Exactly one year ago,
on 30 September 2013, I had the unsurpassed glory of
delivering my maiden address to the General Assembly
(see A/68/PV.21), and I used that occasion to pay homage
to the great architects of world peace who fostered the
birth and initial dynamics of our United Nations. In so
doing, I used the principles set out in the Charter of the
United Nations as a ready compass to set my course
as I navigated the issues that occupied the forefront
of our attention at that time, under the captaincy of
former President John Ashe, who successfully piloted
our Organization of peace through the turbulent seas of
global uncertainty.
The issues that commanded the attention of the
international community then included global terrorism
and the tensions in the Middle East and the Korean
peninsula. Those were compounded by concerns
around geopolitical conflicts and unresolved trade
issues, as well as trade and macroeconomic approaches
that favoured industrialized countries to the detriment
of developing nations.
Given that in nature’s irreversible onward
march, unresolved problems are brought forward and
compounded by succeeding problems, this year the
General Assembly has convened at a time of increased
turmoil. Since our discussions last September, it is
undoubtedly the case that dissension and conflict
have increased in the Middle East — the arena
that inevitably sets the price for petroleum and its
associated products, which are utilized by the peoples
of the global community, rich or poor. On the other
hand, the benefits expected from the end of the Cold
War, with the potential for normalizing relations on the
European continent and in lands and regions far distant
from Europe, now seem to be doubtful of fulfilment,
as signs, tensions and pressures once associated with
the Cold War are evolving, bringing about renewed
concerns for the international community as a whole.
When such tremors emerge, it is much harder for
small States like ours to get the attention of the major
Powers with regard to the evaluation and discussion
of our own issues and objectives. Those can be
successfully resolved only if the dominant members of
the international community can relate to them, without
the positions and tensions that emphasize allegiance on
the part of small Powers to this or that side. That is
why we, from our small corner of the globe, venture to
express the view, in this most significant of international
forums, that the tensions and the tendencies towards
war now emerging should be subordinated to the search
for solutions in which the principles and objectives of
the Organization, particularly its preference for the
negotiated resolution of conflicts, are pursued as far
as practicable. The escalating conflicts have negative
effects on the access of small States to the attention
of larger Powers, and therefore they retard the positive
contribution of the international community to our own
concerns.
In that connection, we have observed, with a
certain disquiet, tendencies in Europe that indicate a
possible resumption of the Cold War on that continent.
We believe that that can only be disadvantageous to
small countries like ours, because in forums such as
this we tend to find a return to demands for automatic
commitment to one side or the other. As a small country,
we have called for negotiations to prevail in the pursuit
of the rearrangement of continental European relations,
following the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the
Warsaw Pact. Despite being a small country far away
from the situation in Europe, we have long had, and
continue to have, an integral relationship with that
continent. It is particularly on that basis that we call for
diplomacy to prevail, and we have been gratified to see
recent signs indicating that that is likely to be the path
pursued on the European continent.
We are relieved to see that the contentions in the
Middle East, specifically in respect of the Palestine
issue, have returned to the negotiating table. That is in
concert with earlier developments relating to contentions
between the NATO Powers and Iran, as the various
parties were able to adopt postures of mutual discussion
and engagement. That has led recently to what seems to
be jointly negotiated stances to the extremely complex
situation in Syria and to the emergence of the so-called
Islamic State, which has been spreading disorder and
contention in the wider Middle East.
From our perspective, we can only express the wish
that negotiations and cooperation among the larger
Powers and between themselves and other Middle
East countries continue, even as some members of the
international community felt it necessary to resort to the
use of force in the area. We reaffirm, even in the midst
of great global complexity, our country’s commitment
to the peaceful resolution of disputes.
While many developments in our world hold the
seeds of our region’s continued marginalization, we also
want to accentuate the more positive trends emerging
in the international community that are leading to the
creation of space in our global arena. Consequently,
Saint Lucia is encouraged by the possibility of
enhanced flexibility in decision-making being
permitted to members of the international community
via the emergence of large, developing States in such a
manner that they are now characterized as increasingly
significant actors in decision-making relating to the
resolution of global issues.
When I addressed the Assembly last year, I referred
to the emergence of institutions such as the Union
of South American Nations, which includes some
members of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM),
and to the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our
America — Peoples’ Trade Agreement (ALBA). They
have opened up opportunities for assisting our countries
to meet the Millennium Development Goals, to which
we are all committed.
Saint Lucia reiterates its appreciation for the
work of ALBA, an institution committed to assisting
countries without requiring ideological commitment
to this or that position but recognizing the priority of
economic and social development and preferring the
peaceful resolution of disputes above all other concerns.
