The Bahamas, 2000

The Bahamas

delegation sincerely congratulates Mr. Harri Holkeri on

his election to the presidency of this Millennium

Assembly and assures him and the members of his

Bureau of its full cooperation and support.

I wish also to commend Mr. Theo-Ben Gurirab of

Namibia, who presided over the fifty-fourth session of

the General Assembly.

The Bahamas delegation also wishes to pay

special tribute to the Co-Chairpersons of the

Millennium Summit, Ms. Tarja Halonen, President of

Finland, and Mr. Sam Nujoma, President of the

Republic of Namibia. Their combined wisdom and

focused leadership contributed in no small part to the

success of the Millennium Summit.

The Bahamas is pleased to welcome Tuvalu as the

newest Member of this Organization. Tuvalu's

membership is a sign of the confidence that the United

Nations continues to enjoy among nations of the world

as the best hope for the realization of the aspirations of

all peoples.

We applaud the Secretary-General's continuing

commitment to the United Nations. This was

particularly demonstrated by his bold proposals for the

reform and revitalization of the Organization, which

culminated in the practical, responsive and visionary

Millennium Summit Declaration. The Declaration was

unanimously adopted by an unprecedented number of

heads of State or Government. In this Millennium

Declaration, world leaders collectively and succinctly

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outlined the labyrinth of issues on the global agenda

for which solutions are essential in the twenty-first

century. It is now our responsibility to implement it in

good faith. It cannot be business as usual in this United

Nations.

The Millennium Declaration placed globalization

high on the list of issues requiring urgent attention. As

a process offering opportunities for growth and

development, globalization has never been challenged.

It is a grim reality, however, that few have profited, and

some, particularly smaller economies, have become

marginalized and even more vulnerable.

For many of the small island developing States of

the Caribbean, their mainstay industries, particularly

bananas and financial services, have come under

extreme pressure in this rapidly globalizing world.

With respect to financial services, the Bahamas has

always cooperated, and will continue to cooperate, with

international efforts to combat money laundering.

Currently we are amending our legislation and

reinforcing our regulatory regime so as to fully comply

with international best practices.

While the Bahamas will move expeditiously to

correct deficiencies in our financial services industry,

we call upon the Financial Action Task Force on

Money Laundering (FATF) and the other concerned

financial agencies established by developed countries

to immediately adopt open and transparent procedures

to recognize when such deficiencies have been

corrected and to then take the necessary action as a

matter of priority.

Additionally, it has been a source of serious

concern to us in the Bahamas that one group of

countries, the Organization for Economic Cooperation

and Development (OECD), would seek to unilaterally

determine what constitutes “harmful tax competition”

in respect to financial services. We urge those countries

to cooperate in resolving these issues on the basis of

constructive multilateral dialogue, given that the

pressures applied in this and other areas not only

disrupt growth and development, but could well lead to

the reversal of the gains made in the development

process.

The intensity of protests in Seattle and in

Washington, D.C., have mirrored the frustration of

many developing countries in a globalization process

which appears to be biased towards the rich and

powerful and to widen the gap between haves and

have-nots. Yet no country can opt out of globalization.

Nor can we ignore the challenge its potentially

devastating consequences present for peace and

security. The United Nations resolve that globalization

must be fully inclusive and equitable should be

buttressed with effective action to ensure a vibrant

global economic order in which all countries, large and

small, developed and developing, mutually benefit.

The Bahamas is now an observer in the World

Trade Organization (WTO) and will move purposefully

towards full membership. We have chosen to take this

course of action because we intend to participate fully

in the WTO processes. These processes should, and

must, make globalization and trade liberalization

inclusive and equitable instruments for development.

We made this commitment at the highest level at the

Millennium Summit.

There is another commitment in the Millennium

Declaration that is of critical importance to small

island developing States such as the Bahamas and other

members of the Caribbean Community. The

Millennium Declaration reaffirms the United Nations

resolve to address the special needs of the small island

developing States by implementing both the Barbados

Programme of Action and the outcome of the twentysecond special session of the General Assembly on this

plan. It did so in recognition of the vulnerability of

their economies to external shocks and their

susceptibility to climate change, sea level rise and

natural disasters.

I wish to re-emphasize here that the call in the

Barbados plan is for action. In line with the

Millennium Declaration and their own national efforts,

the small island developing States now expect action,

through initiatives such as global disaster management

strategies and a vulnerability index. Such initiatives

must take fully into account the socio-economic

development and survival of small island developing

States. For Caribbean Community (CARICOM) small

States, we also hope to see the development of an

integrated management approach to the Caribbean Sea

advanced.

We would also, in this United Nations, urge our

partners in the developed world not to continue to put

our countries at risk by shipping nuclear and hazardous

wastes through the Caribbean Sea. We reiterate this

appeal in the face of recent evidence that suggests that

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the highly professed safety measures touted by the

nuclear-power industry are questionable.

