The Bahamas, 1999

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

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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.

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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

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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.