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

“In this, our seventieth year, let us pledge ourselves to liberate our nations and our global family from the continuing bondage of poverty, deprivation and warfare; to emancipate ourselves from the mental slavery of discrimination and learned helplessness; to unshackle our policies from the narrow nationalism and imperialist ambition that constrains the limitless possibilities of the human spirit. As nations and peoples we have choices. In the 70 years of this Assembly’s life we have sometimes chosen unilateralism. Many have chosen militarism. Many have chosen, too, to defer and dissemble. Today, as we look towards a complex and uncertain future, let us instead choose love — love of our fellow human beings, love of our planet, and an abiding love not of problems but of their practical solutions.”
2015-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 70 (2015)
“Our collective pressure, so critical to the belated rapprochement, cannot waver. Instead, we must intensify our calls for the complete lifting of this anachronism, and to make whole this rupture in our hemispheric family. This seventieth year of the United Nations must therefore be a year of not only action but also inclusion, outreach and redress of calcified injustices. As such, we must move beyond our inexplicable exclusion of Taiwan from the work of the specialized agencies of the United Nations. The perspective, experience and example of Taiwan as an active and responsible global citizen are self-evident arguments in support of their greater inclusion and participation. Taiwan’s continued exclusion can be neither explained nor justified by any rational and forward-looking global gathering.”
2015-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 70 (2015)
“The Assembly’s unambiguous position on Palestine is reminiscent of our long-standing and overwhelming opposition to the United States commercial and economic embargo against the people of the Republic of Cuba. The embargo has persisted for 55 of the 70 years that the United Nations has been in existence, and its toll is measured in billions of dollars, hundreds of lives and countless developmental opportunities lost. This year, Presidents Obama and Castro have demonstrated laudable courage in working together to move past years of enmity and mutual mistrust. But the welcome détente between the two countries has not yet led to a lifting of the embargo. There is much more to be done to unshackle the Cuban people from 10/23 15-29595 29/09/2015 A/70/PV.18 the chains of an unjust, illegal and plainly outmoded blockade.”
2015-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 70 (2015)
“The decision to fly the Palestinian flag here at the United Nations, adopted by an overwhelming majority of Member States, is an unmistakable endorsement of a true two-State solution with a viable and safe Palestine living alongside its neighbours in a secure Israel. But the symbolic nature of next week’s ceremony is no substitute for continued action to make that two-State solution a reality. With each passing day, realities on the ground make such a solution increasingly difficult. Though the conflict between the States of Israel and Palestine are undeniably complex, they are not beyond the capacity of the parties and the international community to resolve, and we must do so. And we must help in doing so.”
2015-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 70 (2015)
“Our collective sanctimony rings hollow when the United Nations shirks its undeniable responsibility for spreading cholera in Haiti, to the tune of 9,400 deaths and more than 400,000 hospitalized. Legal loopholes cannot mask moral responsibility in this case. Nor can we condemn sexual violence as a war crime while shrugging off the unacceptable actions of some United Nations peacekeepers in the Central African Republic. Our Assembly has a responsibility to be open and transparent to meet these sporadic failings head on and to offer redress to all victims of peacekeeper negligence or aggression. On Wednesday, tomorrow, I will stand a few metres away from where I am speaking today to witness the raising of the flag of the State of Palestine alongside other States’ flags in the United Nations compound.”
2015-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 70 (2015)
“The Security Council, more than any other body delineated in our Charter, is unmistakably in a period of doddering dotage, unable to act with the nimbleness or decisiveness necessary to meet modern challenges. The necessity of reform and rebirth, which is acute in any institution entering its eighth decade, is particularly pressing in the case of the Security Council. For too long, reform efforts have fallen victim to the geopolitical ambitions of entrenched Council members and the regional rivalries of legitimate aspirants. This must end. We must ensure that. Similarly, the important and indispensable work of United Nations peacekeepers throughout the world must be above reproach. The United Nations must claim responsibility not only for its successes but also for its occasional grave failures.”
