Bahamas

The Bahamas shares the confidence that the international community has placed in you, Sir, as the envoy of Namibia and of the continent of Africa to preside over this fifty-fourth session of the General Assembly, the last in this twentieth century. My delegation congratulates you and pledges its full support as you guide our deliberations at this critical juncture. My delegation’s congratulations are also extended to Mr. Didier Opertti, who represented our Latin American and Caribbean region as President of the fifty-third session. My delegation wishes to commend the Secretary- General of the United Nations for his leadership of this highly complex Organization on which rest the hopes and aspirations of the world’s peoples and which is our best prospect for a stable world. I am pleased on this occasion to warmly welcome the Kingdom of Tonga, the Republic of Kiribati and the Republic of Nauru, the United Nations newest Member States, to this community of nations. These countries add to the growing number of small island developing States in the United Nations and underscore the need for the Organization to increase its efforts in support of this important constituency. The United Nations was created with a mandate to work collectively for a better world, and since its inception it has contributed to positive developments in the global arena. However, significant challenges persist. The agenda of the fifty-fourth session shows that even as some progress has been made, we will continue at this session to grapple with many of the thorny issues that have preoccupied the international community over the decades. At the same time, new challenges will have to be addressed. Recent events in Europe and elsewhere in the world, spawned by internal conflict, have raised questions as to whether States fractured by ethnic, religious and other strife could build national identities to span these divides. At the same time, they remind us that the greatest care must be taken in making exceptions to the general principle of non-intervention in the internal affairs of other States. The Bahamas believes that this principle remains an important safeguard for international peace and security. The Bahamas accepts that internal conflicts create situations in which the Security Council should act, in accordance with the Charter. However, we believe that whenever the United Nations responds to internal conflicts and threats to regional stability, it must do so with one and the same degree of urgency, with adequate resources and with consistency. It is with these considerations in mind that the Bahamas supports United Nations efforts to bring peace and stability to areas of conflict in all regions of the world. Recent United Nations peace initiatives give us hope that long-standing and seemingly intractable problems may have solutions. Indeed, the Bahamas is encouraged by developments in the Middle East, particularly the signing this month of the Sharm el-Sheikh Memorandum. We see these developments as having the potential to end decades of conflict in that troubled region. If enlightened self-interest were to prevail in long-standing conflicts elsewhere in Africa, Asia and Latin America, they too could be resolved. Global attention could then be turned towards development and human betterment, as envisaged in the Charter. Globalization and trade liberalization are gaining currency as means of promoting accelerated development and opening opportunities to bridge the gap between rich 15 and poor. However, concerns are being expressed that the rules of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and its dispute settlement mechanisms put the interests of the strong ahead of the interests of the weak. Indeed, the anticipated benefits of free trade give little comfort to Caribbean States and farmers dependent as they are on bananas for their foreign exchange earnings and their very livelihood. Where preferential treatment is removed before Caribbean countries can restructure their economies, severe hardship results. We therefore believe that all concerned must make an effort to find a solution to the banana problem. We see the new round of WTO negotiations scheduled to begin in Seattle in November as an invaluable opportunity for developing countries to have their concerns incorporated into the discussions. The Bahamas is currently giving consideration to acquiring observer status in the WTO. It fully intends to follow the multilateral negotiating process and to bring its concerns to the table, particularly in the areas of trade in services and differential treatment for small economies. Growth in the economy of the Bahamas is in part attributable to the services it offers as an offshore financial centre. The Bahamas is concerned about the action taken within the international community to inhibit or prevent the use of offshore centres and to label them, impertinently, as “harmful” tax jurisdictions. Furthermore, there is a tendency to treat all offshore jurisdictions as a homogenous group, which they are most definitely not. The Bahamas had the opportunity to address the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development on harmful tax practices in August this year in Paris. We emphasized there that strict regulations and appropriate legislation, specifically formulated to counter money laundering and other illegal activities, govern financial institutions in the Bahamas. The Bahamas is committed to working with all concerned to address these and related issues. In May this year, it was reported to our Parliament that the economy of the Bahamas was experiencing a period of dynamism. In 1998, our economy grew some 3 per cent, the unemployment rate was 7.8 per cent and net foreign investment inflows amounted to $491 million. But on 14 September 1999, hurricane Floyd struck the Bahamas, and the entire archipelago felt its impact. Significant damage was done to the environment, infrastructure and property. The full implications for the economy of our country of the relief, recovery and reconstruction efforts have yet to be calculated. What happened in the Bahamas underscores the continuing validity of the Barbados Programme of Action for the Sustainable Development of Small Island Developing States, adopted in 1994. We cannot help but emphasize — as so many States did at the recently concluded twenty-second special session — how imperative it therefore remains for the Barbados Programme of Action to be implemented. It is in this context that we urge renewed commitment on the part of all to the search for consensus on the draft resolution on the recognition of the Caribbean Sea as a special area in the context of sustainable development. Together with our Caribbean Community sister States, the Bahamas has made known our concern regarding the transhipment of nuclear and hazardous waste through the Caribbean Sea. Yet these shipments continue. We reiterate our wish to see these shipments stopped: they constitute the gravest risk to the fragility of our marine environment and our economies. The significant number of reviews issued recently or expected in the coming months, of the outcomes of United Nations Conferences on small island developing States, population and development, social development and