YouSaid · the spoken record

Cenac

THE RECORD WRITES THIS SPEAKER AS CENAC

lines on the record: 120
first: 1987-09-24
most recent: 1991-09-24
sittings or episodes: 5
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

“We can always count on its good will, understanding and cooperation. The United Nations, having had a meteoric rise during the recent past, stands at a crossroads, from which the path ahead can lead to genuine world political, economic and social development. But if that is to happen, the major Powers must take the degree of their cooperation far beyond the political pinnacle, deep into the world's socio-economic substrata, which is ultimately where universal peace and security will be formulated. Let no nation divert us from this path by waking the sleeping hand of war.”
1991-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 46 (1991)
“For us in the Windward Islands, who depend very largely for our daily bread on the export of bananas to the United Kingdom, this could have disastrous consequences were we to lose the preferential treatment that the United Kingdom has guaranteed us for the past 40 years. The European Commission has assured us, however, that the new marketing arrangements will not, in the circumstances, deprive us of that facility, which we have enjoyed for so long. On the dependability of this assurance rests the economic survival of these islands, and I trust that we shall not have to wrap our hands around the knees of the European Community to plead our case. The Community, among others, has shown much beneficence towards the African, Caribbean and Pacific countries, of which we are one.”
1991-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 46 (1991)
“A referendum on this issue is to await final discussions, in January next, of the economic implications of such a union. My delegation is convinced that a federation of these small islands will guarantee their stability, thereby increasing their investment opportunities and enhancing their economic viability, their negotiating capacity and their administrative efficiency. We must unite to survive. In this regard, I am certain that we can depend on the good will of the international community. On 31 December 1992 the European Economic Community, in its wisdom, will become one giant common market of some 350 million people.”
1991-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 46 (1991)
“Maybe the answer lies not only in the severe punishment of drug traffickers and the confiscation of the proceeds of their crime, but in the strengthening of the family unit and in developing a true sense of values. Maybe we could begin by distributing some of our yearly expenditure on arms of some $900 billion among the poor so they could give more and more of themselves to their children. For the battle must first be fought at home. And it must be fought early. And if this generation is already too far gone, let us begin today to save the children of tomorrow. Since January this year a constituent assembly of the Windward Islands of Dominica, Grenada, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and Saint Lucia has been discussing the question of a political union of these four islands.”
1991-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 46 (1991)
“We therefore reiterate that the removal of economic sanctions would be premature and would not hasten, but retard, the process which has begun. For more than two decades now, we have been fighting a battle against drugs. Are we winning the battle or are we losing the battle? If we are losing it in the streets of New York and Chicago, in London and in Birmingham, in Paris and in Lyon - if we are losing it there, where can we win? And if we are losing it in the lands of plenty, we are condemned to lose it in the debt-overburdened countries of Latin America and the Caribbean and the poverty stricken countries of the Sahel and elsewhere. But why are we losing it?”
1991-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 46 (1991)
“That is why the present investigation into Iraq's nuclear capabilities must be carried out thoroughly for the peace and security of the world. Now that the war is over, it is but right that we pay a tribute to those who have contributed so much to this important cause. He must also salute those who exercised tremendous restraint in the face of provocation. This restraint prevented a widening of the conflagration which might have engulfed the entire region. It is a fact that South Africa under President De Klerk has undergone some praiseworthy reforms. But there is still no clear evidence of profound and irreversible change. The equal right of all South Africans to vote for a Government of their choice, enshrined in a non-racial democratic constitution, is a major constitutional fundamental around which all other reforms would revolve.”
1991-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 46 (1991)
“The ongoing initiatives in Afghanistan, Cambodia, Western Sahara and Cyprus must be encouraged. And the new areas of election supervision must be continued. When Iraq invaded the peaceful and comparatively small nation of Kuwait, this wise and caring family of nations for seven months counselled Iraq to return to its own home lest the wrath of the family be visited upon it. Though the wages of its bellicosity, cupidity and intransigence have already been justly handed out to Iraq, still that country seems intent on obstructing the will of the United Nations. If Iraq dared to challenge virtually the whole of mankind without nuclear weapons, it makes one shudder to think how it might otherwise have acted with them.”
