I am once again privileged
to address the General Assembly on behalf of my
country, Belize.
It is with great delight that I congratulate you,
Sir, on your election to the presidency of the General
Assembly at its sixty-eighth session. You are a
testament to all the peoples of the Caribbean and the
world of the height to which each of us can aspire
when industry and character are fused into one. Rest
assured, Mr. President, of the unqualified support of
Belize throughout your term in office. I also take this
opportunity to thank your predecessor for his service as
President of the Assembly at its sixty-seventh session.
It is in the quest for the attainment of the two ideals
of peaceful conflict resolution and the enhancement of
the lives of all peoples that leaders of Member States
make this annual pilgrimage in September to address
the General Assembly. Belize commends the United
Nations and its visionary leadership over the years for
its unflinching efforts in discharging the core functions
of the Organization.
The promulgation of the Millennium Development
Goals, in 2000, resulted in all countries working together,
for the first time in human history, to address and
rectify the gaps in their development agenda to reduce
poverty. It was a signal event and a major breakthrough
for the United Nations development agenda. It gave
hope for the provision of huge amounts of desperately
and genuinely needed aid, the transfer of technology
and other development assistance from affluent nations,
financial institutions and philanthropists to nations
mired in poverty. That was undoubtedly good news. It
was reminiscent of the Marshall Plan, which rescued
Germany and Japan from abject ruin after the Second
World War and catapulted them to heights of affluence
they had never experienced before.
By the end of the 1990s, most countries were in
dire straits. According to former Secretary-General
Kofi Annan, more than 60 per cent of the world
subsisted on $2 or less per day, while more than
1 billion people were living on less than $1 per day.
Illiteracy was nearly at 1 billion people. Eight hundred
million people were chronically hungry — one in seven
people on Earth — including 200 million children. And
1.3 billion people lacked even the most basic health-
care, sanitation and education services. Today, 13 years
later, as the Millennium Development Goals are being
implemented, the scorecard reveals that, while a small
minority of countries are showing commendable
success in attaining the Millennium Development
Goals, the vast majority of nations are still mired in
poverty, with scant or no signs of development.
We note with disappointment that rich countries
have not even been able to bring themselves to honour
their commitment to contribute 0.7 per cent of their
gross domestic product as official domestic assistance
to poor countries. The resources being provided by
international and other financial institutions and
by private donors fall far short of what is needed by
poor countries to attain those laudable, and indeed
basic, Goals. It is evident that, for some inexplicable
reason, developed countries have abandoned Goal
8 — developing a global partnership for development. In
the absence of the cooperation of developed countries,
the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals
by poor countries will remain an illusion.
Poor countries possess neither the requisite
leadership cadres, the financial, human and technical
resources, the infrastructure, the necessary levels of
investment and trade nor the institutions to bring about
levels of development that are capable of generating
the wealth needed to underwrite the expenses
associated with the attainment and, most important,
the sustainment of the Millennium Development Goals.
Perhaps even worse, far too many countries have no
realistic prospects for achieving such capacity within
the foreseeable future. Despite that, Belize remains
committed to the attainment of the Goals, which we are
pursuing assiduously.
Given our experience with the Millennium
Development Goals, it is, in our view, eminently fitting
that you, Mr. President, should have kept the spotlight on
the post-2015 development agenda for the sixty-eighth
session of the General Assembly. In that connection,
the theme “The post-2015 development agenda:
setting the stage” is very apt indeed. The Millennium
Development Goals must remain a work in progress. The
post-2015 development agenda must be informed by our
experiences with the Millennium Development Goals.
In that regard, a careful analysis must be undertaken to
ascertain why our rich development partners have failed
to live up to their obligations under the partnership to
provide the promised development aid and expertise to
poor development partners. And new mechanisms must
be devised to ensure that the post-2015 development
agenda does not suffer a similar fate.
As we embark upon setting the stage for the post-
2015 development agenda, Belize has recognized and
identified four underpinning points: that the post-
2015 agenda must be global; that it should integrate
the outcomes of major summits into a cohesive
action-oriented agenda that can be implemented,
building upon successes and improving lessons
learned; that the necessary resources must be sourced
and committed to underwrite the new partnership for
development; and that it must be guided by our core
values of conflict prevention and poverty eradication.
Belize endorses the intergovernmental processes
for the elaboration of the post-2015 development
agenda. Our domestic priorities, which complement the
global agenda, are contained in the document Horizon
2030, which articulates our development framework.
Sector-specific documents emanating from Horizon
2030 inform our national development agenda in areas
such as security, energy, gender, education and health.
