Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, 2013

For the second time in my tenure as Prime Minister

of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, I have the

pleasure and honour to welcome a distinguished son

of our Caribbean civilization to the presidency of the

General Assembly. Even as we thank your immediate

predecessor for his service as the President of the

General Assembly at its sixty-seventh session, we look

forward to your tenure, President Ashe, with boundless

pride and unbridled optimism.

Mr. President, for this year’s general debate, you

have chosen the theme “The post-2015 development

agenda: setting the stage”. This is also the year in which

you will lay the groundwork for the United Nations

International Conference on Small Island Developing

States, which will take place in Samoa next September.

Your dual focus on the international development

agenda and the peculiarities of small island States make

this sixty-eighth session one of the most important in

my country’s 33 years of membership in the United

Nations.

Let me first say that the people of Saint Vincent and

the Grenadines are deeply pained at the horrendous acts

of terrorism recently committed in Kenya. I reaffirm

yet again our solidarity with the Government and the

people of Kenya.

William Shakespeare cautioned that what is past,

is prologue. Similarly, Mr. President, your invitation

to consider the future of the international development

agenda requires us to first consider the ways in which

our recent and long-ago steps and missteps shape our

future developmental challenges and opportunities.

I begin with an unfortunate, inconvenient truth:

our collective failure to achieve the Millennium

Development Goals (MDGs) is largely rooted not

in the shortcomings of earnest and hardworking

developing countries, but in developed countries’ abject

abandonment of Goal 8, “Develop a global partnership

for development”. The Organization’s own MDG Gap

Task Force noted in its report entitled “The Global

Partnership for Development: The Challenge We Face”

that the quest for such a global partnership experienced

significant backsliding in 2013 and that “the political

momentum for advancing international development

cooperation seems to have waned”.

Sixteen of 25 developed countries decreased

their aid budgets last year, and official development

assistance (ODA) contracted for the second consecutive

year, the first such contraction since the creation of

the MDGs. In a time of crisis, when assistance is most

needed, ODA is itself in a deep and prolonged recession.

The twists and turns by so many developed countries

on this issue have been most disappointing. Without

predictable flows of meaningful, non-discretionary

assistance, the post-2015 development programme will

remain, substantially, a fleeting illusion to be pursued

but rarely, if ever, attained.

At the same time, I applaud the efforts of those

developed nations that take their ODA commitments

seriously. I hail, too, a raft of other countries that are

in a genuine developmental and functional partnership

with us. These include Trinidad and Tobago, Cuba,

Venezuela and Taiwan. Indeed, Taiwan, a country not

washed by our Caribbean Sea, has been remarkable in its

principled and practical conduct of intergovernmental

relations. Surely the time has now come for this

exemplar of the magnificent Chinese civilization to be

permitted to participate fully in the work of the various

agencies of this world body.

Our debate on the future developmental agenda of

the international community is taking place against the

backdrop of the ongoing global economic and financial

crisis. The global economy remains precariously

poised, and for every nation that seems to have turned

the corner, another plunges back into recession. The

impact of the crisis on development has been palpable

and has rendered the MDGs unattainable in many

countries. Therefore, if we are to discuss the post-

2015 development agenda, we must also discuss the

reform agenda of our outmoded international financial

architecture, whose failings contributed to the current

crisis, and whose continued stasis is a reckless invitation

to future economic turmoil.

Despite the challenges of the ongoing exogenous

shocks, including natural disasters, and the encumbrances

imposed by an insufficiently flexible international

financial architecture, my country continues to make

significant strides in our people-centred approach

to development and poverty alleviation. This past

June, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines was one of

18 countries recognized by the Food and Agriculture

Organization of the United Nations (FAO) for having

achieved the part of Millennium Development Goal 1 on

halving the proportion of hungry people by 2015 — and

we have reduced it to below 5 per cent — and the more

stringent World Food Summit goal of halving the

absolute number of hungry people by 2015.

For a small, vulnerable country to achieve this task

ahead of schedule and in the midst of this debilitating

global economic and financial crisis is truly outstanding.

We have done so while maintaining and advancing

good governance, individual liberties and democracy

in accordance with global best practices.

But the ambitions of my Government are far greater

than Goal 1 of the MDGs. Having more than halved

hunger, we have now set our sights on the elimination of

hunger altogether: to achieve zero hunger. We hope that

the United Nations and the international community

can partner with us effectively in fulfilling that historic

ambition. Our policy goal of ensuring that no man,

woman or child goes to bed hungry will have its own

positive knock-on effects on poverty reduction, health

and arresting the spread of chronic non-communicable

diseases — which itself should also be of central

importance to our post-2015 development agenda.

