The Bahamas, 2002

On behalf of Prime

Minister Perry G. Christie, the Government and the

people of the Commonwealth of the Bahamas, I

congratulate you most warmly, Sir, on your election to

the presidency of the fifty-seventh session of the

General Assembly. The Bahamas is confident that this

session will be steered to a fruitful conclusion under

your able guidance. You and the other members of your

equally competent Bureau may be assured of the full

support of the Bahamas in the performance of your

duties. I take this opportunity also to congratulate your

predecessor from the Republic of Korea for his skilful

leadership during the fifty-sixth session.

The right to self-determination and the full, fair

and unhindered expression of the will of the people are

principles held in the highest esteem by the Bahamas.

The Bahamas looks forward to welcoming the

Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste to the United

Nations when it takes its place in the Assembly in just

a few weeks. The Bahamas is also pleased to welcome

Switzerland to this family of nations.

The world has agreed that the United Nations is a

place where nations large and small are equal, where

disputes of an international character may be resolved

peacefully, and where the use of force is supported

only in accordance with the United Nations Charter.

The Bahamas and all other nations represented here

have signed on to this contract, a contract that, in our

view, is inviolate and must be honoured. This should

not be a matter of convenience and, in our view,

applies to all nations, large and small. Today, I reaffirm

the commitment of the Bahamas to the United Nations

Charter and to the Universal Declaration of Human

Rights. The Government and the people of the

Bahamas believe in the United Nations, and will

continue to support it and to uphold the founding

principles on which its effectiveness and success

depends.

We reaffirm our commitment to the rule of law,

and an abiding respect for the right to self-

determination, the sovereignty of nations and the right

of people everywhere to expect that their Government,

freely and democratically elected, will protect their

rights. We urge world leaders to accept that the freely

expressed will of the people is their sole claim to

legitimacy and that the will of the people should not be

subverted by any means. We reject parochialism as a

justification for obfuscating the true intent and will of a

people as expressed through the ballot box.

The Government of the Bahamas believes in good

governance at all levels as a fundamental human right.

As an adjunct to that right, we have committed

ourselves to deepening our long-standing democratic

tradition. General elections are not the end of the story.

The citizen must continue to have a role in the

governance of the country. Civil society must be

actively encouraged to develop and engage in the

affairs of the country. The Bahamas is committed to

consulting its people on all matters of national

importance. This becomes critical as our country

examines its role and fulfils its obligations to other

Member States on the bilateral and multilateral levels.

The first anniversary of the 11 September attacks

on the World Trade Center in New York and the

Pentagon, near Washington, D.C., and the tragedy in

Pennsylvania, were commemorated just a few days

ago. On that occasion, the Bahamas reiterated its

condemnation of those acts as attacks on our values

and on our civilization. Such acts must not go

unpunished. We therefore support measures to bring

the guilty to justice and to prevent similar attacks in all

their forms and manifestations. We are resolute in our

views on this. We pause to remember the families and

friends in countries around the world who lost loved

ones in those attacks.

In our own country we are seeking to recover

from the knock-on effects of the unemployment the

attacks caused. We are taking steps to rebuild our

economy. We have initiated changes to our domestic

law and we have, in the United Nations, the

Commonwealth and the Organization of American

States, become parties to international conventions to

bolster our capacity to play our necessary role in the

fight against these attacks on our way of life. We will

continue to give our full support to international efforts

to eliminate this scourge. At the same time, we are

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keen to ensure that in this fight the fundamental rights

and freedoms of our citizens are not eroded.

The Bahamas believes that there is no better

legacy that we can leave to the generations to come

than an Earth that is safe and secure and that can

sustain life. We firmly believe that there can be

development without harm to the environment. We

emphasized that point at the World Summit on

Sustainable Development. The environment is not only

the biological medium that supports the life of the

people of the Bahamas, but it is also the central reason

for our economic success. The Government has

therefore given high priority to preserving and

protecting the environment, and has taken practical

steps to do so.

We reiterate our concern expressed at the Summit

about the threat posed to small island developing States

by all manifestations of climate change, including the

rise in sea levels. We have repeatedly expressed our

grave concern to some of our industrialized partners

about the trans-shipment of nuclear waste through the

Caribbean and about the disastrous effects it might

have on the economies of the Bahamas and the

Caribbean. Tourism is our primary industry. An

accident involving spent nuclear fuel will almost

certainly destroy it. We do not accept that, because the

risk of accidents is remote, the transhipment of nuclear

waste should be allowed to continue. We make the

assertion today and ask for the transhipment to cease.

The Bahamas joins in urging the early ratification

and implementation of the Kyoto Protocol and in

reaffirming its commitment to sustainable development

and to the Political Declaration and the Plan of

Implementation of the World Summit on Sustainable

Development.