Topping the list of our domestic priorities at this
time is the resolution of the Guatemalan claim, which
poses an existential threat to our nation and requires
urgent resolution if the peoples of our two countries
and our region are to continue to enjoy the peaceful
coexistence that has characterized our relationship thus
far. When I addressed the Assembly last September
(see A/67/PV.20), I was pleased to report that our
two States had agreed to submit to the citizens of our
respective countries, in a simultaneous referendum to
be held on 6 October 2013, six days from today, the
question of whether it was the will of our respective
constituencies that the Guatemalan claim be submitted
to the International Court of Justice for a final
resolution. Regretfully, however, last April, Guatemala
gave official notice to both Belize and the Organization
of American States that the Guatemalan Government
had decided not to proceed with the referendum and
was proposing that it be postponed sine die. Not
unexpectedly, that decision was not well received in
Belize.
The Guatemalan claim is a constant source of
anxiety for our citizens as well as for investors in our
country. Furthermore, both our territorial and maritime
border regions have been suffering from depredations
and environmental degradation as a consequence of the
wanton and sustained illegal activities of Guatemalan
campesinos, fishermen and criminal elements engaged
in narco-trafficking, human trafficking, smuggling,
illegal panning for gold, the extraction of xaté and other
exotic plants and animals, the illegal felling of timber
and the pillaging of our ancient Mayan ruins. The
felling of timber in our rainforests is contributing to
the denuding of our mountains, which results in violent
flooding in the rainy season and the transfer of topsoil,
sand and silt into the sea. Those soils are then ultimately
deposited on our pristine barrier reef, choking and
destroying its fragile ecosystems and compromising
the health of the entire reef and the marine ecological
system that thrives there.
Additionally, the increasing trespassing by
Guatemalans into our country has given rise to more
frequent violent encounters between Guatemalans
and members of the Belize Defence Force, resulting
in fatalities in some instances. Those incidents put a
heavy strain on the relations between our country and
Guatemala and the peace of our region as a whole.
While Belize appreciates that the activities of
the Guatemalans in our border regions are the direct
result of poverty and failed development in their
own country, we are concerned by the fact that such
activities create the conditions for conflict. There are
some 65 Guatemalan villages along the 141-mile-long
Belize-Guatemala border. The villagers there are
largely indigent and unemployed. Absent higher
employment and increased security patrols on both
sides of the border, the incursions of Guatemalans will
not, in our view, abate, but will only get worse.
Belize is resolved to do everything in its power
to protect its citizens and territorial integrity, but our
efforts alone will not be sufficient to put an end to the
forays of Guatemalans into our country. Input from
the international community will be vital in assisting
with the development of income-generating enterprises
in the border regions to ameliorate the poverty there,
which is what compels Guatemalans to trespass in
those regions.
Border conflicts are dangerous by nature. In his
memoir, Interventions: A Life in War and Peace, former
Secretary-General Kofi Annan wrote:
“[Conflicts] suck in their neighbours, send
thousands of refugees spilling into other countries,
create havens for armed groups and terrorists,
and they cause the spread of criminal networks
and cross-border lawlessness, including piracy. In
short, conflicts ... are inherent generators of global
insecurity, the causes of which need to be addressed
by wealthy and poor States alike.”
I would like to take this opportunity to thank the
Organization of American States and the group of
friends who support the efforts of Belize and Guatemala
to resolve the Guatemalan claim peaceably and, in the
interim, to ensure that peace is maintained between our
two countries.
Climate change is another existential threat,
looming not only over Belize but over all nations of
the world, large and small. In our view, it is urgent
that the international community arrive at consensus
as to the imminence and magnitude of the threat
posed to humankind by climate change, as well as
on the way forward in dealing successfully with that
perilous phenomenon. That is another threat that can
be successfully dealt with only by the United Nations.
Combating the threat will necessitate huge expenditures,
the deployment of cutting-edge technology and, most
likely, the cessation of the use of fossil fuels.
Developing countries such as Belize will need both
technical and financial assistance from the international
community and international financial institutions to
adapt to the changes being brought about by climate
change and to mitigate the deleterious effects thereof.
Belize has established a national climate
-change committee to coordinate our Government’s
interventions in all areas relating to climate change. We
are also establishing a new climate-change policy and
strategy that provides for the scaling up of mitigation
and adaptation efforts at all levels. We applaud the
Secretary-General for his decision to convene a high-
level meeting on climate change in the near future.
The security of its citizens is a paramount obligation
of every Government. The Belize Government takes
that responsibility seriously. However, the threats to
the security of our citizens are so numerous in today’s
globalized world that no single country has the capacity
to tackle the issue on its own. Consequently, Belize works
actively with our multilateral and bilateral partners in
funding the necessary resources, technical assistance
and training in our quest to secure our citizenry. We
are party to the Central American Security Strategy,
which is dedicated to combating the activities of
national, regional and transnational criminals. We also
collaborate closely with security and law enforcement
authorities in our region, including Canada, the United
Kingdom, the United States and Mexico.
