Antigua and Barbuda, 1995

Forty-five years

ago, in 1950, a destructive hurricane battered my island

country. It destroyed our small homes, levelled our

sugar-cane fields, left death and destruction in its path and

made Antigua and Barbuda a destitute colony. It was the

very worst hurricane that Antigua and Barbuda had ever

experienced. Several hurricanes were to strike us after

1950, including Hurricane Hugo in 1989.

Thirty-five days ago, however, Hurricane Luis visited

its fury on my small island developing State. For more than

48 hours, its mighty gusts blew the roofs from thousands of

homes, schools, churches, government buildings, hotels. Its

sustained winds, exceeding 160 miles per hour, uprooted

many of Antigua and Barbuda’s old trees, decapitated

thousands of stately palms, and deposited the leaves and

broken limbs of our evergreen trees everywhere. The

swollen sea sent surf and sand swirling into the lobbies and

beachfront rooms of our hotels — the source of our

national income. Sheets of rain, carried relentlessly by the

winds of Hurricane Luis, made everything wet and

everyone weary. Our electricity and telephone systems were

destroyed when thousands of poles succumbed to the fury

of its winds, snapping cables and smashing equipment as

they fell to the earth. Our fishermen lost their boats, our

farmers lost their fields, and our people lost some of our

courage. Nature appeared to have declared war on us.

When the ferocious winds of Hurricane Luis subsided, 48

hours after landfall, the verdant, lush, tropical vegetation

that had drawn millions to our shores over the years had

disappeared; our islands were a mere caricature of their

previous glory. The engine of our economy has stalled;

tourism, the source of Antigua and Barbuda’s income, has

been severely compromised and we may not be able to

restart the industry for several weeks. Fishermen and

farmers, storekeepers and hotel workers are now without

incomes; thousands are jobless. The threat of creeping

poverty hangs over a people that, 14 years ago, at the end

of 150 years of colonialism, had started to enjoy an

improved standard of living, higher than ever recorded in

our 350-year modern history. Forty-eight hours after

Hurricane Luis had traversed the Caribbean, the

vulnerability of small island States was again made

manifest. Dominica, Guadeloupe, Saint Kitts and Nevis,

Saint Maarten, Anguilla and Montserrat all suffered a fate

similar to Antigua and Barbuda’s. Coming on the heels of

Luis, Hurricane Marilyn would batter the island of Saint

Thomas. Small island States and territories, thriving and

robust on one day, were paralysed and incapacitated

within 48 hours.

Development is not sustainable if 17 hurricanes are

to trample through our region each year; yet climate

experts have given us notice that the phenomenon known

as global warming will generate a greater number of

“extreme weather events”, more ferocious and monstrous

in each succeeding year. Hurricane Luis was 700 miles

wide; its wind gusts reached almost 200 miles per hour;

and its sustained winds exceeded 160 miles per hour. It

was unique in its size and devilish in its fury.

There may never be sufficient evidence to link the

global warming phenomenon to any single hurricane; but

the pattern is evident. I draw the Assembly’s attention to

a study entitled “Confronting Climate Change”, published

by the Cambridge University Press. In it we read:

“If global temperatures continue to rise in

accordance with current predictions, increases in the

number and severity of storms, floods, droughts, and

other short-term weather extremes may be one of the

earliest observed and most dramatic effects.”

8

Carbon dioxide emissions, caused by the burning of

petroleum, coal, wood and gas, since the start of the

industrial revolution in Western Europe 200 years ago, have

begun to warm the planet and to place the survival of small

islands in jeopardy.

Three years ago, at the Earth Summit in Rio, Brazil,

the nations of the world had their representatives sign the

United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

I read from the Convention:

“The ultimate objective of this Convention and

any related legal instruments that the Conference of

the Parties may adopt is to achieve ... stabilization of

greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a

level that would prevent dangerous [man-made]

interference with the climate system.” (article 2)

Earlier this year, the nations of the world met in

Berlin, Germany, to consider a proposal matching this

objective and linked to this Convention; it was put forward

by 41 vulnerable small island States. Many industrialized

countries, guilty of emitting into our Earth’s atmosphere

billions of tons of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse

gases, would not then agree to any reduction in these gases.

