Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, 2002

On behalf of the Government and the people of Saint

Vincent and the Grenadines, I am pleased to offer our

most heartfelt congratulations to President Jan Kavan

on his assumption of the office of President of the

fifty-seventh session of the General Assembly. Let me

also express our appreciation and thanks to the

outgoing President, Mr. Han Seung-soo, for the

excellent manner in which he conducted the affairs of

the fifty-sixth session as President.

I should also like to take this opportunity to

welcome our newest member — the Swiss

Confederation — into the United Nations, and we look

forward to the admission of East Timor to the family of

nations before the end of this month.

Let me first of all pay my respects to this

Organization, the United Nations, and to our Secretary-

General, Mr. Kofi Annan. Since the onslaught of the

terrorist attacks in September last year, the world has

been focused once again on the unique role of the

United Nations as never before, as the nations came

together to fight the scourge of terrorism. Just last

week, President Bush used his address to this forum to

invoke the special and unique assistance of the United

Nations to deal with the problems related to Iraq. The

world breathed a sigh of relief when it heard the

welcome decision by Iraq to readmit the United

Nations weapons inspectors, without conditions, into

Iraq. We hope that this decision will be efficacious in

resolving this problem, which could have unforeseen

consequences for the whole world. In general, we

support the collective judgement of the United Nations

rather than any rash unilateral action by any one or two

Member States.

We have also witnessed the tangible results of the

support of the United Nations for East Timor in its

struggle for independence and for Afghanistan in its

struggle for liberation, peace and stability.

I say without hesitation or equivocation that

today the world needs the United Nations more than

ever before.

Holding the attention of all of us at this time are

ongoing activities associated with the war on terrorism.

We were all engaged in a solemn commemoration of

the sickening events of 11 September just last week, on

the occasion of the first anniversary of the brutal

terrorist attacks on the United States of America.

We — the whole world — must commit ourselves to

ensuring that such events will never happen again. We

applaud the work done by the Counter-Terrorism

Committee established by the United Nations to secure

compliance with Security Council resolution 1373

(2001).

Saint Vincent and the Grenadines has already

contributed to this effort by implementing a range of

measures to combat terrorism and assist the global

effort. We recognize the links between terrorism and

international criminal activities such as drug

trafficking, money-laundering and organized crime. We

pledge to do whatever is in our power to combat these

threats.

Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, like many of

the poorer nations of the world, is crippled by external

debt. The burden of this debt means that areas of

critical importance to our development, such as

education, poverty reduction and social development,

are deprived of the resources that are desperately

needed for the advancement of our people.

The pursuit of sustainable development remains

central to the efforts of our people to create a better life

for themselves. To this end, my country had great

expectations from the International Conference on

Financing for Development, held in Monterrey,

Mexico, and also from the just-concluded World

Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg,

South Africa. While these conferences enabled some

attention to be focused on the urgency of the

development agenda that must be addressed, and some

level of consensus was achieved with respect to the

action required, we must lament the reluctance of some

developed countries to give more meaningful

expression to their stated commitments.

Mere recognition and articulation of the problems

will not suffice. Actions, not words, are needed to

change the situation. This requires the will and the

requisite resources to effect the changes required. We

therefore call on those members of the international

community to give reality to their words by putting in

place the necessary arrangements and the financing

through which we all can manage the critical problems

of sustainable development. Let us remind the

international community of its commitment to meeting

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the United Nations target of 0.7 per cent of gross

domestic product for official development assistance.

My country, like others in the Caribbean and in

Africa, is threatened by the scourge of HIV/AIDS. As a

matter of fact, my country has the second-highest per

capita ratio of HIV/AIDS in the Caribbean Community

(CARICOM). We are in danger of losing a whole

generation of our young people to this dreaded disease.

We lack the resources to procure the necessary

treatment and proper care for those affected. We must

all work together — developed and developing

countries — to eradicate this and other diseases such as

malaria and tuberculosis. We must make sure that the

Global Fund to fight these diseases has the necessary

resources to do its work effectively.

Six years after the completion of the Uruguay

Round of trade negotiations and the creation of the

World Trade Organization (WTO), my country has had

to endure the ravages of the imbalances of economic

power in the world. The constraints imposed by our

small size and vulnerability must now be evident to all.

As we deploy our limited human resources to engage in

negotiations at three distinct and separate levels — the

WTO, the European Union and the Free Trade Area of

the Americas — we urge that due recognition be given

to the need for flexibility in trading arrangements for

countries such as mine. We would also like to see a

realistic assessment of special and differential

treatment in the continued architecture of the global

trading and economic arrangements. Our ability to

survive is effectively compromised if there is no

flexibility in these negotiations.

We welcome the New Partnership for Africa's

Development. We commend the African countries that

came together to create this bold and imaginative new

initiative. Africa needs the help of the United Nations

and in particular that of the donor countries. But Africa

also needs to help itself by committing itself to peace,

democracy and good governance, which requires the

eradication of corruption in public life. We welcome

the efforts being made to end strife and war and to

create a climate of stability and peace in Angola, Sierra

Leone, the Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the

Congo.

As we view the international scene, we are

troubled by the widespread and corrosive nature of

corruption in public life in many countries. The effects

in the developing countries are more debilitating.

