YouSaid · the spoken record

Ralph GONSALVES

lines on the record: 229
first: 2004-09-24
most recent: 2023-09-24
sittings or episodes: 11
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

“Let us not sleep to dream, but dream to change the world for the better.”
2023-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 78 (2023)
“It illuminates our pathways, and we see things clearly, and men and women who see things clearly will never give up on the pursuit of peace, goodness, equity and justice. We do so with urgency, yet with patience and calm, knowing that even now the greener leaves explode, sun brightens stone and all the river burns. As I conclude, a summation by Daniel Williams, one of my country’s poets, is apt. “We are all time; yet only the future is ours to desecrate. The present is the past, and the past our fathers’ mischief”. In order to avoid desecrating the future, we must be serious about the challenges at hand and work assiduously, in solidarity, to address them satisfactorily. To be sure, there is no perfection this side of eternity, but we can do better than we have been doing. Time is not on our side.”
2023-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 78 (2023)
“The days of masters and vassals are over. The end days of imperialism are drawing nigh, and the would-be hegemons waiting in the wings with their illusions of grandeur, past or imagined, are bound for disillusionment. In any new world order, the metaphoric lions and lambs must lie down and rise up together in mutual self-interest and for a better world. This world of 8 billion people deserves better. We in the developing world reject the crumbs. There is a loaf to be shared reasonably, with equity, and we must be at the tables where the decisions are made and the food is eaten. Those who think that our heads are in the clouds are profoundly mistaken. We know that in the great cathedral of the sky there is a sun for a steeple.”
2023-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 78 (2023)
“CELAC is building vital bridges with several blocs and countries across the world, with the aim of promoting peace, security, prosperity and sustainable development for all. It is vital that our shared experiences be translated into shared expressions, including institutional expressions, in order to do the practical work of enhancing life, living and production for all humankind. In addition. CELAC ought to be allowed to follow the African Union into membership in the Group of 20. Let us be more inclusive in solving intractable problems in practical ways. I therefore welcome the European Union’s proposal to initiate an institutional summit bringing together the European Union, the African Union. CELAC. the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and the Secretary-General of the United Nations. I await the details.”
2023-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 78 (2023)
“The United States, the Caribbean and Latin American Governments must work together more earnestly to stop the massive flow of guns and bullets. We urgently need solutions for the wars and perennial conflicts across the globe. For example, the terrible situations in Ukraine. Palestine and a number of countries in Africa and elsewhere are crying out for peaceful settlements between the warring tribes. It is inhumane and wrong that the Palestinian people have had to endure colonial domination and externally induced suffering for decades. In our America. CELAC, currently led by the pro tempore presidency of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, is at the forefront of the quest to fortify our political cooperation and enhance integration efforts.”
2023-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 78 (2023)
“The Security Council cannot reasonably remain aloof from that process, considering the circumstances in which criminal gangs, including those with links to the Government and the National Police, are essentially in control of the capital city. Security supports — not an imperial invasion — are required to accompany a political consensus so as to bolster humanitarian assistance, economic development and a more orderly way of life and living. The situation is dire and growing worse by the day. We must not allow ourselves the luxury of Haiti fatigue. Indeed, the guns and bullets in the hands of the Haitian gangs are also in the bosoms of assorted criminals across the Caribbean and Latin America, and are sourced mainly from the United States.”
2023-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 78 (2023)
“The time for reparations has come — the demand will not go away. Africa, the Caribbean and our diaspora, and others who hanker for a just world, are insisting on it. In our Caribbean Community, one of our member States. Haiti, continues to be confronted by immediate and multiple existential challenges in the political, security, social, humanitarian and environmental domains. CARICOM is seeking to facilitate a political solution by engaging with the widest possible cross-section of stakeholders to fashion a Government of national unity to replace one that is bedevilled by a lack of legitimacy and effectiveness, and to pave the way for democratic elections in a suitable time frame.”
2023-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 78 (2023)
“But the critical issue of ensuring sufficient financing for development, including climate financing and reparations, remains the proverbial elephant in the room and must be effectively harnessed if we are to serve the deserving. Here again, the commitments we have agreed on and entered into must be translated into real action. As part of the conversation on the SDGs. Saint Vincent and the Grenadines has been insisting that there must be a special carveout for reparations from European countries for the legacies of underdevelopment engendered by the genocide of indigenous peoples and the enslavement of African bodies — horrendous crimes against humanity. In that matrix, we need a special focus on Haiti. The case for reparatory justice within the framework of the SDGs is compelling and unanswerably strong.”