2015-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 70 (2015)
“Within the zone of peace that encompasses Latin America and the Caribbean, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines is concerned at the sharpening of rhetoric between our long-time friends and allies in Guyana and the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. Their border dispute, which dates back to the nineteenth century, has long been constrained by the ties of brotherhood, solidarity and international cooperation. Accordingly, we call for renewed and reinvigorated diplomatic engagement in the management and ultimate resolution of this vexing issue. The maintenance and restoration of international peace and security have been the responsibility of the Security Council for the last 70 years.”
2015-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 70 (2015)
“The results of these actions and inactions almost invariably exacerbate underlying conflicts and produce unwanted global repercussions. International terrorism threatens us all and requires concerted international cooperation. Anti-terrorist intervention must not be shaped by which side of a border the terrorist armies happen to encamp or one’s ideological affinity for the Governments most threatened by these barbaric hordes. We have already learned that modern terrorism, wherever it takes root, can threaten peace and prosperity in any corner of the globe. Stamping it out must be a shared and pressing priority. Diplomacy ought to be most active in averting conflict and defusing disagreements.”
2015-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 70 (2015)
“We in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines cannot remain silent or indifferent in the face of this gross violation of human rights. This not a migration issue of the type that is currently engulfing the European Union. At its core, this is an international 15-29595 9/23 A/70/PV.18 29/09/2015 human rights issue of the gravest kind upon which the United Nations must pronounce unambiguously. Seventy years ago, the United Nations was founded with a central goal of saving succeeding generations from the scourge of war — the very first principle enunciated in our Charter. Today, wars and rumours of wars continue to bring untold sorrow to mankind. Too often these wars are the product of great Power arrogance and decisions based not on fact but on wishful ideological impulses.”
2015-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 70 (2015)
“These issues must form part of the post- 2015 development conversation, and also a part of our combined efforts to uplift the International Decade for People of African Descent. It pains me that I must yet again speak, and demand appropriate redress, on the subject of the retroactive stripping of citizenship of persons of Haitian descent born in the Dominican Republic and their forcible deportation to Haiti, a country to which many of these victims have only a vague ancestral connection. We in the Caribbean Community are pledged to work with our Caribbean family in the Dominican Republic to assist in ending this tragedy at the heart of our Caribbean civilization, but the authorities of the Dominican Republic must demonstrate a good faith not merely in words but in deeds.”
2015-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 70 (2015)
“They constitute in the aggregate an awesome legacy of underdevelopment, a historic bundle of wrongs to be righted. I reiterate the united call of the Caribbean Community for reparatory justice from the major participants in and beneficiaries of the transatlantic slave trade. Our quest for justice is supported by the 33 members of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States and numerous progressive nations globally. The fate of our indigenous peoples and the legacies of slavery and colonial exploitation are neither partisan political talking points nor historical afterthoughts. They are an ever-present modern reality whose redress remains a noise in our blood and an echo in our bones.”
2015-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 70 (2015)
“Our failure to address and assault global poverty in this era of excess and innovation stands as the most stinging rebuke to our existing system of crass commercialism and unfettered corporate profiteering. In an Assembly shaped by the desire to end global wars, we must remember Gandhi’s admonition that poverty is the worst form of violence. We cannot simply pay lip service to people’s right to development. Instead, that right must emerge as the driving force in this Assembly’s senior years. The roots of modern poverty and underdevelopment are deep and diverse. But even the most casual student of history will acknowledge the debilitating and continuing impacts of native genocide and the institution of slavery on Caribbean States.”
2015-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 70 (2015)
“The crisis casts a shadow on our collective efforts to achieve the Millennium Development Goals and shrouds our newly adopted Sustainable Development Goals in uncertainty. The measure of our recovery is not the health of corporations or the rate of jobless economic growth, but the ways in which we have reformed our financial architecture and the reordering of priorities that places people and the alleviation of poverty at the centre of our developmental discourse. The late United States President John F. Kennedy once said that if a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich. The fortress of wealth is not impregnable to the growing unrest and instability born of crushing poverty.”
2015-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 70 (2015)
“Indeed, the posturing and recalcitrance of some major emitters suggest that COP21 may be yet another empty diplomatic dance that prioritizes process over progress. Saint Vincent and the Grenadines is embracing a green future. We are actively engaged in transitioning from fossil fuels to a renewable mix of solar, hydro and geothermal energy. Within the next three years, more than 80 per cent of our electricity needs will be provided by renewable energy. If we could control our climate destiny and insulate ourselves from the recklessness of other emitters, we would approach the future with greater confidence. The aftershocks and repercussions of the global economic and financial crisis continue to convulse developing nations.”
