Jamaica, 1993

Mr. President, it gives

me great pleasure to see you, a son of the Caribbean,

presiding over the General Assembly at this forty-eight

session with the skill, competence and wealth of experience

we have come to associate with you. My delegation is

confident that under your leadership this session of the

General Assembly will complete its vitally important agenda.

I also wish to express to your predecessor,

His Excellency Mr. Stoyan Ganev of Bulgaria, our

appreciation for the most able manner in which he presided

over the forty-seventh session.

16 General Assembly - Forty-eighth session

May I take this opportunity also to welcome

formally to the United Nations the six countries - the Czech

Republic, Eritrea, Monaco, the Slovak Republic, The Former

Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, and Andorra - which

joined the Organization this year.

Today the global community is at a crossroads in

history, poised between the prospect of peaceful economic

progress through globalization and technological

advancement and a relapse into conflict fuelled by poverty,

political tyranny and ethnic strife. This situation has

emerged with the end of the cold war, which has ushered in

ideological détente, and where the threat of nuclear conflict

between super-Powers has receded. This is not, however, a

cause for complacency, because unsupervised economic

globalization coupled with an escalation of political

fragmentation could ignite fierce conflict between economic

blocs and social groups world wide. The present dilemma

is how we can capitalize collectively on the advantage

offered by economic globalization, while avoiding political

fragmentation owing to the resurgence of religious and

ethnic intolerance and chauvinistic nationalism.

Globalization, if not complemented by a comprehensive

global economic framework, could lead to wider disparities

between developed and developing countries, leaving a

growing portion of the world’s population mired in poverty

as entire productive sectors and economic activities are

marginalized from the dynamic of economic growth in the

world economy. The United Nations is the only forum that

can forge a global institutional consensus, a multilateral

regulatory regime, and commonly subscribe to goals and

understandings that will reduce the tendency to economic

inequities. A shared economic development consensus could

provide the basis for more equitable participation for the less

developed countries.

Whether mankind succeeds in seizing the present

opportunity for peace and economic progress depends

crucially on the United Nations as a mechanism for a new

global dialogue based on genuine partnership between States

with widely differing philosophies, policies and practices.

The United Nations, with severe constraints of financial and

human resources, has in the past year courageously

attempted to meet these challenges, understandably with

mixed results.

We therefore wish to pay tribute to the

Secretary-General and his dedicated staff of professionals

who have played a critical role in the search for resolution

of bitter conflicts in every region - conflicts which have

inflicted massive human suffering and devastation of the

land.

In Cambodia, elections have taken place and a new

Government has been installed. That achievement in

Cambodia will, we hope, mark the beginning of a new era

of peace and stability in South-East Asia.

On the African continent, we welcome the signing of

the Cotonou Peace Agreement on 25 July, and we urge that

all the parties to the conflict in Liberia remain committed to

this Agreement and work with the United Nations and the

Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS)

to bring lasting peace to that country. Unfortunately, the

situation in Somalia continues to be tragic and dangerous.

We hope that, through the efforts of the United Nations

Operation in Somalia (UNOSOM) and others, there will be

a speedy return of peace to this land fractured and

devastated by civil strife. Jamaica regrets the continuing

loss of life of members of the UNOSOM forces.

Developments in South Africa are moving in a positive

direction. We welcome the decision to hold, on

27 April 1994, elections open to all parties which will mark

the transition of South Africa to a democratic and non-racial

society, and we eagerly anticipate the establishment of the

Transitional Executive Council. The call by Mr. Mandela

for the removal of sanctions is a welcome one. Jamaica has

participated in building consensus for the United Nations

resolution to lift sanctions, and it intends to lift them

immediately upon the adoption of the resolution.

The situation in the States of the former Yugoslavia is

also an agonizing chronicle of tragic strife, suffering and

abuses. We continue to hope for a just settlement on the

basis of Security Council resolution 859 (1993), which

affirms the fundamental principles on which such a

settlement should be based.

Jamaica too hails the signing of the peace accord

between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization on

13 September 1993, while fully recognizing that the progress

achieved, despite its significance, is but an initial step.

Indeed, there are complex matters that will face negotiators

in the months and years ahead.

Nearer to home, in the Caribbean, the Government of

Jamaica and its partners in the Caribbean Community

(CARICOM) have placed the resolution of the Haitian crisis

high among their priorities. CARICOM has been actively

involved at the United Nations in the effort to bring the issue

of Haiti before the Security Council, and I express my

Forty-eighth session - 7 October l993 17

Government’s appreciation to the member States of the Latin

American and Caribbean Group for their support in this

process.

