Grenada, 2001

At the outset, my

delegation extends profound sympathy to the families

of the victims who lost their lives on the flight to the

Dominican Republic.

The rescheduled general debate now convened,

well into the work of the fifty-sixth session of the

General Assembly, only serves to reconfirm our

awareness of Mr. Han’s great diplomatic and

communicative skills. For this, my delegation thanks

and congratulates him once again. Under his competent

leadership we hope this will be a fruitful and decisive

session of the Assembly.

This being my first opportunity, may I take the

stand, on behalf of the Government and people of

Grenada, to heartily congratulate the Secretary-

General, His Excellency Mr. Kofi Annan, and the

United Nations on the designation as recipient of the

Nobel Peace Prize.

Just as the fifty-fifth session was the Millennium

Assembly of joy, hope and optimism, this fifty-sixth

session, by contrast, can be called the unpredictable

Assembly of challenge and adversity, from which the

international community can nevertheless derive

strength and unity in the pursuit of a common enemy

who will eventually be found and brought to justice.

The challenge and uncertainty have come about

because terrorism now threatens the entire civilized

world. The catastrophic and traumatic events of 11

September have changed not only the lives of

individuals, for whom we grieve so painfully, but it has

also changed the modus vivendi and the modus

operandi of our present-day civilization in many

respects. If this cloud of hatred and revenge is allowed

to prevail, history will long remember that evil

triumphed due to inaction.

Thus, the broad international coalition brought

together by the United States of America and supported

by Security Council resolution 1373 (2001) and

General Assembly resolution 56/1 stands as a bulwark

ready to break the immoral and physical backbone of

terrorism. Grenada fully supports and endorses

resolution 1373 (2001), which sets out important

measures that countries — large and small, rich and

poor — must all take together to prevent and combat

terrorists in our jurisdictions or wherever they may be

found.

The newly formed Security Council Counter-

Terrorism Committee, under the chairmanship of the

Permanent Representative of the United Kingdom, is a

welcome and laudable effort in the struggle that

deserves the backing and support of all Member States

morally, strategically and financially. In addition, it is

soliciting assistance from persons with particular skills

in the performance of special functions.

The Government of Grenada has already begun to

take steps within its jurisdiction to implement measures

within our capacity that prevent and suppress the

financing of terrorists acts. Our priority to prevent

those who finance, plan, facilitate or commit terrorist

acts from using Grenada for those purposes against

other States or their citizens, as well as to find ways to

intensify and accelerate the exchange and sharing of

information. Grenada is examining its administrative

and other processes with a view to improving

efficiency in this regard.

We are active in the global fight against

terrorism. Grenada is cooperating with the United

States authorities to ensure that there are no terrorist

funds in any of our offshore institutions. Further,

Grenada has thoroughly examined its economic

citizenship programme to ensure that no known

terrorists had inadvertently been granted citizenship.

We are now confident that no such person is an

16

economic citizen of Grenada. In light of the changed

global environment and our commitment to assist in the

fight against terrorism in any way we can, the

Government of Grenada has taken the decision to

suspend indefinitely the economic citizenship

programme.

Moreover, Grenada continues to intensify its

participation in regional and international cooperation

efforts as we seek to ensure that there are no gaps in

the global framework for the fight against this heinous

crime. Grenada will reinforce and extend its

international cooperation arrangements in the field of

justice, policing and law enforcement.

The Government of Grenada fully supports the

development of a comprehensive and effective legal

framework to combat terrorism. My country has begun

a review of international conventions already in place,

with a view to signing, ratifying and fully

implementing them. Those not yet in effect will be

implemented. Some of these conventions are within the

United Nations system, while others are of a regional

or hemispheric nature. Priority is being given to the

existing 12 United Nations international conventions

against terrorism — in particular, the International

Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of

Terrorism.