2015-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 70 (2015)
“Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and other Caribbean countries have joined friendly nations in assisting the Commonwealth of Dominica in its hour of need. I beseech other countries that have not yet supported this noble effort of relief, recovery and reconstruction to do so with the utmost urgency and generosity. Our existential struggles in the face of climate change inform our posture in the frustratingly meandering negotiations to arrive at a legally binding agreement within the parameters of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. We are two months away from a deadline for reaching such an agreement at the twenty-first session of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention (COP21) in Paris, but the precariousness of our global plight is not matched by the ambition of our partners.”
2015-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 70 (2015)
“Less than two years ago, devastating floods washed away 17 per cent of our fragile gross domestic product and claimed 12 lives. Our quest to recover and to make our people whole again is a continuing struggle and one that takes place against a backdrop of hope that we are not soon beset by a similar tragedy. One month ago, tropical storm Erika struck our sister island of Dominica, a mere 150 miles north of our 8/23 15-29595 29/09/2015 A/70/PV.18 country. The death and destruction wrought by the storm are heartrending and serve as yet another unwanted reminder of the ominous threat of global warming and the precarious nature of our developmental aspirations in the face of an increasingly inhospitable climate.”
2015-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 70 (2015)
“Saint Vincent and the Grenadines is a small, mountainous archipelago of 32 islands scattered across a shimmering Caribbean sea. But the idyll implicit in our verdant peaks and crystal waters is now belied by the grave and gathering threat of climate change. Rising and raging seas attack our coastline and infrastructure from beyond our shores, while rains and climate volatility make landslides and deadly flooding a real and increasingly frequent internal threat to lives and livelihoods. The intensifying vulnerability of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and its neighbouring islands to climate change is clear in the alternating bouts of drought and flooding that have caused hundreds of millions of dollars in loss and damage in my country in successive years.”
2015-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 70 (2015)
“Sam Kutesa during last year’s session. This year, possibly more than at any point in our modern history, our Assembly is beset by global threats and risks that force us to consider the ways in which our core principles of sovereignty and non-interference can overcome today’s challenges. Borderless menaces such as terrorism, economic crises, contagious diseases and climate change heed neither geopolitical boundaries nor governmental jurisdiction. Furthermore, the calamitous fallout of military adventurism, economic recklessness or environmental negligence is not confined to discrete national boundaries. Rather, the chickens often return to roost in far-flung, unexpected and often blameless locales. As such, more than ever our international relations must be defined by cooperation, collaboration and decisive action.”
2015-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 70 (2015)
“In the Christian Bible, the Book of Proverbs suggests that mortal men live for threescore and ten years, a number that fairly accurately reflects the current modal life expectancy of the global population. Today we have assembled for the seventieth time in the life of the United Nations with the legitimate question of whether this imperfect assembly of mortals has seen its best days, or if, by reason of the strength of our principles and actions, we may endure to overcome tomorrow’s challenges. Saint Vincent and the Grenadines looks forward to the wise and experienced stewardship of President Mogens Lykketoft during this seventieth session of the General Assembly. President Lykketoft, who will celebrate his seventieth birthday during his tenure, can confidently stand on the exceptional works performed by His Excellency Mr.”
2015-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 70 (2015)
“I shall be saying this ages and ages hence: two roads diverge in the woods, and I have chosen the one less travelled by, and that has made all the difference.”
2013-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 68 (2013)
“In conclusion, I would like to recall that the Charter of the United Nations begins with the phrase “We the peoples of the United Nations.” It is not “We the rich peoples”, nor “We the militarily powerful peoples” nor “We the peoples of large countries”; but “We the peoples” — of the entire world, the whole membership of this institution. The United Nations does not exist to confer benefits to select groups, but to secure peace and development for all. If we are to set the stage for the future of development, that stage must be inclusive so that all nations and peoples have a significant part to play and a stake in the outcomes. Let us make ourselves worthy successors of the ennobling, humanizing vision of our venerated founding fathers and mothers.”