We cannot stand idly by, experience the deadly effects of

global warming, and be satisfied with promises. Harmful

production, wasteful consumption and dangerous disposal

patterns continue to characterize the behaviour of the largest

industrialized States. They sow the wind; small island

States reap the whirlwind. In the South Pacific, where

defenceless small island States predominate, another large

industrialized State chooses to explode several nuclear

bombs, euphemistically called “nuclear devices”. We

remain opposed to the testing of all nuclear weapons. If

those bombs are as harmless and as safe as that State

claims, then why not test them on its own soil? The same

disregard for the weak and small States holds for the

transboundary movement of hazardous wastes, especially

shipments of nuclear wastes through the Caribbean Sea. We

are dreadfully afraid of an accident and equally fearful of

the impact of news of an accident on our development.

We have done much of what is required of us to

ensure that our development proceeds apace and with few

setbacks. Evidence of our intelligent use of our meagre

resource base is captured in the annual Human

Development Report published by the United Nations

Development Programme (UNDP). For example, my

Caribbean country shares a common currency with five

other small island States and one territory. We call it the

Eastern Caribbean dollar. Its value has remained unchanged

since 1976. For almost two decades, self-discipline and

probity have been the hallmark of the Eastern Caribbean

Central Bank.

Hurricane Luis has severely disabled four of the

seven economies which share the currency — Dominica,

Saint Kitts and Nevis, Montserrat, and Antigua and

Barbuda. And unfair attempts by Central American

banana producers to eliminate the English-speaking

Caribbean’s 3 per cent of the world market share threaten

to undo the other three economies — those of Grenada,

Saint Lucia, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. The

Eastern Caribbean dollar (EC$) can only remain stable if

our economies earn foreign exchange. Unfair trade, just

like hurricanes, can devastate our vulnerable small island

States’ economies and make the earning of foreign

exchange impossible.

We share a currency, and we share a university. The

University of the West Indies is soon to celebrate its

fiftieth year of continued existence, having graduated an

overwhelming number of professionals from the 17 States

and territories of the English-speaking Caribbean which

call it their own. This year my Government provided 73

scholarships to the most deserving youth in Antigua and

Barbuda, with amounts ranging from $EC 54,000 to

$10,000 each. We intend to build the national capacity to

ensure that sustainable human development is more than

a wish.

We share a currency, we share a university, we share

a judiciary. The Eastern Caribbean Court of Appeals has

demonstrated that justice and cost-effectiveness can be

twin handmaids of small island States. Eight of us also

combine our national defence forces to form a Regional

Security System (RSS). Though small by any standard,

we have succeeded in increasing our defences

exponentially, while containing defence costs

significantly. The recent invasion of the Comoros Islands

by a mercenary band which took its President hostage and

seized power there serves as a reminder of the security

constraints facing small island States.

Our efforts at regional collaboration extend beyond

a common currency, a university, a judiciary and a

defence force. You have recently pronounced, Sir, on the

success of “interlocking, regional building blocks” in

Europe. Thirty years ago, before many of our Caribbean

countries were independent and free, we commenced that

process by creating, in 1965, the Caribbean Free Trade

Agreement (Carita). Carita has metamorphosed into the

Caribbean Community and Common Market (Caricom),

9

and earlier this year the Association of Caribbean States

(ACS) was formed by all the States and territories which

share the Caribbean Sea. More than 200 million people

form this new market. Antigua and Barbuda has done much

of what is required of it to achieve sustainable

development. The results of our many and varied efforts

cannot bear fruit if, year after year, hurricanes destroy that

which we have created. We look to the United Nations to

help in persuading the industrialized countries to adopt the

Toronto targets, as a first step in our common effort to

ensure the survival of this planet which we all share.

We have faith in the United Nations because the

image of the United Nations in my country and region is

positive and good. When a volcano threatened to erupt on

the neighbouring island of Montserrat and my country

offered safe refuge to half of that island’s population, the

United Nations Resident Representative in Barbados led a

United Nations team of experts to Antigua; they came to

determine how the United Nations could assist. Following

the devastation wrought by Hurricane Luis, the United

Nations Development Programme Barbados country office,

the Department of Humanitarian Affairs, the World Health

Organization and several other United Nations agencies and

bodies quickly launched an international appeal to help us

reconstruct. The most distinguished citizen of Antigua and

Barbuda, His Excellency the Governor-General, was also

quick to agree to be the Chairman of the UN 50 National

Committee. This willingness serves as a measure of the

high regard in which the United Nations is held.

My small island State can also boast that it has paid

its contribution to the United Nations in full; we owe no

arrears, despite the burden which membership dues and

peace-keeping operations impose on our limited resources.