2023-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 78 (2023)
“As developing countries, we must refrain from being mere prideful villagers, obsessed with immediate trifles and blind to far more compelling issues beyond our individual control, which demand a unifying solidarity with others in order to confront our struggles successfully. Poor, vulnerable, climate-distressed and resource-challenged developing countries are absolutely fed up and insulted by the unfulfilled perennial promises of the developed world on climate financing. In September 2015. at our United Nations, all nations signed on to the 17 Sustainable Development Goals, targeted for achievement by 2030. Earlier this week, the bundle of issues centred on the SDGs were accorded special consideration and there has been canvassing to revitalize them, which is admirable.”
2023-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 78 (2023)
“The Multidimensional Vulnerability Index championed by vulnerable middle-income countries, including those in the Caribbean, has a place in the reform mix of financing for development. Saint Vincent and the Grenadines urges the Assembly to show strong support for the Bridgetown Initiative and the Multidimensional Vulnerability Index. Saint Vincent and the Grenadines also endorses the initiative of the Bahamas to remove from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development — the rich club — any global authority it assumes for suzerainty on international taxation and related matters. Properly, they ought to be resident in the United Nations.”
2023-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 78 (2023)
“Criss-crossing the issue of financing for development in the era of climate change, and the ramifications of the downside of structural distortions in the global economy for poor and vulnerable middle-income countries, is the Bridgetown Initiative 2.0. which has already been endorsed by the Caribbean Community (CARICOM). the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC). the Alliance of Small Island States and dozens of countries in the African Union and elsewhere. That progressive initiative contains creative financing proposals that would result in much greater resources, made available on highly concessionary terms, for poor and vulnerable regions.”
2023-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 78 (2023)
“The lack or inadequacy of meaningful corrective action by the irresponsible climate polluters, both countries and companies, is an unpardonable, egregious wrong and indeed a species of barbarism. The upcoming twenty-eighth Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in the United Arab Emirates is a critical test of humankind’s commitment to saving our planet from the ravages of human-made climate change. We know the oft-repeated benchmarks and the corrective agenda. I do not have to repeat them here. In that composite package of policies and measures, special consideration has to be accorded to the most vulnerable countries, such as small island developing States in the Caribbean and the Pacific and the poorer communities in climate-distressed areas of Africa. Asia and Latin America.”
2023-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 78 (2023)
“That magnificent Chinese civilization, through the fever of history, has delivered to the contemporary world, in practical terms, more than one recognizable national political expression institutionally. Surely Taiwan’s quest for participation in the relevant specialized agencies of the United Nations is reasonable and ought to be accommodated. Taiwan has repeatedly shown itself to be a responsible member of the international community. Peace across the Taiwan Strait is an imperative for the prosperity and security of the world. On the bundle of issues related to climate change, including global warming, biodiversity challenges, land degradation and desertification, we see a veritable Tower of Babel. There is an overabundance of sweet sounding lyrics by the major emitters, but they turn out to be bitterly deceptive.”
2023-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 78 (2023)
“It is also plain silly and factually incorrect to label Cuba a State sponsor of terrorism — a label prompted by partisan domestic politics in south Florida that hurts the Cuban people massively and unnecessarily. The sanctions and coercive measures against Venezuela, including the weaponization of the United States dollar, have caused the collapse of the PetroCaribe agreement, which delivered substantial benefits to more than a dozen Caribbean countries, including Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. We in the Caribbean have thereby become collateral damage. At the same time, it is long overdue for the Republic of China. Taiwan, to be brought in from the diplomatic cold.”
2023-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 78 (2023)
“They possess and deploy all their instruments of domination yet are racked by bewildering insecurities that frequently turn them into beasts of unreason, to their own detriment, as they overreach and sow the seeds of their own downfall, sadly and needlessly hobbling humankind in the process. Let us accord mature consideration to a matter of immediacy in “our America”, to use Jose Marti’s telling formulation. We urge our friend the United States of America — the most powerful and economically dominant country since the dawn of human civilization, a nation that espouses humane values — to end the unilateral and oppressive sanctions and impositions, contrary to international law. that it has rolled out against Cuba. Nicaragua and Venezuela.”
