside influences would affect the social and moral fibre of its youth, who comprised some 67.9 per cent of the population. The increased criminality resulting from the drug traffic had had a negative impact on the socio-economic development of the Bahamas, for the Government had had to divert vital revenue from development to defray the expenses of dealing with the problem. His Government hoped that the national measures it had taken to combat such activities, together with co-operation from the international community, could lessen the dancers of illicit drug trafficking. In that connexion, he wished to mention that the Bahamas had ratified the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, 196l, and the Protocol thereto and also the Convention on Psychotropic Substances. 8. To improve the capability of its law enforcement agencies the Government had amended existing laws, particularly to increase the penalties meted out to drug offenders. The Government was attempting to curb those activities but, unfortunately, the enforcement agencies were not sufficiently experienced and did not have the means to carry out total surveillance over such a vast area, which was mostly water. Nevertheless, the Government had entered into bilateral negotiations with a view to acquiring the facilities for halting the illicit traffic in drugs throughout its territory. 9. The drug abuse control activates of the United Nations were concentrated in the Asian region, while the initiatives undertaken in the Latin American region in general, and in the Caribbean in particular, had not been particularly significant. He hoped that more attention would be directed to that area and that the United Nations would initiate some activity to focus the attention of the international community on the problems of the region. * That might be done through regional and national conferences and seminars under the aegis of the Division of ******* Drugs, The Division should also initiate specific drug programmes to serve as training for Caribbean countries while at the same time informing the general public of the nature of the problem. 10. The Bahamian Government was willing to support any programme geared to sparing peoples everywhere the suffering that could result from the abuse of drugs and narcotic substances, 11. Mr. GURAKAN (Turkey) said that the question of drug abuse control was of the utmost importance to his country. During 1979. Turkey had continued to implement successfully a new system of poppy cultivation under strict and effective control measures aimed at preventing the production of opium. Efforts aimed at strengthening the law enforcement measures and promoting and modernizing the control systems in provinces where the cultivation of the opium poppy was authorized, had continued in 1980 with the valuable assistance of the United Nations Fund for Drug Abuse Control. Despite its serious economic difficulties the Turkish Government had continued to spend millions of dollars in the fight against illicit drug A/C.3/35/SR.64 English Page 5 (Mr. Gurakan, Turkey) activities, but the quantities of illicit drugs transiting through Turkey had still assumed alarming proportions during the past year. The Government was taking energetic measures to control the situation which, it was hoped, would be remedied soon with the effective co-operation of the countries and international organizations concerned. 12. In addition to its efforts at home, Turkey was playing an active role in international activities intended to improve the effectiveness of the international control of illicit drug traffic. In that connexion, the Commission on Narcotic Drugs at its sixth special session had taken a decision, on the initiative of the Turkish delegation, to convene a meeting to discuss the relationship between drug trafficking and other organized crimes. His Government considered that the question should be the subject of constant attention and study by the relevant United Nations organs. With regard to illicit drug traffic, he regretted that some countries submitted their reports on illicit drug traffic to the United nations without making sufficient effort to check the accuracy of the information which they supplied. 13. It was discouraging to see that the problem of drug abuse was increasing in various parts of the world, especially in Europe. That unfortunate situation should not lead to pessimism and inaction; on the contrary, it should stimulate more determined and co-ordinated efforts by the international community. His Government thought that the demand aspect, which it believed to be the root cause of the problem, had not been sufficiently dealt with so far. Similarly, the abuse of psychotropic substances was not receiving the attention it deserved. It was regrettable that the 1971 Convention had not yet been ratified or acceded to by all the principal manufacturing and exporting countries. The legislative body in Turkey had authorized ratification of the Convention. even though Turkey was not a manufacturer of psychotropic substances. 14. Misuse of chemical substances for the production of drugs was another problem which deserved the closest attention of the international community. Among these chemical substances, acetic anhydride was of particular importance since it was being used for the manufacture of heroin. At its sixth special session the Commission on Narcotic Drugs, on the initiative of the Turkish delegation, had adopted an important resolution on that subject, which would lead to concrete and effective measures to control the manufacture, marketing, distribution and utilization of those substances. 