Antigua and Barbuda, 1993

In 1965 three of

the Caribbean’s most outstanding statesmen created an

institution to foster cooperation and to quicken the pace of

their countries’ development. Errol Barrow of Barbados,

Forbes Burnham of Guyana and V.C. Bird of Antigua and

Barbuda met at Dickenson Bay, Antigua. There, they signed

a historic document creating the Caribbean Free Trade

Association (CARIFTA).

Although the three countries they led were not yet

sovereign States, those enlightened statesmen envisioned the

emergence of an independent, English-speaking Caribbean

capable of playing a meaningful role in international affairs.

The entire Caribbean, beginning in 1492 and continuing

throughout its modern history, had been an object of

international intrigue and international competition. How

fitting, then, for that region to help shape world history once

it had taken hold of its own ambitions and aspirations.

In 1973, CARIFTA was transformed into a more

extensive institution called the Caribbean Community

(CARICOM). Today, exactly 20 years after its

establishment, all citizens of the 13 countries of CARICOM,

whether living in the Caribbean or in the diaspora, celebrate

this historic moment when a most able son of Guyana is

elected to preside over the forty-eighth session of the

General Assembly of the United Nations.

Your brilliant academic career, your outstanding

diplomatic skills and your warm, personable style of

leadership assured your unanimous election. Antiguans and

Barbudans rejoice with you and your country, and my

delegation pledges its fullest support and cooperation.

My delegation is appreciative of the role played by the

non-English-speaking countries that are members of the

Latin American and Caribbean Group of States, whose full

support was necessary to achieve this noble objective. The

12 General Assembly - Forty-eighth session

33 States of the region have quietly made tremendous

progress, in this and other forums, in strengthening the

bonds of cooperation and friendship that bind us. And

though we are divided on a single but important trade issue,

we expect that an amicable solution will shortly be found to

the satisfaction of both sides.

During the past year, our regional group of States

worked together to find a solution to the Haitian crisis. The

delegations of Brazil and Venezuela, regional members of

the Security Council, made every attempt to include the

entire region in the Council’s decision-making process as it

pertained to Haiti, another regional member. The United

States must also be congratulated in that regard.

The peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean now

eagerly await the return of President Aristide to Haiti on 30

October three weeks from today, when history will reverse

itself. Despite the violence and the dilatory tactics employed

by the military leaders in Haiti, Antigua and Barbuda is

confident that the forces of good will, decency and

democracy will prevail.

I wish to point out that no previous Security Council

embargo intended to compel compliance with the will of the

international community was ever as swiftly effective as was

the embargo imposed on the illegitimate regime in Haiti.

My delegation regards this episode as a turning-point in the

history of Security Council actions to safeguard international

peace and security.

Threats to international peace and security, up until the

Security Council action on Haiti, have been narrowly defined

as the use of force by one sovereign State against another,

or some form of violent confrontation between or among

States. A small State like mine, incapable of waging war

and no longer an object of conquest, defines international

peace and security more broadly.

Grinding poverty and the resultant ecological disaster

which characterize Haiti are threats to the peace and security

of that sovereign State and its neighbours. Not force, not

violent threats, but poverty and its attendant consequences

threaten international peace and security. Antigua and

Barbuda, a small island State and an ally of democracy and

legitimacy in the Americas and certainly in this forum, takes

great pride in knowing that all of CARICOM pressed this

cause here at the United Nations and elsewhere and that

Haiti can count on us never to relent.

Antigua and Barbuda will never relent in its struggle

against illegal drug trafficking, either. Located between the

suppliers of the South and the markets of the North, we have

been thrust by geography into the battle against this scourge.

We pledge our slender resources in the global struggle

against this global enemy.

Apartheid, another global enemy, is in its death throes.

My small country takes pride in knowing that our voice has

helped to topple that evil system in South Africa. From the

moment of our independence 12 years ago, in 1981, my

small country has supported the legitimate aspirations of

oppressed peoples everywhere, but especially those of the

majority population in South Africa.

In April of next year, when democratic elections are

held to choose a representative government in South Africa,

Antigua and Barbuda will also be able to celebrate a victory

of right over wrong, of democratic ideals over dictatorship,

of good over evil. The international community must begin

preparing to come to the assistance of an anaemic South

Africa whose need for economic good health in a

post-apartheid world is even now apparent.

In April of next year, as apartheid suffers its final

defeat, the Global Conference on the Sustainable

Development of Small Island Developing States will convene

in Barbados. This Conference is the first test of the will of

the international community since the Earth Summit

convened in Rio last June. You will recall, Mr. President,

that the most significant conclusion of last year’s Earth

Summit was the determination that industrial civilization is

fundamentally flawed.