1991-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 46 (1991)
“Much of Africa is stalled in a critical economic situation from which there seems little prospect of recovery, and Latin America is trapped in a downward cycle of debt, declining productivity and socio-economic privation. The same is true of some of the most populous Asian countries, and Eastern Europe is in economic turmoil. This dismal economic picture exists at a time when the world is facing the highest tide of rising expectations. Despite this, the new world political order presents an unprecedented opportunity for the further strengthening of the United Nations to deal with contemporary problems and to prepare it for future ones. We cannot but praise the rejuvenated functioning of the Organization in facilitating solutions to the myriad political problems that we ourselves continually create.”
1991-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 46 (1991)
“Per capita food output is declining in about one third of the developing countries, and, if current patterns of deforestation, overgrazing and non-stop cultivation of overused lands continue, some 1.2 billion people in the developing world will be affected by desertification by the turn of the century. The environment is not ours to destroy but to preserve for posterity, whose trustees we all are. The effects of deforestation on the environment are said to be second only to nuclear destruction. The ability of nation States to achieve sustainable development is central to the solution of this crisis. The 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development is therefore most welcome, and it is expected that the special circumstances of small island States, including Saint Lucia, will not be overlooked.”
1991-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 46 (1991)
“Nearly one-quarter of the world's pop;1ition now lives in countries with decelerating per capita output, and more people in the developing world are suffering from poverty and hunger today than was the case 10 years ago. The population of the developing countries has more than doubled in the past 35 years, increasing from 1.7 billion in 1950 to over 4 billion today. And it will grow to nearly 5 billion by the end of this century. Within the next 9 years, Africa alone will have an additional 200 million people, while Latin America and the Caribbean will have 100 million more. This nightmarish population crisis, coupled with developmental stagnation, has created conditions wherein 2 billion people in the developing world have no access to safe water. And an equal number faces chronic hunger and malnutrition.”
1991-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 46 (1991)
“If then a constitutionally elected President of the people, still overwhelmingly supported by them, as is President Aristide, were to ask the United Nations to restore Haiti to democratic rule in accordance with the will of the people of Haiti, my delegation would hasten to give an affirmative response to this request. Meanwhile, all necessary and appropriate means must, be employed to bring about a speedy return to constitutional government in Haiti . The new world political order comes at a time of major economic crises in the world. Political gains cannot be sustained without concomitant economic output. The rate of growth of global economic output has declined for the past few years. From 4.3 per cent in 1988, it declined to 2.9 per cent in 1989 and to only 1 per cent in 1990; and it is expected to achieve zero growth this year.”
1991-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 46 (1991)
“I had the honour to head the team of Ministers of Foreign Affairs of CARICOM who went to Haiti in 1989, and was present at the inauguration of the President in February this year. Moreover, I saw with my own eyes the tens of thousands who hailed Aristide as their democratic liberator. My delegation believes that the military in Haiti has shown itself to be too coup-prone in the past to be trusted to help a President maintain law and order. And we believe, too, that unless the military is replaced there will be no end to the tragic game of musical chairs being played with the lives of 6 million Haitians.”
1991-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 46 (1991)
“Indeed, there is a good in every evil, would men observingly distil it out. There is urgent need, within the broad powers granted to the Security Council in Chapter VII of the Charter, for an early-warning mechanism to identify and react to emerging global issues before they reach the point of crisis. The situation in Haiti is a case in point. In elections held in Haiti last December, transparently free and fair, witnessed by an international team, elections in which the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) played an important role, Jean-Bertrand Aristide received 1,107,125 votes out of the 1,640,729 votes cast. Eleven parties contested the elections. Two of them received 1.7 per cent of the votes. Aristide alone received 67.5 per cent. All the other 10 parties pledged to support the President in the task of building a democratic Haiti.”
