Statement to the 50th Session of the UNGA

by

Ambassador Lionel A. Hurst

09 October 1995

Mr. President,

 

Forty-five years ago, in 1950, a destructive hurricane battered my island-country. It destroyed our small homes, levelled our sugar-cane fields, left death and destruction in its path and made Antigua and Barbuda a destitute colony. It was the very worst hurricane which Antigua and Barbuda had ever experienced. Several hurricanes were to strike us after 1950, including hurricane Hugo in 1989.

Thirty-five days ago, however, hurricane Luis visited its fury on my small island developing State. For more than forty-eight hours, its mighty gusts blew the roofs from thousands of homes, schools, churches, government buildings, hotels. Its sustained winds, exceeding 160 mph, uprooted many of Antigua and Barbuda's old trees, decapitated thousands of stately palms, and deposited the leaves and broken limbs of our evergreen trees everywhere. The swollen sea sent surf and sand swirling into the lobbies and beach-front rooms of our hotels - the source of our national income. Sheets of rain, carried relentlessly by the winds of hurricane Luis, made everything wet and everyone weary. Our electricity and telephone delivery systems were destroyed when thousands of poles succumbed to the fury of its winds, snapping cables and smashing equipment as they fell to the earth. Our fishermen lost their boats, our farmers lost their fields, our workers lost their jobs, and our people lost some of our courage. Nature appeared to have declared war on us.
 

When the ferocious winds of Luis subsided, forty-eight hours after landfall, the verdant, lush, tropical vegetation which had drawn millions to our shores over the years had disappeared; our islands were a mere caricature of their previous glory. The engine of our economy has stalled; tourism, the source of Antigua and Barbuda's income has been severely compromised and we may not be able to re-start the industry for several weeks. Fishermen and farmers, store-keepers and hotel workers are now without incomes; thousands are jobless. The threat of creeping poverty hangs over a people who, fourteen years ago, at the end of 150 years of colonialism, had started to enjoy an improved standard of living, higher than ever recorded in our three-hundred-and-fifty-year modern history. Forty-eight hours after hurricane Luis traversed the Caribbean, the vulnerability of small island-States was again made manifest. Dominica, Guadeloupe, St.Kitts and Nevis, St. Maarten, Anguilla and Montserrat all suffered a fate similar to Antigua and Barbuda's. Coming on the heels of Luis, hurricane Marilyn would batter the island of St. Thomas. Small island States and territories, thriving and robust on one day, were paralyzed and incapacitated within forty-eight hours.

Mr. President

Development is not sustainable if fourteen hurricanes are to trample through our region each year; yet, climate experts have given us notice that the phenomenon known as global warming will generate a greater number of "extreme weather events", more ferocious and monstrous in each succeeding year. Hurricane Luis was 700 miles wide; its wind gusts reached almost 200 mph; its sustained winds exceeded 160 mph; it was unique in its size and devilish in its fury.

Mr. President

There may never be sufficient evidence to link the global warming phenomenon to any single hurricane; but the pattern is evident. I bring your attention to a study entitled Confronting Climate Change, published by the Cambridge University Press (and I quote): "If global temperatures continue to rise in accordance with current predictions, increases in the number and severity of storms, floods, droughts, and other short-term weather extremes may be one of the earliest observed and most dramatic effects." (end quote) Carbon dioxide emissions, caused by the burning of petroleum, coal, wood and gas, since the start of the industrial revolution in Western Europe 200 years ago, have begun to warm the planet and to place the survival of small islands in jeopardy.

Three years ago, at the Earth Summit in Rio, Brazil, the nations of the world had their representatives sign the Framework Convention on Climate Change. I read from the Convention: "The ultimate objective of this Convention and any related legal instruments that the Conference of the Parties may adopt is to achieve . . . stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic [man-made] interference with the climate system." Earlier this year, the nations of the world met in Berlin, Germany, to consider a proposal matching this objective and linked to this Convention; it was put forward by forty-one vulnerable small island-States. Many industrialized countries, guilty of emitting into our earth's atmosphere billions of tons of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, would not then agree to any reduction in these gases. Mr. President, we cannot stand idly-by, experience the deadly effects of global warming, and be satisfied with promises. Harmful production, wasteful consumption, and dangerous disposal patterns continue to characterize the behaviors of the largest industrialized States. They sow the wind; small island-States reap the whirlwind, literally. In the South Pacific, where defenseless small island-States predominate, another large industrialised State chooses to explode several nuclear bombs, euphemistically called "devices". If those bombs are harmeless and as safe as that State claims, then why not test them on their own soil. The same disregard for small islands holds for the trans-boundary movement of hazardous wastes, especially shipments of nuclear wastes through the Caribbean Sea. We are dreadfully afraid of an accident, and equally fearful of the impact of news of an accident, on our development.