We are very pleased with the adoption, earlier this
year, of the Arms Trade Treaty and we will, in due
course, ratify it. We have also enacted a whole raft of
legislation to strengthen our crime-fighting capabilities.
The Belize Government invests as much as 26 per
cent of its annual budgeted expenditure on the education
sector. We believe that education is one of the quickest
ways to lift our people out of poverty. Also, one half of
our population is below the age of 25 and approximately
37 per cent is below the age of 18. They will all need
world-class education and skills training if they are
to be able to compete successfully in global markets.
At this time, Belize is not able to provide education
and training at that level locally and cooperates with
its international partners for the provision, in large
measure, of such education.
Non-communicable diseases and disabilities
are impacting the countries in the Caribbean region
very negatively. In our own country, the incidence of
cancers, diabetes, HIV/AIDS, chronic lung diseases,
hypertension and strokes is reaching epidemic
proportions. Empirical data reveal that in low-
and middle-income countries, non-communicable
-isease-related impairments account for 65.5 per cent
of persons living with disabilities. It is therefore urgent
that the United Nations work to address the afflictions
that are blighting the lives of untold numbers of our
citizens.
At the most recent meeting of the Heads of
Government of the Caribbean Community, a historic
decision was taken that the Community should pursue
all the necessary steps to recover reparations for the
descendants of the victims of the transatlantic slave
trade from the nations that participated in and benefited
from that trade. Belize urges the United Nations to lend
its support to that initiative, which seeks to address, at
least in part, the unspeakable evil perpetrated by the
European nations that participated in the trade.
Earlier this year, Belize successfully rescheduled
its debt obligations with its commercial bondholders,
an exercise that enabled us to avoid the spectre
of sovereign default. Despite that restructuring,
however, Belize’s capacity to finance its development
programmes is still challenged, and it continues to
rely on cooperation with its bilateral and multilateral
partners to achieve its development goals. In that
regard, Belize would like to express its gratitude to
the United Nations and its related agencies, including
the United Nations Development Programme, the
United Nations Population Fund, UNICEF, UNESCO,
the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United
Nations, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime
and the Pan American Health Organization, which
work tirelessly to support the implementation of our
national development objectives. We also wish to thank
the many nations that are currently partnering with us
in development.
Belize would like to enlist the support of the
United Nations in helping to persuade the international
financial organizations that per capita gross domestic
product is not in itself an accurate measure of a nation’s
wealth or stage of development, particularly in the case
of heavily indebted middle-income countries like ours.
Such a method of assessment would disqualify those
countries, including my own, from eligibility for badly
needed concessionary financing, and that eventuality
could well lead to reversals of their hard-won gains.
The Government of Belize is committed to a rights-
based approach to the development of our country and
people. To that end, we have embraced the international
human rights regime and are making our best efforts to
enable inclusive growth. In that regard, we are pleased
to inform the Assembly that the Government of Belize
has, in consultation with its stakeholder partners at
the national level, submitted the report for its second
universal periodic review for consideration by the
Human Rights Council at its seventeenth session, in
October.
I would like to inform the Assembly that we, too,
condemn the cowardly terrorist act that took place
recently in Kenya.
Earlier I referred to my country’s position on the
post-2015 development agenda — that the agenda
must be inclusive if we are to achieve meaningful
development. We need to ensure that all our countries
are allowed to participate in a meaningful manner,
and that includes the people of the Republic of China
on Taiwan. We cannot deny the significant advances
they have been able to make in such a short time, or
their contributions in support of global goals and
commitments, especially in the area of development
cooperation. Their experience can teach us about
advancing our own development.
Every year the Assembly votes to lift the economic
embargo on Cuba. We continue to support that call.
Belize also continues to call for an urgent and
peaceful resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The situation in the Middle East troubles us. As
responsible citizens of the world, we condemn the
use of chemical weapons and welcome the framework
agreement — led by Russia and the United States of
America and supported by the Security Council — that
we hope will lead to the removal of all chemical and
biological weapons from Syria. We also call on other
nations to abide by the Convention on the Prohibition
of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use
of Chemical Weapons and on Their Destruction.
As we approach the end of an era and look towards
the post-2015 development process, our Government,
policymakers, planners and all levels of society will
be challenged to focus on what we want and what we
can achieve together. We must commit to a process
of ensuring that we adopt goals and objectives that
reflect global priorities and are adapted to our national
contexts. Our agenda must be reflective of the world’s
most pressing problems, which include, but are not
limited to, environmental sustainability, inequality,
growth with equity and social inclusion.
We are confident that under your guidance,
Mr. President, that process will be an inclusive,
accessible and transparent one.