1991-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 46 (1991)
“Tour and one-half decades of super-Power rivalry and East-West, tension were officially brought to an end as the Berlin Wall - the epitome of the iron curtain -crumbled, in the face of the long-simmering desire for German unity. All over Europe, there were explosions of democracy: totalitarian regimes falling before floodtides of democratic movements, driven as much by economic need as by a collective desire to exorcise the legacies of Marx, Engels and Lenin; driven not only by the fact that man cannot live without bread, but also by the fact that he cannot live by bread alone. And, by and large, it was a democratic revolution, ignited by the hopes of the Soviet President, Mikhail Gorbachev. It was those very hopes that aborted the coup carried out against him and brought, about this purifying thunderstorm of reform of which he speaks.”
1991-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 46 (1991)
“My delegation was proud to be a sponsor of their membership application, and looks forward to working closely with them in the coming years, confident that this new step will not be a barrier to the desire for reunification, A special welcome must be extended to Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, which, against seemingly impossible odds, kept the dream of Baltic sovereignty alive. They have taught us all a new lesson in perseverance. And as for my fellow island developing countries of Micronesia and the Marshall Islands, whose membership in the Organisation furthers the lofty goals of General Assembly resolution 1514 (XV) of 1960. I greet them with fraternal love and look forward to working with them on matters of mutual concern. The end of the last decade marked the twilight of the cold war.”
1991-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 46 (1991)
“I am truly honoured, Sir, to add Saint Lucia's voice to those of previous speakers who have congratulated you on your election to the presidency of the Assembly. The wealth of experience and great fund of diplomatic skills with which you adorn the presidency could never be better expended than now, as you summon them to guide the important work of this forty sixth session. Saint Lucia welcomes the international changes, and indeed the new spirit of entente that has allowed the Republic of Korea and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea to move from the observation periphery to the centre of full membership in the Hall of this Assembly.”
1991-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 46 (1991)
“The economic integration process of the developing world also improved last year as we in the Caribbean community gave new impetus to our trading relations under the Treaty of Chagaramus, and we saw the signing of the Asian-Pacific Economic Co-operation Forum Agreement, the Arab Maghreb Union Treaty and the Arab Co-operation Council Agreement. In conclusion, then, we are poised on the periphery of a new political dawn. But we must seize the day in the economic realm also, especially in the developing countries, for political tranquillity cannot thrive in the midst of economic and social deprivation.”
1990-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 45 (1990)
“And had we in aggregate not had modest increases in our exports of manufactured goods, declining primary commodity prices would have negatively affected all of our balance sheets. On the positive side, prospects for multilateral development assistance improved last year as commitments rose to $35 billion, of which $2 billion were commitments for the operational activities of the United Nations. And net resource transfers to developing countries, through multilateral development loans, rose by some $3.5 billion.”
1990-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 45 (1990)
“The stagnation in international trade in the last decade has left a residual legacy of protectionism in the developed market countries that cannot be justified by their current unemployment trends. Non-tariff measures continue to reduce world trade by over $300 billion annually. The successful conclusion of the Uruguay Sound in the coming months should usher in a more liberal trading regime to the benefit of both North and South. We the members of the Caribbean Group for Co-operation in Economic Development (OECD), though members of a number of preferential trading arrangements, experienced average unit-price declines for our total exports. This meant that over the past decade we have had to export more and more goods to earn the same level of income.”
1990-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 45 (1990)
“The same is true of Tonga, where in 1962 a hurricane destroyed 50 per cent of the housing and 90 per cent of the banana crop. Saint Lucia is therefore gratified that the Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme will have more resources available for disaster mitigation in the fifth programming cycle. We also see as positive the successful outcome of the first Meeting of the Governmental Experts of Island Developing Countries and Donor Countries and Organisations, which we held in June this year. It was the first small step by the global community in recognising that small island-developing countries have particular problems and special needs that are different from those of developing countries in general.”
1990-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 45 (1990)
“In a rapidly changing economic world, small island-developing countries struggle to keep pace, weighed down by a host of peculiar developmental problems, among which are poor resource endowments; reliance on a few primary export products; extremely small domestic markets; limited possibilities for industrialisation and, therefore, little opportunity for import substitution; almost total dependence on foreign capital and social and physical infrastructure; and, certainly not least among these particular problems, the proneness to natural disasters. In 1980, nearly 90 per cent of my country's gross domestic product was destroyed by a hurricane. Fiji suffered a similar fate more recently, losing more than 40 per cent of its sugar output.”
