Grenada, 1997

In my address to this noble

Assembly last year, I drew attention to the significance of

virtue and, furthermore, to the enhancement of the release

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of the power which resides in virtue, through the supply of

appropriate means. Moreover, I invited reflection on the

quintessential sameness of all humankind and urged that

this, together with a genuine commitment to virtue, be

adopted as the guiding principles of the General Assembly

as it addresses and deliberates upon the realities of human

interaction in our contemporary world.

As it is for any individual society or nation, so it is for

the international global community. Ethics is the science

whose aim is to produce the good man and woman, while

politics is the science which aims at fashioning the good

society. Thus, politics must be founded upon and

unceasingly informed by ethics.

Doubtless this is an ideal. Nonetheless, it is an ideal

we must constantly strive to achieve if we are to realize

peace within and among our nations — peace, which was

described by Thomas Aquinas as the tranquillity of order.

In this era of accelerating change in so many areas in

every portion of our diverse global community, it is of

singular importance to the well-being of each of our

individual national communities, as it is for the overall

international global community, that we recognize, observe

and be faithful to those values and principles which,

inherently, are unchanging.

One such unchanging value is that of right — moral

right: what Plato conceived of as the virtue of justice, and

what in Roman law was characterized as the jus, or moral

law. Indeed, it is rather significant that Plato perceived the

whole function of education as being to elicit the best

things that are latent in the soul, and to do so by directing

the soul to the right things.

I am highly honoured and deeply pleased to address,

on behalf of the Government and the people of Grenada,

this Assembly at its fifty-second regular session, during the

course of which change must be a transcending theme, as

also must be the initiation, institution and prudent

management of change in the pursuit and conduct of

international affairs.

On behalf of my delegation, I express to this

Assembly the warm greetings of the Government and the

people of Grenada. I also express our sincere

congratulations to Mr. Kofi Annan on his accession to the

office of Secretary-General, as well as on his manner of

addressing the duties deriving therefrom. We rejoice in his

demonstration of virtue, and we believe that his profound

knowledge of the United Nations augurs well for his

leadership in pursuance of international peace and

security.

My Government is heartened by his commitment to

the reform of the Organization and is reassured by his

efforts to fashion a more effective and efficient United

Nations system. We are hopeful that one of the benefits

which will accrue from such an improved system will be

the enhancement of the economic viability of small

developing States, such as ours; and we further hope that

his efforts to realize the system envisaged will not be

frustrated by the withholding of the substantial overall

payments which are due.

My delegation joins me in extending warm

congratulations to Mr. Hennadiy Udovenko of Ukraine on

his election to the presidency of the General Assembly at

its fifty-second session. We commend Mr. Razali Ismail

of Malaysia for his exemplary conduct of the proceedings

of the fifty-first session.

The rapidly changing global environment presents

grave challenges to small States, especially small island

States such as Grenada. It also does so for the United

Nations, whose very institution was prompted by the

adoption of the ethic of a confraternity of nations

informed by a common subscription to the concept of the

empowerment of virtue through the furnishing of adequate

and appropriate means in order that right might prevail in

the international community.

In this latter regard, attention is especially invited to

the notion of global trade and liberalization as it is

currently regulated by the World Trade Organization

(WTO), with its inherent inconsistencies, which operate

to the disadvantage of the smaller economies. The WTO

rules relating now to the products of agriculture and agro-

industry bear testimony to the injustice inflicted upon

those of us who live and labour within the confines of

small economies — witness the recent ruling on bananas,

which underscores the insensitivity displayed by way of

the challenge which triggered it.

Moreover, the Uruguay Round Agreements require

a massive legislative agenda on Grenada’s part — as they

undoubtedly do for most developing countries. Our

national laws in the areas of trade in goods and services

as well as intellectual property must be reviewed and

extensive legislative changes made. Thus we must acquire

the necessary legal expertise to work on this project until

implementation is fully accomplished - and all this by the

end of the year 2000.

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We shall, of course, make full use of the assistance

that is available through WTO as well as that offered by

international bodies such as the World Intellectual Property

Organization (WIPO).

Nonetheless, it must be explicitly stated that, in

Grenada’s view, the Uruguay Round Agreements have

created for small developing States significantly more

burdens than the benefits they are proclaimed to bring

under the banner of global free trade — at least now, and

for the foreseeable future, unless corrective measures are

soon instituted.