Development based on the current model of

consumption, distribution and disposal practised by the

developed world is unsustainable. Abundant quantities of

harmful gases and toxins, emitted into the atmosphere, are

altering our global environment, and fatal consequences have

been forecast for the Earth’s climate, its biodiverse flora and

fauna, its agriculture, all living animals and human health

and well-being.

It should be borne in mind that while the contribution

by small island States to climate change, global warming and

sea-level rise is zero, the effects of climate change, global

warming and sea-level rise will reduce small island States

like mine to zero. Our very existence is at stake; our peace

and security are threatened by the actions of large and

wealthy States whose presumptions about the Earth’s

resources need to be completely revised.

The Barbados Conference will articulate a programme

of action intended to eliminate these man-induced, looming

catastrophes and to achieve sustainable development

beginning in small island States. The international

Forty-eighth session - 8 October l993 13

community’s support and good will are required if

sustainable development is to be made real and disaster is to

be prevented.

Small island States are the foot-soldiers in this battle to

save the planet. We will be the first casualties but we will

not be the last if drastic changes are not quickly brought

about in the developed world.

On Earth’s last uninhabited continent, disaster can also

be avoided. Antarctica, a pristine and icy wilderness whose

waters abound with the most significant link in the oceans’

food chain, whose winds control the earth’s weather systems,

whose tundras conceal the secrets of the Earth’s past, and

whose icebergs determine sea-levels world wide, must never

become the possession of large States alone. Antigua and

Barbuda will never acknowledge sovereignty over Antarctica

by any State.

In fact, working alongside like-minded delegations, we

will continue to press for a mining and oil exploration ban

in perpetuity, certain that any other arrangement will lead to

a precipitation of ecological decline worldwide, to the

detriment of small island States among others. In our view,

Antarctica must be declared a world park, control over

which should be exercised by our world body.

The world’s many peoples must learn to live in

harmony with the Earth’s environment and peaceably among

ourselves. Ethnic strife and wars have taken more lives in

the last year than comprise the entire population of my

country and several other CARICOM States combined. All

multiracial and multi-ethnic societies must learn to settle

historic and current rivalries peacefully; when they fail to do

so, resources which could well be spent on development are

necessarily diverted to peace-keeping.

The peace-keeping missions now undertaken by the

United Nations cost more than $3.5 billion annually; as a

consequence, development assistance is severely restricted.

Peaceful States like mine therefore have an economic

interest in seeing a decline in the need for peace-keeping.

Sadly, it is anticipated that more civil strife and many more

ethnic and religious conflicts will occur in the near future

and that the United Nations will be called on to help.

My delegation therefore applauds Liechtenstein for the

role it has decided to play in this forum. That small

European State is attempting to find a structured solution to

the unyielding demand by rival groups within States for a

measure of self-determination. The size of a country bears

no relation to the intellectual capacity of its statesmen or to

its capacity for generating great ideas. Antigua and Barbuda

will work alongside this small State in promoting a

permanent solution to destructive ethnic conflicts within

States.

The world’s indigenous peoples must also find

permanent protection, and the injustices they have long

endured must also quickly cease. Towards that end, our

United Nations declared 1993 the International Year of the

World’s Indigenous People. It is not yet clear just how

much impact the declaration has had; a fund has been

established in the Americas to support the indigenous

peoples of my region, and Brazil and Venezuela have shown

courage in their support for the Yanomami, an Amazonian

forest people.

Antigua and Barbuda also supports the establishment of

an annual International Day of the World’s Indigenous

People. Having lost the indigenous Arawaks and Caribs of

Antigua and Barbuda, beginning in 1492, my country is

duty-bound to ensure that powerless indigenous people the

world over, who have inhabited the lands of their ancestors

for many generations, are adequately remembered and

protected by our United Nations.

The people of Antigua and Barbuda condemn the

perpetrators of the fierce conflict which continues to rage in

Bosnia and Herzegovina, and we deplore the attacks on

United Nations peace-keepers in Somalia as much as we

abhor the destructive campaign waged by mercenaries in

Angola. The civil wars in Liberia and Mozambique are

brutish and unyielding, and the civil strife which has erupted

in Georgia will likely match both in ferocity and

destructiveness.

In the Middle East, the slow trickle of peace has turned

into a gushing stream with many tributaries. It is our hope

that the Israelis and until the Palestinians will be able to find

the source of a lasting flow of peace. Until Israel is allowed

to exist within secure borders and until the Palestinians

achieve a sovereign State of their own, peace in that region

may slowly evaporate.