1990-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 45 (1990)
“Both the share of world exports and the terms of trade of the least developed countries have been on a seemingly inevitable downward slide as the modest Official Development Assistance target of 0.15 per cent which they expected was not realised. The failure of last Month's Paris meeting to reach a new, agreed official development assistance target for the least developed countries is therefore most discouraging. Nine of the 42 least developed countries face the additional, monumental difficulty of also being small island-developing countries.”
1990-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 45 (1990)
“As the 300 to 400 million people of Western Europe look forward to a bright and prosperous future beyond the watershed expectations of "fortress Europe" in 1992, the 300 to 400 million people of the least developed countries look forward only to a bleak economic future. In the 1990s growth in the least developed countries did not roach expectations, achieving only about one third of the 7.2 per cent target of the Substantial New Programme of Action which was adopted in 1981. This was aggravated by the decline in investments in the least developed countries by about 2 per cent per year through the 19808; and during the same period, agricultural output in the last developed countries failed to keep pace with population growth.”
1990-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 45 (1990)
“Those activities have been given a great fillip by recent actions of the Government of Mexico, taken both at the level of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean and by President Carlos Salinas de Gortari himself. In the Commonwealth Caribbean subregion, we are extremely delighted that the historic, linguistic, demographic and other criteria that have long separated us from Latin America are falling by the wayside as we have come to recognise that the things that bind us are far greater than those that separate us. We look forward to this deepening of the integration process, always mindful to remain in compliance with the most-favoured-nation provisions of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. Though Saint Lucia is not among the least developed countries, those countries are high on our list of concerns.”
1990-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 45 (1990)
“Thus, vast numbers of people made political gains while they progressively lost economic support. Fledgling democracies are often endangered by lack of economic foundations which allows for an equal rate of growth of political and economic development. President George Bush's Enterprise of the Americas, with its tripartite pillars of trade, investment and debt reduction, is therefore timely. In meeting these challenges, we in the region have taken many bold initiatives, aimed at consolidating and buttressing the economic potentialities of the region. High on this agenda of initiatives is the economic integration of the 34 million people of the Caribbean into the larger continental Latin subregion.”
1990-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 45 (1990)
“As we enter the final decade of the country, the Latin American and Caribbean region continues to be beset by major shortcomings, including the increasing obsolescence of its stock of capital goods and physical infrastructure, a growing gap between the intensive technological changes taking place in the world and their lack of application in the region, and the frustration of an ever-increasing number of people trying to enter the work-force. In fact, this year may well b, the third consecutive year of negative per capita growth in Latin America. In the decade of the 1980s, political interaction in Latin America, was strengthened, but public institutions were weakened. While popular political participation became the modus vivendi, structural adjustment had an extremely high social cost for the middle-level and popular strata.”
1990-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 45 (1990)
“A major economic crisis was averted by an almost equal decline in fuel prices, amounting to about 50 per cent, during the same period. But, even as I speak, the terms of trade continue to decline for many non-oil-exporting developing countries as the cost of fuel, ignited by the crisis in the Persian Gulf region, is again going up, affecting the man-in-the-street in the South and the collective meagre foreign exchange reserves of many poor countries. This could create a critical economic situation, given the fact that most of the affected countries entered the 19908 under the burdens of the recessionary inertia of the 1980s and their heavy external commitments.”
1990-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 45 (1990)
“However, at the same time, 1989 growth in the developing countries was at its lowest, in six years, down by almost 1.5 per cent from the year before, even though the collective value of their exports did increase by some $80 billion. In my own region, Latin America and the Caribbean, the 1980s have aptly been given the designation of the "Lost Decade". At the end of 1989 real per capita product in the region stood at the level of 13 years earlier. The rate of growth declined from 5.5 per cent in the 19708 to just over 1 per cent in the 1980s. As a result, per capita gross domestic product this year is almost 10 per cent lower than it was in 1980. Between 1980 and 1988 Latin America’s terms of trade fall by about 25 per cent. However, it was even worse for Africa and East Asia, as their terns of trade fell by almost 40 par cant.”
