YouSaid · the spoken record

George Odlum

lines on the record: 78
first: 1998-09-24
most recent: 2000-09-24
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

““So I come to you from the weary battlefield of time Armed with the disappointments of yesterday The sufferings of today and the dreams of tomorrow In the struggle I may die But let's not forsake another tomorrow”.”
2000-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 55 (2000)
“Saint Lucia states clearly and unequivocally that the United Nations focus should zero in on development as a radical instrument for eradicating poverty and war. No $600 million carrot will tempt us to abandon the principle of a nation's capacity to pay. No Congress should determine the scale of assessments for the United Nations, and there should be no conditionality for paying arrears and meeting one's obligations to this Organization. The hungry sheep look up and are not fed. The wolves run amok and batten on their hunger, and the cycle goes on in its impropriety. This Organization must not flinch in its millennial resolve to end the carnage.”
2000-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 55 (2000)
“This unfortunate and myopic emphasis on the protection of one nation and one people might well trigger a rash of self-protective nuclear explosions, effectively eroding the fragile trust which underpins the hope for global human security. There are no worlds to conquer, but worlds to recreate. The recreation of the United Nations must be posited on the basis of mutual respect between rich and poor, mutual respect between large and small nations. As small and desperate as our islands appear to be, we should hold fast to the principles that inform the operations of the United Nations. We challenge the paradigm shift which the developed nations are cleverly manipulating to shunt the focus of the United Nations towards peacekeeping and humanitarian assistance.”
2000-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 55 (2000)
“On the initiative of the Government of Canada, a debate has started in the forum of the Organization of American States on the subject of global human security. It is comforting for developing States, and especially small developing States, to feel that the conscience of the international world has been pricked into focusing on the security of the entire globe — the entire globe. On a discordant note, the United States of America is now concentrating its attention on a national missile defence system aimed at protecting the United States from missile attacks. At this strategic juncture in the new millennium, when world leaders are gingerly nurturing a culture of peace and disarmament, this action runs counter to the mood for reconciliation and universal nuclear disarmament.”
2000-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 55 (2000)
“This must remain the guiding principle of the international community. That the majority of the remaining Non-Self-Governing Territories are small islands does not mean that the self-determination of their peoples is less important than for former territories which achieved sovereign status. We must resist all attempts to legitimize the present unequal colonial arrangements, which do not provide for full and absolute political equality. Saint Lucia therefore fully endorses the proclaiming of a second Decade for the Eradication of Colonialism and calls on Member States and United Nations organizations to fulfil their responsibilities under the Charter and relevant General Assembly resolutions.”
2000-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 55 (2000)
“However, given the transnational nature of the disease, the United Nations should use its institutions to launch a movement aimed at the complete eradication of this scourge. If the world is to survive the ravages of this plague, we must not only pledge financial resources towards research and the development of pharmaceuticals, but we must make those pharmaceuticals affordable and accessible and also continue to sensitize the international community to preventive measures. At year's end, the General Assembly will witness the end of the first International Decade for the Eradication of Colonialism. Much remains to be done 12 before the United Nations is successful in carrying out its statutory mandate to ensure complete and absolute political equality for the peoples of the relevant territories.”
2000-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 55 (2000)
“Once again, Saint Lucia calls on its CARICOM colleagues to pursue the possibility of obtaining observer status at the Organisation of African Unity. The peoples of the African continent face the onslaught of the AIDS pandemic that threatens to decimate the population of the entire continent. But the devastating effect of AIDS is felt not only on the African continent. Today the world is confronted with the greatest health crisis in human history. The effects of this disease can destabilize fragile democracies and economic progress in both the developing and the developed world. We welcome President Clinton's efforts to create an African AIDS Trust Fund and the pledge of one billion US dollars to combat AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa. We also welcome Cuba's undertaking to send three thousand Cuban doctors to Africa.”