In the Millennium Declaration, world leaders

committed themselves to overcoming many seemingly

intractable problems for which effective responses can

only be of a global nature.

The world's drug problem, and the trafficking in

small arms and light weapons, are issues for which the

global community urgently needs results. While these

twin evils are, in our view, closely linked, every

indication is that the trafficking in firearms is taking on

a life of its own. The introduction of firearms into

ordinary, non-drug related criminal activity, and even

domestic conflict, is perhaps the greatest single threat

to peace and stability in the Bahamas today.

Therefore, the Bahamas looks forward to next

year's United Nations Conference on the Illicit Trade in

Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects. We

are confident that the commitments made in our

Millennium Declaration will motivate us to grasp this

significant opportunity for concerted action. We

especially urge developed countries in which firearms

are manufactured to take the steps necessary to prevent

illicit arms trafficking.

In the Millennium Declaration, world leaders

committed themselves to the eradication of poverty,

hunger and disease, and to making the right to

development a reality for all. This commitment

compels us to act on several fronts to achieve our

objectives. We must, for example, reach agreement to

ensure the success of the high-level international and

intergovernmental event on financing for development,

to be held in the year 2001.

Our commitment means that we must ensure that

technological advances benefit not just the few, but all

of humankind. We must work more assiduously

towards the elimination of human rights violations,

including violence against women and the trafficking

in women and children. We must ensure equal rights

for men and women, to bring down barriers to

development. For countries such as the Bahamas,

forced to bear the brunt of sustained illegal migration,

the United Nations must collectively address not only

the challenges of migration flows worldwide, but also

the reprehensible practice of alien-smuggling.

Our commitment means that we must achieve a

comprehensive reform of the Security Council.

Addressing the unfolding human tragedy of HIV/

AIDS is also an important front on which the

Millennium Declaration charges us to work. The

pernicious effect of this disease, particularly on the

economically productive sectors of society, has had a

devastating impact on families, communities and

nations globally. However, the major burden that AIDS

presents, particularly for health care systems, has been

most profoundly felt in developing countries, where it

threatens to limit and reverse development efforts.

Adequate resources must be provided to confront HIV/

AIDS, particularly in Africa. In this regard, the

pharmaceutical industry must be encouraged to play its

necessary role.

The Bahamas welcomed the recently convened

conference in Barbados under the auspices of the

World Bank, UNAIDS, the Pan American Health

Organization/World Health Organization (PAHO/

WHO), the United Nations Development Programme

(UNDP), CARICOM and the Canadian International

Development Agency (CIDA), which brought together

high-level Caribbean health, education, economic

development and labour policy-makers. The Bahamas

is committed to doing its part in addressing this serious

problem and has offered to host a regional centre to

assist in combating this HIV/AIDS pandemic.

The agenda set for the United Nations by world

leaders is a formidable one. Forgive me if I restate the

obvious — the Secretary-General cannot carry out the

crucial mandates we ourselves have entrusted to him

unless and until he is assured of adequate and

predictable resources on a timely basis. At the same

time, the quotas on the basis of which the Organization

receives its resources must be assessed in a fair,

transparent and equitable manner. Only in this way will

we be able to give renewed impetus to the vibrant

process of administrative and budgetary reform

currently under way. By so doing, we will also break

the cycle of the Organization's inability to implement

the mandates that we ourselves have collectively set.

Furthermore, we must arrest the process whereby

many issues, including some of critical concern to

developing countries, have been moved out of the

ambit of this universal Organization into narrower,

special interest organizations. These organizations

harmonize and seek the interest of their Member States.

Therefore, the decisions they take can run counter, not

only to the interest of non-Member States, but also to

that of global society as a whole.

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Allow me to raise one more serious concern - the

safety and security of our international civil service,

the dedicated men and women who are the embodiment

of the United Nations global outreach. In this respect,

we extend our profound condolences to the families of

the staff members who lost their lives as a result of the

recent attack on the United Nations office in West

Timor. We also join other delegations in condemning

this attack and in urging the Government of Indonesia

to spare no effort in bringing those responsible to

justice. We also extend condolences to the family of

the United Nations refugee worker killed in an attack

in Guinea. In situations such as these, we must show

that we can meet the concerns of our peoples and our

world.

Through the historic Millennium Declaration,

heads of State and Government reaffirmed their faith in

the United Nations and its Charter as indispensable

foundations for a more peaceful, prosperous and just

world. They also emphasized that the United Nations is

the pre-eminent global organization and has a central

role in setting and acting upon the global agenda.

Heads of State and Government equally provided us

with a concise, focused and realistic blueprint for

action by the United Nations in the twenty-first

century. They have charged the Secretary-General to

keep a score-card, the results of which will determine

whether we have been true and honourable custodians

of the United Nations Charter. It is imperative for us to

demonstrate individually, and through our collective

efforts, that we can leave for succeeding generations

the kind of world envisioned in our Charter.