15. The restoration of a global balance between demand for and supply of opiates for medical and scientific purposes was another problem which awaited urgent solution. Turkey had played a full part in helping to restore that balance. Production of poppy straw had been limited to 35,000 tons in 1978 and reduced even further, to 12,000 tons in 1979; the 1980 production would be 12,000 tons. 16. Recently, countries other than the traditional suppliers had begun to cultivate poppy straw. In order to remedy that situation, the Economic and Social Council had adopted resolutions 1979/8 and 1980/20 to prevent the proliferation of A/C.3/35/SR.64 English Page 6 (Mr. Gurakan, Turkey) sources of production of narcotic raw materials for export, and to protect the ********** interests of the traditional supplier countries. 17. The international drug abuse control strategy was expected to be finalized during the forthcoming session of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs. The strategy should first be considered and discussed in detail by the Commission itself before being taken up by the higher organs in the United Nations. Secondly, it should not lead to the establishment of new organs, or to duplication, in the field of drug abuse control. Thirdly, it should include an effective mechanism to ensure co-ordination within the United Nations system between the units and the organs concerned. Fourthly, it should be based on the concept of collective responsibility. Lastly, it should take fully into account the fact that bilateral and multilateral development assistance to developing countries for drug abuse control projects should be extended only when requested by the recipient country concerned. 18. Mr. BLUM (Israel) said that in recent years it had been recognized that countries which violated basic human rights could not escape international censure on the pretext that their actions in the field of human rights were an internal affair which brooked no external interference. As the representative of Israel, it was incumbent on him to protest whenever Jewish rights were violated. 19. There had been a time when Governments and peoples admitted that anti-Semitism existed in their countries but at the present time, instead of attacking Jews or the Jewish people as such, anti-Semites attacked Zionism or Zionists. The attempts in the United Nations to bestow respectability on "anti-Zionism" had in practice only encouraged anti-Semitism in various parts of the world, and nowhere was it more obvious than in the Soviet bloc countries of Eastern Europe and in the Arab world. 20. The Soviet Union, whose long tradition of official anti-Semitism dated from Czarist days, continued to incite hatred against the Jews in various publications, thereby poisoning official and private attitudes and practices towards the Jews in that country, as the experience of decades had shown. However, the violations of Jewish rights in the Soviet Union were often of a much more concrete nature. At the present time there were some two million Jews in the Soviet Union who had been officially designated as a national minority whose rights were enshrined in the Soviet Constitution. But in open breach of that Constitution there was not a single Jewish school in the whole country; the teaching of Hebrew was prohibited and the Jewish culture and religion were systematically suppressed. 21. Millions of copies of anti-Semitic books, pamphlets and magazines were circulating in the Soviet Union under official Soviet auspices. For example, in February 1980 the magazine Nauka i Religia (Science and Religion) had published a crude diatribe against Judaism in the guise of a scientific analysis. In November, the magazine Sotsialisticheskaya Industria had put the blame for international tension on the Jews. 22. The right of Jews to emigrate from the Soviet Union had been drastically A/C.3/35/SR.64 English Page 7 (Mr. Blum., Israel) curtailed over the last year, despite the Soviet Union's commitments under the Helsinki Final Act. Only 18,000 Jews had been allowed to leave in the first **** months of 1980, less than half the number who had left during the corresponding period in 1979. The Soviet authorities were also using other ploys to restrict Jewish emigration. In many cities, especially in the Ukrainian SSR, emigration officials refused to distribute the forms needed to apply for emigration. In Kishinev, for instance, where over 2,000 Jewish families were waiting to apply, the Visa Department was accepting only five applications a week, while in Kharkov emigration officials denied applicants the right to reapply every six months. In their despair at such arbitrary behavior, groups of Jews in Kharkov and Kishinev had decided to go on a symbolic three-day fast on 11 November, the day scheduled for the opening in Madrid of the Conference convened to review the 1975 Helsinki agreements. Two potential participants in the hunger strike, Izaak Moshkovich and Vladimir Tuckerman had been arrested by the KGB and sentenced to 15 days in prison, charged with "hooliganism". 23. Another case was that of the prominent scientist and Jewish activist, Dr. Victor Brailovsky, arrested on a charge of "defaming the Soviet State and public order" on 13 November, two days after a press conference had been held in his Moscow apartment to mark the start of the hunger strike. Jewish prisoners of conscience like Anatoly Shcharansky, Ida Nudel, Vladimir Slepak and losif Mendelevich continued to languish in Soviet prisons, labour camps and in exile for no other crime than their desire to live in Israel. 