Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, 2004

The fifty-ninth session of the General Assembly coincides

with the twenty-fifth anniversary of the independence of

Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. The last quarter of a

century has presented a mighty challenge for the

people of my country: to develop in a world

increasingly indifferent to the particular problems of

small, poor, developing States. But it is a challenge

that the citizens of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines

have embraced with courage, fortitude and hope —

9

never doubting our ability to survive, thrive and

ultimately prosper as we contribute to the uplifting of

our unique, independent, distinctive and noble

Caribbean civilization. Our country has made progress

thus far, but much more remains to be done. We look

forward to succeeding in our quest for self-mastery.

I would like to congratulate you, Mr. President,

on your assumption of the presidency of the fifty-ninth

session of the General Assembly. We are confident that

you will perform your duties with dignity and skill. Let

me just say that you have a hard act to follow. Your

predecessor, our Mr. Julian Hunte, is a distinguished

son of the Caribbean who hails from our sister island,

Saint Lucia. He made us proud in his role as President

of the General Assembly.

The peoples of the Caribbean and the southern

United States are still traumatized by the devastation

caused by hurricanes this season. Jamaica, the

Bahamas, the Cayman Islands, Haiti, Cuba and other

Caribbean countries, including my own, have been

severely affected. But our nearest neighbour, Grenada,

has suffered cataclysmic destruction and is now in a

state of national crisis. We offer our profound

condolences to the families and loved ones of those

who have died in the hurricanes. Saint Vincent and the

Grenadines and other Caribbean nations have reached

out a helping hand to Grenada, but the magnitude of

the devastation in that country on 7 September is

beyond the capacity of the Caribbean to address

satisfactorily by itself. Indeed, Grenada has become an

international responsibility.

I therefore reiterate the call of the Caribbean

Community (CARICOM) for the urgent convening of

an international donors’ conference to address the

matter of Grenada’s utter devastation and its

reconstruction. Simply put, Grenada has moved from

the status of a middle-income developing country with

a modern, sophisticated society and well run,

democratic State machinery to a devastated land in a

matter of three hours of pounding from hurricane Ivan.

Today in Grenada there is no functioning economy and

a highly traumatized civil society.

Arising from all that is a strategic issue in our

quest to turn Grenada’s setback into a regional advance

for a more profound and meaningful Caribbean

integration. Hurricane Ivan has spoken eloquently to

the fact that nature has made our region one. History

has further moulded us as one people who were drawn

originally from diverse lands and cultures. Yet we in

the Caribbean continue to buck, rather than accommodate

ourselves appropriately to, both nature and history. That

is a sort of vanity that we can ill-afford.

It is tragic that it takes a catastrophe of this

nature to hammer home the point that the small island

developing States have been making for some time,

namely, that there is a need for special and differential

treatment because of, among other things, our

vulnerability to natural disasters.

I repeat, without exaggeration, that Hurricane

Ivan, in a few short hours, reduced Grenada to rubble

and, at a stroke, undid the hard work and achievements

of its people since independence in 1974. We in Saint

Vincent and the Grenadines feel their pain and know

that, but for the grace of God and the vagaries of

nature, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines would have

suffered the same fate.

Accordingly, the crisis in Grenada, occasioned by

nature, prompts Saint Vincent and the Grenadines to

give the highest priority to the international conference

to be held in Mauritius in January of next year, when

the specific and distinct problems of small island

developing States will be highlighted. We will be

stressing the need for the international community to

take urgent action on the problem of global warming and

climate change, which, if left unchecked, could lead to a

global human and economic calamity in this century.

The international community must become focused on

the avoidance of that threatened apocalypse.

Since we met here last year, the Caribbean

Community has faced another crisis in our region — this

time, a political one — as one of our member States,

Haiti, descended into chaos, violence and anarchy. We

saw an elected head of State removed in circumstances

that bring no credit to our hemisphere. We remain

deeply troubled by the controversial interruption of the

democratic process that took place in the early hours of

the morning of 28 February this year in Port-au-Prince.

It is worth remembering that CARICOM States were

instrumental in preparing a plan of Action for Haiti to

ensure that the Constitution of that country was

respected and to create the basis for a mobilization of

resources to avert a humanitarian disaster.

On 25 February 2004, CARICOM was successful

in having the matter raised at a meeting of the Security

Council. On that occasion, we went to the Council

armed with a draft resolution. We pleaded for the

10

international community to respond to the rapidly

deteriorating situation in Haiti. The draft resolution

presented by CARICOM to the Security Council was

noted but politely ignored. The rest is history. The

Government and people of Saint Vincent and the

Grenadines are anxious to help the Haitian people in

the sorry plight in which they currently find

themselves. But before engaging politically with the

so-called interim Government of Haiti, we must see,

among other things, unequivocal evidence on the

ground of advances in democracy and freedom and

credible guarantees of free and fair elections within a

reasonable time. A regime that tries an indicted

murderer at midnight, one who was hailed by the very

regime as a liberator, and then frees him before the first

cock crows, has failed the most elemental tests of

justice, freedom and democracy.

