YouSaid · the spoken record

David Arthur Granger

lines on the record: 44
first: 2015-09-24
most recent: 2017-09-24
sittings or episodes: 3
sources: un-general-debate

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“The planet can be protected from the ravages of climate change and reckless damage to its ecology and biodiversity. United, the nations gathered in this Hall can fulfil the promise of the Charter of the United Nations and the theme of the General Assembly to focus on people, strive for peace and protect the planet.”
2017-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 72 (2017)
“Guyana has been working assiduously with the Secretary-General’s personal representative and looks to the international community to ensure that Venezuela is not allowed to thwart the process of judicial settlement, which is the clear and agreed path to peace and justice. The people of the world yearn to fulfil their potential in dignity and equality and in a healthy environment — an attainable objective of the Sustainable Development Goals endorsed by the United Nations. Peace for the world’s peoples is the mandate of the United Nations. Peace can be achieved by addressing the world’s humanitarian crises, promoting justice within and between nations and resolving long- standing conflicts between States. Planet Earth can provide a good life for all.”
2017-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 72 (2017)
“Four Secretaries-General have been seized of the Venezuelans’ claim. The choice has become one between a just and peaceful settlement in accordance with international law, and a Venezuelan posture of attrition that is increasingly blustering and militaristic. In this matter, protraction is the enemy of resolution and the ally of sustained conflict. Fortunately, as they indicated publicly, former Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and current Secretary- General António Guterres have both decided that if, based on the 1966 Geneva Agreement, significant progress has not been made by the end of 2017 towards arriving at a full agreement on a settlement of the controversy, the International Court of Justice will be the next means of peaceful settlement, unless Guyana and Venezuela jointly request otherwise.”
2017-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 72 (2017)
“Venezuela is more than four times the size of Guyana, and yet it claims two-thirds of Guyana’s territory, including its maritime space. We depend on our territorial and maritime resources for our country’s development and for propelling our people out of poverty. After 51 years of Guyana’s independence, the Venezuelan claim persists. An eminent international tribunal provided a full, perfect and final settlement of the issue 118 years ago, in 1899. Venezuela repudiated that arbitral award in 1962 in the Special Committee on Decolonization, as British Guiana — as we were then — strove to achieve its independence. This is a warning to the world, through the Assembly, that peace will be jeopardized in our region if justice does not prevail, not only within Venezuela, but also with regard to its border controversy with Guyana.”
2017-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 72 (2017)
“When I addressed the Assembly last September (see A/71/PV.8), I explained the danger that we have been facing on our borders as a consequence of the territorial claims of our neighbour to the West, the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. I outlined to the world’s nations the peril that Guyana was enduring on its borders at the hands of Venezuela. Venezuela’s claim to Guyana’s territory, however, has not diminished or been diverted. Guyana remains imperilled. Disturbing developments in Venezuela have attracted the world’s attention and roused the concerns of many of us about the privations of its people. The Caribbean people want the Caribbean to be a zone of peace. Venezuela’s claim on Guyana’s territorial integrity, however, would be a threat to that zone and that peace.”
2017-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 72 (2017)
“It has a vital role to play in ensuring respect for international law through the International Court of Justice and the Security Council. In striving for peace, we must aim to resolve long-standing inter-State conflicts. In that regard, Guyana supports the call for reform of the Security Council, in order to give an even greater voice to developing countries. We reiterate our support for a two-State solution to the Palestine-Israeli conflict. We affirm the right of the Palestinian people to a homeland and a dignified existence. We demand the withdrawal of the injurious economic embargo on the Caribbean island of Cuba, which frustrates its right to development. Striving for peace and the right to development have been Guyana’s most serious concerns since national independence in 1966.”
2017-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 72 (2017)
“The Shield’s forests capture and store carbon, mitigating the greenhouse effect. In other words, the Shield is essential to life on Earth. Guyana calls on the United Nations to help protect and preserve the Guiana Shield as a global resource for the survival and sustainability of our planet. I will now speak of peace. Striving for peace has been the principal purpose and preoccupation of this Organization throughout its existence. A good life for the world’s peoples and sustainable use of the planet’s resources are predicated on peace with justice, including justice within and between States. The world is weary of war. Striving for peace must be humankind’s ceaseless quest. The United Nations is the paramount global instrument of peace.”
