For the second time in my tenure as Prime Minister
of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, I have the
pleasure and honour to welcome a distinguished son
of our Caribbean civilization to the presidency of the
General Assembly. Even as we thank your immediate
predecessor for his service as the President of the
General Assembly at its sixty-seventh session, we look
forward to your tenure, President Ashe, with boundless
pride and unbridled optimism.
Mr. President, for this year’s general debate, you
have chosen the theme “The post-2015 development
agenda: setting the stage”. This is also the year in which
you will lay the groundwork for the United Nations
International Conference on Small Island Developing
States, which will take place in Samoa next September.
Your dual focus on the international development
agenda and the peculiarities of small island States make
this sixty-eighth session one of the most important in
my country’s 33 years of membership in the United
Nations.
Let me first say that the people of Saint Vincent and
the Grenadines are deeply pained at the horrendous acts
of terrorism recently committed in Kenya. I reaffirm
yet again our solidarity with the Government and the
people of Kenya.
William Shakespeare cautioned that what is past,
is prologue. Similarly, Mr. President, your invitation
to consider the future of the international development
agenda requires us to first consider the ways in which
our recent and long-ago steps and missteps shape our
future developmental challenges and opportunities.
I begin with an unfortunate, inconvenient truth:
our collective failure to achieve the Millennium
Development Goals (MDGs) is largely rooted not
in the shortcomings of earnest and hardworking
developing countries, but in developed countries’ abject
abandonment of Goal 8, “Develop a global partnership
for development”. The Organization’s own MDG Gap
Task Force noted in its report entitled “The Global
Partnership for Development: The Challenge We Face”
that the quest for such a global partnership experienced
significant backsliding in 2013 and that “the political
momentum for advancing international development
cooperation seems to have waned”.
Sixteen of 25 developed countries decreased
their aid budgets last year, and official development
assistance (ODA) contracted for the second consecutive
year, the first such contraction since the creation of
the MDGs. In a time of crisis, when assistance is most
needed, ODA is itself in a deep and prolonged recession.
The twists and turns by so many developed countries
on this issue have been most disappointing. Without
predictable flows of meaningful, non-discretionary
assistance, the post-2015 development programme will
remain, substantially, a fleeting illusion to be pursued
but rarely, if ever, attained.
At the same time, I applaud the efforts of those
developed nations that take their ODA commitments
seriously. I hail, too, a raft of other countries that are
in a genuine developmental and functional partnership
with us. These include Trinidad and Tobago, Cuba,
Venezuela and Taiwan. Indeed, Taiwan, a country not
washed by our Caribbean Sea, has been remarkable in its
principled and practical conduct of intergovernmental
relations. Surely the time has now come for this
exemplar of the magnificent Chinese civilization to be
permitted to participate fully in the work of the various
agencies of this world body.
Our debate on the future developmental agenda of
the international community is taking place against the
backdrop of the ongoing global economic and financial
crisis. The global economy remains precariously
poised, and for every nation that seems to have turned
the corner, another plunges back into recession. The
impact of the crisis on development has been palpable
and has rendered the MDGs unattainable in many
countries. Therefore, if we are to discuss the post-
2015 development agenda, we must also discuss the
reform agenda of our outmoded international financial
architecture, whose failings contributed to the current
crisis, and whose continued stasis is a reckless invitation
to future economic turmoil.
Despite the challenges of the ongoing exogenous
shocks, including natural disasters, and the encumbrances
imposed by an insufficiently flexible international
financial architecture, my country continues to make
significant strides in our people-centred approach
to development and poverty alleviation. This past
June, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines was one of
18 countries recognized by the Food and Agriculture
Organization of the United Nations (FAO) for having
achieved the part of Millennium Development Goal 1 on
halving the proportion of hungry people by 2015 — and
we have reduced it to below 5 per cent — and the more
stringent World Food Summit goal of halving the
absolute number of hungry people by 2015.
For a small, vulnerable country to achieve this task
ahead of schedule and in the midst of this debilitating
global economic and financial crisis is truly outstanding.
We have done so while maintaining and advancing
good governance, individual liberties and democracy
in accordance with global best practices.
But the ambitions of my Government are far greater
than Goal 1 of the MDGs. Having more than halved
hunger, we have now set our sights on the elimination of
hunger altogether: to achieve zero hunger. We hope that
the United Nations and the international community
can partner with us effectively in fulfilling that historic
ambition. Our policy goal of ensuring that no man,
woman or child goes to bed hungry will have its own
positive knock-on effects on poverty reduction, health
and arresting the spread of chronic non-communicable
diseases — which itself should also be of central
importance to our post-2015 development agenda.
