Speech by Mia Mottley, Prime Minister of Barbados, at the 78th Session of the UNGA. teleSUR
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00:00 And with the light to the 17th Annual Assembly of the United Nations, let's listen to the
00:08 statements of Mia Mowgli, Prime Minister of Barbados.
00:11 Minister for Finance, Economic Affairs and Investment of Barbados.
00:17 I request protocol to escort Her Excellency.
00:24 I have great pleasure in welcoming Her Excellency Mia Mowgli, Prime Minister, Minister for National
00:31 Security and the Public Service, and Minister for Finance, Economic Affairs and Investment
00:36 of Barbados.
00:37 I invite her to address the Assembly.
00:41 Thank you very much, Mr. President.
00:43 And I'd like at the outset to congratulate my dear brother from Trinidad and Tobago for
00:50 his assumption of the office of the Presidency of this General Assembly.
00:55 And also like at the outset to thank the Honorable Secretary General for his continued determination
01:04 and holding us and the rest of the world to the principles that are sacred to this august
01:11 institution.
01:13 The truth is that the speech which he delivered at the beginning of this General Assembly
01:18 can be adopted wholesale by the government and people of Barbados because it reflects
01:24 our aspirations and it reflects our view of the current status of the world.
01:32 I asked myself on Monday night as we met to determine the halfway point of the SDG goals,
01:41 how many roads we have to walk just to make it to the door, only to be told that the door
01:49 is closed.
01:51 Those are not my words.
01:52 Those are the words of Rocky Dawuni, a famous reggae artist from Ghana, nominated for awards
02:04 multiple times.
02:06 But his words ring because in a very real sense are we going to trot the roads only
02:13 to be told that it's too late.
02:17 Too late for us to save as many as we can from the climate crisis.
02:22 Too late for us to save as many as we can from the conflicts of war.
02:27 Too late for us to be able to provide the food that so many need as we reflect on the
02:34 fact that more people are likely to be hungry in this world in 2030 than in 2015 or as we
02:43 get to the basic numbers that 735 million people suffered chronic hunger last year at
02:52 a time when so many others had so much to throw away and to use.
02:58 Are we going to be too late for the SDGs that are really the promise of development and
03:08 the promise of the conferral of dignity on our people?
03:13 We have today to determine what is the will of this body comprised of the member states
03:24 to make the fundamental governance changes that will deliver in the third decade of the
03:30 21st century.
03:32 Our world as you know is replete with issues and I don't need to stand here and recount
03:40 them in detail for you have heard them in almost every speech delivered from this podium.
03:46 But what is the issue is whether we can summon the determination that is required of us to
03:52 make the changes that are appropriate to the age in which we live.
03:57 Our democracy cannot survive if we do not have the same facts but yet we live in a world
04:05 where the generation of fake news is almost a daily occurrence and where people act on
04:11 those premises without consideration for whether the news is true or not.
04:18 The role that artificial intelligence, generative artificial intelligence will play in our world
04:25 must be for good purposes and not evil.
04:28 But if we are to ensure that is the case then an appropriate framework for regulatory action
04:37 must be put in place.
04:39 We therefore support the actions of the Secretary General recognizing that the question will
04:45 come one day from some as to whether you sought to preserve our democracy or whether you allowed
04:55 it to crumble and whether you have failed us as individual citizens of the world.
05:02 We ask that question recognizing that AI is not an immediate focal point of many because
05:11 the drama and the crises that surround climate is taking out all of the oxygen literally
05:20 in the world.
05:22 Those people who died in Libya recently were going about their business.
05:28 They had aspirations.
05:30 They had business that they were hoping to do, families that they were trying to protect
05:37 and in the flash of an eye all of that came to an end.
05:42 And not because we didn't expect it or anticipate it.
05:46 The records of the multinational companies who are engaged in fossil fuels will show
05:53 that they have always known for a considerable period of time the consequences of their actions.
05:59 And while they themselves are not the immediate cause, the absence of technology to be able
06:05 to limit what they are emitting is the cause and by extension therefore they must take
06:11 responsibility.
06:13 We can go no further without an engagement of the oil and gas companies that is meaningful
06:19 and credible and we need to stop talking about it and just simply ensure that that kind of
06:26 conversation can happen.
06:28 But it is not just the oil and gas companies and we have nothing against them.
06:32 We do not want to bankrupt them but their actions continue to have implications for
06:39 too many of our people.
06:41 Their actions are equally bolstered by what I call the fit group, the financial institutions,
06:48 the insurance companies and the transport companies.
06:52 They get a buy or a pass because they are invisible to the transactions and to the activity
06:58 that lead to the problems that the world is facing.
07:02 But they too are as responsible and need to step up to the plate.
