Friday, September 27, 2024
9:51 a.m. EDT
Barbados – Prime Minister Addresses General Debate, 79th Session (September 27, 2024)
Venue: United Nations General Assembly Hall, United Nations Headquarters, New York
Transcript:
[President of the General Assembly]
The assembly will hear and address by her excellency Mia Amor Mottley, Prime Minister of, Prime Minister, Minister for National Security and the Public Service and Minister for Finance, Economic Affairs and Investment of Barbados. I request protocol to escort her excellency and invite her to address the assembly.
[Hon. Mia Amor Mottley]
Mr. President, we need a reset and we need to reset. Mr. President, in your absence, I congratulate you on your assumption of this chairmanship of the General Assembly. We can’t wait.
As I said, Mr. President, we need a reset. And we need to reset. Those of us here today representing our brothers and our sisters the world over have endured four years of poly crises.
As the children of Mother Earth, we continue to wrestle with the climate crisis. As a human family, we grapple with the legacy of the pandemic. As a digitally connected people, we are now regrettably confronted by multiple theatres of war and scenes of horror and famine flowing from that war.
Armed conflict instead of pursued development. Citizens of every country as well, struggling to contain the rising cost of living and the implications for them and their families on a day-to-day basis. And Mr. Speaker, Mr. President, we are all now threatened by the second but silent pandemic of antimicrobial resistance together with a growing incidence of death and disability from chronic non-communicable diseases. We cannot afford the distraction of war. If ever there was a time to pause and to reset, it is now. Collectively as an international community and individually as leaders in each of our countries, we must now deliver new opportunities and solutions to these crises which dampen economic growth, which restrict the ambitions of our people and numb our sense of the beauty and goodness that the world ought to be offering because it has it to offer.
The reset for which I’m calling and indeed all of our citizens are demanding must see an end to all forms of discrimination. That rules and institutions today exist which create first and second class citizens as we have said from this podium year after year. Depending on your nation of origin, militate against the trust and the credibility and the hope and it fosters a crisis of confidence in the existing international order which must become inclusive and responsive for all.
More than any other complaint from this podium has been the disparity in treatment and the inability to be able to have fair and transparent treatment for all that would lead to the trust necessary for us to solve the problems of our times that are truly beyond man-made causes. Neo-colonialist structures that perpetuate and reflect an old world order characterized by racism and classism and misogyny while ignoring the legitimate aspirations of billions will not help to foster the hope or trust that is necessary to meet these poly crises. We must ensure that the global institutions give developing countries especially small vulnerable states like my own or vulnerable middle-income countries seats at the table of decision making where we can be seen, heard, become active agents in our own cause and lead our own development paradigms.
My friends we are reminded that 2024 is the final year of the United Nations decade for the people of African descent. Much has been achieved but the recognition the justice and the development for people of African descent that was promised by this decade has to say the least not yet been fully realized and it is for this reason that the Caribbean community joins the growing chorus and my own country in particular for the immediate proclamation of a second decade to complete the unfinished work and address the matter of reparations for slavery and colonialism. I start here because this is a necessary but complex conversation and the Caribbean community is resolute that it must happen. Its resolution lies and I want to be very clear its resolution lies in a multi-generational approach in the same way that the 20 million pound sterling debt that was incurred by the British government only was repaid in this 21st century almost 200 years later so that the notion of unaffordability becomes a non-issue once we recognize that the solution to reparations must be multi-generational and grounded in development. Mr. President of necessity the reset must also be characterized by institutional reform which has to start in the United Nations councils. These councils suggest that some are full members and others are only part members and some may be part-time members and some may be occasional members.
All of this has no place in the 21st century and the anger and the mistrust of our citizens and institutions in leaders in multilateralism and in the processes which exclude while yielding much talk and little action is very real and nowhere is reform and consequentially trust and hope more important to the well-being of billions of people today than in relation to the global financial architecture. Restricted access to capital is disproportionately high cost barring us from doing that which we must.
It’s inadequate scale and the overwhelming burden of debt often imposed on us by circumstances beyond our control. These are all now combining to force governments in the world’s poorest countries and frankly across many vulnerable middle-income countries to devote more resources to debt service than to health and education and in some instances even infrastructure. For far too many members of the human family cold ground is our bed and rock is our pillow.
Too many go to bed with their bellies hungry and too many may not even have a bed. Our reset must therefore collectively build a common agenda that reflects and reinforces our shared humanity. It is that shared humanity that binds us together.
Mr. President you know better than most our African brothers and sisters got it right with the principle of Ubuntu and have used this principle this General Assembly to remind us that its simplicity is what we should aspire to. I am because you are. I am because we are.