2000-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 55 (2000)
“In the case of Taiwan and China, it is vital that we pursue the line of working towards a one-China policy instead of fuelling the hostilities that characterize the existing relationship between these two countries. An early resolution of the impasse between Taiwan and China will strengthen the solidarity of the developing world. In the case of Africa, the Caribbean has always enjoyed a peculiarly symbiotic relationship with Africa. Men like Padmore, C.L.R. James, Eric Williams, Sir Arthur Lewis and Walter Rodney have all worked assiduously at the side of African leaders like Nkrumah, Nyerere, Sékou Touré and Léopold Senghor in order to realize the ultimate dream of a united Africa liberated from the bondage of poverty, disease and exploitation. This noble tradition must continue.”
2000-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 55 (2000)
“More than ever, the positives of a reformed United Nations will become a refuge, a bastion of hope for nations nonplussed by events that seem suddenly out of their control. In my previous address to this time-honoured institution, I alluded to the plight of Africa. I should like to reiterate that as Africa was the last impression of the twentieth century, poetic justice demands that it must be our first preoccupation in the twenty-first century. In the process of re-creation, Saint Lucia and the Caribbean must strive to become a catalyst for peace in the international forum. We must use our collective influence to contain the border disputes that threaten to create friction in Latin America and the Caribbean. We must also be wary of importing conflicts into our region.”
2000-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 55 (2000)
“What is even more devastating is that the general will of this Assembly is often flouted and ignored when the international consensus calls for a removal of sanctions. Is democracy merely a convenient attitude? If so, it begs the question as to the insistence that countries like Cuba should conform to the principles of democracy when these principles themselves are being compromised and rejected as a matter of convenience. It is these injustices and violations that have turned world opinion in favour of the embattled Caribbean country Cuba and have made its leader Fidel Castro a living symbol of the unconquerable spirit of our people to triumph over adversity and incredible odds.”
2000-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 55 (2000)
“Nations which attempt to grapple with these social problems have incurred the wrath of large countries, culminating in isolation and the imposition of sanctions. Countries like Cuba and Libya have felt the crush of sanctions. The United Nations system must rethink the strategy of imposing sanctions and must devise other means of ensuring compliance within the international community. The imposition of sanctions is often inhumane and is usually accompanied by devastating economic consequences and fails to produce the desired effect in targeted countries. The international community should realize that interventions, embargoes and sanctions do not a democracy make. Because of the untold suffering inflicted on civilian populations, a twenty-first century United Nations system cannot continue to endorse the imposition of sanctions.”
2000-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 55 (2000)
“Caribbean Governments look on almost helplessly at a growing phenomenon that threatens to disturb the rhythm of projected economic growth and breeds a kind of lawlessness which conventional law-and-order techniques cannot contain. As globalization erodes the economic and social bases of our islands, international and bilateral aid dwindles. As ideologies and ideals give way to pragmatism, the weak social and political fabric of these fledgling nations is laid bare. The vocabulary of containment and patience can no longer hold back the anarchist tide of popular revolt. Small nations will encounter their own Seattles, with no National Guardsmen to come to the rescue, no sustaining philosophies to stem the tide, only the grim statistics of falling revenues and rising expectations.”
2000-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 55 (2000)
“In the re-creation of our own societies we face the structural disadvantages of unemployment, illiteracy and the tyranny of consumerism and materialism. Our young people are cannon-fodder for the blandishments of cable television. They lap up a culture and a lifestyle that militate against their own self-development. They fail to understand the nexus between earning and spending and develop an appetite for consumer durables which their economic base could never support. They become aggressively fired-up with demands and rising expectations that neither the resources of the State nor their flimsy work ethic can entertain. They develop a culture of carping criticism that leaves no space for a culture of appreciation.”
2000-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 55 (2000)
“The symbolism of the United Nations is universally recognized, but our role in this millennium is to redefine its goals, sharpen its focus and make it a more efficient instrument for effecting global change and development. But this institutional change must be inspired and fired by the commensurate determination of Member nations to re-create their own societies. The resonance and sympathetic vibration of our visionary Secretary-General Kofi Annan is not enough. We as Member nations must set about the task of societal re- creation, within the parameters of our own societies, to offset the negative influence of moral degradation, crime, drugs and anti-social behaviour. These are the benchmarks of the uncivil society.”