2017-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 72 (2017)
“Twenty years after that international initiative, Guyana entered into an agreement with the Kingdom of Norway, “to work together to provide the world with a relevant, replicable model of how Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation, known as the REDD-plus programme, plus conservation and sustainable forest management, can align the development objectives of the forest countries with the need to combat climate change”. Guyana is part of the Guiana Shield, one of the world’s last remaining blocks of pristine rainforest. The Guiana Shield is the source of 15 per cent of the world’s freshwater reserves. Its biodiversity provides ecosystem services, such as food, fresh water and medicinal products. It provides environmental services, such as the regulation of the water cycle, water quality and pollination.”
2017-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 72 (2017)
“It must be remembered that in 1989 — three years before the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development was held in Rio in 1992 — Guyana had the foresight to enter into an environmental covenant with the international community by dedicating 360,000 hectares of its rainforests, “to develop, demonstrate and make available to Guyana and the international community systems, methods and techniques for the sustainable utilization of the multiple resources of the tropical forest and the conservation of biological diversity”.”
2017-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 72 (2017)
“This year, the small island States of the Caribbean and parts of North America have felt the devastating fury of a series of hurricanes — Harvey, Irma, José, Katia, Lee and Maria, to whose frequency and ferocity humankind has contributed through the reckless exploitation of Earth’s resources. Hurricane Irma was a deadly, destructive portent of the extreme vulnerability and fragility of the small island developing States and low-lying coastal States of the Caribbean, and Guyana is playing its part, within the limits of its resources, to provide relief to the affected populations of our sister Caribbean States. Guyana signed and celebrated the Paris Agreement on Climate Change last year in this very Hall. We renew our commitment to its goals this year in a demonstration of Guyana’s pioneering role in global environmental stewardship.”
2017-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 72 (2017)
“However, their advancement is being obstructed by human rights violations, by people’s involuntary migration from their homelands and by terrorism and warfare. The challenge for the United Nations is resolving to reinforce respect for the rights of citizens within the governance structures of our Member States. Secondly, I am speaking of planet Earth. A sustainable planet is humankind’s ultimate patrimony. Nothing is more vital to people’s survival. We have been indifferent too long to the need to protect the planet, and now its sustainability is threatened on many fronts. Climate change is not a fiction or the invention of a few extremists.”
2017-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 72 (2017)
“In some places, women are denied equal opportunities for enjoying a good life. The gap between the world’s rich and poor remains unacceptably wide. Conflicts within States have spawned international refugee crises, resulting in the displacement of millions from their homelands. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) represent our collective desire and determination to eradicate hunger and poverty from our planet while promoting equal opportunities in education, employment and social justice for both men and women. The adoption of the SDGs has catalysed our aspirations for a better world into concrete and forward-looking actions and objectives. The Goals seek to promote respect for people’s inherent dignity and their rights as human beings.”
2017-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 72 (2017)
“I would also like to take this opportunity to congratulate Secretary-General António Guterres on his appointment last year and to wish him a successful tenure. Today, I am speaking of people, peace and the planet. Nothing is more important in this general debate than ensuring that all representatives here respect its theme, “Focusing on people: Striving for peace and a decent life for all on a sustainable planet”. First, the theme enjoins us to focus on people — people of all countries and in all circumstances. It is about the human condition of people in States that are large and small, rich and poor, strong and weak. It is about humankind’s condition everywhere on Earth. The world is facing several serious humanitarian crises. In too many parts of the world, children still die from preventable diseases or go to bed hungry.”
2017-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 72 (2017)
“Let me begin by expressing the deep condolences and solidarity of the Government and people of Guyana to the victims of yesterday’s earthquake in Mexico and those of Hurricane Maria, which virtually destroyed the Commonwealth of Dominica two days ago. The Cooperative Republic of Guyana congratulates you, Mr. President, on your election to lead the General Assembly at its seventy-second session. We are confident that under your guidance progress will be made in advancing the international agenda and realizing the theme of this year’s Assembly, “Focusing on people: Striving for peace and a decent life for all on a sustainable planet”. Guyana also appreciates the sterling performance of your predecessor, Ambassador Peter Thomson of Fiji, in his stewardship of the Assembly during the past year.”
2017-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 72 (2017)
“Through ignorance or indifference we can do massive and irreversible harm to the earthly environment on which our life and well- being depend. Conversely, through fuller knowledge and wiser action, we can achieve for ourselves and our posterity a better life in an environment more in keeping with human needs and hopes... To defend and improve the human environment for present and future generations has become an imperative goal for mankind ...” (A/CONF./48/14/Rev.1, para. 6). The General Assembly at the seventy-first session now has the opportunity and the obligation to commit to measures to defend and improve the human environment for present and future generations, thereby making the road forward into the future an easier one for posterity. Venezuela’s aggression against Guyana should not be allowed to threaten our children’s future.”
