The Bahamas, 2003

It is my distinct honour,

on behalf of the Prime Minister, the Government and

the people of the Commonwealth of the Bahamas, to

congratulate you, Sir, on your election to the

presidency of the General Assembly at this, its fifty-

eighth session. We share in the celebration of the

election of a distinguished son of the Caribbean to steer

the course of this body for the next year. My delegation

pledges its full support to you and to the other

members of the Bureau in the performance of that

challenging task. I also take this opportunity to

congratulate your predecessor, from the Czech

Republic, for his outstanding leadership of the fifty-

seventh session. In addition, I should like to greet and

pay tribute to the Secretary-General, who continues to

serve with great distinction, honour and exceptional

courage. My delegation salutes the Secretary-General

for the tremendous amount of work he has undertaken

since we last convened this body.

I also wish to pause at this time to pay tribute to

Mr. Sergio Vieira de Mello, the late Special

Representative of the Secretary-General for Iraq, and to

all other United Nations staff members who were killed

or wounded in the deadly bombings of the United

Nations headquarters in Baghdad on 19 August and 22

September 2003. We feel that loss most deeply. For us,

the United Nations is paramount in ensuring the rule of

law and justice in an increasingly complex world. An

attack on the United Nations is an attack on the

principles that bind us together as an international

community. We must stand firm against efforts to

undermine those principles. There is no finer tribute to

those who lost their lives than to say today: Now, more

than ever before, we need the United Nations.

Such events remind us that the world is changing

dramatically. It is imperative that we, as an

Organization, be able to respond to those changes

quickly and appropriately. The Bahamas welcomes the

ongoing efforts to revitalize the General Assembly and

to reform the Security Council. It is essential that those

principal bodies be able to function effectively if we

are to have any credibility and if we are to attain our

goals of maintaining international peace, security,

justice and development.

As we are all too well aware, the process of

reform of the Security Council has stalled, as we

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remain deadlocked over critical issues. The time has

come for us to take hard decisions and to agree to a

practical programme of reform that takes fully into

account the need for more representative membership

as well as the need for a more democratic and

transparent Council. My delegation has raised those

issues in a number of bilateral discussions with other

concerned States, and we look forward to working with

the presidency and with other delegations as we strive

to rationalize the work of the entire Organization,

while making it more transparent and accountable.

While the problems in our own part of the world

may not have received as much international attention

as have conflicts in other parts of the world, their

resolution is of paramount importance to us. The

Caribbean is our home, and we will spare no effort to

protect it against those who seek to destabilize the

region. The illegal transit of drugs, of weapons and of

human beings is an affront to us and a serious

challenge to our national and regional security.

The Bahamas is grateful for the support that the

region has obtained from the international community

in addressing these areas, but reminds Members that

we need to continue to be vigilant. We urge the

Assembly to enhance its cooperation with the

Organization of American States (OAS), as that

regional body strives to find solutions to difficult

problems involving territorial disputes between its

member States and as it seeks to promote human rights

and to consolidate the foundations of democracy in a

number of those States. In that context, we welcome

the OAS Special Mission for Strengthening Democracy

in Haiti as a demonstration of the region’s commitment

to this field.

The Bahamas is strongly committed to the further

strengthening of international efforts to prevent,

combat and eliminate terrorism in all its ugly forms,

and supports the work of the Ad Hoc Committee on the

elaboration of a draft comprehensive convention on

international terrorism. We are continuously reviewing

our national legislation in order to strengthen it in

those areas, with particular emphasis on cracking down

on the financing of terrorism. Even now, a terrorism

bill is before our Parliament. It will further strengthen

the laws that limit the ability of those who would

commit such acts to obtain monies to fund their

activities. The commitment of the Bahamas in this fight

is unyielding.

The fight against the forces that would seek to

undermine the rule of law in order to achieve political

objectives has forced each country to review its

commitment to freedom within and outside its borders

and to determine how to protect the freedom that our

citizens so dearly cherish.

Last year, in our address to the Assembly, the

Bahamas reminded this body that, in our quest for

security, we must not undermine the very values we

want to protect, preserve and defend. But it is clear that

our conventions and established and respected

traditions are being challenged before our very eyes,

and we must be careful to guard against this while

ensuring that all of us are safe.

The Caribbean as a whole is perhaps more

sensitive than any other region to these issues of

change and the implications for the way of life that we

enjoy, characterized as it is by an abiding respect for

the privacy of the individual. It should be remembered

that most of us in the region are small island

developing States, which are especially vulnerable in

security and economic issues. But, at the same time,

our peoples are fiercely proud of our independence and

the traditions of freedom connected therewith.

Nowhere is the paradox of the pressure on our

now independent status more sensitive and apparent

than in the exercise of a presumptive legal authority by

a body of powerful, but faceless, un-elected

bureaucrats, being advanced from some of the

developed world’s multilateral bodies, which, in the

view of many, threaten to re-impose the status of

dependence, without calling it so by name, and thereby

undermining our economies.