2013-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 68 (2013)
“For them, combating climate change is a question of dollars and cents, not life and death. They are only too happy to see the multilateral process fail, so that they can retreat into ineffectual and painless national commitments. But those stubborn obstacles to progress must no longer be allowed to stand in the way of the survival and development of vast swaths of our planet. I applaud the initiative of the Secretary-General to convene a high-level event on climate change in the hope that such a meeting will give our meandering negotiations impetus and direction. The post-2015 development agenda will not survive global warming if it goes unchecked. It is also high time for genuine negotiations in good faith and for meaningful resources to assist in mitigating and adapting to the effects of climate change.”
2013-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 68 (2013)
“Nonetheless, we consider it to be an important first step in regulating the illicit flow of small arms and light weapons worldwide, particularly into the Caribbean region, where the tide of guns is often accompanied by torrents of narcotics as they make their way to markets in other countries. I am deeply disappointed at the international community’s endless, rudderless and seemingly vacuous negotiations on climate change. Our failure to achieve meaningful progress on this matter of existential urgency is inexcusable. Vulnerable countries like Saint Vincent and the Grenadines are on the front line of climate change and are already bearing the brunt of the increasing fallout of global warming. Meanwhile, the major emitters and historical polluters pay callously insincere lip service to our plight.”
2013-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 68 (2013)
“As we continue our collective journey in the quest for greater and lasting global peace, we are reminded that wars do not erupt only between countries, but also within them. We also know that some of the highest numbers of violent deaths occur in countries that are apparently at peace. This year, the international community has recognized that genuine and lasting peace between and within nations, cities and villages cannot occur in an environment that allows an unregulated trade in small arms and light weapons. The Arms Trade Treaty, which Saint Vincent and the Grenadines signed on the very first day that it opened for signature, is far weaker than we would have liked.”
2013-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 68 (2013)
“It concerns the deeply disturbing recent reports of the widespread and unrestrained spying that has allegedly been conducted by the United States of America against a number of countries, including its staunchest allies. Indeed, there are reports that the practice of such electronic espionage is rife, even within the halls and offices of the United Nations. We strongly reject such activity as illegal, a violation of diplomatic conventions and an affront to the comity of nations. Saint Vincent and the Grenadines believes the agenda for appropriate corrective action in that regard, as outlined earlier this week by the President of Brazil, to be fair, reasonable and achievable by the international community.”
2013-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 68 (2013)
“At the same time, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines is very impressed by the efforts of the President of the United States to embrace diplomacy rather than military intervention in pursuit of a political settlement in Syria. The Syrian community in my country, rightly and anxiously, looks forward to peace in its troubled homeland. Only the extremists will benefit from a prolonged civil war. Still, peace cannot be sought reasonably when a precondition of regime change is advanced. All sides in the conflict must make real compromises in the interests of the Syrian people as a whole. There is one emerging issue of consequence that needs to be addressed.”
2013-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 68 (2013)
“It makes no sense whatsoever for international law to become a prisoner of domestic politics and the vain glories of a Great Power. Similarly, the plight of the Palestinian people is being sacrificed on the altar of political expediency, with a disregard for the opinions of almost all of humankind. The issue certainly entails enormous complexities but, unless it is resolved satisfactorily, sustainable peace in the Middle East will remain unattainable. Saint Vincent and the Grenadines hopes that current moves towards serious negotiations will bear fruit in line with the principles and mandates that have been spelled out repeatedly in various United Nations resolutions.”
2013-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 68 (2013)
“Inevitably, that vain ascription swiftly degenerates into an embrace of the damning path of the rightness of unilateral force, rather than an uplifting multilateral force of rightness. Flagrant examples of a continuing disregard for international law abound. Surely, it diminishes a great nation such as the United States of America to continue with what I consider to be a myopic vendetta against Cuba by way of an illegal, outdated and hurtful economic blockade and the absurd declaration that Cuba is a sponsor of terrorism. All right-thinking persons across the world justly demand that the United States end the economic blockade against Cuba and remove its name from the unilaterally drawn up list of States that allegedly sponsor terrorism.”