As the Assembly is well aware, the roots of
underdevelopment and exploitation extend much
deeper than the recent abandonment of MDG Goal 8
by the bulk of developed countries. I arrived at this
year’s general debate from the Caribbean’s first-ever
regional conference on reparations for native genocide
and slavery, which was held in Saint Vincent and
the Grenadines. That stirring and uplifting regional
conference was the first step in the Caribbean’s
quest to address and redress a psychic, historical,
socioeconomic and developmental wound that is, for
the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), 14 nations
wide and 400 years deep.
The genocidal oppression and suffering of my
country’s indigenous Callinago, the Garifuna and
enchained Africans have been rightly adjudged to
have been a horrendous crime against humanity.
Accordingly, the collective voice of our Caribbean
civilization ought justly to ring out for reparations for
native genocide and African slavery from the successor
States of the European countries that committed
organized State-sponsored native genocide and African
enslavement.
The awful legacy of those crimes against
humanity — a legacy that exists today in the
Caribbean — ought to be repaired for the developmental
benefit of our Caribbean societies and all our
peoples. The historic wrongs of native genocide and
African slavery and their continuing contemporary
consequences must be righted and repaired, in the
interests of our people’s humanity.
European nations must partner in a focused, special
way with us to execute that repairing. The demand for
reparations is therefore the responsibility not only of
the descendants, in today’s Caribbean, of the Callinago,
the Garifuna, the Amerindian and the African. It
is undoubtedly an agenda for all of us to advance,
promote, concretize and execute. The European nations
that engaged in conquest, settlement, genocide and
slavery in our Caribbean must provide the resources
required to repair the contemporary legacy of those
historic wrongs. That is undoubtedly a special pillar in
the post-2015 development agenda.
That repairing of the mind, of collective memory, of
our economies and of our societies is part and parcel of
the rebirth, the redemption and the further ennoblement
of our Caribbean, our indigenous populations, our
African descendants and, indeed, of Africa. I say to the
Assembly that the struggle for reparations represents,
immediately, a defining issue for our Caribbean in the
twenty-first century. It promises to make both Europe
and the Caribbean more free, more human and more
good-neighbourly. CARICOM recently decided, quite
rightly, to place the quest for reparations at the centre
of its development agenda.
I am also compelled to speak today on a
contemporary injustice that is entirely within the
capacity of the Assembly to address. In 2010, negligent,
or even reckless, United Nations peacekeepers
contaminated a Haitian drinking water supply, which
led to an outbreak of cholera that killed 8,000 innocent
Haitians and infected 600,000 others. There is no
longer any scientific dispute that the United Nations is
responsible for the outbreak, as has been conclusively
established in the relevant reports. Prior to the United
Nations negligence, Haiti had not seen a single case of
cholera in 150 years. There are more cholera-infected
persons in Haiti today than in the rest of the world.
I continue to be deeply disturbed by the callous
disregard of the United Nations of the suffering it has
wrought in a fellow CARICOM country, and by the
shameful and legalistic avoidance of what is a clear
moral responsibility on the part of the United Nations.
Accordingly, I call on Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon
to acknowledge unambiguously, and apologize for,
the Organization’s role in that tragedy and to take
immediate steps to compensate the victims and their
families. Anything less will further undermine the
moral authority and credibility of this institution.
Sixty-eight years ago, our predecessors conceived
of a grand experiment, a commitment to bind the
world together in a collective quest for peace, justice
and development. Over time, we have established a
body of rules, laws and expectations that add flesh
to the principles that undergird the Charter of the
United Nations. Now, we are engaged — explicitly
and indirectly, willingly and reluctantly — in a
reassessment of that grand commitment. Today, the
actions of a small subset of powerful nations shake the
very foundations upon which the Assembly was built
and threaten to bring the temple down upon the heads
of those of us who still subscribe to the original tenets
of our institution.
Properly conceived and universally adhered to,
international law is the bulwark against impunity,
unilateralism, and Great Power triumphalism. Today,
there are those in the Assembly who hold a curious view
of international law, as something that must be imposed
against others but which has limited applicability
to themselves. To some in the Assembly it seems
appropriate to disregard international law in the very
enforcement of their distorted view of international law.
Clearly, such conduct is unacceptable, for the simple
reason that it threatens the continued legitimacy of our
entire multilateral system.
Small, vulnerable States, by definition and
necessity, are those most reliant upon an enforceable
body of equitable international law within an effective
system of multilateral diplomacy. It is no surprise,
therefore, that small States like my own have emerged
as some of the strongest defenders of multilateralism,
sovereignty, diplomacy and the rule of law. We view
it as our responsibility to sound the alarm when this
institution threatens to depart from the founding
principles that bind us together.
According to basic reason and historical experience,
no nation is intrinsically superior to another and no
people are innately better than nothers. To be sure, there
are cultural and social differences, but being different
does not imply a condition of being better or worse.