2000-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 55 (2000)
“The world's peoples and leaders will rightly mock the call for democracy if this principle is not equally applied in the Security Council, the Bretton Woods Institutions and the World Trade Organization, the main institutions that currently govern world affairs in peace, security and the world economy, respectively. The United Nations must demonstrate leadership of democracy at the global level if we are to believe in this principle as a foundation for peace and prosperity in the new millennium. All Member States must be able effectively to participate in matters of peace, security and the global economy in order to give real meaning to democracy and governance.”
2000-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 55 (2000)
“International cooperation in development should instead be demonstrated through meeting the United Nations target of 0.7 per cent of gross domestic product in overseas development assistance, through debt cancellation, special and differential treatment on a contractual basis for developing countries and adequate financial support for the United Nations' development programmes. We have reaffirmed our commitment to promoting democracy, albeit with the emphasis on democracy at the national level. The inherent problem in achieving this objective is clear, since democracy at the national level is undermined by the lack of a commensurate level of democracy at the international level.”
2000-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 55 (2000)
“However, equal emphasis and effort are not being committed to addressing the real threats to peace and the primary causes of war. Developing countries are threatened by continued deprivation and inequities in the global economy. Unless these inequities and imbalances are corrected, we will continue to create situations of unrest and threaten intervention while causes go unaddressed. Similarly, we parade the fashionable notion of poverty eradication in isolation, ignoring the complex, multi-faceted nature of poverty and the causes of poverty, including global economic inequities. This façade to placate the poorest is fooling some of the people, but not all of the world's poor. The holistic nature of development takes precedence over the palliative of poverty eradication.”
2000-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 55 (2000)
“We hope that through this process the United Nations will reclaim its legitimate role in development, entrusted to 10 it in the Charter, and promote the effective participation of all its Member States in the governance of the global economy and globalization, for the benefit of all the peoples of the world. The greatest threat to world peace and democracy is the systemic imbalances and inequities in the global economy and the institutions that govern it. This situation is unsustainable and explosive. The thrust of many statements made during the Millennium Summit and this session has been to strengthen peacekeeping efforts with resources and personnel. We recognize that there is need for improvement in peacekeeping efforts to make them more effective.”
2000-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 55 (2000)
“Man cannot live by governance alone or peace alone. Our people must find the sustenance that will enable them to participate in governance and peace. Saint Lucia therefore eagerly looks forward to the convening of the intergovernmental conference on financing for development to discuss in a holistic manner issues of trade, finance and monetary matters in the context of globalization and trade liberalization. We have always promoted an integrated approach to development and global issues, and this age of technology and interdependence lends itself more than ever to the integrated approach of assessing and addressing the issues at hand. We continue to view the financing for development process as the missing and the critical link in the development agenda for a sustainable and lasting resolution to poverty and threats to peace.”
2000-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 55 (2000)
“Saint Lucia calls on the United Nations to assume its rightful, central role in development and the governance of globalization, to promote democracy and good government nationally and internationally, to stand for right and the protection of its weak and vulnerable Members against the powerful and dominant and to seek equality and justice for all. This should be the focus of the United Nations in the new millennium if poverty is to be eradicated and peace enjoyed. Saint Lucia cannot be enthusiastic about other issues until development and equity in the global economy become a priority. Our decline in revenues denies us the capacity to increase our contribution to peacekeeping, and we will be reluctant to do so until there is an increase in our participation and benefit from the global economy.”
2000-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 55 (2000)
“We agreed to entrust the United Nations with ensuring equality among States. It is of paramount importance to us that the United Nations does not flinch in its role of fostering international dialogue and consensus building, so that the concerns and interests of all Member States are adequately addressed and reflected in the work of the Organization. We do not expect our trust to be given to more powerful influences to determine our collective future. We rededicated ourselves to upholding the principle of equality of States and expect that equality to be realized in policy directives of the United Nations with a balance in representation of the interests of Member States and regions.”
2000-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 55 (2000)
“No self-respecting nation would willingly abandon its sovereignty for the illusion of a better world, when all the signals from this brave new world are destructive and negative. In respect of peacekeeping interventions, one can surrender sovereignty to avoid a holocaust but certainly not to permit well-heeled rapacious countries to hog the capital flows in the financial services sector. Last week, through our Heads of State and Government, we reaffirmed our faith in the United Nations and its Charter as indispensable foundations for a more peaceful, prosperous and just world. This reaffirmation is of particular significance to small developing States like Saint Lucia, lacking the size and resources to urge the international community to give due consideration to our concerns and interests.”