1990-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 45 (1990)
“Last May we adopted the Declaration on International Economic Co-operation and Development, setting out an agreed understanding for the revitalisation of economic growth and development of the developing countries, so as to realise the basic rights of all human beings to a life free .from hunger, poverty, ignorance, disease and fear. - That Declaration, in our view, reflects an international consensus on the critical economic situation of the developing countries when viewed in the aggregate. Close to 1 billion people in the developing world still live in a state of chronic hunger and malnutrition, and each year 13 to 18 million of them die because of hunger. Last year the developed market economies grew by 3.5 per cent, continuing their longest period of economic expansion in post-war history.”
1990-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 45 (1990)
“The traditional definition of North-South, too, must be revised, and that will take a political decision of an economic nature, a decision which will turn the Plan of Action for the Fourth United Nations Development Decade into an economic and fiscal blueprint for the development of the South. Having failed to attain the majority of the goals and objectives of the Third Development Decade, it is critical, especially in today's volatile international economic atmosphere, that the goals of the Fourth Development Decade, which I expect we shall adopt unanimously in the coming weeks, should be addressed with a purposeful seriousness by both North and South in order to promote their realisation with all deliberate dispatch.”
1990-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 45 (1990)
“The long-term conflicts in Angola, Mozambique and the Horn of Africa have yet to reach final solutions, and new problems in Liberia cause us great concern. The same is true in Cyprus, where no progress has been made in the talks between the leaders of the two Cypriot communities. However, in other areas, such as Cambodia and Western Sahara, we are on the road to comprehensive settlements, and Saint Lucia continues to support the efforts and involvement of the United Nations. Despite scattered pockets of bellicosity, the world, for the first time in many decades, stands at the periphery of the possibility of international peace. With a sweep of the political wand, we are well on the way to revising the historical definition of East and Host.”
1990-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 45 (1990)
“Saint Lucia praises the stops taken so far to bring apartheid to a long-overdue end but wishes to make it for over clear that the removal of economic sanctions will be supported only when real democracy has come to South Africa through the adoption of a system of "one man, one vote". Unfortunately, we continue to have a number of problems that have proved intractable and thus resistant to the tide of change and conciliation that has been sweeping the world. The Palestinian intifadah has passed its one-thousandth day and continues unabated with no end in sight. The Palestinian dream of a homeland, therefore, seems as far away as it ever was, having been dealt a regressive blow by the current terrible events in the Persian Gulf region.”
1990-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 45 (1990)
“Saint Lucia is therefore most distressed by the fratricidal violence among ANC and Inkatha supporters that has claimed so many lives in the past few weeks. We hope that this internecine conflict will quickly come to an end, paving the way for a united front in the negotiations to end apartheid. The global community demonstrated its unanimity on the question of official racism only last month by its consensus adoption of the resolution at the resumed session of the General Assembly on apartheid. We can expect no leas a demonstration of solidarity from the victims of apartheid.”
1990-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 45 (1990)
“We in the Caribbean Community see our own fate as linked to that of the people of Haiti, not only until the December elections but forever more. Haiti, therefore, cannot be allowed to miss this last train. Within the purview of the Organisation of American States (OAS), Saint Lucia has already dispatched an electoral team to Haiti. We look forward to doing the same within the ambit of the United Nations as well. The seeds of destruction of the vile system of apartheid have been sown with the release of Nelson Mandela and the unbanning of the African National Congress of South Africa (ANC) and the Pan Africanist Congress of Azania (PAC), setting South Africa on an ineluctable course to genuine democracy. There can be no turning back.”
1990-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 45 (1990)
“Indeed, the past few years have been the years of the United Nations. Again and again the Organisation has been a good broker of peace, both in domestic and in international ware, and has entered bold new electoral areas, such as in Namibia and Nicaragua, to ensure that the voice of the people calling for the enthronement of democracy is not denied a just hearing. The people of Haiti too, who have suffered for far too long, look to the Organisation to assist them in going with the tide of democracy that is sweeping the world. Legalistic notions of strict constructionism vis-à-vis the Charter should not be used to throw obstacles in the way of the people of Haiti as they seek to shed their authoritarian legacy and rebuild an economy that can only be described as war torn.”