In consonance with that posture, we commend the
Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela for its contribution to
the Ebola eradication budget, and Cuba for its dispatch
of 156 doctors to West Africa to assist in the fight
against the deadly Ebola virus.
Saint Lucia welcomes the initiative by Brazil,
India, China and South Africa, along with Russia, to
extend and deepen the assistance available to other
developing countries, thereby widening the scope
for their advancement towards the achievement of
the Millennium Development Goals. Specifically,
we would mention the establishment of the New
Development Bank, which further facilitates the efforts
of developing countries for economic reconstruction.
The establishment of the World Trade Organization and
the single-minded immediacy with which it has pursued
international trade liberalization have threatened the
very foundations of our economies, particularly in
agriculture, which has suffered sudden and certain
destruction. From our perspective, therefore, another
dimension has been added to the efforts of small States
such as Saint Lucia to navigate the consequences of
sudden international economic liberalization and
globalization.
In that context of the emergence of new balances of
economic and political power and new flexibilities in
the use of diplomacy, including within our hemisphere,
Saint Lucia once again reiterates its plea for the removal
of the blockade imposed against the Republic of Cuba.
More specifically, my Government calls for the removal
of Cuba from the so-called terrorist watch-list. That is a
residual effect of the Cold War, which is over.
Given the scourge of the traffic in narcotics in
particular, we call for further cooperation among all
countries in the hemisphere and a setting aside of the old
Cold War postures as necessary conditions for balanced
development and peace. A specific example of where
that applies relates to our efforts in pursuing collective
arrangements and unimpeded cooperation against
the menace of the movement of narcotics through the
Caribbean Sea and their decimating march across the
moral, social and economic fabric of our region. The
drug barons make no ideological distinctions among
countries as they continue to exploit weaknesses
deriving from outmoded political stances that impede
effective regional cooperation. As we all know, those
pursuing the sale of narcotics make special efforts
to attract the youth of our countries, compromising
the essential resource base for our future economic
development and social stability.
Once again, I draw the attention of this body
to Saint Lucia’s firm and consistent belief that the
historical anomalies of the Cold War still in our
international system should not be allowed to inhibit
the contribution of countries desirous of participating
in, and enhancing, the advancement of developing
countries simply because there are issues surrounding
their particular status.
In that connection I would refer, as I did on behalf
of the Government of Saint Lucia last year, to the
participation of Taiwan in international organizations,
particularly those that focus on technical arrangements
or the resolution of important issues that are of
value to the international system as a whole or to its
member States. My country again makes a plea for
fuller participation by Taiwan, particularly in the
World Health Organization and the International Civil
Aviation Organization. Taiwan has the experience
of engaging in a technological revolution that has
enhanced its economic development and the welfare of
its people, and in many respects that State has become
a viable economic development model for small States.
Hence we believe that the Government and people of
Taiwan have much to offer developing countries, and so
we would support any institutional initiative that would
allow that country to make a contribution through those
mechanisms of the United Nations that are devoted
to solutions to issues of technological, economic and
social development.
I shall now turn to the theme of this year’s
General Assembly, “Delivering on and implementing
a transformative post-2015 development agenda”,
to navigate two issues of paramount importance to
Saint Lucia as a small island developing State. At
this juncture, I must congratulate the President of the
Assembly and his country, Uganda, on this theme,
which is charged with invaluable significance for
my region and for Africa, as we are challenged in
building an impregnable substratum of economic and
technological self-determination to successfully deal
with the development challenges of our times.
First, speaking of Africa and the Caribbean region
in that context, I come to a matter of great historical
and contemporary concern to the people of Saint Lucia
and the Caribbean Community as a whole, which I
adumbrated in my address to this body last year. It is
the issue of the need for the metropolitan Powers to
come to terms with the manner in which the Caribbean
States were historically created and organized and the
consequences of that for their standing and situation in
today’s world. Specifically, at their meeting in July 2014,
the Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community
decided that a case for reparations should be elaborated
beyond the relationship between ourselves and the
relevant European Governments and that Caribbean
States should, in seeking support for that objective,
“advance the reparations case during the sitting of the
United Nations General Assembly in 2014”.
I carry out that mandate now on behalf of the
Government and the people of Saint Lucia, who, in
concordance with the peoples of other CARICOM
member States, seek the award of reparations as a
specific way in which those who in centuries past
held the reins of power without accountability can
now in recompense make a specific contribution to
the nation-building programmes of our Governments
beyond existing commitments. In that regard, we make
a case for reparations as a matter of principle.