2013-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 68 (2013)
“It is no surprise, therefore, that small States like my own have emerged as some of the strongest defenders of multilateralism, sovereignty, diplomacy and the rule of law. We view it as our responsibility to sound the alarm when this institution threatens to depart from the founding principles that bind us together. According to basic reason and historical experience, no nation is intrinsically superior to another and no people are innately better than nothers. To be sure, there are cultural and social differences, but being different does not imply a condition of being better or worse. One nation may be more powerful than another, but that circumstance should never permit the powerful to ascribe arrogantly to themselves, in laughable vanity, the doctrine of exceptionalism.”
2013-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 68 (2013)
“Properly conceived and universally adhered to, international law is the bulwark against impunity, unilateralism, and Great Power triumphalism. Today, there are those in the Assembly who hold a curious view of international law, as something that must be imposed against others but which has limited applicability to themselves. To some in the Assembly it seems appropriate to disregard international law in the very enforcement of their distorted view of international law. Clearly, such conduct is unacceptable, for the simple reason that it threatens the continued legitimacy of our entire multilateral system. Small, vulnerable States, by definition and necessity, are those most reliant upon an enforceable body of equitable international law within an effective system of multilateral diplomacy.”
2013-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 68 (2013)
“Anything less will further undermine the moral authority and credibility of this institution. Sixty-eight years ago, our predecessors conceived of a grand experiment, a commitment to bind the world together in a collective quest for peace, justice and development. Over time, we have established a body of rules, laws and expectations that add flesh to the principles that undergird the Charter of the United Nations. Now, we are engaged — explicitly and indirectly, willingly and reluctantly — in a reassessment of that grand commitment. Today, the actions of a small subset of powerful nations shake the very foundations upon which the Assembly was built and threaten to bring the temple down upon the heads of those of us who still subscribe to the original tenets of our institution.”
2013-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 68 (2013)
“There is no longer any scientific dispute that the United Nations is responsible for the outbreak, as has been conclusively established in the relevant reports. Prior to the United Nations negligence, Haiti had not seen a single case of cholera in 150 years. There are more cholera-infected persons in Haiti today than in the rest of the world. I continue to be deeply disturbed by the callous disregard of the United Nations of the suffering it has wrought in a fellow CARICOM country, and by the shameful and legalistic avoidance of what is a clear moral responsibility on the part of the United Nations. Accordingly, I call on Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to acknowledge unambiguously, and apologize for, the Organization’s role in that tragedy and to take immediate steps to compensate the victims and their families.”
2013-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 68 (2013)
“I say to the Assembly that the struggle for reparations represents, immediately, a defining issue for our Caribbean in the twenty-first century. It promises to make both Europe and the Caribbean more free, more human and more good-neighbourly. CARICOM recently decided, quite rightly, to place the quest for reparations at the centre of its development agenda. I am also compelled to speak today on a contemporary injustice that is entirely within the capacity of the Assembly to address. In 2010, negligent, or even reckless, United Nations peacekeepers contaminated a Haitian drinking water supply, which led to an outbreak of cholera that killed 8,000 innocent Haitians and infected 600,000 others.”
2013-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 68 (2013)
“The demand for reparations is therefore the responsibility not only of the descendants, in today’s Caribbean, of the Callinago, the Garifuna, the Amerindian and the African. It is undoubtedly an agenda for all of us to advance, promote, concretize and execute. The European nations that engaged in conquest, settlement, genocide and slavery in our Caribbean must provide the resources required to repair the contemporary legacy of those historic wrongs. That is undoubtedly a special pillar in the post-2015 development agenda. That repairing of the mind, of collective memory, of our economies and of our societies is part and parcel of the rebirth, the redemption and the further ennoblement of our Caribbean, our indigenous populations, our African descendants and, indeed, of Africa.”
2013-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 68 (2013)
“Accordingly, the collective voice of our Caribbean civilization ought justly to ring out for reparations for native genocide and African slavery from the successor States of the European countries that committed organized State-sponsored native genocide and African enslavement. The awful legacy of those crimes against humanity — a legacy that exists today in the Caribbean — ought to be repaired for the developmental benefit of our Caribbean societies and all our peoples. The historic wrongs of native genocide and African slavery and their continuing contemporary consequences must be righted and repaired, in the interests of our people’s humanity. European nations must partner in a focused, special way with us to execute that repairing.”