We also commend the Special Envoy of the

Secretaries-General of the United Nations and the

Organization of American States, Mr. Dante Caputo, for his

untiring commitment to this issue. However, in the light of

the grim evidence that dangerous elements are at work in

Haiti, clearly determined to deny the Haitian people security,

democracy and development, the international community

cannot relax its vigilance. President Jean-Bertrand Aristide

is scheduled to return to Haiti on 30 October. His return

will mark the beginning of a long and difficult period of

reconstruction. He will need the full support and

commitment of our Organization, as well as of the entire

international community. There is urgency in the call for

economic and technical assistance. Indeed, the Government

of Jamaica has already offered, within our means, to provide

Haiti with some technical assistance.

This new era following the cold war presents mankind

with new opportunities for a more rational and equitable

management of problems at the global level. I refer, in

particular, to the struggle against poverty and ethnic strife,

human-rights violations and environmental degradation. The

end of cold-war confrontations - political as well as military

and ideological - should not be replaced by economic

conflict. We must grasp the opportunity for constructive

action and now work towards an era of cooperation that is

not distorted by ideological and political tensions.

The Security Council Summit meeting on

31 January 1992 concluded with a statement in which it was

said that its members recognized

"that peace and prosperity are indivisible and that

lasting peace and stability require effective international

cooperation for the eradication of poverty and the

promotion of a better life for all in larger freedom".

(S/23500, p. 5)

We strongly support that view.

For many developing countries, including my own,

market-oriented reforms have been a high priority. We have

made fundamental changes in economic policy, including

monetary and fiscal austerity, trade liberalization, divestment

of public enterprises to the private sector, liberalization of

foreign-exchange markets and general deregulation of

economies. In short, we have undertaken a thoroughgoing

process of structural adjustment, which has created a private-

sector-led, market-driven economy.

For countries that are undertaking economic structural

adjustment the social consequences are high indeed. Tight

monetary and fiscal management reduces the capacity to

provide basic social services, such as health, education and

housing. Yet, if human needs are not adequately met, if

human resources are not developed, we destroy the very

basis of sustained development: our people. Migration -

national and international - is one of the clearest

manifestations of social ills. If people do not find economic

security in their native land, they go wherever they can find

it - from rural to urban area; from one country or one

continent to another. So today there are some 35 million

displaced persons. And such people are to be found in every

region.

The processes of structural adjustment are rendered

extremely difficult in the absence of sustained international

support - either directly, through the sustained infusion of

external resources by way of development assistance and

debt relief, or indirectly, through reduced protectionism in

industrialized countries. Let me give an example related to

debt. Although my Government has managed to reduce the

stock of external debt, debt servicing remains the most

debilitating constraint on the country’s economic

development. The fact that international financial

institutions, to which much of Jamaica’s debt is owed, refuse

to consider the rescheduling of loans continues to be a major

concern of my Government. The consequence of this policy

is that even those resources generated by developing

countries themselves are not available for the pursuit of

national development objectives, as they are pre-empted by

debt-servicing.

I should like to refer to trade liberalization and trade

arrangements, especially with regard to countries undergoing

structural adjustment. In my own region, the Caribbean

Community (CARICOM) has put in place mechanisms to

enhance regional trade. At the same time, however, the

Community is faced with the Herculean task of avoiding or

minimizing the likely short-term to medium-term adverse

impacts on its members of the North American Free Trade

Agreement (NAFTA) when it takes effect. We have had to

make vigorous efforts to ensure that the gains achieved

under existing agreements are not eroded.

Similarly, conditionality applied to loans by

international financial institutions must be designed to be

more appropriate to developing economies. More

specifically, adjustment must take place over an extended

18 General Assembly - Forty-eighth session

period, must minimize social distress and must be growth-

oriented.

My delegation therefore attaches great importance to

the formulation of an agenda for development. That process

should proceed with the sense of urgency and vision with

which the undeniably constructive "Agenda for Peace" has

been promoted. Such an agenda must be forward-looking

and must address fully the wide range of issues pertaining to

development, taking into account the specific circumstances

and needs of developing countries and groups of countries.

It must first establish, as its basic premise, the need for a

favourable international economic environment and a non--

discriminatory trading system, the latter being dependent on

a speedy, balanced and comprehensive outcome to the

Uruguay Round of trade negotiations. Without these

conditions, the efforts of developing countries to build

self-sustaining economies - efforts often accompanied by

painful adjustment strategies and difficult economic-

liberalization programmes - will be frustrated.

The need for a constructive North-South dialogue to be

reactivated has therefore become urgent, and has certainly

become one of the most pressing challenges we face in

elaborating our agenda for development. We were

consequently appreciative of the initiative taken by the

Chairman of the Non-Aligned Movement to meet with the

Chairman of the Group of 7 in Tokyo. We regard this as an

encouraging beginning.