Corruption distorts the economies of those countries,

since, in effect, resources are taken from the poor and

given to the rich. My country, as part of its war against

corruption in public life, has recently ratified the

Organization of American States (OAS) Convention

against Corruption, which requires, among other

things, the criminalizing of illicit enrichment by public

officials and integrity legislation requiring a

declaration of assets by certain public officials. I

humbly suggest that the United Nations recognize the

pervasiveness of corruption in public life and its

consequent damages and take steps to approve and

promote a United Nations anti-corruption convention.

Saint Vincent and the Grenadines has a very special

and beneficial relationship with the Republic of China

on Taiwan, which we value. It represents a test of

friendship, loyalty, reciprocity and shared values in our

relationship. The Republic of China on Taiwan, the

17th largest economy in the world, is a country of 23

million people that has made tremendous strides within

a few years to become one of the most economically

advanced countries in the Far East. It is a country that

practices and promotes human rights. It has a

Government that is democratically elected by the free

and unfettered expression of its citizens.

We strongly support Taiwan's rights to be a

Member of this body of nations. We cannot understand

how the exclusion of Taiwan, which is a peace-loving,

responsible, democratic and progressive country, can

sit comfortably on the collective conscience of the

Member States of the United Nations. The United

Nations has a role to play in relations between Taiwan

and the People's Republic of China. The United

Nations should play a facilitating role by providing a

forum for reconciliation and rapprochement between

the two sides. But — and I cannot stress this point too

strongly — the United Nations cannot play such a role

if it continues to exclude Taiwan. We shall continue to

support the legitimate aspirations of the 23 million

people of Taiwan, who remain voiceless in this

Assembly, to membership in this body and its agencies,

in accordance with the United Nations principle of

universality.

The Government and people of Saint Vincent and

the Grenadines also share friendship with the people

and Government of Cuba. We support the worldwide

call, as expressed in United Nations resolutions, for

ending the economic, commercial and financial

embargo imposed by the United States against Cuba

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some 42 years ago. Indeed, such a call has been made

by the Congress of the United States so as to facilitate

the freedom of movement of United States citizens to

Cuba.

We uphold the right of peoples to self-

determination — a principle very dear to our people

and Government. It is highly improper and

unacceptable to the vast majority of the nations of the

world that one country impose such suffering on

another without any justifiable reason. We call on the

United States to heed the voices of its citizens, the

Congress and the rest of the world and to engage Cuba

in a meaningful dialogue for the mutual benefit of both

countries.

Over the past year, we have watched with

growing concern the escalation of tension and violence

in the Middle East. We are sensitive to the fact that

efforts against international terrorism have made the

lessening of tensions and the resolution of the problems

in the Middle East all the more difficult. We support

the plan for two States — Israel and Palestine — living

as neighbours within secure borders that are recognized

by each other and the international community. Once

again, we call on both sides to abide by the various

Security Council resolutions on the dispute. We support

the efforts of the Quartet and call upon them to

continue their peace-making efforts with urgency. They

have our unqualified backing. In the meantime, we

urge restraint and the use of common sense in the

search for a full solution to the problem. We remind all

sides that the greatest use of power is restraint in the

use of that power. We urge the world community to

make sure that all resolutions of the United Nations are

enforced fairly, even-handedly and with equity on all

States in conflict in the area and to avoid the

appearance of selective, capricious or arbitrary

enforcements where it suits the interests of some

States.

In South Asia, we trust that there will be a de-

escalation of tensions in the Kashmiri conflict. The

risks and the perils would be too great for the whole

world if the two major countries involved in that

conflict engage in an all-out war, resorting to nuclear

weapons.

We place our support behind every effort to

revitalize the work of the General Assembly so that its

collective energy and wisdom can again be brought to

bear with great weight to resolve the gravest tensions

impacting the world community. The General

Assembly needs to be more dynamic in order to reflect

the will of all its Member States. We also support the

need for a reform of the Security Council to give

cognizance to the world situation as it exists today and

not as was the norm after the Second World War. We

fully support the call for an increase in the membership

of the Security Council and would work for the more

meaningful participation of developing countries in the

Security Council to reflect the universal nature of the

United Nations.

My country is a small island developing State. As

such, we are extremely vulnerable to physical and

economic shocks. We are pleased with the recognition

given to the unique problems of small island

developing States in the outcome of the World Summit

on Sustainable Development, and we look forward to

real progress in the implementation of the Barbados

Programme of Action, leading up to the conference in

Mauritius in 2004. We continue to face the threat to our

region and our oceans by the passage of hazardous

nuclear waste through our waters. The world

community must understand just how fragile our

ecosystems are. We must reduce the risk by ending that

practice, and thus we call on the guilty parties to

respect the Caribbean Sea as a special zone for

economic development within the context of

sustainable development.

I have taken this opportunity to focus our efforts

towards increasing sensitivity in the international

community to the concerns of our small island

developing State. Our perspective is informed by our

history and our experiences. Many are the challenges

that confront us in a world of globalization and trade

liberalization. We make our special plea for special

consideration, without which we could become totally

marginalized. The aspirations of our people are the

same as those of other lands. We desire peace, stability,

democracy, respect for human lives and economic and

social uplifting. We intend to work hard to achieve

those goals. Our people have come through slavery,

indentureship, colonialism and imperialism, and we

have survived. With the support and goodwill of the

donor countries, with our hard work and with the help

of the Almighty, we intend to succeed.