24. It should not be for forgotten that by signing and ratifying the Helsinki Final Act the Soviet Union had assumed the obligation to respect those fundamental freedoms, and the world was entitled to insist that the Soviet Union live up to its commitments. Israel would not cease to remind the Soviet Union and the other nations of the world of the USSR's violations of those obligations and would not rest until the Soviet Union lived up to them, restored to its Jews their basic human and national rights and permitted them to be reunited with their brethren in Israel and with their families wherever they might be. Above all, Israel would not rest until every Jewish prisoner of conscience was released and allowed to join his family and his people. 25. Turning to the Middle East, he referred to the tiny community of Jews residing in Syria, some 4,500 souls, who were still denied their rights to emigrate in violation of Syria's international commitments; they were living in ghettos as second-class citizens under the constant surveillance of the Muhabarat, the Syrian secret police. Israel appealed to the Government of Syria to respect the basic human rights of its Jewish community and allow them to emigrate in accordance with its obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. 26. The Jews of Iran had suffered painfully in recent months and their situation was deteriorating from day to day. Israel knew of the difficulties in dealing with the present regime in Iran, to whom fundamental concepts of human rights and the norms of international relations seemed foreign, but appealed nevertheless to the Government of Iran to respect the human rights of the Jewish population there, including their right to emigrate. A/C.3/35/SR.64 English Page 8 27. Mr. VONGSALY (Lao People's Democratic Republic) said that in southern Africa after the independence of Zimbabwe the Republic of South Africa was persisting in its policy of racial discrimination and apartheid, denying the black people of South Africa and Namibia their most elementary political, economic and civil rights and subjecting them to increasingly brutal repression. As in Sharpeville in 1960 and Soweto in 1976, the apartheid regime had resorted to savage terror in order to crush peaceful demonstrations by black students and workers' strikes. The numbers of political prisoners and summar executions of members of national liberation movements were increasing. 23. By such barbaric repression, the apartheid regime was trying to suppress the emancipation of the peoples of South Africa and Namibia in order to keep them in perpetual slavery and despoil them of their natural resources. Not content with that, it invaded independent neighboring States for the purpose of persecuting Couth African and Namibian patriots, thus gravely endangering the peace and security of the region. 29. In the face of that shameless challenge it was the duty of the international community to intensify its support of the heroic struggle of the black peoples of South Africa and Namibia, under the leadership of the ANC and SWAPO, to recover their fundamental human rights and achieve self-determination and independence. 30. On the Latin American continent, the people of Chile had been the victim of violent repression ever since the overthrow of the democratic and lawful Government of President Allende. In his report to the thirty-fourth session of the General Assembly the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Chile described the deterioration in the situation of human rights resulting from the more rigorous legislation limiting those rights and the wider powers conferred on the security organs. In his report (A/35/522} to the thirty-fifth session of the General Assembly, the Special Rapporteur noted that those trends had become more marked. Persecutions and threats were on the rise against persons or institutions, such as the Catholic Church, which militated in defence of human rights; the state of emergency, declared seven years ago, was still continuing; new legislation, especially decree-laws 3l86 and 346l, had tightened the restrictions on the liberty and security of persons; the torture and ill treatment inflicted by the security organs on detainees were everyday occurrences. 31. Inquiries into the fate of disappeared persons were constantly held up by the lack of co-operation on the part of the Chilean authorities who also displayed an intransigent attitude towards Chileans living abroad and desiring to return to their homeland. The Constitution which the military Junta had recently submitted to a pleas cite contained no provisions for restoring the political rights of the Chilean people and merely served to consolidate and legalize a de facto situation, in other words to institutionalize the present system of fascist-like repression. 32. Those attitudes were to be condemned as violating the provisions of the international instruments to which Chile was a party, such as the Covenants on human rights. The international community must support the valiant people of Chile in their struggle to recover full exercise of their true rights and democratic liberties. A/C.3/35/SR.64 English Page 9 (Mr. Vongsaly, Lao People's Democratic Republic) 33. His delegation was pleased to announce that it was Joining the sponsors of draft resolution A/C.3/35/L.61 now before the Committee. 