Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, 1994

As we

prepare to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the founding

of the United Nations, the memory of the cold war is

fading rapidly from our minds. We recall the nostalgia

with which we heralded the end of the era and the

concomitant universal aspirations to a world of peace and

prosperity.

The world has witnessed the triumph of democracy in

several areas and the resolution of conflicts that had

originated in a war maintained by the earlier East-West

confrontation. However, the images of violence, famine

and destruction that flicker daily on our television screens

suggest some urgency for the world community to attempt

to put an end to the violence and the senseless destruction

of human lives.

It is against this backdrop, Sir, that we welcome

someone with your wide diplomatic experience and wisdom

as President of the General Assembly at its forty-ninth

session. I am confident that you will make an important

contribution to the further success of our deliberations on

the vital and major issues of our time.

Your predecessor, our Caribbean Community

(CARICOM) and West Indian brother Ambassador

Samuel R. Insanally, has established a superb record of

achievements, on which I would like to congratulate him

warmly.

At this juncture in the history of the United Nations,

our Organization is fortunate to have a Secretary-General

like Mr. Boutros Boutros-Ghali, a person eminently suited

by training and disposition to guide the membership of

this body towards a new era of peace and prosperity that

we hope will emerge from the debris of the cold war.

My delegation takes this opportunity to welcome the

new South Africa into our midst as an equal Member of

the Organization, ready to participate in all its activities

in accordance with the purposes and the principles of the

United Nations Charter. We now join the courageous

people of South Africa as they celebrate with happiness

and pride their victory over the struggle of the century:

the fight against apartheid. At long last they have rid

themselves of the shackles of that abominable crime and

have finally removed the greatest blemish from the

continent of Africa. We congratulate Mr. Nelson

Mandela and salute his determined march from prison to

President. He symbolizes the aspirations of the South

African people and the values of non-racialism,

democracy and peace. Indeed, this is a lesson in

perseverance and faith in the human spirit.

The voice of the international community was clearly

heard as it worked to mobilize public opinion against the

injustice of apartheid, and we are now greatly relieved that

the question of its elimination will finally be removed from

the agenda of succeeding session of the General Assembly.

My delegation hailed the historic Agreement on

mutual recognition between Israel and the Palestine

Liberation Organization, which was signed on

13 September 1993 in Washington, D.C. We also

welcomed the historic breakthrough that gave impetus to an

overall Arab-lsraeli settlement when Prime Minister Yitzak

Rabin and Jordan’s King Hussein met in Washington last

July and laid the foundation for the establishment of a

peace treaty between the two countries. The international

community must also be heartened by the establishment of

diplomatic relations between Israel and Morocco and by an

apparent thaw in relations between Israel and Syria. We

are all looking forward with great anticipation to the

commencement of negotiations between the two

Governments. It is our hope that these initiatives signal the

beginning of the end of one of the longest standing and

most intractable conflicts of our time and that they herald

an era of peace, security and political stability in the

Middle East.

The recent peace overtures in the Middle East are yet

another demonstration of the dramatic changes in

international relations that have taken place since the

collapse of communism and the end of the cold war. In

this context my Government is optimistic that the still-

unresolved major international political issues will be

similarly settled. I refer in particular to the problem of

North and South Korea and that of the People’s Republic

of China and the Republic of China in Taiwan.

It is the view of the delegation of Saint Vincent and

the Grenadines that the time has come when serious

consideration should be given the eligibility of the Republic

of China in Taiwan to become a Member of the United

Nations. That is why my Government, in association with

other like-minded countries, requested the Secretary-General

to include an item on the agenda of the forty-ninth session

of the General Assembly entitled “Consideration of the

exceptional situation of the Republic of China in Taiwan in

the international context, based on the principle of

universality and in accordance with the established model

of parallel representation of divided countries at the United

Nations.” We trust that this item will soon secure a place

on the agenda of the General Assembly and that when it

does every Member State of this noble institution will give

its full support to this initiative. We cannot preach about

the universality of the United Nations while at the same

time we ignore the aspirations of over 20 million people

in the Republic of China on Taiwan.

Certain present-day international political trends, as

I mentioned earlier, give us renewed encouragement and

hope of relations being conducted between and within

States in accordance with the purposes and principles of

the United Nations Charter. This, however, does not

mean that the world is now free from tension and

international disputes.

The situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina is a

persistent crisis which continues to shock us all. Efforts

made to date by the international community to halt the

aggression by Serbia and Montenegro and to settle the

crisis by peaceful means have been in vain. The

Government of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines regrets

that the recent proposals for a political settlement of the

conflict have been rejected by the Bosnian Serbs. That

rejection carries with it the danger of the continuation and

even grave escalation of the conflict. We urge the

Bosnian Serbs to accept the proposals of the Contact

Group and to resolve their remaining differences in the

spirit of peaceful negotiation and reconciliation, thus

taking irreversible steps towards a just and durable peace

in Bosnia.

As a country blessed with freedom and the absence

of racial and religious bigotry, we will always raise our

voice against any form of “ethnic cleansing”. We also

look forward to the reunification of Cyprus and to the

departure of foreign occupation troops from all countries.

The vicious cycle of starvation, violence, the

breakdown of central authority, and endless conflicts

continues to bedevil in varying ways the situation in

Somalia, Zaire, Angola, Liberia, Mozambique, Burundi

and Rwanda. We call upon the United Nations to

continue its struggle to establish peace in these areas.

Saint Vincent and the Grenadines places a high

value on its relations with the Americas since we are part

of the same hemisphere. We share the same burning

desire for meaningful economic, political and social

development. Over the past decade there has been a

noticeable and commendable trend towards democratic

rule.