Secondly, Saint Lucia has welcomed the
deliberations of the third International Conference on
Small Island Developing States, held in Samoa earlier
this month, and the efforts made in that regard by the
United Nations. The recent Samoa Pathway conclusions
have re-emphasized the persistent and peculiar
problems inhibiting the development of small island
developing States (SIDS). In the words of the recent
SIDS declaration, there is an insistence that “small
island developing States remain a special case for
sustainable development”, without which “success will
remain difficult”. As the Commonwealth Secretariat
recently pointed out, research has shown that countries
most exposed to preference loss are mainly SIDS,
such as Saint Lucia, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Dominica,
Jamaica, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. From
our regional point of view, the Caribbean Community’s
continental States of Belize and Guyana are included
in that list.
The Commonwealth Secretariat has also shown
that, while the compound annual growth rate of per
capita income of SIDS between 1970 and 2000 was
0.73 per cent, that of the world economy was almost
three times higher, at 2.07 per cent; and that, in the
period between 2002 and 2012, SIDS had one of the
lowest compound annual growth rates, at 1.23 per cent,
as compared to 4.96 per cent for developing countries,
4 per cent for least developed countries and 3.23 per
cent for sub-Saharan Africa.
The Saint Lucia Government wants the
recommendations of the Samoa Conference to be given
the international attention that they deserve. That is
critical, considering the fact that along with the specific
problems that have been identified as continuing to
inhibit sustainable development, the instability of the
present international economic system only serves to
aggravate the precarious position of small States. In
that connection, we stress, as we did when addressing
the Assembly last year, the importance of assistance
arrangements, including further development of the
Adaptation Fund so that our countries can cope with
the negative effects of sea level rise.
In view of Saint Lucia’s urgent requirements,
we also emphasize assistance for the construction of
facilities that can protect our countries against untimely
natural disasters due to climate change. Losses from
disasters in SIDS continue unabated and continue to
outstrip our capacity to cope. Over the past decade,
many SIDS have lost considerable momentum in their
development progress by having to contend with post-
disaster rehabilitation and reconstruction costs, which
invariably have brought increased debt. The Caribbean
has been a particular victim of those events since I
spoke here last year, and we hope that following the
recent Samoa Conference, a certain urgency will be
attached to the matter.
Saint Lucia would like to reiterate a few points.
First, we emphasize the persistent use of diplomacy
as a prime instrument for the pursuit of normalized
relations among all States.
Second, the rapidly changing nature of international
relations mandates the need to subject the United
Nations system to new levels of critical examination,
with the central objective of strengthening the internal
machinery of our Organization and reforming it to truly
reflect today’s geopolitical reality.
Third, we must as an international community do
all within our power to ensure that the Cold War does
not resume even though the post-Cold War dividends
have not yet materialized for much of humankind. Now
is an excellent time to divest ourselves of any residual
effects of the Cold War, such as the blockade imposed
on our sister island of Cuba and to remove Cuba from
the so-called terrorist watch list.
Fourth, we make a plea for reparations as a matter
of principle.
Fifth, we must take advantage of new, meaningful
opportunities for cooperation and partnership, not
only with traditional partners but also, setting aside
long-standing geopolitical contentions, with a range of
non-traditional partners, such as Taiwan.
Sixth, developed countries should not pursue trade
and macroeconomic approaches that are detrimental to
the well-being of small island developing States.
Seventh, we must determine a clear and effective
strategy by which SIDS can translate the outcomes of
the Samoa Conference into concrete results — results
that build on existing international commitments and
include the means of implementation to support the
national and regional development efforts of SIDS.
Without that, the Samoa Conference could be construed,
in the words of the late Martin Luther King, Jr., “as a
meaningless drama on the stage of history ... shrouded
with the ugly garments of shame”.
Eighth, Saint Lucia stands for freedom, democracy,
non-discrimination, sustainable development, poverty
eradication and special and differential treatment for
SIDS, all of which are important ingredients of our
most precious pursuits and aspirations: peace and
prosperity for our people, the recovery and resilience
of our Caribbean region and stability and security in
our world.
Finally, it is fitting and opportune that as we ponder
the possibilities of “Delivering on and implementing
a transformative post-2015 development agenda”,
we deliberate carefully on the opportunities and
alternatives to the current world order. We must look
to our past to understand our present, and we must plan
our future by analysing our present and applying the
lessons of our past. It is in that connection that I feel
compelled to conclude by inviting careful consideration
of the words of the late United States President
Woodrow Wilson, who asserted America’s historical
leadership and commitment to international democracy
and freedom in these words: “We shall fight ... for a
universal dominion of right by such a concert of free
peoples as shall bring peace and safety to all nations”.