2016-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 71 (2016)
“Guyana is on a path to becoming a green State. However, its efforts — and those of other small States — will be derailed unless there is collective commitment by the greater part of the international community to collaborate with those States determined to pursue a low-carbon, low-emissions path to sustainable development and to stopping the rise of global temperatures. The road from Stockholm in 1972 to Paris in 2015 has been long and difficult. However, the words of the Declaration of the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment remain as relevant in 2016 as they were 44 years ago, in 1972: “A point has been reached in history when we must shape our actions throughout the world with a more prudent care for their environmental consequences.”
2016-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 71 (2016)
“However, Venezuela’s claims are a threat to Guyana’s existence as an independent nation. They are a scandalous revival of the disease of the conquistadores that once plagued Venezuela’s own history. They are a crime against our humanity, clothed in the verbiage of national honour. I also wish to iterate Guyana’s ongoing support, within the context of the preservation of sovereignty and its link with sustainable development, for the complete removal of the commercial, economic and financial blockade imposed by the United States against another Caribbean country, the Republic of Cuba. We cannot commit to policies that transform our economies with a view to providing development for our peoples and not demonstrate the political will necessary to change systems that are in direct contradiction to those policies.”
2016-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 71 (2016)
“The United Nations cannot be a dispassionate party to a threat to peace anywhere and to a challenge to the law of nations. Venezuela’s territorial claim is such a challenge. It strikes at the heart of the United Nations. It strikes at the heart of the United States trusteeship of the law of nations. It strikes at the heart of the United Nations Charter, which the Secretary-General is sworn to uphold. Guyana, a small State, must look to the United Nations for protection against threats to its security, for intervention, for peace and for respect for international law. My plea for international understanding of our plight has nothing to do with Venezuela’s internal situation. The ordinary people of Venezuela are our sisters and brothers. Their pain touches our hearts, and we wish them early relief from their agony.”
2016-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 71 (2016)
“Since my address last year, Venezuela has used every means to stall, as it has intensified its aggression against Guyana and thwarted all of the Secretary-General’s efforts to pursue a way forward, at least in terms of a process that would lead to a final resolution of the controversy. Guyana stands ready to have the International Court of Justice reach a final determination on the matter. We will work resolutely with the Secretary- General in his final months of office, and with his successor, to free Guyana from this surreal burden. In the Geneva Agreement of 1966, Venezuela agreed that the Secretary-General would determine the means of settlement of this controversy, including by judicial settlement. Yet Venezuela defies his every effort to fulfil that commitment.”
2016-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 71 (2016)
“Regrettably, Venezuela acknowledged this anniversary by reasserting, on 26 May, our independence day, its repudiation of a border treaty that it had solemnly signed 117 years ago and ratified and respected for over 60 of the years since then. I addressed the Assembly last year and warned of the danger that Venezuela posed to the peace and security of our region due not to its internal instability, but to its external assault on Guyana’s sovereignty and territorial integrity (see A/70/PV.16). I placed my hopes in the fact that the process for the final resolution of Venezuela’s unworthy territorial claims rested now in the hands of the Secretary-General of the United Nations.”
2016-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 71 (2016)
“The Agreement on climate change and the Agenda both emphasize the importance of financial flows in supporting the efforts of States pursuing a green path to development, so that they can meet their adaptation and mitigation obligations and implement the Intended Nationally Determined Contributions. I must state, however, that all our efforts — nationally, regionally and globally — for the advancement of development in an environment of peace and stability, are being challenged by the territorial ambitions of our neighbour, the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. Guyana celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of its independence this year.”
2016-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 71 (2016)
“Guyana is developing a comprehensive emissions- reduction programme as part of its responsibility to contribute to global solutions in the face of the threat of climate change. We will set aside an additional 2 million hectares of our territory for conservation purposes. Guyana is pursuing a low-carbon growth trajectory to enhance its contribution to the campaign against climate change through the preservation of its forests, within the ambit of the REDD-plus mechanism. It will contribute up to 48.7 million metric tonnes of carbon-dioxide equivalents to the global mitigation effort, through an avoided-emissions programme.”