1990-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 45 (1990)
“Our hearts go out to the thousands of people/ both Kuwaitis and foreigners, whose lives were disrupted by this invasion. In fine, it was wrong for powerful Iraq to have invaded a powerless neighbour, thus violating its sovereignty and territorial integrity. It is right that the United Nations should unite its strength to force the aggressor to remove itself from Kuwait. For what is right can never be wrong, and what is wrong can never be right. As the cold war has ended, the United Nations too has come in from the cold. Friends of the Organisation have long said that if it did not exist it would have to be invented. Saint Lucia is pleased that it does exist, and now in its forty-fifth year is stronger and more vigorous than ever before in solving the problems we continually create.”
1990-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 45 (1990)
“It is a blatant act of raw aggressions which will long live in infamy, not only because it is a wicked act of aggression of a large, militarily strong, State against a small, weaker neighbour - but also because it comes at a time when the arrow is pointed in the direction of peace, destroying the opportunity for a new Peace of Westphalia, and again bringing the world to the brink of another major war. As a small, peace-loving State, Saint Lucia finds the Iraqi political position to be totally indefensible, and we hope that Iraq will come to recognize that its military position is untenable as well. Saint Lucia hails the members of the Security Council for their unprecedented co-operation on this matter, and we have already taken the necessary domestic actions to ascertain that we are in full compliance with the Council's mandates.”
1990-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 45 (1990)
“The new political order must be buttressed by an enhanced international security system, within the purview of the Charter of the United Nations, that promotes the peaceful settlement of disputes and can react quickly to extinguish fires before they rage out of control. In this, the Decade of International Law, the rule of law must predominate in the conduct of international relations. International law must never again be silent in the face of naked power. In this vein, the world has justly condemned the invasion and occupation of Kuwait by Iraq.”
1990-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 45 (1990)
“We cannot allow behaviour, in the Persian Gulf or elsewhere, not in consonance with our purposes to shatter the march of progress. The twilight of totalitarianism seems to be returning some parts of the world to the brink of a frightening resurgence of nascent nationalism, threatening to unleash a latent ethnic parochialism that can lead not to national unity but to international balkanisation. If ethnic nationalism, whether in the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe or South Africa, spies out of control, we shall be plunged into a dangerous new world of balance-of-power politics, with constantly shifting coalitions that can only reach a denouement of forceful consolidation.”
1990-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 45 (1990)
“These promising times give new urgency to the principle of the universality of the United Nations. Saint Lucia therefore strongly supports the aspiration of the Republic of Korea to membership in the United Nations, for, as has already been shown twice this year, membership in the United Nations need not be made an obstacle to national reunification. The final decade of this millennium finds the world poised on the threshold of new opportunity, at a crossroad from which there is a choice of direction. We may go down new roads of political peace and economic opportunity, or we may choose the status quo ante business as usual. But we, today's generation of leaders, must choose carefully, lest future generations condemn us for having squandered precious opportunities.”
1990-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 45 (1990)
“The unity of the peoples in these two countries speaks well for the brave new time in which we live, a time of hope and opportunity. We must not squander it. The admission of a free, independent Namibia to membership of the United Rations earlier this year was the fulfilment of a dream; it took many years of struggle, both on the ground in South West Africa and on the diplomatic front here in New York. I am pleased, as everyone should be, that this struggle has reached a successful conclusion. I am therefore most honoured to welcome Namibia to the ranks of the Organisation. Liechtenstein, too, after two centuries of international relations has joined the Organisation this year. I extend Saint Lucia's congratulations to the Government and people of Liechtenstein. We look forward to working closely with them far into the future.”
1990-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 45 (1990)
“I should like to join previous speakers in congratulating you, Sir, upon your unanimous election to the presidency of the forty-fifth session of the General Assembly. We are all well acquainted with your superlative qualities and accomplishments. I therefore have no doubt that you will guide our deliberations to a successful conclusion in the coming months. You my expect nothing but co-operation from the delegation of Saint Lucia. I should also like to thank your predecessor, Major-General Joseph Garba, for the excellent manner in which he conducted our affairs during the forty-fourth session. This year we have seen both expansions and reductions in the membership of the most important world Organisation. I am pleased to be able to note our loss of numerical membership with the unification of Yemen and the reunification of Germany.”