2023-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 78 (2023)
“It is evident to all right-thinking persons devoid of self-serving hypocrisy that the struggle today between the dominant Powers is centred on the control, ownership and distribution of the world’s resources. The struggle has been and continues to be about who gets what, when, where and how. Civilized living now demands fairness, justice, peace, security and prosperity for all. That civilized goal is unlikely to ever be satisfactorily attained if the strong and powerful continue to do what they can with impunity while the weak and fragile suffer what they must, despite their often-enfeebled resistance. Throughout history, powerful countries have exhibited a certain schizophrenia.”
2023-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 78 (2023)
“Notwithstanding the imperfections of a multilateral system grounded in international law and civilized norms, we in the Assembly, in concert with one another and our peoples, can be the fresh hope, the beacon and the light, not merely to inspire but to draw out of each other and our respective peoples a goodness, a quality and a nobility that we may often not yet know we possess. In that process. Ictus clear certain ideational cobwebs from our brains. For example, it is wholly unhelpful to frame the central contradictions of our troubled times as revolving around a struggle between autocracies and democracies. Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, a strong liberal democracy, rejects that wrong-headed thesis.”
2023-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 78 (2023)
“Surely sensible compromises on the matter, reflective of the condition of our world today, are long overdue. In these troubled and uncertain times, enveloped in limitations and weaknesses, there are nevertheless possibilities and strengths. We need this collective, the United Nations, to immediately display wise and mature leadership in our great endeavour to put things right for humankind. We who are gathered here to represent national or regional interests are not. and cannot reasonably be. agents of purely impersonal forces inexorably driving humankind to further peril or even damnation.”
2023-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 78 (2023)
“And the list goes on. The melodies that are heard are troubling, while those that go unheard are damning. Powerful countries and blocs of like-minded States are unwilling or unable to fashion inclusive, effective modalities through genuine multilateralism to address the global challenges facing humankind. Their reflex actions in quest of a continuing imperium or an emergent hegemony are dressed up as self-serving calls for a new world order — all sauce and gall but of little or no substance, and difficult to swallow. From the rough trenches of the periphery. Saint Vincent and the Grenadines responds yet again with three haunting questions. What exactly is new? Which world? And who gives the orders? In that context, after decades of futile bickering and foot-dragging, we should urgently embrace genuine reform of the Security Council.”
2023-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 78 (2023)
“The expansive and expanding list includes racism and xenophobia; the continuing oppression of women under a patriarchy in too many countries; the seemingly uncontrollable chariots of artificial intelligence; threats of pandemics and the anti-people consortiums of Big Pharma; poverty and food insecurity; ignorance, miseducation and disinformation; terrorism and its associated malcontents; illegal trafficking in persons and narcotics; the subversion of participatory democracy and human rights; the failure or refusal of former colonial Powers to entertain just and legitimate demands for reparations to remedy the contemporary legacies of underdevelopment caused by native genocide and the enslavement of African bodies; and the failure or refusal of the major emitters of greenhouse gases to cough up the resources that the vulnerable countries affected need for adaptation, mitigation, loss and damage.”
2023-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 78 (2023)
“Indeed, there will be a significant deficit for practically every developing country. Similarly, it is widely recognized that the climate-change agenda is stalling and in some respects reversing, with dire consequences for humankind, particularly the most vulnerable countries. At the same time, war and conflict rage senselessly across the globe. In at least one case. Ukraine, the principal adversaries may be unwittingly opening the gates to a nuclear Armageddon. Contemporary drivers of insecurity and conflict are all jostling one another in an invidious march to infamy and human misery.”
2023-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 78 (2023)
“Large numbers of people, globally, are possessed of a mixture of resignation, a sense of futility, a routinization of indifference, even cynicism. And yet at the same time there resides in them, in us. an elemental hopefulness and a sense of social solidarity, a quest for justice and goodness, for the pursuit of equity and equality and for peace, security and prosperity for all — not just for a privileged few in a handful of privileged nations. It is widely acknowledged that the global political economy is broken and needs fixing, not by tinkering here and there, but through fundamental restructuring of a kind that will endure for the benefit of all humankind, especially those who are disadvantaged, dispossessed or marginalized. It is widely accepted, too. that the vital Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) will not be attained by 2030.”