It is necessary for the international community to

send a clear and unambiguous signal to terrorists that

their philosophy is fundamentally wrong and totally

unacceptable. We must stand united in our efforts to

combat and eliminate activities aimed at killing

innocent people and destroying communities. The

Government of Grenada joins the Caribbean

Community in pledging our full support of efforts to

confront terrorism and restore the rights and freedom

of people the world over. My delegation would like to

focus for a few moments on the impact that this

dastardly act has had nationally, regionally and

internationally.

In my country, as elsewhere in the Caribbean, the

effect of the global economic turbulence has hit the

tourism and aviation sectors hardest. Tourism, the hotel

industry and aviation play a synergistic role that is

crucial to the economies of most small States in terms

of foreign exchange and employment.

The subregion had already begun to feel the

effects of the international economic downturn, which

caused the deterioration of our fortunes. But it is clear

that since the terrorist attacks on the United States of

America, Grenada and the other members of the

Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) are

suffering from further reduction in economic activities.

We are now severely challenged.

We are experiencing shortfalls in revenue

collection. Our tourism sector is experiencing a drastic

reduction in visitor arrivals. Indeed, the International

Monetary Fund predicts that arrivals in the Caribbean

region could fall short by as much as 50 per cent. Our

air and marine transport are also experiencing severe

reductions. Regional air carriers have registered as

much as a 45 per cent fall in passenger load since 11

September.

The picture looks bleak, but we are determined

that our response must prevent the devastation

envisioned by the perpetrators of terror. Soon after 11

September, the Prime Minister of Grenada and

Chairman of the OECS, The Honourable Dr. Keith

Mitchell, convened a meeting of OECS to discuss the

impact on tourism and related activities — hotels,

banks, agriculture, manufacturing and transportation.

The subregional meeting of OECS took a number of

decisions that will respond to our economic challenges.

One such measure is the formation of the Grenada

National Economic Council. This will give effect to the

revival of sustainable tourism. It will address fiscal and

economic performance, and it will give impetus to

productivity. In addition, only recently in the Bahamas,

the Caribbean Community heads of Government met

and approved an $18 million joint public/private sector

emergency tourism promotion programme,

demonstrating self-help at its best in the region.

The events of 11 September, with the ensuing

economic and geopolitical instability, have propelled us

to reorder our priorities. We need to focus on restoring

confidence in international economic and multilateral

cooperation. As we all know, the member States of the

World Trade Organization do not participate on a level

playing field. The developing world is still struggling

to bridge the economic and social divide in our global

community. Some were not in favour of the second

round of negotiations. Yet some States were willing to

put their differences aside and endeavour to march

towards the next stage of economic and multilateral

cooperation. This is clearly what we aspire to in this

august body.

17

While concerns about terrorism have dominated

the general debate, and rightly so, mention must be

made of the unfinished agenda of the last decade of the

twentieth century with respect to social and economic

development, central to which is the human person.

The following United Nations summit-level

conferences, which have been held in the past 10 years,

have all stressed sustainable development and the

centrality of the human person in the process: the

United Nations Conference on Environment and

Development in Rio de Janeiro in 1992; the World

Conference on Human Rights in Vienna in 1993; the

International Conference on Population and

Development in Cairo in 1994; the World Summit for

Social Development in Copenhagen in 1995; the

Second United Nations Conference on Human

Settlements (Habitat II) in Istanbul in 1996; the World

Food Summit in Rome in 1996; the Millennium

Summit in 2000; and the special session of the General

Assembly on HIV/AIDS in 2001.

The question is: How much of the outcome of

these conferences has been implemented with respect

to poverty alleviation, the empowerment of women,

health, education, children and the elderly, trade

liberalization, economic cooperation, and the sharing

and transfer of technology? Could it be that these

conferences and special sessions promised more than

they could deliver? Promising too much is as bad as

doing too little.

