Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, 2005

The sixtieth anniversary of the United

Nations coincides with the commemoration of my

country’s twenty-fifth year of independence. The

preamble to the Constitution of Saint Vincent and the

Grenadines reaffirms that our nation is founded on the

belief in the supremacy of God and the freedom and

dignity of man. Our national motto, Pax et justitia —

Peace and justice — symbolizes both our reality and

our dream. The universal ideals which inspired the

founding fathers of the United Nations are those which

prompted the lofty proclamations in my nation’s

Constitution. The United Nations Charter taught us a

truth, as though engraved on a tablet of stone, that

while some sleep to dream, we must dream to change

the world for the better.

We in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines accept

unequivocally the fulcrum around which the outcome

document of the High-level Plenary Meeting revolves,

namely, to create a more peaceful, prosperous and

democratic world, and to undertake concrete measures

to continue finding ways to implement the conclusions

of the Millennium Summit and other major United

Nations gatherings so as to provide multilateral

solutions to the problems which touch and concern

development, peace and collective security, human

rights and the rule of law, and the strengthening of the

United Nations.

Yet the outcome document, though certainly a

codified and presumably consensual package, falls

short of what is truly demanded by these extraordinary,

challenging times in the first decade of the twenty-first

century. The larger and more powerful nations are

gripped by an unreasonable fear which, in the process,

constrains them from being reasonably fair. Less

powerful nation-States and those which are small and

weak internationally often beat their collective chests

with an unbecoming self-righteous purity that restrains

them from knowing or understanding what impurity is,

even within themselves.

So, an unwholesome stand-off results.

Meanwhile, around us all, there is a carnival of misery,

a festival of guns. A Caribbean poet laureate tells us

that the faces of men and women are strained and

anxious. Many, if not most persons, become

sceptical — nay, cynical — of the grand efforts of the

world’s leaders. They search instead for an amazing

grace which makes the blind to see and the wretched to

be saved. Along the way, the majesty of faith becomes

metamorphosed, in too many of the world’s

inhabitants, into a believer’s extremism. Man’s reason

cannot quite fathom, this side of eternity, the evil

which extremism breeds. That is an enduring

conundrum of our times which, in this earthly city, we,

amidst all our limitations and weaknesses, must seek to

address appropriately with all our possibilities and

strengths, but without the baggage of economic,

military or cultural imperialism.

Economic imperialism muzzles the mouth with

the food that it eats to live and thus builds resentment

in that very mouth that eats, and even more so among

those who receive no food to eat. Military imperialism

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begets armed resistance in which a triumph is but a

pause in its impermanence. Cultural imperialism

distorts the mind, but in that very distortion the seed of

its rejection germinates, blossoms and bears a bitter

and even chauvinistic fruit. The presumed solutions of

the powerful have been shown, historically, to be

mirages. Surely, there must be a better way. Nelson

Mandela has taught us that. Together, we are the world;

we are the future. But of all time, only the future is

ours to desecrate; the present is the past, and the past is

our fathers’ mischiefs.

Underlying all of this is a seemingly intractable

socio-economic product of modern globalization — the

contradiction between, on the one hand, a growing

inequality in income distribution globally and, on the

other, the increasing commonality of consumption

patterns. Modern communications, including the

revolution in information technology, have connected

the world as never before. Yet, that very enhanced

connection breeds, justifiably, a great impatience

among those who are most disadvantaged. Economic

adjustment has to be made more swiftly. Time is of the

essence, but that very swiftness engenders socio-

economic dislocation, which poses immense

difficulties for political management.

Those profound challenges require a series of

measures, including more official development

assistance more speedily disbursed, a fair system of

international trade, international peace based on tried

and tested principles of international law, appropriate

reformation of the United Nations and its associate

institutions, and a more tolerant and educated

population worldwide. But we must set about doing so

immediately with conviction, resolution, solidarity and

dignity. The alternative is apocalypse now.

No difficulties, no hardships, no crises, can

justify terrorism. Terrorism wounds the poor and

disadvantaged ever so much. Its barbarism must

continue to be resisted by civilized peoples and nations

internationally. No space must be given to terrorism.

A small multi-island nation like Saint Vincent and

the Grenadines has a bundle of special needs. We are,

therefore, encouraged by the collective recognition by

all the Member States of the United Nations that

special needs and vulnerabilities attend small island

developing States. We are heartened, too, by the

reaffirmation of the Member States’ commitment to

address these special needs and vulnerabilities. There

are reams of paper commitments in the Mauritius

Strategy adopted by the International Meeting to

Review the Implementation of the Programme of

Action for the Sustainable Development of Small

Island Developing States, in the Barbados Programme

of Action and in the outcome document of the twenty-

second special session of the General Assembly.

We realize that the just-concluded United Nations

High-level Plenary Meeting has undertaken to promote

greater international cooperation and partnership for

the implementation of the solemn commitments

through, among other things, the mobilization of

domestic and international resources, the promotion of

international trade as an engine for development and

increased international financial and technical

cooperation.