2023-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 78 (2023)
“Saint Vincent and the Grenadines would like to congratulate you. Mr. President, on Trinidad and Tobago’s assumption of the presidency of the General Assembly at its seventy-eighth session. We also affirm our solidarity with the Governments and the peoples of the Kingdom of Morocco and Libya at this their current hour of peril, consequent upon the recent natural disasters in their countries. We express our sincerest condolences for the immense loss of life. Across the world today, in large measure, men and women are feeling pain. They are gripped with melancholy and adrift. They are perplexed, even confused, by the complexities and challenges of our human condition, which is awash with multiple contradictions from which arises a yearning for sustainable resolutions.”
2023-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 78 (2023)
“To that mighty end, we must construct the best possible partnership between all nations, whatever our differences, to take care of yesterday’s heritage, to accommodate and reasonably address today’s interests and to pursue effectively, in peace and security, tomorrow’s hopes.”
2022-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 77 (2022)
“Many sensible ideas for reform are on the table. Let us get on with it and not make perfection the enemy of the good. The many-sided turmoil of today prompts me to conclude with the probing insights of Guyana’s Poet Laureate Martin Carter, in his celebrated poem “Bitter Wood”. “Here be dragons, and bitter cups made of wood; and the hooves of horses where they should not sound.... Here is where I am, in a great geometry, between a raft of ants and the green sight of the freedom of a tree, made of that same bitter wood.” In our final reflections before the General Assembly, let us never forget that our work in this Hall is to improve markedly the lot of all our peoples.”
2022-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 77 (2022)
“Similarly, blacklists and sanctions are imposed or threatened by faceless bureaucrats in imperial centres for this or that matter without any regard for multilateral rulemaking or settled international law. Meanwhile, interference in the internal affairs of our nations persists through external State agencies or private entities of imperialist or hegemonic centres bent on imposing their will to their advantage. Often their relentless misuse and abuse of modern information technologies, with falsehoods and misrepresentations galore, have the effect of polluting democratic discourse and undermining democracy itself. The United Nations must address that issue urgently. The United Nations, too, must reform itself to do its work better. In that regard, reform of the Security Council should be delayed no further.”
2022-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 77 (2022)
“Saint Vincent and the Grenadines has been actively engaged on that issue within both CARICOM and the United Nations. Haiti’s 11 million people deserve better, and a safe and prosperous Haiti means a far more secure and peaceful Caribbean. In the Caribbean, beyond the Haitian issue, our national and regional efforts are stymied by the unfairness and relative unresponsiveness of the global political economy. Often, too, the unintended consequences of the actions of the centres of imperialism and hegemonic forces induce suffering or hold back our progress. For example, our Caribbean has had its correspondent banking arrangements compromised or withdrawn by the application of rules that our Governments have had little or no role in making. We heard the Prime Minister of the Bahamas speak about that this morning.”
2022-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 77 (2022)
“For our Caribbean, another special concern is the urgent issue of reparations from European States for their commission of native genocide and the enslavement of Africans, which has resulted in painful legacies of underdevelopment. The time has now surely come for the issue to be addressed urgently. Reparations is a just and juridically grounded demand that ought to evoke support from well-meaning people, not confrontation. The continuing deteriorating situation in Haiti demands focused attention from the United Nations. The Caribbean Community, to which Haiti belongs, is pained at Haiti’s circumstances and the international community’s relative neglect of that invaluable nation. Together, we must do better with and for Haiti in concert with the Haitian people, based on their own home-grown solutions and led by them.”
2022-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 77 (2022)
“Some major planks of it are concerted global action on climate change, including sufficient resources for adaptation and mitigation; the availability of optimal financing for development, including the roll-out of a multi-dimensional vulnerability index, a compensation mechanism for loss and damage and a special and meaningful carve-out for SIDS in international trading arrangements; an end to unacceptable weaponizing of the financial system; appropriate reform of the United Nations to reflect the interests of SIDS; and effective implementation of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals, particularly where they relate to hunger, poverty and inequality.”