The fight against poverty underpins all of those

things. To feed the hungry is both a divine and a social

imperative. Thus, the international community is

particularly concerned that the International

Conference on Financing for Development to be held

next year in Mexico and the World Summit for

Sustainable Development to be held in South Africa,

both so important for small States, should yield

positive results. The Barbados Programme of Action

for the Sustainable Development of Small Island

Developing States is still a major and unfulfilled

component of the process of the United Nations

Conference on Environment and Development, and it

should be high on the implementation agenda this time

around.

For more than 40 years an embargo has existed

against a small country in the Caribbean. What this has

done is to ostracize the Cuban people and cause them

undue hardship. What it has achieved is to make the

Cuban people more innovative. The old wounds have

healed, the pain has dulled and the cause has

diminished. I wish to register Grenada’s support for the

removal of the United States of America’s economic

embargo on Cuba. Members will recall that last year

167 Member States voted in favour of the removal of

that embargo. Only three voted against and four

abstained. That shows the overwhelming position of

the international community against those sanctions.

Trade, as we know, is important for the development of

any people, and with the embargo there is no freedom

of trade between Cuba and the United States.

In the wake of the devastation caused in Cuba by

hurricane Michelle, it is now critical that steps be taken

to remove the embargo and to give the Cuban people a

chance to recover from that unstoppable force of

nature. The easing of the economic embargo against

Cuba could assist in the overall development of that

country, a small nation seeking against all odds to

maintain a modern, dynamic society in the Caribbean

and in Latin America. The lifting of the embargo would

augur well for friendly cooperative relations among all

the countries of this hemisphere.

Now, I turn to the issue of the Republic of China

on Taiwan. Grenada believes that a country that

exhibits fortitude and that has moved its economy from

poor and underdeveloped to affluent and prosperous

deserves recognition. A country that consistently shows

international responsibility surely deserves to be

admitted to this community of nations. The time has

come to reconsider the exclusion of the Republic of

China on Taiwan from membership of the United

Nations. The Republic of China is home to 23 million

people. It is a free and democratic country, and a

peace-loving member of the international community.

In economic terms, the Republic of China on Taiwan is

the seventeenth largest economy in the world, the

eighth largest investor in and fourth largest exporter of

information technology products, and the third largest

holder of foreign reserves. It is preposterous to

continue to keep such a country outside the world

body.

The Government of Grenada appeals for that

wrong to be corrected. We are therefore requesting that

the United Nations recognize the natural right of the

people of Taiwan to become active participants in this

Organization. We believe that the Government and the

people of Taiwan are seeking to participate in the

United Nations and to contribute constructively to the

18

international community. Grenada urges that they be

given that opportunity and that right.

Grenada, however, notes with satisfaction the

admission of the Republic of China on Taiwan into the

World Trade Organisation. It is the hope of my

delegation that the past, present and future performance

of Taiwan as a major democratic and international

economic player, although Taiwan is not now a

member of the United Nations, will in the not-too-

distant future enable it to regain its rightful place in the

family of nations.

The United Nations membership must make

Article 3 of the Charter a major priority in the next few

years. Our founding fathers called for the Organization

“To achieve international cooperation in

solving international problems of an economic,

social, cultural, or humanitarian character, and in

promoting and encouraging respect for human

rights and for fundamental freedoms for all

without distinction as to race, sex, language, or

religion.”

We must do all in our power to provide added

economic opportunities for the developing world. We

believe that trade is one avenue to achieve this. I

therefore call on the Economic and Social Council

actively to pursue undertakings that could create an

encouraging atmosphere in which Member States could

have the opportunity to raise the standard of living of

their peoples. In the current global environment, we

must be conscious that inclusion in the processes of the

global economy is vital.

Finally, I must recall Article 1 of the United

Nations Charter, which calls for the Organization

“To maintain international peace and

security, and to that end: to take effective

collective measures for the prevention and

removal of threats to the peace.”

We must be relentless in our pursuit of the

purposes of the Organization. Our challenge is to work

towards the elimination of terrorist activities. Our quest

must be for economic opportunities for all States. And

our goal should be the peaceful coexistence of all

peoples of the international community.