Our President arises in this Assembly as a
breath of fresh air and presides as an inspiration to
women, particularly in the Middle East, and to human
beings all over the world who treasure the stone that
the builder rejects and that becomes the head
cornerstone. I am sure that her presidency will make a
positive and lasting impact on our General Assembly. I
thank her very much for being and doing.
Humanity’s condition today is difficult, complex
and challenging, yet pregnant with possibilities for a
better future. Everywhere the faces of men and women
are strained and anxious; yet, amidst the anxieties, pain
and sorrows there is joyous laughter, which soothes the
soul and summons the human race to embrace the
promise of a redeeming grace, which eschews hate,
greed, callousness, oppression, injustice and violence.
It is still possible for this divided world of inequity and
the inhumanity of man to man to sing with meaning
our redemption song of peace and justice, prosperity
and freedom, democracy and tolerance, unity amidst
diversity, equality and mutual respect.
This quest to mend the broken world is grounded
in the ideals that constitute the core of the United
Nations. This idealism seeks not a world of perfection,
but one of goodness, one of civilization over
barbarism, of humanity over inhumanity. The world,
especially the majority of its inhabitants who happen to
be poor and disadvantaged amidst an orgy of plenty
that resides in a minority, looks to the United Nations
as their hope, as a brightness that illuminates, not
blinds. I bring this simple but powerful message from a
small, developing country in the nearby Caribbean Sea
on behalf of the marginalized of the world, without the
vanity of a pretentious hegemony, an arrogance of
power, or a triumphalism of a presumed manifest
destiny. It is both necessary and desirable to speak this
truth to power.
So more than 80 per cent of the people who
reside in the developing world, and, indeed, all right-
thinking persons, want and demand in this regard
coherent leadership from a reformed United Nations
that is true to its central mandate to serve humanity
well. Unfortunately, the reformation of the United
Nations is moving at a snail’s pace, which frustrates its
work, undermines its efficacy, and damages its
credibility.
To be sure, some modest progress has been made
by way of the establishment of a new Human Rights
Council and the Peacebuilding Commission. But,
frankly, too much time is wasted on fussing and
fighting on esoteric issues touching and concerning the
so-called mandate review and management reform,
rather than focusing on the critical matter of the
implementation of the “development resolution”
adopted by the General Assembly. In the process, too,
let us have a reform of the Security Council that is
meaningful and democratic.
The world’s marginalized and disadvantaged look
askance at a United Nations that daily seeks to
choreograph the dancing of angels on the head of a pin.
They care very little for the bureaucratic harangue that
the United Nations “system-wide coherence” has been
addressed and enhanced, important as that may be for
some professional diplomats. The world’s people want
to know, and to see the practical evidence, that the
United Nations is tackling in a purposeful way the
issues of global poverty, environmental degradation,
climate change, the empowerment of women, the
protection of children, the promotion of peace and
security, the HIV/AIDS pandemic, the provision of
clean water and an adequate supply of food, among
other such telling requisites.
Undoubtedly, many, if not most, of the
Governments of the rich and powerful countries show
signs of fatigue and disengagement towards the
developing world. This is evident in their parsimony on
official development assistance and their failure and/or
neglect to advance meaningfully the Doha
Development Round. Better must be done here.
Please note that my strictures are levelled at the
Governments of those countries, and not their people
or their civilizations. Sufficient persuasive evidence
exists that the people in many, if not most, of these rich
countries are sensitive to the concerns of the
developing world, but their Governments do not
sufficiently reflect these sensitivities, despite their
occasional rhetoric to the contrary. Accordingly, the
peoples and civilizations across national boundaries
must link themselves in a tighter nexus or bond, with
or without the mediating formal state apparatuses, and
name and shame those Governments that ought to be
named and shamed.
27 06-52988
In this regard, the proposal before the United
Nations for an alliance of civilizations holds immense
promise, provided that it is not captured by those states
that hanker after an ignoble, unattainable,
unsustainable and fundamentally immoral hegemony.
Our Caribbean civilization, and its Vincentian
component, stands ready and willing to be part of this
magnificent quest for an ennobling brotherhood and
sisterhood of humanity.
While many rich countries turn aside from the
development thrust of the world’s marginalized and
disadvantaged, there is an encouraging trend towards
more and better South-South cooperation. In the case
of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, we are benefiting
from a closer integration network through the
Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States and the
Caribbean Community Single Market and Economy.
Further, countries such as Cuba, Venezuela, Mexico,
Malaysia and Taiwan, among others, have special and
model relations with our country.
Recently, at the Summit of the Heads of State and
Government of the Non-Aligned Movement, held in
Cuba, the leaders of this 118-member body redefined
its purpose and mandate, in an increasingly unipolar
world, to embrace a thorough-going development
agenda and to facilitate the building of a more
peaceful, just and secure architecture of international
relations. This renewed enthusiasm of the Non-Aligned
Movement strengthens the hands and voices of those
who truly believe that a better, more civilized world is
possible and nigh.