 

Mr. President

We have done much of what is required of us to ensure that our development proceeds apace and with few setbacks. Evidence of our intelligent use of our meagre resource base is captured in the annual Human Development Report published by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP). My Caribbean country shares a common currency with five other small island-States and one territory - The Eastern Caribbean Dollar. Its value has remained unchanged since 1976 when it was fixed at US $0.37c; for almost two decades, self-discipline and probity have been the hallmark of the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank. Hurricane Luis has seriously disabled four of the seven economies which share the currency -Dominica, St. Kitts and Nevis, Montserrat, and Antigua and Barbuda. And unfair attempts by Central American banana producers to eliminate the english-speaking Caribbean's 3% of world market share, threaten to undo the other three economies - Grenada, St. Lucia and St. Vincent and the Grenadines. The Eastern Caribbean dollar can only remain stable if our economies earn foreign exchange. Unfair trade, just like hurricanes, can devastate our vulnerable small States' economies and make the earning of foreign exchange impossible.

We share a currency, and we share an university. The University of the West Indies is soon to celebrate its fiftieth year of continued existence, having graduated an overwhelming number of professionals from the seventeen States and territories of the english-speaking Caribbean which call it their own. This year, my Government provided 73 scholarships to the most deserving youth in Antigua and Barbuda, with amounts ranging from EC $54,000.00 to $10,000.00 each. We intend to build the national capacity to ensure that sustainable human development is more than a wish.

We share a currency, we share an university, we share a judiciary. The Eastern Caribbean Court of Appeals has demonstrated that justice and cost-effectiveness can be twin handmaids of small island-States. Eight of us also combine our national defense forces to form a Regional Security System (RSS). Though small by any standard, we have succeeded in increasing our defenses exponentially, while containing defense costs significantly. The recent invasion of the Comoros Islands by a mercenary band which took its President hostage and seized power, serves as a reminder of the security constraints facing small island-States.

 

Mr. President

Our efforts at regional collaboration extend beyond a common currency, university, judiciary and defense force. You have recently pronounced on the success of "interlocking, regional building blocks" in Europe. Thirty years ago, before many of our Caribbean countries were independent and free, we commenced that process by creating, in 1965, CARIFTA - the Caribbean Free Trade Agreement. CARIFTA has metamorphosed into CARICOM - the Caribbean Community and Common Market; and earlier this year, the Association of Caribbean States (ACS) was formed by all the States and territories which share the Caribbean Sea. More than 200 million people form this new market. Antigua and Barbuda has done much of what is required to achieve sustainable development. The results of our many and varied efforts cannot bear fruit if, year after year, hurricanes destroy that which we have created. We look to the United Nations to help in persuading the industrialized countries to adopt the Toronto Targets, as a first step in our common effort to ensure the survival of this planet which we share.

We have faith in the United Nations because the image of the U.N. in my country and region is positive and good. When a volcano threatened to erupt on the neighbouring island of Montserrat and my country offered safe refuge to one-half of that island's population, the United Nations' Resident Representative in Barbados led an U.N. team of experts to Antigua; they came to determine how the U.N. could help. Following the devastation wrought by hurricane Luis, the UNDP Barbados country office, the Department of Humanitarian Affairs, the World Health Organization, and several other U.N. agencies and bodies, quickly launched an international appeal to help us re-construct. The most distinguished citizen of Antigua and Barbuda, His Excellency the Governor-General, was also quick to agree to be the Chairman of our UN 50 National Committee; this willingness serves as a measure of the high regard in which the United Nations is held. My small island-State can also boast that it has paid its contribution to the United Nations in full; we owe no arrears despite the burden which membership dues and peace-keeping operations impose on our limited resources. We can only encourage the wealthy and the powerful to pay their obligations. For us the United Nations is more than a symbol; more too than an instrument for the narrow national interests of Antigua and Barbuda. For us, the United Nations is the guarantor of international law, international peace and security, a catalyst for development and prosperity.