2016-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 71 (2016)
“That institute will allow scientists and 16-29296 23/56 students from the Caribbean and around the world to come to our country to increase their knowledge of vital ecosystems and share in the study of the Guiana Shield and its amazing biodiversity. Goal 13 of the Agenda calls for urgent action to combat climate change and its impact. This goal envisages and encourages international cooperation to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions and abate the adverse impact of climate change. The Agreement obligates Member States to take action to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels and foster climate resilience and low greenhouse-gas emissions development in a manner that does not threaten food production.”
2016-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 71 (2016)
“Guyana reaffirms its commitment to Goal 15 of the Agenda under which States Members of the United Nations pledge to protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification and halt and reverse land degradation and biodiversity loss. Guyana is improving the management of its ecosystems and natural resources in order to conserve its forests and their rich biodiversity. We will fulfil our obligation under the Intended Nationally Determined Contributions set forth in the Paris Agreement. Guyana will continue its research by establishing an international institute for biodiversity at the Iwokrama International Centre for Rainforest Conservation and Development.”
2016-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 71 (2016)
“It entered into an agreement with the Kingdom of Norway to provide the world with a relevant, replicable model of how the United Nations Programme on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation and the Role of Conservation, Sustainable Management of Forests and Enhancement of Forest Carbon Stocks in Developing Countries (REDD-plus mechanism), the mechanism for reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, can align the development objectives of forest countries with the world’s need to combat climate change. It has also entered into agreements with the Kingdom of the Netherlands, the Federal Republic of Germany, Japan and other States, and international organizations.”
2016-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 71 (2016)
“We made a gift to the prospect of sustainable development and to the project of protecting our environment through a generous grant of 371,000 hectares of our pristine forests, to be used as an international model for research, training and the development of technologies that will promote the conservation and the sustainable and equitable use of tropical rainforests in a manner that will lead to lasting ecological, economic and social benefits for the people of Guyana and the world in general. The Iwokrama International Centre for Rainforest Conservation and Development, located in the centre of our country and at the heart of the Guiana Shield, survives and thrives as a testament to Guyana’s commitment to sustainable development and environmental conservation. Guyana is an important partner in the global environmental movement.”
2016-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 71 (2016)
“The Guiana Shield spans an area of 2.7 million square kilometres, an area larger than Greenland, and it is shared by six South American countries and territories — parts of Brazil and Colombia, all of Guyana, all of French Guiana, all of Suriname and part of Venezuela. Guyana, as a part of that Shield, is a net carbon sink. A green canopy of rainforest envelops more than 85 per cent of our land mass, the second highest percentage forest cover on earth. Guyana is pursuing a green path so as to better understand how to protect its precious biodiversity and sustainably manage its complex ecosystems. Guyana made a covenant with the world to be an exemplar of green growth in 1989, three years before the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, in Rio de Janeiro in 1992.”
2016-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 71 (2016)
“We are a State that is proud of its place as a reliable and cooperative partner in international efforts to protect the earth’s environment. Guyana recognizes the interlocking objectives of the Agenda and the Agreement. It realizes that the establishment of a green State is consistent with building climate resilience while mitigating the effects of climate change. Guyana promises to continue to work towards the Agenda’s goals, particularly by contributing to limiting increases in global temperatures, and to work towards a green path of development that is in accord with the Agreement’s nationally determined commitments. Guyana serendipitously stands at the centre of the Guiana Shield, one of the world’s last remaining spheres of virgin tropical rainforest.”
2016-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 71 (2016)
“They are excellent examples of the sort of collective action most likely to ensure a sustainable future and safety for the planet. They are harbingers of hope for everyone, everywhere, forever. The Secretary-General’s leadership has irreversibly led the United Nations further along a green path. We thank him heartily. Guyana is part of this global green movement. Our natural assets, our commitment to sustainable development, our contribution to conquering the adverse effects of climate change and our collaboration with the international community in seeking solutions to global threats have distinguished us an emergent green State. We are a State that will ensure a secure future for our people in the pursuit of a green economy.”
2016-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 71 (2016)
“The international community owes him an enormous debt of gratitude for the earnest efforts he has indefatigably exerted to alleviate human distress, promote peace and sustain development around the world. The Secretary-General’s courageous campaign to combat the adverse effects of climate change and his commitment to sustainable development have been transformative. His labours bore fruit in the adoption of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, in September 2015, and in the signing of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, in April 2016. The 2030 Agenda and the Paris Agreement have had a massive and undeniable impact on the manner in which the world manages the environment. The 2030 Agenda and the Paris Agreement are evidence of environmental common sense.”