34. Mr. SENTICI (World Health Organization), speaking on the question of the exchange of information ON banned, hazardous chemicals and unsafe pharmaceutical products, said that WHO had welcomed resolution 34/l73, adopted by the General Assembly at its thirty-fourth session. At the beginning of 1980, WHO had informed the United nations Secretariat of its readiness to co-operate in the preparation of the report requested in the resolution. It had subsequently provided a detailed contribution on WHO's experience and activities for the report. 35. The information exchange activities of WHO concerning hazardous chemicals covered all such chemicals and not Just those that had been banned. Those activities included environmental health criteria, drinking water standards, food additive and pesticide residue evaluation, pesticide data sheets, internationally recommended occupational exposure limits and evaluation of the carcinogenic risk of chemicals to man. 36. Since the time of the thalidomide tragedy in 1961, WHO had been alert to the need for efficient channels of communication among member States on all issues bearing on the safety and efficacy of drugs moving in international commerce, 37. WHO regularly issued reports of scientific groups on the general principles of toxicological testing of drugs and had developed an international scheme for monitoring adverse drug reactions, in which 20 countries were participating. It had also drawn up a certification scheme concerning the quality of pharmaceutical products moving in international commerce, and it transmitted to all member States, through circulars and bulletins, decisions reported by national authorities to withdraw or restrict the availability of drugs on grounds of safety. 38. In an effort to improve existing channels of communication and relations between drug regulatory agencies and WHO, plans had been made to establish a standing advisory committee for drug safety to: encourage reporting to WHO by national health authorities of decisions and developments concerning drug regulation; to assess and improve means of disseminating information on drugs to member States; to aid WHO in identifying and evaluating new problems in that area; and to advise WHO on means of strengthening the technical capability of member States to utilize available information on drugs. 39. Mr. GLAIEL (Syrian Arab Republic), speaking in exercise of the right of reply, said that the Zionist representative had Just bemoaned the fate of the Jews in the Syrian Arab Republic, whose living conditions were actually better than those of the Arabs in the occupied territories. That representative had said that they were denied the right to return to Israel, and he (Mr. Glaiel) wondered who had granted the Zionists the right to live in a land that did not belong to them. Before referring to Syrian citizens of the Jewish faith, the Zionist representative should speak of Arabs treated as third- or fourth-class citizens in their own territory and of the Arab women and children who suffered as a result of the aggression A/C.3/35/SR.64 English Page 10 (Mr. Glaiel. Syrian Arab Republic) committed by people who had arrived from all parts of the world. Mike Wallace, the American commentator, had conducted an inquiry into the situation of Jews in the Syrian Arab Republic, which had been shown as a documentary film on American television. The Zionists had been alarmed at the veracity of the film and had levelled a variety of threats against Mr. Wallace, who had returned to the Syrian Arab Republic and conducted a further inquiry that had confirmed the facts established in the first one. Before lending support to Jews in all parts of the world, the representative of the Zionists should recognize the rights of the Palestinian people over the Arab occupied territories. 40. Mr. 0ZADOVSKY (Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic), speaking in exercise of the right of reply, said that his delegation categorically rejected the slanderous attacks made against his country by the representative of Israel, who, as the Committee already knew, made repeated attacks against the Soviet people at one meeting after the other. He must be reminded, in that connexion, that at the end of the Second World War the Soviet people had saved the lives of millions of people, including thousands of Jews. Moreover, it should be pointed out that in the Soviet Union the Jewish people were not identified with Zionism and no connexion was made between the two; however, as far as Zionism was concerned - that reactionary doctrine which the United Nations General Assembly had defined and described five years earlier as a form of racial discrimination - his delegation wished to point out that it had fought, and would continue to fight, that doctrine. 41. On the other hand, in his statement concerning the report of the Economic and Social Council, the representative of Israel should have indicated whether his country intended to implement General Assembly resolutions on human rights. He had said nothing with regard to the human rights situation in Israel, where, it was well known, there were still two categories of Israeli Jews, a higher category and a lover one. Nor had he made any mention of the situation prevailing in the occupied Arab territories, even although it was known that the Special Political Committee had recently considered the report on that situation, which constituted a violation of human rights in those territories. Many matters had been raised in the Third Committee and in the context of the struggle against racism that indicated a deterioration in the situation in the Arab territories occupied by Israel, which was committing mass, systematic and brutal human rights violations, mocking internationally recognized fundamental rights and shamelessly disregarding the decisions and resolutions of the Economic and Social Council, the Security Council and the General Assembly. 