2000-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 55 (2000)
“We cannot tell the OECD countries what taxes to impose, nor do we expect interference in the exercise of the sacred right entrusted to us by our citizens. Our development options are few and limited, and we consider the OECD action a violation of our basic human right to development and to pursue a decent standard of living for our people. Our peace is threatened, our democracy is being undermined. The conditions for conflict are being created in my country and in the region, and yet, instead of addressing development, we are being asked to strengthen the United Nations to intervene in national crises. Within the context of a globalized world, the concept of sovereignty is fast becoming an endangered species.”
2000-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 55 (2000)
“Again, the economic giants are determined to crush our development efforts and subject our people to poverty by attacking yet another sector of our narrow economic base. Saint Lucia has acted in good faith in fulfilling our obligations to the Charter of the United Nations, 9 assuming equality of all Member States. We have respected the territorial integrity and political independence of other Member States and have never interfered in the internal affairs of another State. Today, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has chosen to dictate the tax policies of Saint Lucia and other Caribbean islands by labelling our tax regime as a harmful tax haven and is threatening to impose sanctions for non-compliance with its prescribed changes to our tax policies. It is Saint Lucia's sovereign right to determine its taxes.”
2000-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 55 (2000)
“Since that ruling by the WTO, which granted an unreasonably limited time to adjust our economy, we have lost 50 per cent of our foreign exchange earnings, while thousands of farmers have become unemployed and poverty and crime are on the increase. Yet, despite our urgent economic situation, negotiations between the European Union (EU) and the United States have been stalled. Saint Lucia calls on the United States to resume discussions with the European Union on a new marketing system for bananas that could be acceptable to all, giving due consideration to the Caribbean proposal. But that is a pipedream. Our hopes have slipped on a banana skin, because there is a new sweetheart deal between Britain and the United States. Resilient a people as we are, we are moving to diversify our economies and to build another sector — financial services.”
2000-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 55 (2000)
“In reaffirming our faith in the United Nations and its Charter, it is again with the hope of saving succeeding generations from the scourge of war. The threat to peace does not necessarily emanate from military warfare. There are new forms of war currently being waged on the small, the weak and the vulnerable. In previous addresses to this Assembly, and in the statement of our Head of Government to the Millennium Summit, we pointed out the injustice perpetrated on Saint Lucia and other banana-producing countries of the Caribbean by the WTO, through its rejection of the marketing regime for bananas in Europe as being WTO-incompatible. That ruling has condemned our countries to the prospect of economic ruin, in that the stabilizing force of our economy has been dealt a mortal blow.”
2000-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 55 (2000)
“In these circumstances we feel threatened and vulnerable that our trust has been betrayed. The greater good of human security cannot be fostered simply through peacekeeping operations and humanitarian missions. There must be a global drive to empower people, through the elimination of the adverse conditions that cause the incapacitation of the human spirit and the imprisonment of the imagination. Hence, the United Nations of the twenty-first century must be capable of playing a significant role in liberating the human spirit and imagination through education and real opportunity. It must be able to reposition itself to give practical meaning to the rising tide all over the world as the common man aspires to higher and wider horizons.”
2000-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 55 (2000)
“The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the United Nations' primary development agency, is now reoriented to giving advice in governance and democratic elections. The United Nations therefore plays a peripheral role in development, and small States like Saint Lucia are left on their own to be devoured by powerful States backed by powerful transnational corporations. Saint Lucia joined this Organization and entrusted it with our hopes of peace, security and development. This Organization has passed on our trust to a few dominant Powers and corporations. If the United Nations has a diminished role in ensuring development, peace and security for its small and vulnerable Members, then our presence here is an unnecessary diversion of our scarce resources.”
