SECRETARY-GENERAL PAYS TRIBUTE TO MEMORY OF PRESIDENT FELIX HOUPHOUET-BOIGNY
Press Release
SG/SM/5837
SECRETARY-GENERAL PAYS TRIBUTE TO MEMORY OF PRESIDENT FELIX HOUPHOUET-BOIGNY
19951204 CHECK AGAINST DELIVERY `His Moral Authority Continues to Dictate the Path We Should Take Towards Peace and Development' Mr. Boutros-Ghali StatesFollowing is the text of the tribute, translated from the French, paid by Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali to the memory of President Felix Houphouet-Boigny in Yamoussoukro on 5 December:
Today, in Yamoussoukro, we can clearly feel the spiritual strength of the one we have gathered here to honour. His memory is what draws us here and gives us strength. His immanent presence surrounds us and sustains us. His moral authority continues to dictate the path we should take towards peace and development.
At various crucial times in my life as a diplomat, I often found President Houphouet-Boigny by my side. It is about that support that I should like to speak to you for a moment.
When I was Minister of State for Foreign Affairs in Egypt, specifically when President Sadat took the initiative to go to Jerusalem, I found President Houphouet-Boigny tremendously understanding. He spared no effort to assist us and to make public his support and convince some reluctant African heads of State of the importance of that historic initiative.
It was during that same period, in 1979, that I ran into him again, on the occasion of the preparations for the Non-Aligned Summit, which was to be held in Havana. We were both concerned that communism would change the nature of the Non-Aligned Movement.
The following year, on the occasion of the special session of the Organization of African Unity in Lagos, I was greatly impressed, as were all
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the participants, by President Houphouet-Boigny's strong convictions concerning the economic development of Africa and by the persistence with which he sought to persuade the other African heads of State to share his vision of Africa, of an Africa based on the values of dignity and progress.
In the years that followed I met the President several times, at various events and summits of the French-speaking community. He used to like to speak about how he first became interested in politics and about the powerful yet complex ties which he always maintained with France.
Finally, I should like to recall that, on the occasion of the Paris summit, in 1991, he again promised me that he would vote in the United Nations for his friend Boutros.
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