The Convention establishing the Association of

Caribbean States, which was signed at Cartagena on

24 July 1994, represents an achievement in the areas of

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economic cooperation and regional integration, with the

ultimate objective of launching new opportunities for the

pursuit of collective initiatives by 40 Latin American and

Caribbean States, comprising some 200 million people and

united by the waters of the Caribbean. The further

strengthening of the inter-American system remains a major

objective of the Government of Saint Vincent and the

Grenadines.

My delegation is very pleased that the use of force

was averted in Haiti and that, at long last, democracy and

constitutional legitimacy will be returned to that land. We

are equally delighted to learn that General Cedras has

decided to relinquish power, thus paving the way for the

return of exiled President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

My delegation wishes to commend President Clinton

for the leadership and determination he has shown in

support of the international community’s effort to restore

democracy to Haiti and hope and dignity to the Haitian

people. The Government of Saint Vincent and the

Grenadines will continue to be an active participant in all

arrangements aimed at ensuring the safe return of President

Aristide and in the eventual rebuilding process.

Among the goals that the founding fathers of the

United Nations set for the Organization were promoting

“social progress and better standards of life in larger

freedom”

and recognizing development as an inalienable right of

mankind. Regrettably, third-world countries like Saint

Vincent and the Grenadines feel very strongly that this goal

has so far been very elusive. With the end of the cold war

and the relative success of the United Nations in its peace-

keeping, peacemaking and peace-enforcement roles, the

international community must now attempt to grapple more

seriously with the developmental problems faced by third-

world countries.

If countries like Saint Vincent and the Grenadines are

to survive in this harsh world environment, careful and

urgent consideration must be given by the international

community to the following measures: first, revitalizing

growth in developed countries; secondly, liberalizing trade,

especially to give market access to the products of

developing countries; thirdly, reducing debt and the debt-

service burden; fourthly, reversing the deteriorating

marketing situation for the primary products of developing

countries; fifthly, increasing official development assistance

and humanitarian aid; and sixthly, creating a sensitivity to

the reduction in net capital flows from bilateral and

multilateral sources, as well as to the negative

consequences of the graduation of some countries, such

as ours, from concessionary funding arrangements of a

number of multilateral institutions.

The changing world environment dictates the need

for the revitalization and restructuring of the various

organs of the United Nations. At the last session of the

General Assembly Saint Vincent and the Grenadines

called for enlargement of the membership of the Security

Council to reflect the current global reality. Today we

repeat that call.

My Government attaches very high priority to

revitalizing and strengthening the role of the United

Nations in the promotion of international cooperation for

economic and social development. We share the view

that the United Nations should be encouraged to develop

its full potential in the area of international economic

cooperation and should be endowed with the necessary

resources to enable it to contribute to solving the serious

economic and social problems facing developing countries

in their efforts to achieve sustained economic growth and

development.

Saint Vincent and the Grenadines hopes that the

Secretary-General’s Agenda for Development, together

with the conclusions of, and the follow-up to, the Rio

Conference and the Global Conference on the Sustainable

Development of Small Island Developing States, which

was held in Barbados, as well as summits and

conferences such as the International Conference on

Population and Development, the World Summit for

Social Development, the Fourth World Conference on

Women and the Second United Nations Conference on

Human Settlements, will all contribute to better

understanding of the problems faced by developing

countries and assist the evolution of a global consensus

and the mobilization of adequate resources to address

these problems effectively.

We do not, however, support the creation of new

bureaucracies. There are already enough institutions.

What we need are better terms and a speedier reaction to

established needs.

Saint Vincent and the Grenadines continues to be

plagued by the modern-day problem of the illicit

production, trafficking and consumption of drugs and

psychotropic substances. This scourge poses a serious

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threat to the well-being of our people and threatens to

destroy the social and moral fabric of our communities.

The archipelagic nature of our State, its many bays

and cays and the mountainous terrain and rich alluvial soil

of mainland Saint Vincent are characteristics that attract

many visitors to our shores and provide scarce foreign

exchange to assist us in the development of our country.

These very features, however, operate against us in our war

against the illicit production of drugs and their distribution

by drug barons and their associates. Due to our limited

resources, we are unable to police and control our borders

and coastlines effectively.

Saint Vincent and the Grenadines supports every

single measure taken by the United Nations to cope with

this serious problem, and calls for continued efforts to

eliminate this global scourge.

At the local level, we have been taking forceful steps

to confront this evil — pursuing a dynamic drug-abuse-

prevention drive and at the same time launching major

administrative, legislative and judicial initiatives against the

marketing and trafficking of drugs.

My country has viewed with great interest the

measures taken by the Secretary-General to revitalize the

United Nations so that it is better prepared to attain the

objectives of the Charter. In particular, I wish to

emphasize the active peace-keeping role of the Organization

in the resolution of conflicts that originated before the end

of the cold war and of new tensions emerging in hot spots

around the world. The peace-keeping forces operating

under the United Nations flag perform a fundamental role

by paving the way to dialogue and negotiation, thus

preventing prolonged confrontations.

We wholeheartedly support this major peace-keeping,

peacemaking and peace-enforcing thrust of the United

Nations. However, we feel that the criteria used in

financing the forces involved must be re-examined. The

cost of such operations is beginning to prove quite

burdensome for both the Organization and its Member

States, especially those, like Saint Vincent and the

Grenadines, with a limited resource base. We look forward

to efforts to alleviate the financial burden placed on small

developing States by the frequent deployment of such

operations.

Today, as we prepare to mark an important milestone

in the history of the United Nations, and as we approach

the beginning of the twenty-first century, we look forward

to a world where democracy, peace, sustainable

development and human welfare are be available to all.

Mankind has spent almost half a century in pursuit of

these goals. Let us continue the struggle and never tire

in its pursuit.