Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, 2012

My country extends heartfelt congratulations to Mr. Vuk

Jeremić on his assumption of his responsibilities as

President of the General Assembly at this crucially

important session. We also express our appreciation

to his predecessor, Mr. Nassir Abdulaziz Al-Nasser of

the State of Qatar, who left an indelible mark on the

General Assembly.

We meet again in the quest for development, equity,

and peace. Last year, our debate took place against the backdrop of rapid, often violent, geopolitical

change, as well as continuing economic instability and

uncertainty. Last year’s general debate, though marked

by winds of change and clouds of uncertainty, was not

without hope and optimism. Member States anticipated

meaningful progress at the United Nations Summit

on Sustainable Development. We predicted a robust

and legally binding arms trade treaty. We embraced

popular, home-grown calls for political change. And

we scanned the economic horizon for encouraging

signs of recovery and growth.

Today, global optimism, though still enduringly

present, is in scarcer supply, as the international

community has encountered the challenges of a new

world and found itself wanting. Our global structures,

including the United Nations, are faced with changes

of a scope, scale and rapidity that substantially outpace

our ability to react, partly exceed our capacity to

respond, and demand a level of courage, principle

and decisiveness that is not sufficiently matched by

our political will. Today, we are not merely spectators

watching a moment of global change; rather, we are

nations in the valley of decision, confronted with two

questions that we must answer: “What is our vision

of tomorrow’s post-crisis, post-conflict world?” And:

“How, collectively, can we achieve that vision?”

Our avoidance of these fundamental questions

threatens to set our Assembly adrift and rudderless,

shirking responsibility and afraid of action. We must

resist the temptation to bury our heads in the shifting

sands of meaningless resolutions while we studiously

disregard our imperative quest for a unifying principle and purpose. To succumb to such a temptation would

be to condemn this institution to a future marked not

by new ideas, but new rationalizations. Our noble

battle of ideas will descend into a battalion of excuses;

of blame-sharing and buck-passing; of soundbites

disguised as insights. Such a future, which we are

on a path to realize, would do a disservice to our

respective States, our international obligations, and the

proud history of the United Nations. We would, by our

impotence, acquiesce to the possible obsolescence of

this Organization, as peoples and Governments would,

justifiably or not, turn elsewhere for the solutions to

global challenges. Such a future can and must be

vigorously avoided, in the interest of our peoples’

collective advancement and humanity.

In our Caribbean region, the global economic and

financial meltdown continues to be felt most acutely

by the poor, the youth, the elderly and the vulnerable,

who bear no responsibility for the rampant financial

speculation and unregulated movement of capital that

spurred the crisis. Today, four years into an externally

imposed meltdown which has produced negative or

marginal growth across the Caribbean, our region is

forced to contemplate the implications of a potential

“lost decade” of development.

Our region is not immune to the economic

pressures and fissures that have turned other parts of

the world into tinderboxes of social unrest and political

upheaval. Our citizens, who have nobly struggled under

the weight of externally sourced contraction, austerity

and hardship, are not possessed of limitless patience

or endurance. Our hard-won development gains are in

jeopardy, and our settled political stability is in possible

peril. The international community cannot ignore our

plight based on a distorted calculus of middle-income

status and relative prosperity, or on simplistic,

even offensive, stereotypes of Caribbean paradises.

Small, highly indebted middle-income developing

countries, like those in the Caribbean, which are

very vulnerable to natural disasters and international

economic convulsions, have special concerns which

the international community is obliged to address

properly, in partnership with the peoples of our region.

External shocks derived from nature or the workings of

an uneven, casino capitalism, are not merely episodic

to our Caribbean; they are a constant feature of our

regional economies.

Central to our urgent re-examination and

reconfiguration of the existing economic apparatus is

the recognition that our modern context and individual

national characteristics do not lend themselves to

strict classical or Keynesian economic prescriptions

or their variants. In the case of Saint Vincent and

the Grenadines and our Caribbean neighbours, our

peculiarities of small size, openness and vulnerability

require uniquely home-grown economic policies that

are rooted not in any prevailing ideology or fashionable

theories from outside, but in a sensible, flexible and

focused practicality.

We have little interest in esoteric arguments about

the role of the State in economic activity, because,

historically, our national Governments have been a

force for good in the stimulation, diversification and

growth of our economies in tandem with the private

and cooperative sectors. While we welcome and

solicit assistance and consultations with the relevant

institutions and organizations, such consultations

ought to be free of the type of textbook orthodoxies

or formulaic prescriptions that are inapplicable to our

times and circumstances. Our path to development

must be our own.