2016-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 71 (2016)
“The Co-operative Republic of Guyana congratulates you, Mr. Peter Thomson, on your election as President of the General Assembly at its seventy-first session. The election of a representative of Fiji, a small island developing State, to preside over the General Assembly at this session is especially gratifying. The choice of theme for our general debate — “The Sustainable Development Goals: a universal push to transform our world” — is most appropriate. We thank His Excellency Mr. Mogens Lykketoft, outgoing President of the General Assembly at its historic seventieth session, for his guidance of the Assembly over the past year. Guyana commends Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon for his stellar stewardship of the United Nations during his decennium.”
2016-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 71 (2016)
“Guyana therefore calls on the United Nations to give real meaning to resolution 49/31 of 9 May 1994 by establishing a collective security system designed not merely to monitor but also, more importantly, to maintain the security of small States. That resolution, as I said, is a manifesto for the security of small States. The United Nations remains our best hope and prospect for peace, the best assurance of security for small States. It is our strength, support and succour in times of danger. We pledge Guyana’s adherence to the Charter of the United Nations. Guyana seeks nothing more than the solidarity of the international community, the assurance of the Charter and the safety of international law.”
2015-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 70 (2015)
“We thank the United Nations and the Secretary-General for appointing various officials during the past 25 years to use their good offices to help to resolve this controversy. We feel, however, that the process has now been exhausted. Guyana does not want this obnoxious territorial claim to obscure our country’s prospects for peace and obstruct its potential growth for the next 50 years. We need a permanent solution if we are to avoid a fate of perpetual peril and penury, and we seek a juridical settlement to the controversy. We put our faith and our fate in the hands of the international system of peace promised by the Charter of the United Nations nearly 70 years ago. We want to bring an end to Venezuelan aggression. We want to develop our country, all of our country, in accordance with international law.”
2015-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 70 (2015)
“Guyana has total confidence in international law, and seeks a resolution of this controversy that is consistent with the provisions of the Charter of the United Nations. The Geneva Agreement, signed on 17 February 1966, between the Governments of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Venezuela and British Guiana, as we were then, provides for action to be taken by the Secretary-General of the United Nations in order to resolve any contention occasioned by the claim made by the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela that the arbitral award of 1899 is null and void. Guyana has full confidence in the judgement and capacity of the United Nations, through the Office of the Secretary-General, to identify solutions that will validate the just, perfect and final nature of its decision.”
2015-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 70 (2015)
“It is destabilizing a stable region of the globe by the use of armed force against a small, peaceful State. Venezuela has retarded Guyana’s development through its use of threats that are intended to force a small State to yield up its birthright. Its expansionist ambitions cannot be allowed to undermine the principle of the inviolability 15-29431 3/51 A/70/PV.16 29/09/2015 of borders and the tenets of international law, and to redraw borders that have gone undisturbed for decades. Guyana recommits to preserving the Caribbean as a zone of peace. Today we renew our pledge before the Assembly that we will pursue the path of peace for all time. We reaffirm our commitment to the peaceful settlement of international disputes.”
2015-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 70 (2015)
“From the beginning of Guyana’s independence, however, Venezuela has resorted to various stratagems to deprive us of our territory. There has been a series of acts of aggression by Presidents of Venezuela against my country, from President Raúl Leoni Otero’s decree number 1,152 of 15 June 1968 to President Nicolás Maduro Moro’s of 26 May of this year. Venezuela — more than four times the size of Guyana, with armed forces that are more than 40 times the size of our defence force — mindful of its superior wealth and military strength, but unmindful of its obligation as a Member of the United Nations, the Union of South American Nations and the Organization of American States, has pursued a path of intimidation and aggression. It is unsettling a settled border.”
2015-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 70 (2015)
“In 1968, at the Assembly’s twenty-third session (see A/PV.1680), Guyana explained to the world how in 1897 a treaty of arbitration was signed between the United Kingdom and Venezuela. That treaty provided for the establishment of an arbitral tribunal to determine the boundary line between the colony of British Guiana, as we were then, and Venezuela. It committed the parties to consider the result of the proceedings of the tribunal of arbitration as a full, perfect and final settlement of all the questions referred to the arbitrators. The tribunal issued its decision on 3 October 1899, awarding Venezuela 13,000 square kilometres of our territory, an area bigger than Jamaica or Lebanon. Venezuela was bound under international law to respect that decision, which it did for the next six decades.”