One nation may be more powerful than another, but
that circumstance should never permit the powerful to
ascribe arrogantly to themselves, in laughable vanity,
the doctrine of exceptionalism. Inevitably, that vain
ascription swiftly degenerates into an embrace of the
damning path of the rightness of unilateral force, rather
than an uplifting multilateral force of rightness.
Flagrant examples of a continuing disregard for
international law abound. Surely, it diminishes a
great nation such as the United States of America to
continue with what I consider to be a myopic vendetta
against Cuba by way of an illegal, outdated and hurtful
economic blockade and the absurd declaration that
Cuba is a sponsor of terrorism. All right-thinking
persons across the world justly demand that the United
States end the economic blockade against Cuba and
remove its name from the unilaterally drawn up list
of States that allegedly sponsor terrorism. It makes
no sense whatsoever for international law to become a
prisoner of domestic politics and the vain glories of a
Great Power.
Similarly, the plight of the Palestinian people is
being sacrificed on the altar of political expediency, with
a disregard for the opinions of almost all of humankind.
The issue certainly entails enormous complexities but,
unless it is resolved satisfactorily, sustainable peace
in the Middle East will remain unattainable. Saint
Vincent and the Grenadines hopes that current moves
towards serious negotiations will bear fruit in line with
the principles and mandates that have been spelled out
repeatedly in various United Nations resolutions.
At the same time, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
is very impressed by the efforts of the President of
the United States to embrace diplomacy rather than
military intervention in pursuit of a political settlement
in Syria. The Syrian community in my country, rightly
and anxiously, looks forward to peace in its troubled
homeland. Only the extremists will benefit from a
prolonged civil war. Still, peace cannot be sought
reasonably when a precondition of regime change
is advanced. All sides in the conflict must make real
compromises in the interests of the Syrian people as a
whole.
There is one emerging issue of consequence that
needs to be addressed. It concerns the deeply disturbing
recent reports of the widespread and unrestrained
spying that has allegedly been conducted by the United
States of America against a number of countries,
including its staunchest allies. Indeed, there are reports
that the practice of such electronic espionage is rife,
even within the halls and offices of the United Nations.
We strongly reject such activity as illegal, a violation
of diplomatic conventions and an affront to the comity
of nations. Saint Vincent and the Grenadines believes
the agenda for appropriate corrective action in that
regard, as outlined earlier this week by the President
of Brazil, to be fair, reasonable and achievable by the
international community.
As we continue our collective journey in the quest
for greater and lasting global peace, we are reminded
that wars do not erupt only between countries, but also
within them. We also know that some of the highest
numbers of violent deaths occur in countries that are
apparently at peace.
This year, the international community has
recognized that genuine and lasting peace between and
within nations, cities and villages cannot occur in an
environment that allows an unregulated trade in small
arms and light weapons. The Arms Trade Treaty, which
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines signed on the very
first day that it opened for signature, is far weaker than
we would have liked. Nonetheless, we consider it to be
an important first step in regulating the illicit flow of
small arms and light weapons worldwide, particularly
into the Caribbean region, where the tide of guns is
often accompanied by torrents of narcotics as they
make their way to markets in other countries.
I am deeply disappointed at the international
community’s endless, rudderless and seemingly
vacuous negotiations on climate change. Our failure
to achieve meaningful progress on this matter of
existential urgency is inexcusable. Vulnerable countries
like Saint Vincent and the Grenadines are on the front
line of climate change and are already bearing the brunt
of the increasing fallout of global warming. Meanwhile,
the major emitters and historical polluters pay callously
insincere lip service to our plight. For them, combating
climate change is a question of dollars and cents, not
life and death. They are only too happy to see the
multilateral process fail, so that they can retreat into
ineffectual and painless national commitments. But
those stubborn obstacles to progress must no longer
be allowed to stand in the way of the survival and
development of vast swaths of our planet.
I applaud the initiative of the Secretary-General
to convene a high-level event on climate change in the
hope that such a meeting will give our meandering
negotiations impetus and direction. The post-2015
development agenda will not survive global warming
if it goes unchecked. It is also high time for genuine
negotiations in good faith and for meaningful resources
to assist in mitigating and adapting to the effects of
climate change.
In conclusion, I would like to recall that the Charter
of the United Nations begins with the phrase “We the
peoples of the United Nations.” It is not “We the rich
peoples”, nor “We the militarily powerful peoples”
nor “We the peoples of large countries”; but “We the
peoples” — of the entire world, the whole membership
of this institution. The United Nations does not exist
to confer benefits to select groups, but to secure peace
and development for all. If we are to set the stage for
the future of development, that stage must be inclusive
so that all nations and peoples have a significant part to
play and a stake in the outcomes. Let us make ourselves
worthy successors of the ennobling, humanizing vision
of our venerated founding fathers and mothers.
I shall be saying this ages and ages hence: two
roads diverge in the woods, and I have chosen the one
less travelled by, and that has made all the difference.