My well-being is tied to yours and our collective well-being is connected to Mother Earth’s. This best voices the approach needed to give expression to the reset that is absolutely necessary and we acknowledge that there are glimpses of hope. We have for example on Monday agreed to a for the future but we still have war.
We have agreed on a global digital compact but we still have raging pandemics in the slow motion silent pandemic. All of this rests my friends on the common agenda that the Secretary General has set out for us before. Yesterday we agreed in a high-level meeting on a political declaration on antimicrobial resistance.
A lot of fancy words but this is where the rubber hits the road because all of us in this room know people who have died from infections and for whom the antibiotics simply are no longer effective so that within 48 hours a person’s life is snuffed out almost as if they were at war. My friends following on the intervention of the Bridgetown initiative and the Paris pact for people and planet the efforts of many across the board we acknowledge that there is some hope and it is evident in the beginnings of the reform that we are seeing little by little but nevertheless they have started. These are all important steps but we cannot take our eyes off the prize.
Barbados has called for fundamental reset includes attitudes and behavior as much as actions or reforms. Heads of government are in agree that we must trigger national development agendas of transformation with both speed and scale. We have a date with destiny against 1.5 degrees we know that that is what is needed to survive and the implications for people even as we speak can be there but if there is a failure to act with clarity of purpose and if the political will retards progress on the front of the much needed reform within the international financial institutions purely because heads of government do not speak to ministers of finance when they reach Washington DC or their board directors if there is a need for that to be dealt with then my friends there must be a commitment to be equal to the current challenges of member states if we are not to perpetuate the discriminatory practices that result in undermining the transformational opportunities that we need. Depriving vulnerable countries from being able to access concessional income that is long enough to build the resilience to save lives and to protect livelihoods is unjust and that is why we must remain focused. That is why my friends we launched yesterday the third iteration of the Bridgestone initiative which identifies three key principles very simply.
One, we must change the rules of the international financial system and reform its governance and instruments. Two, we must shockproof vulnerable economies by dealing with debt and liquidity in a comprehensive development focus manner and if we need to give countries a shot of liquidity like we give them a shot of adrenaline to avoid them falling off the cliff of death then we must do so. And thirdly, we must augment financing by boosting country capacity to invest in resilience by several means including what has been announced already the rechanneling of special drawing rights through our multilateral development partners but that will only be truly effective if there is another issuance of SDRs in the near future.
Indeed we must also address the challenge and this I believe to be the fundamental mission of this generation of how we are going to secure the global public commons to be able to maintain our safety and stability as a global community. We’re going to have to discuss how we can secure it and of course how we must finance it and that is not only the climate crisis or the loss of biodiversity that we speak about but the other many global challenges that can truly destabilize countries and regions. Mr. President these considerations are of fundamental importance to the sustainable existence of our generations, future generations. The SIDS agenda is another story of promises made but not kept. 30 years ago the international community gathered in my own country to take action for the first time on the unique challenges faced by small island developing states. We birthed in my home country the first ever global agenda for small island developing states which became known as the Barbados program of action.
I thank Mauritius for its strategy of implementation, Samoa for its pathway. They were carriers of the baton of a development agenda for small island developing states in the intervening years in the face of multiple global crises from health to climate to finance. The vulnerabilities yes of our countries as small states have become more pronounced.
In May of this year we gathered in Antigua and Barbuda for the fourth international conference on small island developing states and I call on the international community and the multilateral system to let us work together to ensure that the promise created in Bridgetown in 1994 is delivered and realized through the Antigua and Barbuda agenda for SIDS 2024, otherwise known as ABAS. Let me use this opportunity as well to inform you that two days ago we took over the presidency of the Climate Vulnerable Forum, the v20 countries of the world from Ghana, whose president I would like to thank for the excellent stewardship of the group over the past two years and indeed for the strengthening of its institutional capacity. The priorities of our term as chair of the v20 countries will be the multiple dimensions of climate crisis, dealing with them, the impact of the climate crisis on human health and of course the issue of debt and climate because if we don’t solve that we cannot take the appropriate actions to deal with climate.
I invite all united nation members who are not yet members of the v20 but who are climate vulnerable to join this group because it is only through amplification of our voices and consistency of our message and solidarity that we will continue to see the pace and scale of reforms that we need to be able to save our people’s lives. I commend to you the declaration of the leaders of the Climate Vulnerable Forum that was adopted this week on Wednesday. Mr President, above all else we need a global reset on peace.