07:07 The notion that we can preserve global public goods only with public money ignores the fact
07:14 that we have seen for the last 50 years the absolute dominance of the capitalist markets
07:20 leading to a consolidation of wealth and hence the ability to be able to play their role
07:27 must must be summoned by the rest of us.
07:31 We cannot continue to put the interests of a few before the lives, the lives of many.
07:44 I ask us today, I ask us today truly to pause because what keeps ringing in my head is that
07:56 simple phrase, don't fail us now, don't fail us now.
08:03 And that phrase can come from that little boy or girl who is a victim of hunger, one
08:09 of the 575 million people last year.
08:16 That plea can equally come from those who lost families in the multiple crises across
08:26 the world in the last few years.
08:29 That plea can come from small states that may not exist in the future.
08:35 I ask us therefore my friends to ensure that we summon the will.
08:43 We listened to the Prime Minister of the Netherlands just now and he reminded us ably that time
08:50 is not on our side.
08:53 And if time is not on our side, what must we do?
08:57 The truth is we have made some progress.
09:01 Two years ago the International Monetary Fund did not have a mechanism to focus on cause
09:09 of the problems that led to massive macroeconomic instability.
09:17 We now have the establishment of the Resilience and Sustainability Trust that for the first
09:23 time will make funds available to middle income countries that are vulnerable.
09:28 Twenty year money with a ten and a half year moratorium.
09:32 A year ago the President of the World Bank was questioning whether there was a climate
09:38 crisis.
09:40 Today we have a World Bank that for the first time acknowledges that there should be debt
09:46 clauses that are suspended.
09:49 Debt pause clauses as they call it.
09:52 Our battle now is to ensure that those debt pause clauses are not just for future instruments
09:58 but for existing instruments.
10:00 If not it will not help many.
10:03 So we have made progress but there is still much to be done.
10:08 The issues of debt sustainability cannot be left on the sidelines particularly with the
10:13 number of countries, more than 60 countries facing debt row today as we speak because
10:19 of the poly crises.
10:21 Countries being forced to choose between development and building of resilience to fight climate.
10:28 In our small island states we value education and health care and the dignity of life and
10:34 therefore it will be anathema for us to tell our citizens that we do not have the space
10:39 to provide for you those things that were the promise of independence.
10:44 It is compounded by the failure of the developed world to accept that reparatory justice is
10:51 a solemn obligation which we must confront.
10:55 The conversation King Charles told us at the opening of the Commonwealth Heads of Government
11:00 when he was Prince Charles was a conversation whose time had come.
11:04 That of reparatory justice.
11:07 But it can't be a slow, slow conversation taken up when people feel like it has to be
11:13 a conversation in which equal partners discuss.
11:17 It cannot be an act of charity of those who simply feel that their conscience must be
11:23 cleansed.
11:31 We were about to write the leaders of the European Union last year on this issue of
11:37 reparatory justice and we paused because of the Russian incursion into Ukraine.
11:45 But it seems as though they are not those who want to make peace there or elsewhere
11:49 in the world.
11:50 And therefore we have to lift our finger off the pause button and resume the discussions
11:56 because the development deficit caused by centuries of exploitation is now affecting
12:02 our capacity to build the resilience that is necessary in our nations.
12:08 Similarly I want to thank because a year ago we did not have the Paris agenda for people
12:15 and planet.
12:17 We had the Bridgetown initiative and the Bridgetown initiative has allowed us to keep the debate
12:22 going because we need to change as I said Monday morning in this hall the belief that
12:29 we can have short term money financing development and building resilience.
12:35 I shan't go into all of the details because we don't have the time but suffice it to say
12:42 that we are committed to the twin battle of saving people and planet and to ask us to
12:47 do anything else is a false construct that does not work.
12:52 The markets have to be educated as to why long term capital is the only salvation for
12:58 developing countries and ultimately for people and planet.
13:06 And my friends year after year we talk about the need for global moral strategic leadership.
13:13 I shan't go into all of the details but in my own region in Africa in Latin America in
13:21 the Pacific there are too many examples where we fall short and I speak specifically now
13:27 first and foremost about Haiti.
13:31 The world owes Haiti a resolution.
13:38 It is not a matter of options.
13:41 The world owes Haiti a resolution.
13:44 A year ago we knew that the gas riots had led to serious instability and twelve months
13:50 later we cannot get out of this building and into the support that the people of Haiti
13:56 need.
13:57 There is no doubt a need for legitimacy with respect to the government of Haiti and therefore
14:03 a national unity government may well be the only bridge that can carry us to safety.
14:10 The Caribbean community has appointed three former prime ministers as an eminent persons
14:15 group and as we heard the secretary general say in this hall politics is the art of compromise,
14:22 diplomacy is the art of compromise.
14:24 I say simply to those who act in the name of the people of Haiti there must be compromise
14:30 in constituting that government of national unity if we are to provide the bridge to provide
14:36 the security to stop women from being raped, stop people from being killed, stop people
14:41 from being affected by cholera and other public health diseases.