As the Assembly is well aware, the roots of

underdevelopment and exploitation extend much

deeper than the recent abandonment of MDG Goal 8

by the bulk of developed countries. I arrived at this

year’s general debate from the Caribbean’s first-ever

regional conference on reparations for native genocide

and slavery, which was held in Saint Vincent and

the Grenadines. That stirring and uplifting regional

conference was the first step in the Caribbean’s

quest to address and redress a psychic, historical,

socioeconomic and developmental wound that is, for

the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), 14 nations

wide and 400 years deep.

The genocidal oppression and suffering of my

country’s indigenous Callinago, the Garifuna and

enchained Africans have been rightly adjudged to

have been a horrendous crime against humanity.

Accordingly, the collective voice of our Caribbean

civilization ought justly to ring out for reparations for

native genocide and African slavery from the successor

States of the European countries that committed

organized State-sponsored native genocide and African

enslavement.

The awful legacy of those crimes against

humanity — a legacy that exists today in the

Caribbean — ought to be repaired for the developmental

benefit of our Caribbean societies and all our

peoples. The historic wrongs of native genocide and

African slavery and their continuing contemporary

consequences must be righted and repaired, in the

interests of our people’s humanity.

European nations must partner in a focused, special

way with us to execute that repairing. The demand for

reparations is therefore the responsibility not only of

the descendants, in today’s Caribbean, of the Callinago,

the Garifuna, the Amerindian and the African. It

is undoubtedly an agenda for all of us to advance,

promote, concretize and execute. The European nations

that engaged in conquest, settlement, genocide and

slavery in our Caribbean must provide the resources

required to repair the contemporary legacy of those

historic wrongs. That is undoubtedly a special pillar in

the post-2015 development agenda.

That repairing of the mind, of collective memory, of

our economies and of our societies is part and parcel of

the rebirth, the redemption and the further ennoblement

of our Caribbean, our indigenous populations, our

African descendants and, indeed, of Africa. I say to the

Assembly that the struggle for reparations represents,

immediately, a defining issue for our Caribbean in the

twenty-first century. It promises to make both Europe

and the Caribbean more free, more human and more

good-neighbourly. CARICOM recently decided, quite

rightly, to place the quest for reparations at the centre

of its development agenda.

I am also compelled to speak today on a

contemporary injustice that is entirely within the

capacity of the Assembly to address. In 2010, negligent,

or even reckless, United Nations peacekeepers

contaminated a Haitian drinking water supply, which

led to an outbreak of cholera that killed 8,000 innocent

Haitians and infected 600,000 others. There is no

longer any scientific dispute that the United Nations is

responsible for the outbreak, as has been conclusively

established in the relevant reports. Prior to the United

Nations negligence, Haiti had not seen a single case of

cholera in 150 years. There are more cholera-infected

persons in Haiti today than in the rest of the world.

I continue to be deeply disturbed by the callous

disregard of the United Nations of the suffering it has

wrought in a fellow CARICOM country, and by the

shameful and legalistic avoidance of what is a clear

moral responsibility on the part of the United Nations.

Accordingly, I call on Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon

to acknowledge unambiguously, and apologize for,

the Organization’s role in that tragedy and to take

immediate steps to compensate the victims and their

families. Anything less will further undermine the

moral authority and credibility of this institution.

Sixty-eight years ago, our predecessors conceived

of a grand experiment, a commitment to bind the

world together in a collective quest for peace, justice

and development. Over time, we have established a

body of rules, laws and expectations that add flesh

to the principles that undergird the Charter of the

United Nations. Now, we are engaged — explicitly

and indirectly, willingly and reluctantly — in a

reassessment of that grand commitment. Today, the

actions of a small subset of powerful nations shake the

very foundations upon which the Assembly was built

and threaten to bring the temple down upon the heads

of those of us who still subscribe to the original tenets

of our institution.

Properly conceived and universally adhered to,

international law is the bulwark against impunity,

unilateralism, and Great Power triumphalism. Today,

there are those in the Assembly who hold a curious view

of international law, as something that must be imposed

against others but which has limited applicability

to themselves. To some in the Assembly it seems

appropriate to disregard international law in the very

enforcement of their distorted view of international law.

Clearly, such conduct is unacceptable, for the simple

reason that it threatens the continued legitimacy of our

entire multilateral system.

Small, vulnerable States, by definition and

necessity, are those most reliant upon an enforceable

body of equitable international law within an effective

system of multilateral diplomacy. It is no surprise,

therefore, that small States like my own have emerged

as some of the strongest defenders of multilateralism,

sovereignty, diplomacy and the rule of law. We view

it as our responsibility to sound the alarm when this

institution threatens to depart from the founding

principles that bind us together.

According to basic reason and historical experience,

no nation is intrinsically superior to another and no

people are innately better than nothers. To be sure, there

are cultural and social differences, but being different

does not imply a condition of being better or worse.