2022-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 77 (2022)
“The World Bank was most helpful, as were the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) and its affiliate institutions, the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States and individual nations across the world. The outpouring of regional and international solidarity was impressive and deeply appreciated. However, episodic support must metamorphose into structured, ongoing solidarity if small island developing States (SIDS) are to survive and thrive in this increasingly hostile world in which metaphoric elephants trample with very little regard for the proverbial ants who make up much of humankind and are vital to the well-being of our global civilization’s land- and seascape. The agenda for small island developing States is well known.”
2022-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 77 (2022)
“Saint Vincent and the Grenadines expresses its profound gratitude for the regional, hemispheric and international solidarity accorded it at its time of real peril during and immediately after the series of volcanic eruptions last year. Within 24 hours of the first cataclysmic eruption, my dear friend Secretary- General Antonio Guterres telephoned me and placed the Secretariat and the United Nations specialized agencies at my country’s disposal. The World Food Programme, UNICEF and the United Nations Environment Programme were particularly heroic in their efforts, admirably coordinated by the Barbados and Eastern Caribbean Multi-Country Office.”
2022-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 77 (2022)
“We are not a people of lamentations. We are recovering and embracing fresh hope. We in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines are working hard and smart. But without a fair and just global economic order, a special regard for small island exceptionalism, a global architecture of enlightened multilateralism and internationalist solidarity, our herculean national efforts are unlikely to yield the requisite abundant fruit. Trying to go up a fast-moving down-escalator is a challenging exercise. Accordingly, I adopt and adapt the words of the iconic Barbadian writer Edward Kamau Brathwaite from his poem “The Awakening”. “I will rise and stand on my feet; ever so slowly I will rise and stand on my feet... I am learning, just let me succeed.” Just let Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, the Caribbean and other developing countries succeed.”
2022-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 77 (2022)
“Life, living and production were, and still are, badly affected. In April 2021, my small country suffered 32 volcanic eruptions that caused widespread destruction of property, immense social dislocation, the immiseration of our people and the evacuation of one fifth of the population into emergency shelters. In early July 2021, Hurricane Elsa struck, resulting in further loss and damage. In late February 2022, open hostilities between Russia and Ukraine erupted, exacerbating the economic turmoil that was already brewing globally. The knock-on effects of the Russia-Ukraine war have been terrible for faraway Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and our Caribbean. The price of basic commodities, such as imported fuel, food, fertilizer and hand tools, has gone through the roof. Still, we are a resilient people.”
2022-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 77 (2022)
“All of those and other twentieth-century quarrels and contentious situations have potentially viable solutions — or, at the very least, mutually acceptable levels of dissatisfaction — lodged within a framework of peace and security. Quality global leadership in communion with the world’s peoples, credible ideas for resolution and a coherent multilateralism grounded in international law constitute the only viable way forward for humankind. In short, let us give mature diplomacy a chance to succeed. Saint Vincent and the Grenadines has had to face immense challenges since March 2020 and continues to do so. In March 2020, the coronavirus disease pandemic descended on us like the proverbial thief in the night. Although we did not close our country down, even in the darkest days of the pandemic, much of the world locked down on us.”
2022-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 77 (2022)
“Why do we not unequivocally resist imperialism’s sordid attempts to subvert the duly elected Governments of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and the Republic of Nicaragua? How can we look askance, in relative silence and contented inaction, in disregard of Taiwan’s legitimate right to exist in accordance with the wishes and will of the Taiwanese people? Why do we not encourage peace and security across the Taiwan Strait by, among other things, permitting Taiwan’s participation in the relevant specialized agencies in the United Nations system, such as the World Health Organization and the International Civil Aviation Organization?”
2022-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 77 (2022)
“At this very moment of our meeting here in civilization’s finest hours, we are eyewitnesses and earwitnesses to immense conflict, strife and harrowing suffering in the world at large. It is an indictment on our civilized Assembly that horrific wars rumble on unabated in Ukraine, Yemen, Syria, parts of Africa and elsewhere. At least one of those wars could lead to a nuclear Armageddon. And how much longer must we stand the balkanization and systematic oppression of the people of Palestine by those who are in arrogant disregard of world opinion and international law? Why are the illegal and unjust economic embargo, undeclared war and criminal interventions against Cuba permitted to continue without let-up, despite overwhelming, near- unanimous denunciation by the General Assembly?”