The cause of development, as a goal and as a right,

has suffered from the neglect of the international

community in recent, post-crisis years. Within

the United Nations system, the current budget for

peacekeeping dwarfs the resources allocated to

fostering development, even as we recognize that most

conflict is rooted in underdevelopment. The age-old

pledges of development assistance have been skirted,

and their fulfilment delayed, by States that cite their

own struggles with the global economic fallout. As a

result, even as we contemplate post-2015 sustainable

development goals, it is painfully apparent that the

Millennium Development Goals will not be met across

large swaths of our planet.

The poor, especially in Asia, Africa, the Pacific,

Latin America and the Caribbean, can hardly be

expected to wait any longer for relief and sustainable

development. Saint Vincent and the Grenadines is

thankful to the nations and organizations that have

found it possible to continue extending their hand in

cooperation with our people, even in difficult economic

times. The support and assistance of those States and

organizations is a mark of their friendship, solidarity

and strong global citizenship.

The prolonged global economic uncertainties have

propelled the international economy into a dangerous

new phase. Even the International Monetary Fund has so concluded. In the process, the crisis has found

the principals wanting, even unaware of the extant

condition, with no clear idea as to the way forward.

In both economics and politics, the ancien régime is

passing. The discerning acknowledge that a transition

is at large, but immense challenges arise immediately

from at least four pertinent queries: first, is the

transition manageable, or must it be played out in a

chaotic manner? Secondly, assuming that the transition

is manageable, how is it to be managed in the most

efficacious way, and in whose interest? Thirdly, is this

transition a dead end? And fourthly, given that the

transition itself, like all human conditions, is dynamic,

what is the destination of this transition?

It is a truism that men and women make history not

in circumstances of their own choosing, but in those

which they meet, which they inherit, and which emerge

on their watch. Noteworthy is the fact that the histories

of nations and the ghosts of the dead weigh heavily

on the brains of the living. Often unacknowledged is

the abiding truth that each people possesses its own

history, its own legitimacy, its own nobility and its own

trajectory for further ennoblement.

Unfortunately, the power of some to define things

globally distorts these elemental truths. It is well

known that the lion’s view of history does not coincide

with that of the gazelle or the lamb; the elephant and

the ant do not see things eye to eye. But human beings

possess the capacity to go beyond the limitations of

the animal kingdom. That is fundamentally why we

have gathered together under the rubric of the United

Nations, with a Charter so uplifting and magnificent in

its ideals and purposes as to constitute the best hope for

the human race. Arrogant and unbridled power, from

whatever source, is thus to be contained. It is always

wise to remember that the greatest exercise of power is

restraint in the use of that power. That is true within and

between nations. It is the surest way for the malevolent

across the globe to be accorded no space to flourish and

to be defeated.

It is within this context that the text of a prosperous,

safe, independent Palestinian State must be written

alongside a secure State of Israel, living in friendship

and non-belligerence. This is a matter of grave urgency;

the injustice meted out to Palestine must end now.

So, too, must continue our global quest for interfaith

dialogue and an alliance of civilizations, initiated by

the Governments of Qatar and Turkey, respectively. Similarly, let us not forget our pledge of solidarity

to Haiti. Likewise, reparations for the genocides

committed against indigenous peoples and for African

slavery must continue to be pursued vigorously on our

international agenda.

All of that and more is achievable by the United

Nations. Thus, our collective will can bear fruit

abundantly through the strengths and possibilities of

wise leadership, peaceful dialogue among and between

sovereign nations, international cooperation and

regional compacts.

Closer to home, our developmental and

political partnerships increasingly reflect a spirit of

strengthened regional integration and greater South-

South cooperation. In the immediate post-colonial

phase of our national development, the nations of the

Caribbean and Latin America often have had stronger

and closer relationships with distant colonial Powers and

developed nations than we did with the countries in our

immediate neighbourhood. After centuries of colonial

conquest, settlement and exploitation, our deepening

bonds of friendship, cooperation and integration within

the Caribbean and Latin America are a fundamental

manifestation of our States’ growing independence and

political maturity.

Saint Vincent and the Grenadines enjoys

membership in a number of interconnected circles

of regional integration. The Organization of Eastern

Caribbean States (OECS) is in an economic union with

a shared currency, judiciary and nascent representative

Assembly. The 15-member Caribbean Community

(CARICOM) also furthers the cause of Caribbean

integration with important implications for trade and the

free movement of people. Our State is a proud member

of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our

America, which has created bonds of socioeconomic

solidarity and cooperation among Caribbean, Central

and South American States. The Caribbean Forum of

African, Caribbean and Pacific States, the Association

of Caribbean States, and the Community of Latin

American and Caribbean States are also home-grown

manifestations of our peoples’ desire to forge linkages

and partnerships with our regional brothers and sisters.