There needs to be global peace and those of us who are old enough would have recognized that there are peaks and valleys as it relates to this issue of conflict. There are few areas where the world is more in need of the united nations acting as the united nations to secure the objectives of the charter than in the area of peace and security. The silence that has engulfed Sudan is unacceptable and may well be rooted in the racism that the world still carries as a badge of honor from the victories of the last great war of the world war ii.
The actions in Myanmar cannot continue. Ukraine has sucked more oxygen out of the global community and the global financial system than any of us can appropriately accept at the very time when the world needs to be applying its resources and efforts to fight in the greatest crisis known to mankind. And the spread of the war from Gaza to the consequences in the west bank to now clearly what is happening in Lebanon as we speak with Israel all of these are but the tip of an iceberg of death violence and instability and robs the global community of oxygen and resources at the very time when we need it most in a strategic way.
We all know as students of history that even the longest war in history came to an end. These wars yes they too will come to an end but the question is when and at what cost and without much loss of life with how many children not being able to be either given the chance to live or will now live with memories of war that will affect their every action for the next 60 70 80 years of their lives. Innocent people are paying the price with the one thing that is theirs to give and they don’t give it willingly it is their life.
Unless we address the root causes of these wars one by one and the manners in which they are being sustained and financed we will never never know anything else other than war and rumors of war in these theaters. The transmittal of these scenes of horror in real time into people’s bedrooms into people’s living rooms will trigger two extreme reactions neither of which are acceptable to us in the third decade of the 21st century. We will either get the desensitizing of ordinary people to the loss of lives especially those of innocent children and women on the one hand or we will get on the other hand the anger and inclination for vengeance that it spawns necessarily.
We need peace and it cannot be too difficult for us to work for peace. It is the same bible that tells us in the stories of the old testament much which has guided many people across this world but when we turn from the old testament to the new testament it is romans that says to us vengeance is mine saith the lord not any country not any human being so that the bible can’t be used as a convenient aid when it suits us and rejected when it doesn’t. In the midst of this maelstrom we were very clear my country took the step this year of recognizing and establishing diplomatic relations with the state of palestine in spite of having supported a two-state solution since 1969.
And we did this because it is clear to us that the state and people of palestine human beings are entitled to full recognition by integration into and support from the international community. The charter does not say we the people with the exception of any one group from any one part of the world. We join with others therefore in congratulating the state of palestine and taking their seat among the united nations member states as they did on the 10th of september of this year.
And let me be clear we condemn the actions of hamas on october 7th but we equally and strongly deplore the humanitarian catastrophe in gaza which is the result of the disproportionate use of force by israel. There’s no justification for it and that is why treaties exist governing the rules of engagement for war because we as human beings learnt better and know better and committed to better a two-state solution no matter how elusive it may appear to be now is the only answer and i’ve said already this week that we have known difficult battles in mankind’s history but when we were in it we didn’t think we could achieve it but we did we abolished slavery we removed apartheid in south africa. These battles are not beyond our creativity our capacity and our resilience to resolve them. Similarly we insist that the killing in ukraine really has to stop.
The people of ukraine must be allowed to live within the internationally recognized boundaries of their state in peace and freedom from the threat of use or force and as i said it is sucking too much oxygen out of the global financial system and countries that should be the beneficiary of aid are being told that they may have to wait in the interest of the defense of others because of war. I say to us truly there has to be a singular commitment to build a peace truly. Mr president my own region has not escaped the scourge of instability and violence the americas do not constitute today a theater of war but we are today witnessing for some years now an unprecedented escalation in the number and caliber of assault weapons which are finding themselves in the hands of criminals who are wreaking havoc on the legal systems and our societies particularly in the small island developing states of the caribbean and indeed in the wider states of central and latin america. This scourge caused by guns manufactured in the united states of america primarily also requires a fundamental reset the right of persons to bear arms in countries not engaged in military conflict should not be an opening to accept as legitimate the presence of assault weapons in countries.
It is simply not right there is no place for assault weapons in our societies. I turn now to the fate of the people of Haiti which continues to be of major concern to our people in the caribbean region. The global community now has an opportunity for an essential reset with how it addresses its relationship with Haiti and which has been born in all kinds of semi and and partial concern over the course of the last few decades.
We continue to have it as a recurring decimal because we have failed to solve the problems and put them on a sustainable path to development for its people. What is needed is transformation of our sister nation and yes we must provide first and foremost security but transformation must be its handmaiden. The government and people of Haiti need the full support of the international community not just in the short term but in the long term and yes this starts by extending the mandate of the multinational security support force escalating the work of the united nations deploying all the tools of bilateral regional and global cooperation not excluding countries who want to participate for spurious reasons ensuring that those of us who can step up to the plate by significantly increasing the pledge funds that we do so because we know that it takes cash to be able to deploy the forces and the police necessary to help with the restoration so that Haitian mother or that Haitian child can go about their day-to-day life without fear of being assaulted or killed or being denied the right to work because of their simple fear of walking the streets.