42. Israel continued to occupy the territories that it had taken over in 1973, was stepping up its oppression of the original inhabitants of those territories and was still expelling Arab residents from their land and replacing them with Israeli, settlers. A reign of terror, oppression and cruelty had thus been established in the occupied territories, and a policy of annexation was being implemented with a view to changing the legal status and the demographic and geographical situation in those territories, as Well as their very character. Lastly, there was no doubt that the chief violation of human rights in the occupied territories was attributable to the occupation itself and Israel's aggression against Arab countries and peoples. A/C.3/35/SR.64 English Page 11 43. Mr. FARIS (Jordan), speaking in exercise of the right of reply, said that, when referring to emigration, the representative of Zionism had forgotten what the Israel authorities were doing in the Arab territory of occupied Palestine, where. since the State of Israel had been established in 1948, thousands of Palestinians had been expelled from their land and the Zionists had prevented them from returning to it. The Zionists had at the same time encouraged immigration of Jews from the United States, Europe and anywhere else to occupy Palestine, to the detriment of the interests of a people, namely, the Palestinian people, who had been displaced from their country. 44. With regard to Jerusalem, the Zionists had declared that city their indivisible capital, in defiance of the feelings of millions of Moslems throughout the world. They had, moreover, affirmed that the Jews were the only ones entitled to live in Palestine and Jerusalem and to occupy all the Moslem holy places,, which constituted a clear human rights violation. As was well known, Israel had refused to permit the Security Council Commission Established under Resolution 446 (1979) to visit Israel in order to find out about violations of the human rights of Arabs living in the occupied territories. Nevertheless, that Commission and al30 the Third Committee had heard evidence from Arabs who had been threatened, whose dwellings had been demolished and who had been detained and imprisoned for three or four years under the pretext of the so-called preventive detention act. At the same time, the Zionists Persisted in their determination to populate Palestine with Jewish immigrants, who were currently occupying 107 settlements, 45. Moreover, the Zionist representative had said that anti-Semitism had now become anti-Zionism, but he ignored the fact that Zionism was a form of Nacism. Therefore, in saying that the Arabs were anti-Semites, he was concealing the fact that the Arabs were also Semites. What he was attempting to disregard was the difference between Zionism and Semitism. The same applied to the Israeli representative's assertion that the Soviet Union was anti-Semitic, whereas it was well known that the Semites who lived in that country were subjected to no discrimination or differentiation amongst themselves. 1*6. Mr. BLUM (*****), speaking in exercise of the right of reply, said that the replies made in response to his earlier statement confirmed the comments made by his delegation. It was remarkable that both the representative of Jordan and the representative of the Ukrainian SSR had spoken on behalf of the Soviet Union, and it was no less remarkable that the representative who had referred in his reply to the situation of Jews in the Soviet Union should be precisely the representative of the Ukrainian SSR. With regard to the so-called claim that Arabs could not be anti-Semites because they themselves were Semites, it would suffice to inquire of any anti-Semite what he or she understood by anti-Semitism in order to put an end to that semantic dodge. 47. With regard to the representative of the Syrian Arab Republic, as usual he shielded himself with the argument that questions relating to Jews in the Syrian Arab Republic were an internal affair of that country. However, one of the achievements of the United Nations system was precisely that it had removed the question of human rights from a strictly national context, and no one could hide A/C.3/35/SR.64 English Page 12 (Mr. Blum. Israel) behind the argument used by the Syrian Arab Republic, which was, moreover, a country that continued to refuse to recognize the very existence of the Jewish people. 48. With regard to the reply of the representative of the Ukrainian SSR, the Jewish people had been the main victims of the Second World War, and had been victims of nazism and fascism even before the war. No people had suffered under nazism and fascism as much as the Jewish people, who had lost more than a third of their members: 6 million Jews, including 1.5 million children. Moreover, the representative of the Ukrainian SSR should know that countless Jews had fought with the Red Army to liberate the Soviet Union from the yoke of Nazism and fascism. Accordingly, it was surprising to see the Soviet Union currently become one of the principal champions of anti-Semitism. 