2013-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 68 (2013)
“I arrived at this year’s general debate from the Caribbean’s first-ever regional conference on reparations for native genocide and slavery, which was held in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. That stirring and uplifting regional conference was the first step in the Caribbean’s quest to address and redress a psychic, historical, socioeconomic and developmental wound that is, for the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), 14 nations wide and 400 years deep. The genocidal oppression and suffering of my country’s indigenous Callinago, the Garifuna and enchained Africans have been rightly adjudged to have been a horrendous crime against humanity.”
2013-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 68 (2013)
“Having more than halved hunger, we have now set our sights on the elimination of hunger altogether: to achieve zero hunger. We hope that the United Nations and the international community can partner with us effectively in fulfilling that historic ambition. Our policy goal of ensuring that no man, woman or child goes to bed hungry will have its own positive knock-on effects on poverty reduction, health and arresting the spread of chronic non-communicable diseases — which itself should also be of central importance to our post-2015 development agenda. As the Assembly is well aware, the roots of underdevelopment and exploitation extend much deeper than the recent abandonment of MDG Goal 8 by the bulk of developed countries.”
2013-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 68 (2013)
“This past June, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines was one of 18 countries recognized by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) for having achieved the part of Millennium Development Goal 1 on halving the proportion of hungry people by 2015 — and we have reduced it to below 5 per cent — and the more stringent World Food Summit goal of halving the absolute number of hungry people by 2015. For a small, vulnerable country to achieve this task ahead of schedule and in the midst of this debilitating global economic and financial crisis is truly outstanding. We have done so while maintaining and advancing good governance, individual liberties and democracy in accordance with global best practices. But the ambitions of my Government are far greater than Goal 1 of the MDGs.”
2013-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 68 (2013)
“Therefore, if we are to discuss the post- 2015 development agenda, we must also discuss the reform agenda of our outmoded international financial architecture, whose failings contributed to the current crisis, and whose continued stasis is a reckless invitation to future economic turmoil. Despite the challenges of the ongoing exogenous shocks, including natural disasters, and the encumbrances imposed by an insufficiently flexible international financial architecture, my country continues to make significant strides in our people-centred approach to development and poverty alleviation.”
2013-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 68 (2013)
“These include Trinidad and Tobago, Cuba, Venezuela and Taiwan. Indeed, Taiwan, a country not washed by our Caribbean Sea, has been remarkable in its principled and practical conduct of intergovernmental relations. Surely the time has now come for this exemplar of the magnificent Chinese civilization to be permitted to participate fully in the work of the various agencies of this world body. Our debate on the future developmental agenda of the international community is taking place against the backdrop of the ongoing global economic and financial crisis. The global economy remains precariously poised, and for every nation that seems to have turned the corner, another plunges back into recession. The impact of the crisis on development has been palpable and has rendered the MDGs unattainable in many countries.”
2013-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 68 (2013)
“Sixteen of 25 developed countries decreased their aid budgets last year, and official development assistance (ODA) contracted for the second consecutive year, the first such contraction since the creation of the MDGs. In a time of crisis, when assistance is most needed, ODA is itself in a deep and prolonged recession. The twists and turns by so many developed countries on this issue have been most disappointing. Without predictable flows of meaningful, non-discretionary assistance, the post-2015 development programme will remain, substantially, a fleeting illusion to be pursued but rarely, if ever, attained. At the same time, I applaud the efforts of those developed nations that take their ODA commitments seriously. I hail, too, a raft of other countries that are in a genuine developmental and functional partnership with us.”
2013-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 68 (2013)
“I begin with an unfortunate, inconvenient truth: our collective failure to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) is largely rooted not in the shortcomings of earnest and hardworking developing countries, but in developed countries’ abject abandonment of Goal 8, “Develop a global partnership for development”. The Organization’s own MDG Gap Task Force noted in its report entitled “The Global Partnership for Development: The Challenge We Face” that the quest for such a global partnership experienced significant backsliding in 2013 and that “the political momentum for advancing international development cooperation seems to have waned”.”