2000-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 55 (2000)
“It is the formulation of economic programmes designed to bring about economic redistribution, to safeguard against economic crises and to formulate developmental policies that are in keeping with environmental protection and sustainability. The United Nations should be strengthened to play a more central role in development, ensuring equity and security for its small, vulnerable Members like Saint Lucia against the greed of profit-driven Powers. Instead, we are witnessing a consistent, systemic weakening of the United Nations' role in development, with development issues being left to undemocratic institutions like the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Trade Organization (WTO), which perpetuate global economic inequities and ignore the development issues and concerns of developing countries.”
2000-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 55 (2000)
“The theme of this millennium Assembly reaches out in the direction of re-creation: a people-centred reshaping of the role and function of the United Nations and a purposeful moral thrust in re-creating the battered, demoralized societies in which we live. 8 That is why we must embrace the United Nations Millennium Summit's theme, “We the peoples: The Role of the United Nations in the twenty-first century”. The attainment of meaningful transformation in the world system calls for a United Nations capable of assuming a vanguard role in development and in advancing human society and security. The United Nations system must play a critical role in promoting global responsibility. Global responsibility implicitly involves some form of moral commitment to human welfare.”
2000-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 55 (2000)
“The choices that we make can change the face of humankind and lead to the accepted goals of global peace, economic and human security and the greater good of humanity. The past century was replete with examples of nations preening themselves for conquest and domination. The conquistadors who plundered the New World are still at large, using global institutions, new technologies and weapons of destruction to oppress and dominate the weak, the innocent and the dispossessed sectors of mankind. The message that Saint Lucia brings to this Millennium Assembly comes from the pen of Saint Lucia's Nobel Prize Laureate Derek Walcott, who reminds us that, “There are no worlds to conquer/But worlds to re-create”. Minds that are historically poisoned with conquest can hardly experience the essential equanimity and calm of re-creation.”
2000-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 55 (2000)
“Humanity, our greatest concern, is the reason why we are gathered here today. Humanity stands at a defining moment in world history. The challenge before us is to harness the collective consciousness and will of the international community to address the problems of planet Earth. During the course of the past century, the disparities between and within nations have widened. Poverty, ill-health, illiteracy and hunger among the world's people have increased. The world's ecosystem, the foundation upon which we all depend for survival, is rapidly deteriorating. That is why we must regard this moment as significant in human history, despite Fukuyama's claim that history has ended. The Third Millennium offers us the opportunity to break away from the shackles of the past and create new beginnings.”
2000-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 55 (2000)
“We will work in the embrace of its wise Charter, but we would describe globalization in the words of the Irish poet William Butler Yeats: “And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?” (The Second Coming)”
1999-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 54 (1999)
“The developing world must focus closely on the Seattle Round and ensure that the wide sweep of liberalization and open markets does not wash us away. If the dogmatism and inflexibility of powerful States threaten our survival, then we must band together in a “Trade Union of the Poor” to seek justice and humanity. No poison is a necessary drink, and we cannot be expected to swallow globalization's cup of hemlock for the greater glory of the shapers of the new millennium. We want a new millennium shaped by all Member States, addressing the needs and interests of all, and beneficial to all. We share our apprehension with this body.”
1999-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 54 (1999)
“The conspiracy that threatens to decimate our bananas has left us with tourism as a strategy for diversification. The twin monsters of drugs and crime promise to overrun us, and the filth that spews from cable television pours into our homes. Some of these homes are nothing more than vile little hovels whose inhabitants are sustained at night by religion and unemployed by day. The decay is all-pervasive, and women from nearby territories are imported to ply their sordid trade in strip-tease joints. We have lost our innocence; this is the surest legacy that globalization has visited upon us. We cannot be swayed by the rhetoric of partnership when the relentless logic of globalization is geared to decimate, to marginalize and to eliminate.”
1999-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 54 (1999)
“Between the rhetoric and the reality lies the gaping wound of disillusion and despair. President Clinton rightly posed the question: “Will globalism bring shared prosperity, or will it make the desperate of the world even more desperate?” (supra). Saint Lucia can confidently attest to the truth that the small States and the developing world are desperate, and that their desperation is compounded by the fact that the global preoccupation with money and markets is fast destroying the values and sacred norms in our respective countries. “Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey Where wealth accumulates, and men decay”. (Oliver Goldsmith, The Deserted Village) The decadence and moral turpitude that has taken over our paradise of an island is unbelievable.”