2015-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 70 (2015)
“For 50 years Venezuela has promulgated decrees making spurious claims on our territory, the most recent on 26 May, our independence anniversary, when it issued decree number 1,787, containing specific coordinates that would annex almost our entire maritime zone, and constituting a reassertion of Venezuela’s claim to 5 of Guyana’s 10 regions. Guyana rejects Venezuela’s threats and claims, made in defiance of international law, and we resist its acts of aggression, conducted in defiance of the Charter of the United Nations, which prescribes the peaceful settlement of disputes and proscribes the use of armed force. Guyana’s borders with Venezuela were settled 116 years ago. The entire world, except the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, accepts and acknowledges our borders.”
2015-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 70 (2015)
“That is a manifesto for small States, contained in a resolution adopted by the General Assembly 21 years ago. Guyana is a small State and a new State, a product of the post-Second World War promise of peace. Guyana is a child of the United Nations. Eight months from now, on 26 May 2016, Guyana will mark the fiftieth anniversary of its independence. But for 50 years, our small country has been prevented from fully exploiting its rich natural resources. Venezuela has threatened and deterred investors and frustrated our economic development. For 50 years it has violated our territorial integrity by occupying part of our territory, the most recent incident in that regard being on 10 October 2013, when it sent a naval corvette into our maritime zone and expelled a peaceful petroleum- exploration vessel conducting seismic surveys.”
2015-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 70 (2015)
“On 9 May 1994, at its forty-ninth session, the General Assembly adopted resolution 49/31, which, among other things, recognizes that small States may be particularly vulnerable to external threats and acts of interference in their internal affairs; stresses the vital importance for all States of the unconditional respect by all States of all the principles of the Charter of the United Nations, including the principles of sovereign equality, territorial integrity, non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries and the peaceful settlement of disputes and their consistent application; also stresses the importance of strengthening regional security arrangements by increasing interaction, cooperation and consultation; appeals to the relevant regional and international organizations to provide assistance when requested by small States for the strengthening of their security in accordance with the principles of the Charter; requests the Secretary-General to continue to pay special attention to monitoring the security situation of small States and to consider making use of Article 99 of the Charter; and calls on the Security Council and other relevant organs of the United Nations to pay special attention to the protection and security of small States.”
2015-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 70 (2015)
“The Charter of the United Nations charges our Organization with the responsibility “to bring about by peaceful means, and in conformity with the principles of justice and international law, adjustment or settlement of international disputes”. That responsibility is essential to the existence and survival of small States that are threatened by more powerful ones. They risk being subjugated unless the international community can demonstrate a 2/51 15-29431 29/09/2015 A/70/PV.16 commitment to providing an effective deterrent against their domination by larger, stronger States, and the capability to do so.”
2015-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 70 (2015)
“In the years since its establishment, 126 States have gained their independence. The United Nations began in 1945 with a membership of only 51 countries, but today that has almost quadrupled to 193. The majority of new States are mini-, micro- and small ones. The undemocratic and warlike empires of which they were colonies were dismantled after two world wars. These are the questions that small States ask of the United Nations on this, its seventieth anniversary: How will our peoples be protected from foreign aggression? How will our territories be safeguarded from invasion? How will peace among nations be preserved? How will the independence of the new States be sustained?”
2015-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 70 (2015)
“That new order of world peace was depicted symbolically and powerfully in the form of a bronze statue on the grounds of the Headquarters of the United Nations. It embodies the vision revealed in the Holy Bible in the Book of Isaiah that states, “And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.” (The Holy Bible, Isaiah, 4:2) That prophetic verse became the philosophical basis of the United Nations, which became the organizational foundation for a global order that saw the emergence of a plethora of newly independent States, a result of the decolonization process after the Second World War.”
2015-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 70 (2015)
“The Cooperative Republic of Guyana is honoured to participate in this historic session of the General Assembly. We would like to congratulate you, Mr. President, on your election, and pledge Guyana’s cooperation as you guide the Assembly in the fulfilment of its tasks. We would also like to thank your predecessor, Mr. Sam Kutesa, for his stewardship in piloting the post-2015 agenda. That process has culminated in the historic 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (resolution 70/1). The Sustainable Development Goals it contains reflect the common consensus within the international community on the elements that are integral to human development. The United Nations, established 70 years ago and a mere five months after the formal end of the Second World War, became the midwife of a new international order.”
2015-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 70 (2015)