We can only encourage the wealthy and the powerful to

pay their obligations. For us the United Nations is more

than a symbol; more, too, than an instrument for the narrow

national interests of Antigua and Barbuda. For us, the

United Nations is the guarantor of international law, an

agent for international peace and security, a catalyst for

development and prosperity.

The Secretary-General has noted that the greatest

threats to peace are adverse social and economic conditions

within States and among States. As a consequence, during

the past three years the international community has

convened six global conferences to plot the course of

human history in the coming century and beyond.

Collectively, the United Nations Conference on

Environment and Development, the World Conference on

Human Rights, the First Global Conference on the

Sustainable Development of Small Island Developing

States, the International Conference on Population and

Development, the World Summit for Social Development,

and the Fourth World Conference on Women collectively

create a multifaceted framework of action; this will be

completed by the Second United Nations Conference on

Human Settlements (Habitat II), in 1996. These

conferences act as a guide to Member States as they seek

to address the challenges inherent in the interrelated areas

of peace and development.

States must now seek to implement the several

Programmes of Action. We are particularly gratified by

the extent to which the last two conferences build on the

positions which we took at the Global Conference on the

Sustainable Development of Small Island Developing

States. In particular, my delegation would wish to

emphasize the importance of empowering women. The

inclusion of women in the councils of the Government of

Antigua and Barbuda, and at senior levels in the public

service and the private sector, gives credence to the

earnestness of our commitment to the advancement of

women. Without the full and equal participation of

women, sustainable development cannot be achieved.

In congratulating you on your election to your high

office, Mr. President, my country is very cognizant of the

role which Vasco da Gama played in bringing distant

worlds together. Today we find in you the same foresight

and imagination displayed by your most well-known

citizen. These qualities are necessary for leading this

historic fiftieth session of the United Nations General

Assembly. We congratulate Foreign Minister Mr. Amara

Essy, the President of the forty-ninth session, on his

sterling stewardship of this Organization.

At several junctures in its 50-year history, the

purpose and goals of this United Nations have been

redefined. In 1945, following the end of the Second

World War, the United Nations was created as a policy

instrument of the victorious Powers to prevent further

large-scale destruction and massive loss of life. For more

than a decade the United Nations was focused on

preventing a third world war.

In 1957 a little country in Africa twisted the tail of

its colonial master, and Kwame Nkrumah emerged from

jail in Ghana to lead his country and to redefine the

purpose of this United Nations. When the United Nations

was created in 1945, colonialism defined the relations

between the powerful and the weak, between Europe and

much of Asia and Africa. The adoption of resolution

10

1514 (XV) in 1960 turned the United Nations into a policy

instrument to end colonialism.

For more than a decade after 1960 the focus of the

United Nations was to destroy colonialism and apartheid.

My small island nation did not even enter into the

consciousness of the founders in 1945. We are the

beneficiaries of the struggle to end colonialism. The

presence here of small island States is mere happenstance,

since few expected that there could be any such creation as

a micro-State, seated in this Hall as an equal of the

mightiest and the largest States. In that regard, we would

wish to welcome the island State of Palau to membership

in this Organization.

But by 1970 the United Nations had begun to address

inequities in international trade and development, and the

search for a more just international economic order

displaced the concerns of 1945. In the 1970s, also, the cold

war exploded. Regional wars in southern Africa, Central

America and the Middle East were fuelled by the two

super-Powers. By the end of the 1980s the constraints

imposed by the cold war and the demands on our resources

for peace-keeping made the United Nations a much more

complicated instrument than it had ever been.

Today our United Nations must struggle with the

unfinished business of earlier decades. Small island States,

in the 1990s, aware that their very existence is at stake,

have tried to make the United Nations focus on the

environment and development, especially climate change.

If we fail in this quest, this civilization will destroy us and,

in the process, destroy itself. Island States are much like the

canary in the coal mine; we are the messengers, signalling

the danger to the rest of the world.

Having suffered through Hurricane Hugo and

Hurricane Luis, we thank the many Governments,

institutions and people who have come to our rescue. The

people of Antigua and Barbuda are aware of the

vulnerability of small islands. We know our history and we

know the role played by small States in shaping the present.

My Prime Minister, the Honourable Lester Bryant Bird, has

applauded the people of Antigua and Barbuda for their

resilience and indomitable will in the face of adversity. If

we can endure 200 years of chattel slavery, and 150 years

of brutal colonialism, then surely we can recover from two

nights of a horrible hurricane, he has said. We believe that

small island States at this United Nations can also shape the

next five decades in human history. We are here for that

purpose, and we intend to succeed.