1999-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 54 (1999)
“Saint Lucia again calls on the international community, including the WTO, to differentiate between trading partners and promote fair trade through special and differential treatment, not on a voluntary basis, but as a contractual obligation. 26 Saint Lucia has been in the forefront of the fight for the survival of small island States. To quote the words of the President of the United States in his recent address to the Assembly, “We must refuse to accept a future in which one part of humanity lives on the cutting edge of a new economy, while the other lives at the knife edge of survival” (A/54/PV.6). Globalization has left us on the knife edge of survival. We are thankful to Europe for empathizing with our vulnerabilities, and we regret that they have attracted the wrath of sanctions for their pains.”
1999-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 54 (1999)
“Yet the United States transnationals engaged in the industry are instead promoting a simple or linear tariff mechanism that will have disastrous effects for Caribbean producers. Saint Lucia and other ACP countries have expressed dissatisfaction with this recommendation. We again implore all European Union member States to revisit this choice and to consider its implications for Saint Lucia and other ACP countries. We are inherently unequal trading partners, and the WTO should not subject small economies to liberalization and unbridled competition on an equal footing with economies and corporations far more advanced than they are and expect them to survive.”
1999-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 54 (1999)
“People in member countries of the European Union are being punished through sanctions by the United States for the support of their Governments for the banana marketing regime. That country continues to promote the interests of its multinational companies involved in the banana trade at the expense of smaller economies. There are at the moment proposals on the table designed to put in place a new WTO-compatible system for the marketing of bananas in Europe. All parties, particularly producing countries, are of the view that a tariff rate quota system is the most viable regime for all concerned. A continuation of the tariff rate quota is essential for ensuring that the market continues to generate adequate prices.”
1999-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 54 (1999)
“The sustainable development of small developing countries will remain a dream unless these fundamental structural and systemic biases are addressed. Saint Lucia is particularly concerned about the exclusion of transnational corporations from the rules of engagement the World Trade Organization (WTO) sets for trade, since a large percentage of the financing for our development comes from trade in one commodity. Saint Lucia will continue to call for an integrated approach to the consideration of trade and finance in the context of the upcoming conference on financing for development and for the participation of all actors, including the Bretton Woods institutions and the WTO, under the leadership of the United Nations. The dispute over the arrangements for the marketing of bananas has been particularly distasteful.”
1999-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 54 (1999)
“Let us hope that the Creator is working in a mysterious way to bring about the peaceful and mutually agreeable reunification of the Chinese people on this occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of China. Our own island State of Montserrat continues to struggle to recover from the destruction caused by volcanic eruptions. Yet the international community continues to exclude this small island from concessional assistance on the basis of its high gross national product per capita, calculated from its small population and inflows of assistance, mainly from the United Kingdom. The United Nations, in particular the Committee for Development Policy, must take the lead role in the revision of the criteria for concessional assistance to include vulnerabilities and qualitative data including openness of the economy and economic shocks.”
1999-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 54 (1999)
“We need a United Nations that not only carries out its peacekeeping and humanitarian capacities, but one that also plays a central role in the governance of globalization and trade liberalization to ensure that globalization is about development. Our common humanity must demonstrate itself in our prompt response to natural disasters in each other's countries. The people of Taiwan have been the most recent victims of devastating earthquakes, which claimed the lives of thousands of innocent people. We commiserate with them. It is at such critical moments that the spirit of brotherhood must emerge. There was a surge of hope at the news that the People's Republic of China had pledged assistance to the Taiwanese across the Taiwan Strait.”
1999-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 54 (1999)
“The events in Rwanda, Kosovo and East Timor have drawn serious lessons for the international community. The spectre of an effete United Nations looking on helplessly while Member nations intervene unilaterally is a nightmare on the eve of the new millennium. It is for this reason that Saint Lucia strongly supports the call by Secretary-General Kofi Annan for the United Nations to be empowered to take action, whether militarily or otherwise, to stop crimes against humanity. Saint Lucia remains concerned at the systematic weakening and marginalization of the United Nations. In this regard, attention is drawn to its operational activities and its development programmes, particularly the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). We call on donor countries to reconsider the effects of the budget cuts on regional and country programmes.”