Next year, in March, people of African descent
and all freedom-loving peoples and nations will
commemorate and celebrate the two-hundredth
anniversary of the passage of the act abolishing the
British trade in African slaves to the Caribbean and the
Americas. This is an occasion for historical
reclamation and the righting of historic wrongs. The
trade in, and enslavement of, Africans was a monstrous
crime against humanity and an exercise in genocide
unmatched in the history of the Western world.
European nations and their North American
cousins have failed and/or refused to acknowledge this
sufficiently or at all. There has been no apology for this
crime against humanity and this genocide, conducted
over a prolonged period. There has been no practical
recompense in the form of reparations to the affected
nations and peoples in Africa, the Caribbean and the
Americas. Surely, this issue must be put squarely on
the agenda of the United Nations for speedy resolution.
Without in any way diluting the force of this
representation — indeed in bolstering it — we find it
necessary and desirable to link it in our Caribbean
region with the genocide of indigenous peoples,
including the Callinago and the Garifuna of Saint
Vincent and the Grenadines, and the wholly wrong and
inhumane exploitation by colonialism and imperialism
of indentured labour from Africa, Madeira, India and
China after the abolition of African slavery in the
Caribbean. Europe has much to answer for on these
matters, and should be made to answer properly and
appropriately. Historic wrongs not righted remain scars
on the soul of the oppressor and the oppressed alike,
which continue to haunt over the ages; it is a hateful
burden that must be lifted. This dark night must give
way to a brightened day.
Of all the tragedies engulfing our modern world,
few touch the human soul and spirit as does the
condition of the people in Darfur and Palestine. The
entire world knows who are responsible for the crimes
against humanity in Darfur and in all areas of the
Palestinian homeland. Yet the basic human and
national rights of the people in those geographic
regions are trampled upon daily by alien forces.
Meanwhile, the United Nations appears helpless and its
authority is undermined. Surely, the time is long past
for a resolution of these conflicts, and other enduring
conflicts worldwide, including Lebanon and Western
Sahara. Oppression will not endure indefinitely. That is
the powerful lesson of history. The people’s right to
self-determination must be fully respected.
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines is pleased to
see Haiti’s restoration to democracy. The cynical ouster
of the former democratically elected President, Jean-
Bertrand Aristide, in February 2004, ushered in
immense suffering in Haiti under a so-called interim
administration installed by imperialism. The Haitian
people, who endureth for ever, must be applauded for
their commitment to democracy and progress. Their
election of President René Préval represents a strong
rebuke of those who mistakenly believe that the
dangling of money is everything. We heartily
congratulate the new Haitian Government and pledge
to work closely with it in its efforts to develop its
heroic country, the land of Toussaint L’Ouverture.
06-52988 28
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines again pleads
with the United Nations to permit Taiwan, a democratic
and progressive country of 23 million people and a
legitimate political expression of the Chinese
civilization, to be accorded its rightful admission to the
United Nations and its specialized agencies. There is
no adequate justification for the continued exclusion of
Taiwan from participation in the numerous global
exchanges in the several international bodies, including
the United Nations.
Further, the United Nations has a major role to
play in ensuring an easing of tensions across the
Taiwan straits. Aggressive conduct must be restrained
in a context in which Taiwan is committed to peace and
a comprehensive political dialogue.
Modern terrorism is a barbarism out of sync with
civilized life. It affects adversely not only powerful
nations, but developing ones in Asia, Africa, Latin
America and the Caribbean. The evil of terrorism,
including state-sponsored terrorism, must be fought
relentlessly. It must be given no space to thrive. At the
same time, terrorism must be attacked sensibly and not
in a counter-productive way. Too many innocent lives
have been lost through terrorist acts. Saint Vincent and
the Grenadines pledges itself to continue to work
resolutely and fearlessly, without hypocrisy, with all
nations and the United Nations, to eliminate the
dastardly scourge called terrorism and its causes.
Permit me to thank Secretary-General Kofi
Annan for his splendid work at the United Nations and
throughout the world. His accomplishments have been
immense, and we applaud him as his incumbency
draws to a close. We wish him and his family well.
I conclude by reaffirming that it is our sacred
duty to humanity and those unborn to ensure that we
contribute to a safer, more peaceful, more prosperous,
more civilized world. We who have come from
yesterday with our limiting burdens must face
tomorrow with our enabling strengths. We must never
forget that in our work here at the United Nations it
becomes possible to glimpse morning before the sun,
possible to see early where sunset might stain
anticipated night. Let us thus not sleep to dream, but
dream to change the world, for the better.