My Government continues in its efforts to restructure

the Grenada economy and is pursuing a programme of

economic diversification. This involves broadening and

enhancing sectors such as agro-processing, light

manufacturing, crafts, services — including offshore

financial services — tourism and agriculture.

Nevertheless, my Government is deeply aware that the

success of its economic policies will depend significantly

on the support of the multilateral financial institutions and

also of friendly countries in respect of training and the

dissemination of knowledge and skills, as well as the

setting up of enterprises and facilities that are strategic to

secondary economic growth.

Accordingly, my Government is pleased to have

recorded in the annals of the Assembly, its gratitude for,

and appreciation of, the assistance which Grenada has so

far received, as well as that which we are currently

receiving, from the European Union through the Lomé

Agreement, and from other friendly countries.

Despite constraints such as I have referred to, as well

as others, my Government continues in its efforts to

stimulate employment and enhance employability. In the

latter regard, we are now in the process of institutionalizing

on-the-job training for our unemployed youth, whilst

expanding our formal programmes for skills training. As for

stimulating employment, special emphasis is being placed

on self-employment — and this by way of fostering the

small enterprise and micro-enterprise sectors. For we are

convinced that the development of these sectors is crucial

to our preferred process for national development. We

believe that through such endeavours our people will grow

in dignity and self-reliance.

My Government will continue to provide an enabling

environment for the private sector to thrive and expand.

And we seek the active partnership of the multilateral

institutions as well as of the international community,

through joint ventures, technological transfers and

financial and technical assistance to provide the impetus

to sustained economic growth.

Democracy and good governance can flourish only

in an environment of peace — an environment

characterized by the tranquillity of order; not an order that

is imposed, but an order which springs from mutual trust

and mutual regard amongst the individuals who compose

the particular society; an order which is constantly

revitalized and continually enhanced by mutual love; an

order which resonates to the truth that “My origin is their

origin, my conscience is their conscience, my contention

is their contention, and my pilgrimage is their

pilgrimage”. In this context, we invite attention to the

apparent emergence recently of terrorism in the Caribbean

region, with the bombings in Cuba.

The kind of order referred to would inherently

involve individual social and economic well-being: true

prosperity, individual and societal.

At the international global community level, such

order is realizable only by way of a concept and praxis

for a new global human order such as was enunciated by

the late President Cheddi Jagan of Guyana and

corroborated by the leaders of the Group of 7 countries in

their communiqué “Making a Success of Globalization for

the Benefit of All” (A/51/208, annex II).

The pursuit of true politics in relation to the

fashioning of the confraternity of nations requires that we

strive to institute such a new global human order.

Within the compass of such a global human order,

there inevitably would be the eradication of the crippling

and strangulating debt burden which afflicts so

devastatingly the very poor and so dehumanizingly the

poorest countries of our world. So also would be action

against environmental degradation, and towards

sustainable economic development, especially in the

poorer countries and particularly in small island

developing States.

Similarly, as to the eradication of poverty

worldwide — and, in this regard it is fitting that I repeat

here the observation of the Right Honourable Clare Short,

United Kingdom Secretary of State for International

Development:

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“A world that has one in five of its people living

in abject poverty is certainly not just and it is also

dangerously unstable”.

Natural disasters, particularly in small island States,

require special concern on the part of the confraternity of

nations. The devastation recently experienced in Montserrat

trumpets the need for a United Nations programme to deal

with the aftermath of such natural destruction.

Grenada welcomes the recent United Nations initiative

in respect of Haiti, and salutes every country participating

in this noble endeavour, as well as the United Nations and

its officers, whose vision informed that initiative.

We welcome also the steps towards achieving peace

between parties in countries in Central America, and we

applaud them. Indeed, as the current Chairman of the

Association of Caribbean States, Grenada rejoices in such

action. For, through the Association, we in the Caribbean

region seek to widen and deepen the process of integration

amongst the island States of the Caribbean and those

mainland States whose shores are lapped by the Caribbean

Sea — and this includes Cuba.

My Government is acutely mindful that poor States are

peculiarly vulnerable to the violation of their territorial

integrity, since they can ill afford the wherewithal to ensure

non-encroachment in the vicinity of their borders. And the

larger such poor continental States are, the greater that

particular vulnerability.