We rejoice at the wave of peace which has engulfed

Lebanon. Its very industrious citizens, flung far and wide by

a conflict that seemed unending, can now give back to their

homeland some of the talent and wealth which their rich

culture bestowed upon them. Lebanon can surely count on

its prodigious sons and daughters in the diaspora for every

assistance; their generosity is as legendary as their love for

their old country.

We welcome the finalization of the demarcation of the

boundary between Kuwait and Iraq which was accomplished

14 General Assembly - Forty-eighth session

by the Iraq-Kuwait Boundary Commission in May 1993.

We also welcome the adoption by the Security Council of

resolution 833 (1993) in which it guaranteed the inviolability

of the boundary between the two States. This guarantee

shall serve as a deterrent against future conflict between

these two neighbours while enhancing stability and security

in the region.

My people celebrate with the countries of the Central

American region as peace rains down upon them. If future

civil wars are to be prevented, however, the economic

systems which prevail in Central America must become far

more inclusive. In distributing wealth, methods must be

found to direct more than a trickle towards the poor.

We note that the impoverishment of Cuba’s people is

due overwhelmingly to exogenous circumstances, and so our

sympathies lie with the people of this sister Caribbean State.

In the early decades of this century, Cubans welcomed poor

workers from neighbouring Antigua to their shores. Today,

standing in solidarity with the Cuban people, Antiguans and

Barbudans seek a speedy end to their suffering.

I would be remiss in my duty, as I conclude, if I did

not convey to the outgoing President, Mr. Stoyan Ganev of

Bulgaria, the gratitude of my delegation for the important

role he played during the preceding session of the General

Assembly. It was under his watch that six new Members

joined our Organization. I welcome to membership the

Czech Republic, the Republic of Slovakia, Eritrea, Monaco,

The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, and Andorra.

Their presence greatly enhances our institution’s legitimate

claim of universality, as membership climbs to 184.

In that regard, my delegation would note that Antigua

and Barbuda supports a manageable enlargement of the

Security Council to reflect the new realities. However, our

delegation will not join any consensus on enlargement if the

qualifying criteria for new membership implicitly require a

certain level of wealth and/or a certain population size.

Although we harbour no ambitions to sit on the Security

Council, my small country cannot agree to be excluded from

the Council in perpetuity. Such exclusion would make us

less sovereign than larger States.

The moral conscience of our institution can best be

articulated frequently by small States with no material

interest in the outcome of disputes. But even more

important is the fact that our own survival requires us to

contribute to the construction of a new world order that will

have its basis in Security Council decision-making. We

wish merely to retain our option, for we know not what

future generations will encounter.

My delegation concludes by recalling that on 31 March

1918 - 75 years ago - another generation of Antiguans and

Barbudans challenged an unconscionable system of

exploitation that left us materially impoverished. Our

grandmothers and grandfathers, then youthful and vigorous,

were determined to fashion for themselves and their progeny

a future that would be superior to their own inheritance. In

1918, brutality was the response to their legitimate cry for

workers’ rights.

Twenty years later - in 1938 - a sympathetic

Commission was to determine that the deplorable conditions

then extant in my country required massive infusions of

public finance and good will in order to achieve a marked

turn-around. When, in 1943 - 50 years ago, and 25 years

after the 1918 revolt - a nationalist named V. C. Bird picked

up the mantle of leadership of the workers’ organization, my

small country began its metamorphosis in earnest.

Seventy-five years after March 1918, the Antigua and

Barbuda that has evolved bears no resemblance to the

Antigua and Barbuda that history left behind. When

V. C. Bird and his trade-union colleagues quickened our

stride towards freedom and an improved material condition,

beginning in 1943, they had a vision of an Antigua and

Barbuda which, 50 years later, has become virtual reality.

As V. C. Bird and his generation pass the mantle of

leadership to their successor generation, our old men have

visions, and our young women have dreams. Antiguans and

Barbudans are aware that there are detractors abroad who

may wish to see our freedom snatched from us. We have

paid a price for our freedom, which we will for ever defend.

And we are aware of the role played by the United Nations

and international law in safeguarding the sovereignty of

small States.

We shall therefore for ever remain wedded to

multilateral institutions like the Caribbean Community, the

Organization of East Caribbean States, the Organization of

American States, the Commonwealth and this body - the

United Nations - which, together, strengthen our sovereignty.

Multilateralism is the greatest ally of our freedom, and the

United Nations the greatest guarantor.

As Antiguans and Barbudans recall the courage of the

heroes of 1918, we pledge never again - never again - to

allow injustice and brute force to raise their ugly heads in

our beautiful, beloved Antigua and Barbuda. My generation

will continue to do all that is necessary to bequeath to future

generations a peaceful legacy, where justice rules, ignorance

is banished, and legitimate leadership springs from the

people’s choice. That is our pledge.