These splendid commitments and undertakings,

like all words, must be made flesh if they are to signify

anything. To be sure, heard melodies are sweet, but

those unheard will be sweeter in uplifting action. In

this regard, I reaffirm, without here repeating, all that I

stated in my speech to this body last Friday,

16 September, on the development agenda focused on

the Millennium Development Goals and a sustainable

condition beyond them for countries like my own.

Certainly, a fair resolution to the banana trade impasse

in Europe must be fashioned without condemning our

poor banana farmers and workers to further penury and

misery.

The recent occurrences in Asia, the Caribbean

and the southern United States of devastating storms

and hurricanes, and in Africa, of terrible droughts,

demand a more coordinated and rational approach

internationally to issues of climate change, disaster

preparedness, and post-disaster rehabilitation. By and

large, there have been ad hoc national, as distinct from

international, approaches. To the extent that

international mechanisms exist for prompt and

appropriate relief work, they are clearly inadequate for

the tasks at hand.

This is undoubtedly an area in which the United

Nations and one or more of its agencies or associate

institutions ought to be able to make a significant

difference to the well being of real flesh-and-blood

people. After all, natural disasters respect no territorial

boundaries or power blocs; calamities from nature have

a studied ideological neutrality. They are the same sad

songs heard from ancient times by emperor, vassals

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and clown; and in modern times, increasingly by the

rich and the poor. But they afflict the poor more

disastrously than any other group. This matter demands

urgent international attention. The pain and anguish

evoked by President George Bush in his most recent

speech on the Katrina disaster must surely move to

concerted international action even those who stand

amid the alien corn.

A sustained, coordinated response is needed if we

are to avoid an ignoble “disaster fatigue” that treats a

natural disaster in one country as a momentary

distraction from normalcy, as television images

determine, until the next one arrives. Grenada is a case

in point. It was laid waste in September 2004 by

Hurricane Ivan, but its recovery effort has been slowed

by the focus on the more recent catastrophes from

nature in South Asia, Niger and the southern United

States. Grenada still cries out for massive international

assistance. We must help. There is still an enduring

need, even after the television cameras have gone

elsewhere. This applies, too, in relation to man-made

disasters, such as in Darfur.

The ever-deteriorating state of affairs in our

Caribbean Community (CARICOM) neighbour Haiti

demonstrates vividly the inherent dangers of meddling

with the democratic process. Since I spoke on the

issue, more in sadness than in anger, one year ago, the

situation has disintegrated. The so-called Government,

implanted without any mandate from the people, has

neither the political will nor the popular support to

undertake the measures necessary to return that poor,

traumatized country to some semblance of normalcy.

There has been no serious effort at disarming the gangs

that roam the towns and countryside and practice mob

justice. Political victimization continues apace with the

cruel detention and violation of the human rights of

former Prime Minister Yvon Neptune, the most glaring

example; while, on the other side of the coin, the

decision of the Supreme Court to quash the sentences

of 15 thugs from the Front for Advancement and

Progress in Haiti (FRAPH), convicted of involvement

in the 1994 Raboteau massacre, has all the elements of

political motivation.

Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, with its

CARICOM partners, is anxious to welcome Haiti back

into the organs of our regional body. But it would be a

betrayal of all that we hold dear to ignore the

interruption of democracy, the abuses of human rights

and the breakdown of law and order merely to appease

perfidious power. We support the work of the United

Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH),

while believing that the United Nations forces have

neither the manpower nor the resources required to

perform the miracle that they have been entrusted to

conjure.

From time to time, one or more of our traditional

friends and allies have shown displeasure at one or

more of our decisions in the field of international

relations. Some appear not to appreciate the necessity

and desirability of small States, such as Saint Vincent

and the Grenadines, seeking, and oft-times finding,

more economic and political space to enhance their

capacity to address more efficaciously the harsh winds

from the external political economy and to do so in the

interest of our people’s humanization. No one has

anything to fear from us. None of our friends can

reasonably ask us to adopt their enemies as our own. It

is part of our quest to get adversaries to speak sensibly

to one another and resolve their differences,

particularly if they are our neighbours. We pick fights

with no one; and we do not pick other people’s fights.

One of the best and most loyal friends over our

country’s 25 years of independence has been the

Republic of China on Taiwan. Our relationship has

been exemplary and is characterized by mutual respect,

solidarity and a desire for international peace, in

accordance with the principles enshrined in the Charter

of the United Nations. Taiwan, a magnificent political

expression of the Chinese civilization, has partnered

beautifully with Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, a

component of our Caribbean civilization. We

unequivocally support the quest of Taiwan to be

represented at the United Nations and other

international bodies. It is unfair, unreasonable and

irrational to exclude a country of 23 million persons,

with a thriving economy and a nobility of purpose,

from the United Nations. Further, we urge the United

Nations to take the lead in promoting constructive

dialogue and friendly engagement between the

People’s Republic of China and the Republic of China

on Taiwan. Bellicose conduct across the Taiwan Strait

cannot be condoned in a world striving for enhanced

peace and collective security.

Let me end by expressing the hope that the

United Nations may achieve, in the next 60 years,

greater and greater success in its goals of bringing

hope to the hopeless, providing food for the hungry

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and spreading peace, stability and sustainability for

now and forever. Let this not be the road less travelled.