The Caribbean community has been working hard this year to support our largest member state and in the early part of the first few months of this year we met on Haiti almost three to four times a week to guarantee the stability that we ask you now to help us secure. We thank the efforts of the eminent persons group of former CARICOM prime ministers who were on the front line of helping to resolve this complex problem day in and day out so that we could find a political consensus for Haiti that Haiti had at this general assembly both the interim president of the transitional council and prime minister Conneal is a remarkable achievement given where Haiti was in February of this year. Let them continue on a path please of securing their future and we cannot be on this podium speaking about Haiti without thanking Kenya and president Ruto for their remarkable leadership after many delays and in what represents now a historical precedent for an African country they have ensured that an African country has taken the lead in helping to tackle the peace and security challenge beyond its own continent that is the kind of reset that we need in the international community and this is president you cannot come on this platform regrettably although I look forward to the day when I will not have to say it when we must ask for reprieve for the people of Cuba it is unacceptable it is unconscionable and that it continues today is a mark on our international conscience the Cuban people continue to face the most dire of economic circumstances and that this is directly as a result of its exclusion and its designation as a state sponsor of terrorism and I have addressed our only knowledge of terrorism and Cuba is in fact the dungeon of the Cubana plane off the waters of Barbados where Cubans Guyanese and Koreans were killed my friends with Cuba has been a valuable partner stepping up for us when it has mattered most by the provision of nurses and doctors in pandemics and by the provision of other essential workers when the global community needed it and when people needed to be liberated in southern Africa the reality is that we must have and continue to have resolve in calling for the embargo to be lifted and we will condemn it year after year after year because it is simply wrong as we say so we pray that the people of Cuba as they determine what damages they have found from Hurricane Helen as well as we pray for the people of Florida who clearly are going to spend the next few days identifying the damage as a result of a hurricane that hit category four when it reached Florida this is the climate crisis that we speak about the people of Nigeria are still counting the bodies with respect to the floods that took place there we have hard work to do in our own Caribbean region Beryl literally decimated the islands of Karaku and Union Island and indeed would have affected Grenada and St Vincent more broadly Jamaica and my own country’s coastal infrastructure was significantly affected with our fishing industry 90 percent of it being decimated this season of superlatives with its floods and droughts its hurricanes and fires will take the lives and livelihoods of too many the climate crisis is hitting us almost weekly across the globe the deniers of the climate crisis they too need a reset a reset that will admit of the absolute necessity of collective action by the global community to save our way of life and our planet Mr. President at the start of this week the skies were much darker I truly believe so we are starting to see some glimmers of light we leave New York this week noting that the clouds are lifting conscious that the sun is peeping out in certain areas not all but in certain critical areas giving us a sense of renewed hope that reset is in fact not only possible but necessary in key areas institutional reform reform in our financial architecture reform in how we view development but above all else reform in how we see each other and value each other this hope springs from the pack for the future and the many declarations that we have made here the terms in which my fellow leaders spoke from this platform for the most part the urgent need to recognize reset reset reset even if they didn’t call it by that name it is as if we all truly understand and accept the challenge of rising to solve the major difficulties that are faced by the people of the world and to recognize that global moral strategic leadership requires of us the commitment to redress the wrongs and to take care of saving people and planet but recognition of the need for the reset while it is the first step in any issue what is now also needed is eternal vigilance as our companion so that as we take the steps to transform attitudes and institutions and rules we will not succeed overnight we will not succeed even in the next decade but if we don’t do the reset to change the legacy of centuries of exploitation and domination we will not be fit for purpose to meet the needs of our people in the third decade of the 21st century i can think therefore of no better way to conclude than with a song that i had caused to use almost 30 years ago from my own country song from edwin yerwood when i first stood on this podium almost 30 years ago in 1995 as a young minister of youth and i quote a voice in my head keeps talking to me it tells me the road is long it tells me we must be strong roll with the pain and roll with the strife for today is the rest of the start of your life mr president may the new hope fostered here this week signal the start of a new deal for people who hitherto were not seen and even with the existence of this body whose voice and presence were not felt these people have been recognized too often and these countries as mere statistics and not with the human dignity that is their birthright or the human dignity that is the conferred right from these united nations mr president i thank you
[President of the General Assembly]
On behalf of the assembly i wish to thank the prime minister minister for national security in the public service and minister for finance economic affairs and investment of barbados
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