In that connection, the Bahamas is particularly

concerned, along with its regional neighbours, about

the threats to its way of life, in particular as it is

underpinned by the legitimate wealth creation in its

financial services sector. There are those who argue

that the financial services sectors in our region

undermine economic development and wealth creation

in developed States, but we maintain that the evidence

shows that the wealth accumulation facilitated by the

financial services sectors in the region assists in the

further development and economic growth of the

developed world. Our country is committed to fair and

equitable trade in services on a level playing field with

established rules, without ever-changing goal posts.

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Over the next year, we shall endeavour to bring

this matter more clearly into focus by calling, in this

and other assemblies, for the convening of a global

forum on the pressures being applied to small and

vulnerable States in ways that threaten the

independence of these countries and, which some

argue, is unlawful interference in the internal affairs of

a nation-State. It is imperative that any rule-making

forum on these issues be open to all Member States of

this body. Similarly, all rules emanating therefrom must

be equitably applied.

And so, as we bring these matters to the attention

of the world, we repeat the obvious. The fight against

international terrorism must be a major focal point of

the Assembly, as should other matters such as the fight

against HIV/AIDS, the protection of the environment

and the sustainable development of our fragile

ecosystems.

The Bahamas is committed to fighting on all of

these fronts. It is especially concerned about the future

of the world’s children and young people, as

HIV/AIDS threatens to undermine decades and

centuries of progress in healthcare and in developing

healthy populations that facilitate economic growth

throughout the world. The Bahamas is a leader in the

fight against HIV/AIDS in the region. We urge the

continued and unrelenting fight against the disease, to

rescue the world’s developing nations from the clutches

of this most recent scourge. It must take all of the

political will and financial power of the world’s nations

to ensure that the scourge is brought under control and

then eliminated.

The Bahamas welcomes the outcome of the

special session of the General Assembly on children,

held from 8 to 10 May 2002. We look forward to

participating in the consideration of the follow-up to its

outcome at this session. It is of critical importance that

we reaffirm our commitment to implementing the

provisions of the outcome document, “Building a world

fit for children”, in the four priority areas of health,

education, protection of children from abuse,

exploitation and violence, and combating HIV/AIDS.

Our country and its people are especially concerned,

even as I speak, about the safety and security, both

physical and economic, of children everywhere, but in

particular children in the Bahamas today, and about the

need to foster an atmosphere of love and care so that

they may grow into their rightful places in the adult

world.

The Bahamas, as do many of the small island

developing States, depends heavily on the environment,

which is the natural beauty of the land, the sea and

marine life. Tourism is our lifeblood. For the region,

the natural environment is the primary source of

sustenance and, therefore, we cannot allow our

environment to be destroyed. Doing so threatens our

very survival. We are, therefore, acutely aware of the

challenges small island developing States face within

the context of achieving sustainable development. The

sustainable development of our country therefore

remains of critical importance to the Government and

thus, we, as a matter of the highest priority, continue to

take steps to preserve and protect our environment.

We are also committed to working with all the

other small island developing States and the other

members of this Organization, civil society and all

other concerned stakeholders, including non-

governmental organizations, to ensure that the

Barbados Programme of Action is fully implemented.

In that regard, the Bahamas welcomes the convening of

the international meeting to review the Barbados

Programme of Action, which is to take place in

Mauritius in 2004, and we are proud to host the

interregional preparatory meeting in Nassau, which

will be held prior to that, from 26 to 30 January 2004.

It is our hope that the renewed commitment to this

international meeting by all Member States will take us

a step closer to honouring our commitment to the

Johannesburg Plan of Implementation.

It is an inescapable fact that there can be no

social or economic development without security. For

many of us in the Caribbean in particular, this security

is being undermined by the activities of those

trafficking in illegal drugs and weapons. By virtue of

its geographical position, the Bahamas continues to be

an unwitting transit point for illegal activities,

including the illicit trade in narcotic drugs and

psychotropic substances. What is often overlooked by

those who are the consuming countries is that the

Bahamas neither produces these substances, nor does it

produce guns, nor is it the final destination for them.

However, as a trans-shipment point, the Bahamas

is suffering from a plethora of illegal activities

associated with this trade, including the deadly nexus

between illicit drugs and the illicit trade in small arms

and light weapons. These weapons, which are illegal in

the Bahamas, are contributing to an increase in violent

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crime in my country and they are undermining the

economic and social fabric of our nation.

We, therefore, welcome the convening of the first

Biennial Meeting of States to consider the

Implementation of the 2001 Programme of Action on

Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects, held

in July of this year. At the same time, we call on

developed countries to take the same extraordinary

measures they use in seeking to stop drug trafficking

into their countries, to stop illegal small arms from

reaching our shores from their countries.

We believe that the Charter constitutes a viable

and firm foundation on which the Organization can

balance and achieve its objectives — to maintain

international peace and security and promote economic

and social progress. I wish to reaffirm the Bahamas’

commitment to the principles enshrined in that

universal document, which will stand as a guiding

beacon as we continue to chart a rocky, yet crucial,

course towards peace, security and sustainable

development for all of the world’s inhabitants. While

progress may seem meagre, we must not be swayed

from our course, and we must remain confident that the

benefits of our activities and efforts will redound to

future generations. Now more than ever, the world

needs the United Nations.