2013-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 68 (2013)
“Your dual focus on the international development agenda and the peculiarities of small island States make this sixty-eighth session one of the most important in my country’s 33 years of membership in the United Nations. Let me first say that the people of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines are deeply pained at the horrendous acts of terrorism recently committed in Kenya. I reaffirm yet again our solidarity with the Government and the people of Kenya. William Shakespeare cautioned that what is past, is prologue. Similarly, Mr. President, your invitation to consider the future of the international development agenda requires us to first consider the ways in which our recent and long-ago steps and missteps shape our future developmental challenges and opportunities.”
2013-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 68 (2013)
“For the second time in my tenure as Prime Minister of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, I have the pleasure and honour to welcome a distinguished son of our Caribbean civilization to the presidency of the General Assembly. Even as we thank your immediate predecessor for his service as the President of the General Assembly at its sixty-seventh session, we look forward to your tenure, President Ashe, with boundless pride and unbridled optimism. Mr. President, for this year’s general debate, you have chosen the theme “The post-2015 development agenda: setting the stage”. This is also the year in which you will lay the groundwork for the United Nations International Conference on Small Island Developing States, which will take place in Samoa next September.”
2013-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 68 (2013)
“Into those swirling winds of change, let us raise the flag of inclusiveness, equality, peace, justice and development for all the peoples of the world to see. May Almighty God continue to bless us all. The Acting President: On behalf of the General Assembly, I wish to thank the Prime Minister of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines for the statement he has just made.”
2011-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 66 (2011)
“Al-Nasser assumes the presidency amid a cyclone of international turbulence and change. We may not be able to direct those winds, but we can, and must, adjust our sails to harness the energy and the potential of this moment, while riding out the storms of uncertainty and upheaval. Former United States President Abraham Lincoln once said, in a different context: “The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew.” Our stormy present requires similar resolve, creativity and action. Let us rise to the occasion and fulfil the immense potential of this peaceful global Assembly.”
2011-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 66 (2011)
“We have no doubt that its action and the solidarity of the international community will resuscitate the moribund negotiating process between the Palestinian and Israeli States. As I reflect on the sweeping geopolitical changes being wrought in our global village, I am compelled to raise the fact that there is no practical, legal or logical justification for the seeming indifference of the United Nations to the meaningful participation of Taiwan in our important work. Surely, in the context of an ever- expanding and inclusive United Nations, the 23 million citizens of Taiwan can, at the very least, be allowed to meaningfully participate in the specialized agencies of the Organization — and that should extend beyond the World Trade Organization and the World Health Assembly. Mr.”
2011-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 66 (2011)
“The wounds of that era are deep, the crimes against humanity are clear and the necessity for apology and reparations is undeniable; we cannot duck those. When we speak this year about the peoples of African descent, we must highlight what is happening in the Horn of Africa and in Haiti. The collective voices of the international community are rising to a crescendo in support of full Palestinian statehood. Saint Vincent and the Grenadines echoes the relevant portions of yesterday’s Group of 77 ministerial declaration, which welcomed the State of Palestine’s application for full membership in the United Nations. The State of Palestine has brought its case to this world Assembly in keeping with the finest traditions of multilateralism. No one should call the Palestinian acts unilateral. They come here to the multilateral body.”
2011-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 66 (2011)
“The peoples of African descent remain disadvantaged, individually and systemically, by the entrenched and unyielding cycle of discrimination. Indeed, many of the wars that the United Nations struggles mightily to quell or avoid are rooted in the ignorant and avaricious cartography of the European colonizers. The people of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines have a long and proud history of resistance to slavery, bigotry and genocide, dating back to the heroic resistance of the Garifuna people against British aggression in the late 1700s. While we celebrate the noble heroism of the famous and the faceless alike who resisted racist colonial hegemony, we must continue to confront the legacy of this barbarism and continuing injustice.”
2011-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 66 (2011)
“I am grateful to the United Nations, which has hosted a number of events to raise awareness of the challenges facing people of African descent and foster discussions on potential solutions to tackle those challenges. Racial discrimination was justified and itself became the justification for a brutal, exploitative and dehumanizing system. That system was perfected during the transatlantic slave trade and ingrained over the course of colonial domination. The structure of the modern world is still firmly rooted in a past of slavers and colonialist exploitation. Today, every single country of the world with a population of majority African descent is still trapped in the periphery of our global economic and developmental systems.”
2011-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 66 (2011)