The strength and genuine cohesion of those

growing regional integration initiatives is built on a

solid foundation of shared experiences and values,

which deserve the support of the United Nations. The

members of OECS and CARICOM are bastions of good

governance, democracy and the rule of law, and we share those experiences and aspirations with our South

and Central American sister States, which have also

established unshakeable foundations of democracy and

good governance after fitful periods of political unrest

and foreign interference in the past. The upcoming

7 October presidential election in the Bolivarian

Republic of Venezuela is but one example of the

manner in which that country and the region continue

to institutionalize popular, participatory democratic

systems that reflect and respect the will of the people.

As we strengthen relations with our immediate

neighbours, we remain deeply committed to our

historical ties and traditional friendships. The bonds

that we share with our friends in Europe, Canada, the

United Kingdom and the United States are as strong

as they are mutually beneficial. As a multi-island

nation, the people of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines

have always been highly migratory and outward-

looking — so much so that even the words of our

national anthem memorialize our proclivity for travel

to distant lands. Many of the largest and most vibrant

cities of our nationals exist not in Saint Vincent and the

Grenadines, but in major metropolitan hubs, including

those in Brooklyn, Toronto and London. Those

productive and hard-working centres, and many others,

have immeasurably enriched their adopted homes and

provided needed remittances to relatives in the land

of their birth. We remain grateful to those friendly

States that have opened their doors and embrace to

our migrants, and we view the ongoing, hassle-free

movement of our peoples back and forth as the truest

testament of our friendship and solidarity.

The recent increase in regional conflicts and unrest

around the world cannot be ignored. The hopefulness

and idealistic optimism that were much in evidence

during the early days of the so-called Arab Spring

have been replaced by a cynical fatalism and rampant

opportunism in many important quarters. In other

continents, some nations flirt with border wars, while

others grapple with insidious and barbaric terrorism.

In the midst of the global upheaval, we have witnessed

the aggressive re-emergence of those that would seek to

reshape the world in their own image and to their own

purposes. Would-be interventionists, unilateralists and

hegemons, both new and old, have rushed to fill and

exploit political vacuums, to settle ancient grudges and

to strengthen their grip on global or regional power.

It is a pattern that predates colonialism and the

Cold War and one that once again brings into focus

many of the United Nations founding principles. Those

principles cannot be ignored, reinterpreted or sacrificed

on the altar of poll-driven political expediency and

electoral ambition. We have bound ourselves together

in the solemn goal of promoting peace, not fostering

wars; of self-determination, not unilateral intervention;

of the economic and social advancement of all peoples,

not the callous disregard for the well-being of our

fellow human beings. To depart from those principles,

explicitly or by implication, would be to abandon the

better angels of our nature and to succumb to the forces

that made this institution necessary in the first place.

The war against global terror is real, and it is being

fought by all responsible States on multiple fronts. Saint

Vincent and the Grenadines is firm and unequivocal

in its rejection of all forms of terrorist activity and

its revulsion at the methods and twisted logic that

accompany that barbarism. Our friends and brothers

in the United States of America are unfortunately and

disproportionately targeted by those repulsive killers,

most recently in the deeply saddening murder of

Christopher Stevens, the United States Ambassador to

Libya, and some of his staff. We support unreservedly

the determination of the United States to bring

Ambassador Stevens’s killers to justice.

At the same time, we are baff led by the continued

reference to the Republic of Cuba in some quarters as

a State sponsor of terrorism. The undisputed evidence

is that Cuba neither supports nor harbours terrorists

of any type. Indeed, the Cuban Government, itself a

victim of orchestrated terror campaigns, has cooperated

on numerous occasions with the Governments of both

allies and ideological opponents in the fight against

terrorism. It has also played a useful and constructive

role in facilitating peace talks between Governments

and armed rebel groups in Latin America. Those facts

are not contested. Therefore, to label Cuba a State

sponsor of terrorism, in any context, is to cheapen our

shared global struggle against that insidious scourge.

In his famous 1960 speech to the General Assembly,

then President Fidel Castro observed that hysteria could

go to any length and was capable of making the most

far-fetched and absurd claims. That particular absurd

and far-fetched claim, like the absurdity that undergirds

the continued economic embargo against Cuba, is one

that is best abandoned.