The Secretary-General has noted that the greatest threats to peace are adverse social and economic conditions within States and among States. As a consequence, during the past three years, the international community has convened six global conferences to plot the course of human history in the coming century and beyond. Collectively, the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, the World Conference on Human Rights, the First Global Conference on the Sustainable Development of Small Island Developing States, the International Conference on Population and Development, the World Social Summit on Development, and the Fourth World Conference on Women create a multi-faceted framework of action; this will be completed by Habitat II - The Second Conference on Human Settlements, in 1996. These conferences act as a guide to member-States as they seek to address the challenges inherent in the inter-related areas of peace and development. States must now seek to implement the several Programmes of Action. We are particularly gratified by the extent to which the last two conferences build on the positions which we took at the Global Conference on the Sustainable Development of Small Island Developing States; in particular, my delegation would wish to emphasize the importance of empowering women. The inclusion of women in the councils of the Government of Antigua and Barbuda, at senior levels in the public service and the private sector, gives credence to the earnestness of our commitment to the advancement of women. Without the full and equal participation of women, sustainable development cannot be achieved.

Mr. President

In congratulating you on your election to this high office, my country is very cognizant of the role which a Portuguese citizen played in bringing distant worlds together. Today, we find in you the same foresight and imagination displayed by your most well-known citizen; these qualities are necessary for leading this historic 50th Session of the United Nations General Assembly. At several junctures in its 50 year history, the purpose and goals of this organization have been re-defined. In 1945, following the end of World War II, the United Nations was created as a policy instrument of the victorious powers to prevent another large-scale destruction and massive loss of life. For more than a decade, the United Nations was focused on preventing World War III.

In 1957, a little country in Africa twisted the tail of its colonial master and Kwame Nkrumah emerged from jail in Ghana to lead his country and to re-define the purpose of this United Nations. When the United Nations was created in 1945, colonialism defined the relations between the powerful and the weak, between Europe and much of Asia and Africa. The adoption of Resolution 1514/XV in 1960 turned the United Nations into a policy instrument to end colonialism. For more than a decade after 1960, the focus of the U.N. was to destroy colonialism and apartheid. My small island-nation did not even enter into the consciousness of the founders in 1945. We are the beneficiaries of the struggle to end colonialism. The presence here of small island-States is mere happenstance since few expected that there could be any such creation as a micro-State, seated in this hall as an equal of the mightiest and the largest States.

By 1970, the United Nations had begun to address inequities in international trade and development; and the search for a more just international economic order displaced the concerns of 1945. In the 1970s also, the Cold War heated up. Regional wars in Southern Africa, Central America and the Middle East were fueled by the two super-powers. By the end of the 1980s, the constraints imposed by the Cold War and the demands on our resources for peace-keeping, made the U.N. a much more complicated instrument than it had ever been. Today, our United Nations must struggle with the unfinished business of earlier decades. Small island-States, in the 1990s, aware that their very existence is at stake, have tried to make the United Nations focus on the environment and development, especially climate change. If we fail in this quest, this civilization will destroy us and, in the process, destroy itself. Island States are much like the canary in the coal mine; we are the messengers, signalling the danger to the rest of the world.

Having suffered through hurricane Hugo and hurricane Luis, we thank the many Governments, institutions and people who have come to our rescue. The people of Antigua and Barbuda are aware of the vulnerability of small islands. We know our history and we know of the role played by small States in shaping the present. My Prime Minister, the Honourable Lester Bryant Bird, has applauded the people of Antigua and Barbuda for their resilience and indomitable will in the face of adversity. If we can endure two hundred years of chattel slavery, and one hundred and fifty years of brutal colonialism, then surely we can recover from two days of a ferocious hurricane, he has said. We believe that small island States at this United Nations can also shape the next five decades in human history. We are here for that purpose and we intend to succeed.

Thank you, Mr. President.