women, attest to the efforts of the United Nations to meet its economic and social obligations under the Charter. The Bahamas confidently expects that these reviews will all confirm that renewed political will and action are required to meet the goals we set, at a high level, in Barbados, Cairo, Copenhagen and Beijing. Let me comment briefly on our continuing efforts to maintain the momentum for gender equality, a subject which will be taken up in the five-year Beijing review. Women worldwide continue to break through glass ceilings. In the Bahamas, for example, women have made significant strides in Parliament, the judiciary, public service and business and service organizations. However, the Bahamas is cognizant that there are still serious challenges to women’s equality. We are particularly concerned about the traffic in human beings, predominantly women and children. The Bahamas intends to continue its active support, both nationally and internationally, for efforts to help women realize their legal rights, attain economic empowerment and rise above poverty. It is our hope, therefore, that the Beijing review will result in strategies to further engage the international community in support of the world’s women. 16 The Bahamas supports the growing consensus on human rights, which focuses on principles and values including democracy, good governance and the rule of law. We also believe that United Nations Member States should honour the human rights commitments they have made. The Republic of Haiti is a fledgling democracy courageously facing significant political, economic and social challenges. These myriad challenges have resulted in a sustained influx of illegal immigration from Haiti into the Bahamas. Together with other illegal immigration, particularly from other countries in the Caribbean region, illegal Haitian immigration continues to be a burden to the socio-economic structures of the Bahamas. We therefore have a vested interest in the stabilization of Haiti’s democratic institutions and economy. The Bahamas participated in a Caribbean Community mission to Haiti in July of this year; that mission reviewed with the Haitian Government its preparedness for elections. In so doing, we signalled our support for the process of free and fair elections in Haiti. We also fully support the efforts of the Economic and Social Council and of the General Assembly for Haiti’s reconstruction and for the strengthening and furtherance of its democracy. Last year, at the twentieth special session of the General Assembly, on the world drug problem, the international community adopted a new and detailed programme of measures to enhance the effectiveness of national, regional and international drug control activities. Member States must now implement the programme, particularly by meeting the targets set in the special session’s concluding documents. For the United Nations International Drug Control Programme to carry out its mandate, adequate resources must be allocated to it. Drug trafficking into and through the Bahamas is a major threat to our socio-economic development. A significant proportion of the national budget continues to be spent on drug law enforcement. I wish to emphasize that even though we do so at the expense of vital national programmes, the Bahamas will not relent in its efforts to overcome the serious challenges posed by drug trafficking and related criminality. We are particularly concerned about the traffic in illicit firearms, which appears to be working in tandem with the drug trade. Further, with the increase in firearms comes an increase in violent crime committed with those firearms. We continue to urge greater efforts to control the illicit manufacture of and trafficking in firearms, including the ratification and implementation of relevant international conventions. The failure to achieve general and complete disarmament means that serious threats to international peace and security persist. The production and stockpiling of chemical, biological and other weapons of mass destruction exacerbate this situation. The Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-personnel Mines and on Their Destruction, to which the Bahamas is a party, has been a key success in recent disarmament initiatives. The Convention demonstrates what can be achieved when there is unity of purpose in the field of disarmament. In a constantly changing global environment, United Nations reform must continue to be a priority to ensure that the Organization remains relevant to the role envisaged for it under the Charter. Negotiations on the multifaceted objective of Security Council reform have moved at a frustratingly slow pace. It is clear that the Council must be reformed, and that one of the main objectives must be its enlargement. This has the support of the Bahamas. However, in determining criteria for expanded membership of the Council, consideration must be given to a mechanism for all Members to enjoy the privilege of serving thereon. The Bahamas welcomes the General Assembly’s decision to convene a millennium summit at the beginning of the Millennium Assembly. We share the view that the summit should not be just a commemoration, but should also be substantive. The Bahamas wishes to reflect briefly on what the summit’s approach might include. We see the summit not as a forum for a restatement of lofty ideals or of the practical initiatives that were the outcomes of past international conferences. The millennium summit must be used as a catalyst that would build, especially, on the outcomes of those conferences to produce a revitalized international agenda for the twenty-first century. That agenda should take into account the accomplishments of the United Nations system as a whole in the areas of economic and social development as well as peace and security, and it should be realistic. From this last perspective, it is the continued position of the Bahamas that the question of refugees, for example, should not continue to be divorced from the broader question of illegal migration. Under the revitalized agenda, the United Nations would have improved partnerships with other regional and international organizations. Such partnerships with organizations including the Commonwealth, the Organization of American States and the Caribbean 17 Community would further the coordination of solutions to problems of a global nature. The United Nations cannot do what we ask of it unless it is provided with the necessary resources. The common values we share, and our determination to find solutions to the world’s problems, should give us the political will to build on what the United Nations has accomplished to date. Thus, the Organization must be assured of funding on a reliable, predictable and timely basis to carry out the mandates entrusted to it by its Member States. The broad range of problems and issues on the United Nations agenda cannot be solved without investment in multilateralism and partnerships. It is our responsibility to make the United Nations a highly effective organization fully capable of responding to the security, political, economic and social challenges of the twenty-first century. The Bahamas pledges its full commitment to play its part in United Nations efforts to secure a better future for all.