The international community faces a broad range

of political, economic, social and cultural issues. We

have made inroads, but not sufficient to stem the spiral

of persistence of poverty, hunger, human rights abuses,

crime and diseases, particularly HIV/AIDS, or to

address the vulnerability of small island developing

States. The Bahamas is particularly concerned about

HIV/AIDS and the slow progress in fighting the

disease.

The critical question on HIV/AIDS and all the

other issues is: Where do we go from here? This body

has made important commitments to the world. There

are reviews, platforms and programmes of action. Our

respective publics may be forgiven for their cynicism

and the criticism levelled that the United Nations is a

talking shop. Our view, however, is that it is better to

talk than fight. Talking is, in fact, a form of action and

there is no doubt that, with regard to HIVAIDS,

discussion of the problem is central to the solutions.

But our respective publics are looking for and require

more immediate money and direct action. We must not

be accused of inaction in the face of human suffering

and adversity.

We in the Bahamas have ably demonstrated our

determination to play our part in these endeavours. We

have been credited regionally and internationally for

our model programmes, particularly in respect to our

treatment of and efforts to control the spread of

HIV/AIDS. We especially wish to thank the World

Health Organization and the Pan American Health

Organization, now celebrating its hundredth year, for

the cooperation they have extended to the Bahamas and

for their stellar work in the area of international health.

We wish to commend the recent initiative to provide

antiretroviral drugs to countries of the Caribbean to

assist in the fight against HIV/AIDS.

The Bahamas is concerned about the present

global economic order. We raise questions about

whether globalization and trade liberalization can

indeed function as vehicles for progressive change in

all countries large and small, developed and

developing. We are committed to adapting to change,

but at a pace and in a manner and form that are

consistent with the way we live. The Caribbean

Community (CARICOM), of which the Bahamas is a

part, has taken up the challenges of ensuring a degree

of stability among its member countries in the face of

globalization. But the Bahamas believes that more can

and must be done to assist our Caribbean Community

to adapt to these externally imposed changes through

equitable and sensitive trade policies and by reform of

the international financial institutions and their lending

practices.

The Bahamas is the unwitting transit point for

illegal activities: the smuggling of human beings and

the illicit trade in narcotic drugs. The United States is

the ultimate target. We are also suffering from

increased violent crime from guns smuggled into our

country from the United States. These guns are

terrorizing our society. The Bahamas is working

closely with the United States and other neighbouring

countries to address these issues. There must be a

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stronger effective action to reduce demand for drugs in

the receiving country. There must be more effective

action taken to stop the flow of illegal guns.

The Bahamas has taken an active interest in the

peace and stability of its sister CARICOM State, Haiti.

Given our longstanding and developing relations with

Haiti, positive steps taken to provide assistance and

support for Haiti give us great hope. We are especially

pleased with the efforts of the Inter-American

Development Bank to work with the Government of

Haiti to remove the existing financial hurdles that

impede development efforts. We also welcome the

recent Organization of American States (OAS)

resolution and the announcement by the United States

that it would contribute additional resources to the

OAS special mission in Haiti. Illegal migration from

Haiti causes a serious drain on the resources of the

Bahamas. In addition to Haitian-Bahamian bilateral

efforts to address this problem, the Bahamas believes

that targeted international initiatives, with the

cooperation of the Government of Haiti, represent the

best hope for the Haitian people.

Illegal immigration from Cuba also adversely

affects us. The Bahamas continues to call for the

normalization of relations between Cuba and the

United States of America. We believe that such

normalization would be central to solving that

dimension of the migration problem.

The Bahamas welcomes the entry into force of

the Rome Statute on 1 July 2002 and the establishment

of the International Criminal Court as a critical tool in

the fight against violations of humanitarian

international law and crimes against humanity.

The conflict between Israel and the Palestinian

people is a matter of concern. There should be peace

between them. We support the peaceful settlement of

this issue in accordance with all applicable United

Nations resolutions. Every people deserves to have a

State to call its own in peace and security.

The Bahamas is concerned about developments in

Africa. As part of the African diaspora, we wish to see

Africa prosper, wars cease and equitable policies

applied for all of the many and varied people of that

continent.

We support the reform of the Security Council.

The Bahamas believes that the time has come for us to

take the hard decisions and to agree to a practical

programme of reform that takes fully into account the

need for equitable membership and for a more

democratic and transparent Council.

The Bahamas is a small country whose voice,

without the indispensable forum provided by the

United Nations, would be lost or at best ignored. Here,

irrespective of size and wealth, we have the ability to

speak with equal voice and to vote with equal power on

matters that affect the quality of our lives today and

that will impact the type of world that we leave in

place for future generations. This is why it is vitally

important that we preserve and respect the integrity of

this Organization. Member States are bound to come

here for redress and should not act unilaterally outside

the bounds of the Charter. The Bahamas reaffirms its

commitment to the purposes and principles of the

United Nations as enshrined in its Charter. I leave the

Assembly with that commitment here today.