One nation may be more powerful than another, but

that circumstance should never permit the powerful to

ascribe arrogantly to themselves, in laughable vanity,

the doctrine of exceptionalism. Inevitably, that vain

ascription swiftly degenerates into an embrace of the

damning path of the rightness of unilateral force, rather

than an uplifting multilateral force of rightness.

Flagrant examples of a continuing disregard for

international law abound. Surely, it diminishes a

great nation such as the United States of America to

continue with what I consider to be a myopic vendetta

against Cuba by way of an illegal, outdated and hurtful

economic blockade and the absurd declaration that

Cuba is a sponsor of terrorism. All right-thinking

persons across the world justly demand that the United

States end the economic blockade against Cuba and

remove its name from the unilaterally drawn up list

of States that allegedly sponsor terrorism. It makes

no sense whatsoever for international law to become a

prisoner of domestic politics and the vain glories of a

Great Power.

Similarly, the plight of the Palestinian people is

being sacrificed on the altar of political expediency, with

a disregard for the opinions of almost all of humankind.

The issue certainly entails enormous complexities but,

unless it is resolved satisfactorily, sustainable peace

in the Middle East will remain unattainable. Saint

Vincent and the Grenadines hopes that current moves

towards serious negotiations will bear fruit in line with

the principles and mandates that have been spelled out

repeatedly in various United Nations resolutions.

At the same time, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines

is very impressed by the efforts of the President of

the United States to embrace diplomacy rather than

military intervention in pursuit of a political settlement

in Syria. The Syrian community in my country, rightly

and anxiously, looks forward to peace in its troubled

homeland. Only the extremists will benefit from a

prolonged civil war. Still, peace cannot be sought

reasonably when a precondition of regime change

is advanced. All sides in the conflict must make real

compromises in the interests of the Syrian people as a

whole.

There is one emerging issue of consequence that

needs to be addressed. It concerns the deeply disturbing

recent reports of the widespread and unrestrained

spying that has allegedly been conducted by the United

States of America against a number of countries,

including its staunchest allies. Indeed, there are reports

that the practice of such electronic espionage is rife,

even within the halls and offices of the United Nations.

We strongly reject such activity as illegal, a violation

of diplomatic conventions and an affront to the comity

of nations. Saint Vincent and the Grenadines believes

the agenda for appropriate corrective action in that

regard, as outlined earlier this week by the President

of Brazil, to be fair, reasonable and achievable by the

international community.

As we continue our collective journey in the quest

for greater and lasting global peace, we are reminded

that wars do not erupt only between countries, but also

within them. We also know that some of the highest

numbers of violent deaths occur in countries that are

apparently at peace.

This year, the international community has

recognized that genuine and lasting peace between and

within nations, cities and villages cannot occur in an

environment that allows an unregulated trade in small

arms and light weapons. The Arms Trade Treaty, which

Saint Vincent and the Grenadines signed on the very

first day that it opened for signature, is far weaker than

we would have liked. Nonetheless, we consider it to be

an important first step in regulating the illicit flow of

small arms and light weapons worldwide, particularly

into the Caribbean region, where the tide of guns is

often accompanied by torrents of narcotics as they

make their way to markets in other countries.

I am deeply disappointed at the international

community’s endless, rudderless and seemingly

vacuous negotiations on climate change. Our failure

to achieve meaningful progress on this matter of

existential urgency is inexcusable. Vulnerable countries

like Saint Vincent and the Grenadines are on the front

line of climate change and are already bearing the brunt

of the increasing fallout of global warming. Meanwhile,

the major emitters and historical polluters pay callously

insincere lip service to our plight. For them, combating

climate change is a question of dollars and cents, not

life and death. They are only too happy to see the

multilateral process fail, so that they can retreat into

ineffectual and painless national commitments. But

those stubborn obstacles to progress must no longer

be allowed to stand in the way of the survival and

development of vast swaths of our planet.

I applaud the initiative of the Secretary-General

to convene a high-level event on climate change in the

hope that such a meeting will give our meandering

negotiations impetus and direction. The post-2015

development agenda will not survive global warming

if it goes unchecked. It is also high time for genuine

negotiations in good faith and for meaningful resources

to assist in mitigating and adapting to the effects of

climate change.

In conclusion, I would like to recall that the Charter

of the United Nations begins with the phrase “We the

peoples of the United Nations.” It is not “We the rich

peoples”, nor “We the militarily powerful peoples”

nor “We the peoples of large countries”; but “We the

peoples” — of the entire world, the whole membership

of this institution. The United Nations does not exist

to confer benefits to select groups, but to secure peace

and development for all. If we are to set the stage for

the future of development, that stage must be inclusive

so that all nations and peoples have a significant part to

play and a stake in the outcomes. Let us make ourselves

worthy successors of the ennobling, humanizing vision

of our venerated founding fathers and mothers.

I shall be saying this ages and ages hence: two

roads diverge in the woods, and I have chosen the one

less travelled by, and that has made all the difference.