1990-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 45 (1990)
“Saint Lucia has pledged itself to reach new economic and social heights in the 1990s, so that we may enter the twenty-first century with confidence; proud of what we have accomplished, and eager to do what we can, however humble, in the years ahead for the global good.”
1989-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 44 (1989)
“In this vein Saint Lucia strongly supports the new agenda item proposed by Trinidad and Tobago concerning the establishment of an international criminal court which, inter alia, would have jurisdiction over the transboundary movement of illegal drugs and the idea of an international strike force as proposed by Jamaica. The Government of Saint Lucia within the parameters of the law intends to deal swiftly and harshly with anyone caught distributing or transhipping illegal drugs within its jurisdiction, and to apply without reservation all the provisions of the Convention, including extradition, the granting of mutual legal assistance and, where necessary, transfer of proceedings. This then has been our view of what lies behind us in the past decade and what lies ahead in the final decade of this century.”
1989-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 44 (1989)
“Not since the bubonic plaque of the 1340s has mankind faced a social problem with such dire potential consequences for the youth of the global society. The traffickers in illegal narcotic drugs walk on cadavers and broken lives on their way to amassing huge, superfluous fortunes, giving credence to Erasmus's dictum that "Great abundance of riches cannot be gathered and kept by any man without sin". It cannot be allowed to continue. though outs is not a producing country, we in Saint Lucia have become more aware of the propensities of international drug traffickers to use the Caribbean as a trans-shipment point on their way to the bigger markets of the north.”
1989-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 44 (1989)
“Saint Lucia, therefore, supports all international attempts aimed at controlling those problems of runaway pollution, including the Vienna Convention on the Protection of the Ozone Layer, and the recent Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal, which was adopted last March. In co-operation with our close neighbours. Saint Lucia plans hotly to pursue, capture and prosecute to the fullest extent of both our national law and international law anyone caught illegally dumping toxic and other dangerous substances in our waters. Our adoption last December of the United Nations Convention against Illicit Traffic in narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances was timely and, it is hoped, prophetic.”
1989-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 44 (1989)
“We have all of late been slowly waking to the realization that we are taking a terrible toil on the ecological environment, with destructive consequences that seem almost deliberate. From the maniacal destruction of forests, to the dumping of toxic wastes in the ocean, to the release of fluorocarbons in the atmosphere, we have been destroying the land, sea and air at an astonishing speed, considerably raising carcinogenic dangers to ourselves. In the Anglophone Caribbean, despite the dictates of the 1973 International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution by Ships, we have become increasingly concerned by a series of nefarious attempts by foreign maritime operations to dump toxic substances in the Caribbean Sea in uncomfortable proximity to our shores.”
1989-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 44 (1989)
“And we look forward to next year's special session of the General Assembly on international economic co-operation, particularly the reactivation of growth and development of developing countries, when we hope to adopt more concrete measures both in relation to the North and among ourselves. 80, too, we prepare for the international development strategy for the fourth United Nations Development Decade, which we expect will contain commitments and propose specific policy actions aimed at resolving the serious problem; of the developing countries. In our haste to develop we must not be unaware of the potential environmental consequences of unrequited and irresponsible development.”
1989-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 44 (1989)
“Last May, in Caracas, Venezuela, the developing countries celebrated the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Group of 77, and welcomed the eight years of the adoption of the Caracas Programme of Action on Economic Co-operation among developing Countries. One month earlier, the global system of trade preferences, the developing world's own most-favoured-nation trading regime, had come into force. Only last month we celebrated the tenth anniversary of the Buenos Aires Programme of Action for Promoting and Implementing Technical Co-operation among developing Countries, and adopted measures to strengthen technical co-operation among developing countries.”
1989-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 44 (1989)
“Saint Lucia therefore looks forward to the holding. next year of the first United Nations conference on special problems and particular needs of island developing countries in the hope that it will give the international community a better understanding of the sui generis situation of the small island developing countries. It cannot be said that the developing countries find themselves in these difficulties because they have not tried to help themselves. In fact, in our efforts towards sustainable growth and development we have looked not only to the North but also to collective self-reliance.”
1989-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 44 (1989)