Similarly, for small island States, in particular those of

the Caribbean, where the threat is not so much to territorial

integrity but to security, that threat is posed by those

engaged in the illicit business of narcotics trafficking, both

by way of buying and selling. Our small island States of

the Caribbean have become primary and secondary

transshipment centres en route from the large producers to

the commensurately large consumers. My Government

therefore asks earnestly that this noble Assembly address

this matter in accordance with the ethic of the true politics

relating to the overall international community of

humankind.

The current United Nations International Drug Control

Programme is indeed commendable, and Grenada is pleased

to be actively participating in it at the pace we can best

afford.

Nonetheless, it cannot but be admitted that this

Programme does not offer, much less provide, the

protection which is needed for our people — particularly

our youth — against the ravishment of drug use and the

blight which eventually afflicts the small-scale

transporters, or so-called mules. Surely this process of

transshipment can be severely curtailed, if not completely

eradicated, through planned, concerted international

action.

My Government’s concern for youth and children is

not confined to Grenada. Nor is it limited to our brothers

and sisters in the Caribbean Community or in the

Association of Caribbean States. Our concern embraces

youth and children everywhere. Accordingly, we condemn

the exploitation of youth and children in any form. We

say no to the abuse of children for pornography and

prostitution.

My Government welcomes the recent conclusion of

the Convention on the comprehensive banning of anti-

personnel landmines, and we urge a significant

acceleration in the controlled destruction of those mines

which are relics of campaigns of war of one scale or

another.

In relation to the Security Council, Grenada

unequivocally supports its expansion in a manner such as

would facilitate the realization of true politics in the

overall international community. This, we believe, would

involve an increase in both the permanent and non-

permanent categories of membership.

Both such increases, in our view, should be

characterized by a significant presence of developing

countries. For, in Grenada’s view, what is required in the

reformed Security Council is not more of the same kind

of distribution of perception, but more equity among the

component parts of the spectrum of perception.

The very notion of equity inevitably calls forth the

notion of justice. In the context of justice in the United

Nations, there arises quite effortlessly the case of the

Republic of China on Taiwan. To all who subscribe to the

principle of the right of a people to self-determination, the

case for membership in the United Nations for the

Republic of China on Taiwan is a compelling one.

Indeed, it is incontestable. For, some 50 years ago, these

people chose self-determination. They voted with their

feet as they moved from their homes on mainland China

to the island of Taiwan, and today 21.3 million people

practise democracy in the Republic of China on Taiwan.

Their economic achievements are well and widely known,

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as is their willingness to participate in the international

community as a Member of the United Nations.

What more is required for the Republic of China to be

admitted to United Nations membership? One may well

ask. My answer: justice. The mention of justice evokes

recollection of two very insightful observations which

deserve to be shared in this noble Assembly. First,

Reinhold Niebur, in his Foreword to “The Children of Light

and the Children of Darkness”, offered the following

comment on justice:

“Man’s capacity for justice makes democracy

possible; but Man’s inclination to injustice makes

democracy necessary.”

Well might we enquire as to the origin of this

inclination to injustice. But the success or failure to identify

that origin notwithstanding, an effective manner of dealing

with that inclination is provided by Plato’s construct for

education, which is centred on exposure of the soul to the

right things.

And second, in his Foreword to Allan Bloom’s

thought-provoking study on American higher education —

the number-one bestseller of its time, one decade ago, Saul

Bellow offered a view that is particularly pertinent to the

notion of exposure of the soul to the right things. Saul

Bellow contends that:

“In the greatest confusion there is an open channel to

the soul ... The channel is always there, and it is our

business to keep it open, to have access to the deepest

part of ourselves — to that part of us which is

conscious of a higher consciousness ... The soul has to

find and hold its ground against hostile forces,

sometimes embodied in ideas which frequently deny

its very existence, and which indeed often seem to be

trying to annul it altogether.”

The Assembly may well ask, “How does the soul hold

its ground?” My reply: through virtue and constant

exposure to the right things. Let right prevail.

May God bless the President of, and everyone

participating in, this fifty-second regular session of this

noble Assembly, which through His grace will be a

transforming blessing to our world.