The death and destruction occasioned by Hurricane

Jean in Haiti demand our humanitarian assistance, not

our political engagement with the Haitian regime.

The dire situation in the Darfur region of Sudan

has caused great distress to the Government and people

of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. My own personal

grief prompted me to write letters in May of this year

to several world leaders, including Secretary-General

Kofi Annan, offering the slender resources of my

country to assist in whatever small way we could to

alleviate the suffering of the afflicted Sudanese people.

Most of those I addressed responded positively. It is

true that — thanks in large measure to the diligence of

various journalists and the news media — this tragedy

has now been brought forcefully to international

attention. But the question we must nevertheless ask

ourselves is this: has the international community

reacted in an appropriate way to this calamity, or have

we merely engaged in the usual perfunctory and

routine denunciations? The images and reports coming

out of Darfur are a chilling reminder of man’s

inhumanity to man and a haunting condemnation of

those who can truly help but who stand by idly or

downplay this humanitarian disaster callously. In that

regard, the Government of Sudan must shoulder its

responsibility to its citizens and to humanity.

Three months have gone by since I wrote to the

Secretary-General, and this massive human tragedy

continues to unfold before our appalled eyes. I suggest

that we cannot allow the bloodbath to continue. We

must save those who can still be saved in what have

become the killing fields of Africa. The genocide of

yesterday in Rwanda stands as a monument of shame

to the international community. As an international

community we must today take the shame out of our

eyes in Darfur with urgent practical measures.

A similar effort is required to address the harsh

conditions of life of other peoples, including the heroic

nation of Palestine, whose humanity is being daily

assailed by outside forces.

I would like to express, on behalf of the people of

Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, our deepest

sympathy to the Government and people of the Russian

Federation on the tragic and inexplicable events in

Beslan on 3 September. A tragedy of that magnitude,

and especially the slaughter of so many innocent

children, cannot fail to cause heartfelt sorrow.

Since 11 September 2001, the fight against

international terrorism has intensified on all fronts. It is

right and proper that rich and poor countries be engaged

in the ongoing war on the barbarism of terror. Saint

Vincent and the Grenadines is a reliable partner in the

global struggle against the evil of terrorism. Still, it is

necessary for me to point out that the cost of being a

reliable participant in that war is a heavy burden on the

meagre resources of developing countries like Saint

Vincent and the Grenadines. Our international

obligations and circumstances necessarily pull us into

that war, which we did not occasion or initiate. Yet we

bear that imposed burden with equanimity and pain.

This body, however, must be reminded yet again

that there is another terrorism that we must fight

relentlessly. It is the terrorism of war, poverty,

illiteracy and disease, including HIV/AIDS. We must

never forget, either, that daily hunger for 1 billion

persons worldwide is truly a weapon of mass

destruction. Together we must fight that terrorism too.

Developed countries cannot allow trade regimes and

market conditions to further impoverish the poor, as has

been the case with banana farmers in the Caribbean, and

still trumpet that they are helping the poor.

The case for a judicious and balanced reform of

the United Nations to better reflect the reality of the

twenty-first century is unanswerably strong. We must

redouble our collective efforts to persuade those who fear,

unreasonably, the consequences of a just reform. We must

not permit entrenched power to defeat right reason.

Since Saint Vincent and the Grenadines became

an independent State, it has had unbroken diplomatic

11

relations with the Republic of China on Taiwan. We see

that country of liberty and democracy as a most

important component of the magnificent Chinese

civilization. Taiwan has the world’s seventeenth largest

economy and the fifteenth largest trading volume

internationally, and is third in the global ranking of the

extent of foreign exchange reserves held. Taiwan’s 23

million people ought properly to be represented in this

universal body by the Government of their choice. It is

a mistake to continue to deny Taiwan international

membership of organizations. The relations between

Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and Taiwan have

been exemplary. Our friendship demands that we plead

their just cause.

I conclude with these observations. Some States

boast ownership of boundless territory, vast natural

resources and potent firepower; but none of those

factors by themselves, or a combination of all three,

guarantee peace or prosperity. In some other States

poverty, hunger conflict and disease are the norm. If,

instead of investing in war — knowing its certain side

effect of the waste of young, innocent lives — nations

cooperated with each other, striving for ways to solve

problems common to all, it is just possible that the

world we bequeath to our children will be more

peaceful and richer in the ways that matter and

boasting cleaner air and a healthier environment.

Internationally, and in our own countries, let us

emphasize the power of love rather than the love of

power. Let us extol not the rightness of power but the

righteousness contained in our human condition.