The fascinating rapprochement unfolding across the

Taiwan straits between the People’s Republic of China

and the Republic of China on Taiwan lends practical weight to the reasonable and overdue call for Taiwan’s

meaningful participation in the specialized agencies

of the United Nations. My country and several others

in the Caribbean and Central America bear witness to

Taiwan’s principled conduct of its intergovernmental

relations. Surely the time has now come for this

exemplar of the magnificent Chinese civilization to be

permitted to participate in the work of various agencies

of this world body.

Allow me to turn to certain existential challenges

facing my country, my region, and the world. Saint

Vincent and the Grenadines is angered by the continuing

and inexcusable failure of the States assembled in this

Hall to move decisively towards a meaningful and

legally binding climate change treaty. Entire nations,

represented here today as friends and equals, may

simply cease to exist as a result of our inaction and

political cowardice. Other nations, including my own,

are already the victims of increasingly intense and

frequent storms, hurricanes and weather events. These

changes not only threaten our way of life but risk

reversing our recent development progress.

The islands of our planet are at war against climate

change, warming temperatures and rising seas. That

war is not a future event, it is a present-day and ongoing

battle. As all of us in this Assembly are aware, it is a

war that we are currently losing. The survival of our

islands is at stake, and the responsibility for immediate

change lies undisputedly with those whose reckless

pollution over generations has led us to the brink of

catastrophe. In a different time and context, Winston

Churchill inspired his people with the words “we shall

fight on the seas and oceans... we shall defend our

island, whatever the cost may be”. Today, know this:

We shall fight the rising seas and encroaching oceans

and defend our islands’ right to exist at any cost. We

call on all nations to join us in the fight, for that is a

war that can still be won. Our negotiations to arrest

climate change are not merely some arcane academic or

diplomatic pursuit, and they cannot be treated as some

interminable, run-of-the-mill United Nations process.

Let us set aside narrow, short-term interests and act as

we are capable of acting: for the benefit and protection

of all mankind.

Another existential threat whose solution has fallen

victim to United Nations paralysis is our common pursuit

of a global, robust and binding arms trade treaty. In the

Caribbean, over 70 per cent of homicides are committed

with firearms, a remarkable statistic for a region that

produces not one single gun or bullet. Saint Vincent

and the Grenadines has a largely unarmed constabulary

and lacks a standing army, yet we struggle daily against

an influx of illicit and untraceable firearms that pose

a grave threat to our national security and way of life.

The producers of firearms, as well as the source and

destination markets for illicit narcotics, can and must

cooperate to restrict and regulate the international f low

of small arms, light weapons and ammunition. While

we have failed in our initial attempt to forge an arms

trade treaty, I call on members at this session of the

General Assembly to redouble their efforts to negotiate

a binding agreement in this matter before we reconvene

next September.

This year it is imperative, too, that the United

Nations continue its focused work in the fight against

non-communicable diseases, which the Caribbean

Community has rightly placed at the forefront of the

global agenda.

The people of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines

are strong and fiercely independent. Ours is an

independence forged in the heroic struggles of our

indigenous and Garifuna peoples against genocide

and hardened in the fires of our resistance to slavery,

indentureship, and colonial and neocolonial domination.

Our strength, independence and sovereignty do not

permit us to look to the United Nations or any other

country or group of countries for the solutions to our

own problems and challenges. However, as a small State

in an interconnected world, we recognize that many of

the difficulties we face have been born and incubated

beyond our national boundaries. The United Nations

therefore is our primary multilateral forum to address

and confront those externally imposed challenges.

My statement today is not intended merely to

chronicle the global ills that have befallen Saint Vincent

and the Grenadines. No. It is a call for principled and

practical global action to address and resolve these

problems. To do so, we stand ready to work with the

President and with all States in this Assembly to effect

meaningful change throughout our planet. As the

great novelist Ernest Hemingway once wrote, “Moral

courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle

or great intelligence. Yet it is the one essential, vital

quality of those who seek to change a world which

yields most painfully to change”. Today, Saint Vincent

and the Grenadines calls on this body, and on all

nations assembled here, to harness that essential moral

courage to produce change in a world whose potential is limitless, and whose problems are soluble. The

rhetoric of change and hope may lack the cachet that it

enjoyed hitherto, but we still believe that our peoples

and Governments possess within them the courage

and conviction collectively to change and materially

improve the condition of our nations’ citizens.

Let us at this sixty-seventh session of the General

Assembly establish conclusively that that faith is well

placed. We move with our burdens from yesterday.

We go forward with our strengths and possibilities

tomorrow.