2022-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 77 (2022)
“It is a truism that men and women usually make history only to the extent that the circumstances of history and contemporary reality permit it. But it is also true — indeed, necessary and desirable — for global leadership to transcend the existing circumstances that are given and transmitted from the past and to push the boundaries of possibilities, for humankind’s sake, beyond what are normally considered the outer limits. I believe that the world’s peoples are demanding a quality global leadership that not only inspires them but draws out of them their goodness, their elemental yearnings for humanity and their nobility of purpose. Often the people themselves do not even know that they possess such goodness, humanity and nobility.”
2022-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 77 (2022)
“But from the global periphery, which encompasses most of humankind, I ask the relevant and haunting questions. What is “new”? Which world? And who gives the orders? The future of humankind depends on satisfactory answers to those queries. In that maelstrom, the centre cannot hold and things fall apart. Yet we must not metaphorically wring our hands in learned helplessness. The principals are certainly not ignorant of the existing conditions, and there are bundles of credible ideas in our multilateral system for fashioning possible lasting solutions in pursuit of peace, prosperity, sustainable development and security for humankind as a whole. So where do we go from here? Central to a credible, equitable path forward for humankind and to civilized life, living and production is the requisite of quality global leadership.”
2022-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 77 (2022)
“Another State considers, also wrongly, that its population size, growing wealth and increased military prowess, and a civilization that goes back to near antiquity, justify its quest for global hegemony. Others, not quite behemoths, continue to conjure up ancient glories and historic empires as illusory bases for reconstructing the past, oblivious to the fact that any such presumed future of unalloyed grandeur is actually behind them. Amid all of that competitive jostling for power and vainglory, confusion reigns and the overwhelmingly majority of the world’s population suffers. It is instructive to note that the contemporary circumstances of the global political economy and society have prompted the powerful and some wannabe powerful countries to proclaim the necessity of constructing a new world order, each with its own peculiar agenda.”
2022-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 77 (2022)
“vanquish all others”. Through Marti, we learn that “[A] vital idea set ablaze before the world at the right moment can, like the mystic banner of the last judgment, stop a fleet of battleships.” Our tumultuous times demand fresh ideas and an invigoration of those that have stood the test of time in the march of civilizations into modernity and uplifting governance. Unfortunately, stale and outmoded thinking too often shapes, and dominates, the global outlook and conduct of the most powerful nations, to the detriment of peace, security and prosperity for all. For example, at least one mighty State wrongly affirms that it possesses an exceptionalism, grounded in a manifest destiny to rule the world.”
2022-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 77 (2022)
“Across the world the faces of ordinary men and women are strained and anxious. Indeed, there is increasingly a sense of despair. At such junctures, historically civilizations have either descended into barbarism of one sort or another or accepted the necessity to repair and embrace fresh hope, conjoined with love for humankind and an abiding faith, made perfect in works. Surely, this is the time to embrace fresh hope. The existential longing that touches the human spirit and soul goes beyond a mere amelioration of our current travails; it demands correctives or reformations of a structural or fundamental kind and fresh thinking. Without fresh hope, a desecration of our future awaits us. Fresh ideas are a core foundation of fresh hope. Over 130 years ago, the Cuban patriot Jose Marti advised that “weapons of the mind ...”
2022-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 77 (2022)
“We identify here and now those of centrality and urgency: irresponsible and dangerous human-made climate change; a dominant economic and trading system, awash with antagonistic contradictions, which has delivered unacceptable burdens to the poor and the weak, on the one hand, and benefits in abundance to the rich and the strong, on the other; unnecessary and unwise conflicts and declared and undeclared wars, which subvert the settled norms and precepts of international law and contribute to economic hardship and immense suffering globally; avoidable public health emergencies, including pandemics, and the distorted, uneven responses thereto; and the dangerous vanities, delusional vainglories and hubris of men and women in power, particularly in the global centres of imperialism and in the locales of those intoxicated by the quest for hegemony.”