1999-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 54 (1999)
“This emergence is frustrated by the inability of the United Nations to harness the political will to remove the inhumane sanctions imposed by the United States on the Cuban people, despite the successive overwhelming votes religiously taken every year in the Assembly. At the fifty- third session of the General Assembly, 157 countries voted in favour of resolution 53/4 to end the economic embargo against Cuba. The totally callous disregard for the cumulative will of the Assembly is the touchstone which characterizes the relationship between the super- 25 Power leviathan and the 187 Lilliputian nations that talk and vote in this forum. Where is the democracy of which we speak? Where is the mutual respect for sovereign nations? Where is the humanity?”
1999-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 54 (1999)
“This important activity resulted in the adoption by the Special Committee of targeted recommendations in the furtherance of the decolonization of these Territories. To this end, we strongly support a second decade on decolonization to focus on the socio-economic, political and constitutional development of the remaining small island Territories, which are integral components of both the Caribbean and the Pacific regions. But the realization of these regional goals turns on the full emergence of Cuba as a vital and creative force in the integration and development of the Caribbean.”
1999-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 54 (1999)
“Let the occasion for their October meeting be the springboard that catapults West Indians into what will truly be a new era. Let our people enter the new millennium with a CARICOM that will be fully integrated, economically and politically. We can extend this tableau to embrace the Non-Self- Governing Territories of our region. My Government was pleased to have hosted, in May of this year, the annual United Nations seminar of the Special Committee on Decolonization to review the economic, political and constitutional developments in the remaining small island Non-Self-Governing Territories. This highly successful seminar brought together representatives from Governments and non-governmental organizations and experts from the Caribbean and Pacific regions.”
1999-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 54 (1999)
“We are in the process of completing arrangements for the creation of a single market and economy and for the establishment of a Caribbean court of justice that will be the final appellate court for CARICOM member countries. But, certainly, we must recognize that while we have made progress, we have not gone far enough. In October, the heads of Government of the Caribbean Community will meet in a special session in Trinidad and Tobago to consider the future governance of the Caribbean Community. We urge the leaders of CARICOM, in what will be their final meeting of the century, to take decisions on the future of CARICOM that will erase from the memories of West Indian people all the hurt, all the pain, all the disappointments of our failed attempts at closer political union during this century.”
1999-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 54 (1999)
“If we in the developing world are to have a better future in the new millennium, if we are to obtain any benefits from the new international systems that are evolving around us, we cannot depend only on the goodwill of the countries of the developed world. There must be unity of action and purpose among us; there must be an end to the in-fighting, the skirmishes, and the wars between us. The South-South Summit in Havana next year will provide an excellent opportunity for cementing solidarity on issues of common concern and deciding on a forward-looking agenda for the development of our people. In the Commonwealth Caribbean, we the members of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) can be proud of the 25-year integration movement in which we have been engaged.”
1999-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 54 (1999)
“In this regard, the results of the recent Algiers summit of the OAU are therefore most welcome, for the summit has demonstrated a new sense of urgency and commitment on the part of the new leaders of Africa. The United Nations must not fail to support this progressive development. For our part, Saint Lucia, mindful of the African heritage of our people, will exhort our Caribbean colleagues to consider applying for associate status with the OAU and to consolidate further our solidarity in the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) forum. Our call for unity is not being sent only to our brothers in Africa. It goes out also to all developing countries, be they in the Caribbean, Latin America, Asia or elsewhere.”
1999-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 54 (1999)
“But if we are to progress in that direction, we must first boldly admit that disunity among the countries of Africa has much to do with this condition. In an era when other geographic regions and continents have been uniting for economic advancement, the African continent remains divided. The time has come, therefore, for the Organization of African Unity (OAU) to go further than just making declarations of unity. Pan- Africanism must not continue to remain stunted, as it was at the threshold of the sixties. African leaders and statesmen must show the resolve and the unwavering character of Nelson Mandela, and give African children, born and unborn, hope in the future of Africa.”
1999-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 54 (1999)