49. However, since the representative of the Ukrainian SSR had referred to the Second World War, he drew attention to the fact that an infamous treaty between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany had preceded and in fact precipitated the war. Similarly, the Soviet Union was currently supporting another organization dedicated to the destruction of Israel: the terrorist Palestine Liberation Organization. 50. Furthermore, the representative of the Ukrainian SSR had provided no documented confirmation to support his accusations against Israel for the alleged persecution of Arabs living under Israeli administration. Therefore, his delegation merely wished to recommend to the representative of the Ukrainian SSR, and also to the representative of the Syrian Arab Republic, that the Jewish minorities in their countries should be treated in the same way as Israel treated its Arab citizens and the Arabs living under Israeli administration. When that happened, his delegation would stop raising the issue of the Jews in the Soviet Union and the Syrian Arab Republic. 51. Mr. GLAIEL (Syrian Arab Republic), speaking in exercise of the right of reply, said that his delegation wished to reiterate - and he urged the representative of the Zionist entity to understand him accordingly - that the rights of the Jewish people neither justified nor required that another people, the Palestinian people, should be deprived of their land or their rights. One people's right could under no circumstances consist in nullifying another people's rights and, when one country's lands were usurped in order to create another State, the rights of the former country were also being usurped. Accordingly, the Syrian Arab Republic had combated, was combating and would continue to combat Zionism - and not Judaism, as the representative of Israel had alleged; it was combating Zionism because that doctrine had inflicted suffering on innumerable people throughout the world. 52. As to the treatment of the Jewish minority in the Syrian Arab Republic, it was sufficient to point out that that minority enjoyed every right, the allegations of the Zionist representative notwithstanding. 53. Mr. OZADOVSKY (Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic), speaking in exercise of the right of reply, said that, in his second statement, the Israeli representative A/C.3/35/SR.64 English Page 13 (Mr. Ozadovsky. Ukrainian SSR) had again proved that his delegation preferred to avoid any reference to the repeated requests the United Nations had addressed to Israel in resolutions of the General Assembly and the Economic and Social Council. Many United Nations documents, in particular those of the Economic and Social Council, referred to the policy of terror and barbaric persecutions which the Israeli authorities applied to the Palestinians. In that connexion, the Arab countries had Just described to the Committee in a consistent manner the background to the barbaric activities which Israel was conducting in the occupied Arab territories. 54. By the same token, it should be noted that the representative of Israel had failed to explain why Tel Aviv continued overtly to violate the rights of the Palestinian people, or why the Israeli authorities were creating so many obstacles to the liberation and free accession to independence of the peoples of the occupied Arab territories. The representative of Israel should be reminded, once again, that it was necessary to comply with the General Assembly resolutions requesting that the violations of the rights and freedoms of the people of the occupied Arab territories should be brought to an end. In fact, the Israeli delegation should take such compliance as its starting point, instead of seeking, through attacks on other countries, to divert the Committee's attention from one of the tasks entrusted to it. 55. Mr. BYKOV (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics), speaking in exercise of the right of reply, said that the representative of Israel's statement wa3 yet another example of arrogant Zionist propaganda, which the Soviet Union totally rejected. Zionism had always been the arch enemy not only of all peoples but also of the Jews themselves, and it was known that, during the Second World war, the Zionist leaders had secretly collaborated with the Nazi leaders, handing over thousands of Jews whom the Nazis had then sent to the gas chambers in the concentration camps. 56. His delegation could only describe as blasphemy the Israeli representative's remarks about alleged anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union. There had never been, never would be, and no one could say that there was currently, any type of anti-Semitic racist propaganda in the Soviet Union. However, the Soviet Union opposed and would continue to oppose Zionism and the imperialist ideology embodied therein, which represented a type of racial discrimination. 57. Mr. BLUM(Israel), speaking in exercise of the right of reply, said that the representative of the USSR had not dealt with the substance of his statement end, therefore, had not responded to any of his specific accusations. Instead, he had sought to defile the memory of 6 million Jewish martyrs. The representative of the Ukrainian SSR had not accepted his proposal that the Jews in the Soviet Union should be granted the same rights as those enjoyed by the Arabs in Israel and in the territories administered by it. 58. Mr. BYKOV (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics), speaking in exercise of the right of reply, rejected the representative of Israel's accusations, which were totally unfounded and were merely Israeli propaganda. There was absolutely no truth in those allegations.