The agenda for development cannot be complete if it

does not include consideration of the problem of external

indebtedness and formulation of specific solutions for its

resolution. A review of the role and functions of the Bretton

Woods institutions is therefore necessary. Similarly, the

reality and inevitability of regional economic integration

processes must be confronted in the agenda for development,

as well as the protection of the environment, following the

ground-breaking achievements of the historic United Nations

Conference on Environment and Development last year in

Rio de Janeiro.

The goal of sustainable development provides a holistic

framework for the United Nations and its Member States to

shape a world in which care and respect for human beings

is equalled only by care and respect for the planet which we

inhabit. At the Earth Summit in Rio, we undertook to

implement measures that would safeguard our natural

habitat. Some of the decisions taken in Rio have already

begun to take effect. These include the establishment of the

Commission on Sustainable Development and the

preparations for the convening of the first Global Conference

on Sustainable Development of Small Island States. My

delegation wishes to stress the importance of this

Conference, which is to be held in Barbados next year. We

take this opportunity to call upon the Members of the

Assembly to give full support to the adoption by the

Conference of a plan of action for the sustainable

development of small island developing States. This will be

the first test of our readiness and commitment to implement

the decisions taken at the Earth Summit.

Equally, Jamaica fully supports the World Conference

on Population and Development, to be held in Cairo in 1994;

the World Summit for Social Development, to be held in

Copenhagen in 1995; and the Fourth World Conference on

Women, to be held in Beijing in 1995.

It gives me great pleasure to allude to the 1982 law of

the sea Convention, which was signed in Montego Bay,

Jamaica, 11 years ago and has now been ratified by 58

countries. I expect that before the end of this forty-eighth

session of the General Assembly the sixtieth ratification will

be deposited with the Secretary-General, thus setting the

stage for the Convention’s entry into force. There can be no

question that support for the Convention continues to be

overwhelming. Our ultimate goal must be to achieve

universal participation in a Convention which is designed for

mankind as a whole. It is therefore appropriate that all the

Convention as soon as possible. As the pace of ratification

intensifies, it could serve as a catalyst for deepening the

process of universalizing the Convention by addressing

creatively the manner in which the provisions of the

Convention are to be implemented on an ongoing,

contemporary basis.

We must pay a tribute, as well, to the Secretary-General

and his predecessor for the initiative they took to promote a

dialogue aimed at addressing issues of concern to some

States in order to achieve universal participation in the

Convention. The integrity of the Convention as a whole

must be maintained, and our search for universality must

recognize the overwhelming support for the Convention by

the international community as a whole and the need to

preserve its fundamental aspects. Let us therefore in our

noble quest for universality concentrate on the manner of the

implementation of the Convention in those areas of concern

to some States.

If the United Nations is to play an active and dynamic

role in promoting a new global partnership, it must examine

its capacity and capability. For that reason, my delegation

agrees that the reform processes now under way should aim

at maximizing the efficiency and effectiveness of the

Forty-eighth session - 7 October l993 19

Organization. Further, my delegation intends to participate

fully in the work of the open-ended ad hoc working group

which will continue to consider the process of revitalizing

the General Assembly. Other discussions related to the

restructuring of the United Nations system must be

transparent and informed by the principles of democracy and

the rules of international law and by those principles

enshrined in the Charter.

My Government wishes to address the issue of the

Security Council in the context of the increased membership

of the United Nations, which rose to 184 this year. The

surging tide of change over the past five years has seen the

responsibilities of the Security Council increase, with the

establishment of 17 peace-keeping operations and the

Council’s further involvement in conflict resolution through

the good offices of the Secretary-General and the dispatch of

fact-finding missions. The time has therefore obviously

come for a review of the Security Council’s composition to

ensure that it is truly representative of the increased

membership of the United Nations and reflects the

democratic principle on which the United Nations is founded -

that is, the sovereign equality of all States.

The reform process in which we are now engaged

within the United Nations must clearly include the Security

Council, the body charged with the responsibility for the

maintenance of international peace and security. A Security

Council which is truly representative and functions

effectively has to be a priority for all of us, because peace

and security, in the military and political sense, are

interwoven with our economic and social security. We in

the Caribbean cannot, and have no desire to, remain aloof

from this debate. We must ensure that a strengthened

United Nations is placed in a position to play a dominant

role in the elaboration of processes of peace and

development and in their implementation based on genuine

interdependence, global partnership and shared responsibility.

We are gathered here because we all have pressing

national concerns and we believe there remains an enduring

faith in multilateralism, which carries the potential for

stronger, more broadly based development over the longer

term, if only all players agree to reaffirm their commitment

and play fully their roles within the global framework of

cooperation.

There is no doubt that this will be difficult, but shared

objectives, shared commitment and shared responsibilities

will ensure a better world for all mankind. As we

contemplate the challenges posed by the present global,

economic and political environment, we must commit

ourselves to a new dialogue within the United Nations

system to forge a global partnership for peace, democracy

and economic progress.