2022-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 77 (2022)
“In these dawning years of the third decade of the twenty-first century, despite the progress and huge potential for the further upliftment of the world’s civilizations, the human condition is overwhelmingly racked by global turmoil, convulsions, dislocations and the gravest uncertainties about the future. The specifics that have produced, in their aggregation and multiple interconnections, that debilitating malaise and tumult are well known.”
2022-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 77 (2022)
“Our United Nations ought never to be accomplices in any such desecration. So, I reiterate: We are at historic cross-roads of a special kind. We must rise, collectively, to address sensibly, the requisite fresh imperatives in these, our most challenging, times. Thank you!”
2021-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 76 (2021)
“From whence, in the still smouldering ashes of global conflict, our forebears crafted this multilateral institution called the United Nations to provide hope and stability to all of humanity. Yet, this labour is incomplete. The pervasive inequalities that defined the pre-COVID political and socioeconomic order must not become tomorrow’s nightmarish reality. Instead, in this COVID era, we must reorganise ourselves, locally, regionally, nationally and globally, in a quest to provide peace, security, and development to all countries and peoples, in novel ways and with fresh initiatives. And let us also, with a renewed sense of urgency and compassion, strive to protect, and improve upon, this planet that we all call home. It is pellucid that of all time, only the future is ours to desecrate.”
2021-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 76 (2021)
“All objective observers concur that we have carried out our work and responsibilities commendably, and have contributed to the maintenance and advancement of peace, security, and prosperity, globally. Importantly, St. Vincent and the Grenadines has been a central party to the establishment of an institutional nexus known as the A3 plus One (the three non-permanent members from Africa plus St. Vincent and the Grenadines), as a distinctive voice for Africa, the Caribbean, and Latin America. Long may this nexus continue, especially in this the UN Decade for Peoples of African Descent. Mr. President, The lessons of today mirror many of those lodged in the tiring, and oft-times tired, struggles of yesteryear.”
2021-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 76 (2021)
“Mr. President, at our United Nations, the reform agenda, including that of Security Council reform, demand renewed impetus. We have been talking about this subject for far too long, and avoiding concrete steps forward. St. Vincent and the Grenadines recognises the difficulties at hand but it is evident to all reasonable persons that the stranglehold of “the Permanent Five” on the Security Council ought to be appropriately loosened or broken in these times which are so different than in 1945. St. Vincent and the Grenadines has been honoured over the past near-two years to sit as a non-permanent member of the Security Council. St. Vincent and the Grenadines is the smallest country ever to sit on this esteemed Council.”
2021-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 76 (2021)
“These include: Meaningful debt restructuring and a favourable reform of the global financial architecture; the replacing of certain wrong-headed criteria, such as GDP per head of population, by a Vulnerability Index to determine access to development financing; the cessation of the use of unilateral sanctions and the weaponizing of the financial and banking systems against small states, including the capricious termination of corresponding banking relationships; the reversal of the diminution or slow-down of Official Development Assistance by rich countries; that Small Island Exceptionalism be accepted as a category to be objectively embraced in efficacious actions on the Sustainable Development Goals (SGDs) and a rules-based international order; the necessity and desirability for reparatory justice from European nations in respect of native genocide and the enslavement of Africans from which the European nations profited systematically and from which, consequentially, our Caribbean countries have suffered a legacy of under-development; and the urgent need for an appropriate multi-lateral initiative to assist Haiti, a CARICOM member, in its current peril.”
2021-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 76 (2021)
“Vincent and the Grenadines is hoping for the best at the Conference of Parties (COP) in Glasgow in November 2021, but we fear the worst — more procrastination and the ducking of serious responsibility by the major emitters. On this, humanity is at the midnight hour. Can we meet the challenge? We may not live to find out the answer if the usual continues. Mr. President, there is a range of other pressing concerns relevant to the Caribbean that demand urgent, global, multilateral action.”
2021-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 76 (2021)
“No serious person who objectively examines the scientific data can but conclude that climate change is an existential threat to humanity, and especially to Small Island Developing States (SIDS) and countries, such as in West Africa and the Sahel region, which are being swept into seemingly unending natural disasters as a consequence of desertification and extreme land degradation. Science, the real world, and the Paris Accord have pointed to alternative pathways for humanity but the political will and requisite resources from the major emitters to address the grave challenge of climate change have not gone much beyond pious mouthings and marginal tinkering. St.”
2021-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 76 (2021)