14:45 But even when we put in the institutional support that Haiti may need and I want to
14:50 thank the governments of Kenya and Rwanda who from as far back as twelve months ago
14:57 committed to being able to provide the kind of institutional support and leadership that
15:02 the Haitian police need.
15:04 But as they did that commitment what they have not necessarily accounted for is the
15:10 continued reduction in the numbers of the police largely because of persons fleeing
15:15 to lands of greater opportunity and being facilitated in so doing.
15:23 This cannot wait much longer and I hope that those who constitute the members of the security
15:29 council will recognize that they cannot use Haiti as a pawn because they have suffered
15:35 for too long and by the hands of too many.
15:39 I return now to the issue of Cuba.
15:43 That Cuba can help so many in this world and yet be the continued victim of a blockade
15:51 of over sixty years but worse than that a designation as a state sponsor of terrorism
15:58 is wrong, wrong, wrong.
16:01 We left Cuba last week and what the people of Cuba are being asked to face on a daily
16:13 basis because of a designation by a dying presidency is wrong and the voices of the
16:20 global community many of whom have been the beneficiaries of Cuban assistance need to
16:26 stand united and to be able to say that we cannot fight these battles when we need all
16:34 hands on deck to save the planet.
16:37 The artificial division of who is right and who is wrong and who is good and who is bad
16:42 in the eyes of those who are powerful cannot continue to be the way in which this world
16:47 functions.
16:49 Let us go to Venezuela.
16:52 Oil is likely, oil prices to go over a hundred dollars and those small countries who do not
17:00 produce oil will be the victims of it as will be our people including in large countries
17:06 like the United States of America.
17:08 We must, we must bring resolution to these issues and it is not incapable of resolution
17:18 when the United States of America and many countries in Europe determined that they were
17:23 recognizing President Guaido without there being a presidency for him to assume because
17:28 he faced no election.
17:30 The members of the Caribbean community came to this August institution and met with the
17:35 Secretary General and met with a number of countries and little by little we saw people
17:43 apply their hearts to wisdom and to recognize that the charter of the United Nations did
17:49 not allow for that kind of unconstitutional conferral of presidency on anyone.
17:55 I say today that there must be transparency.
18:00 It cannot be that the Caribbean community that needs a mechanism for stabilization in
18:08 an energy crisis cannot have access to the concessionary prices that the government and
18:16 people of Venezuela are prepared to make available to its neighbors to minimize the suffering.
18:24 How is it possible for Chevron and the European Union to access the oil and gas of Venezuela
18:31 but the people of the Caribbean cannot access it at the 35% discount offered by the people
18:37 of Venezuela?
18:40 How is it possible that we should have to carry a cost of an additional 4% of GDP in
18:46 my own country simply because the rules that allow for one do not allow for the other?
18:54 There must be transparency and there must be moral strategic leadership if we are to
19:00 build the team to save the planet and to save and attain the SDGs in today's world.
19:07 My friends, there are many other things that we can discuss.
19:11 We support the United Nations accepting the responsibility for tax.
19:16 Why?
19:17 Because as quickly as the world has been able to find a mechanism for global minimum corporate
19:24 tax, it has not found a mechanism to be able to inflate the financing opportunities available
19:32 to developing countries.
19:34 It cannot be.
19:35 We know how to run fast in one set of circumstances when it suits one set of people, but yet we
19:40 run very slow when it matters to billions of people and their access to life and livelihood.
19:47 I do not want to prey on your time anymore, but suffice it to say that we have reached
19:53 a point where we must give thanks for the progress made, but recommit ourselves.
20:02 For the mission was never simply to make progress.
20:05 The mission is to be able to save the planet and to give the people of the world the best
20:12 opportunity for life that is necessary for them as human beings.
20:16 To be able to save the biodiversity of this world.
20:20 To be able to save the soils of this world that must nurture the food that we eat.
20:26 To be able to allow us to have access to safe water.
20:29 And if we don't change how we do our business, if we don't recognize that the Security Council
20:36 needs to put itself in a position not to speak to climate change, but to protect us against
20:42 the climate crisis, because it is as much of a crisis as the war in Ukraine or the wars
20:48 in Africa or the instability and conflict elsewhere in the world.
20:52 And if we don't take a proactive approach, then we truly shall be victims of it.
20:58 I believe that reform is critical at this point.
21:01 But what I believe doesn't matter.
21:04 What matters is the action of each and every country in this.
21:08 And will we always be in a position of flux?
21:12 No.
21:13 There is hope because human beings want to survive.
21:17 But the problem is that those whose actions we most need may be so confident in their
21:21 survival that they do not act early enough for us.
21:26 And that is why I say, will we trod the road to be able to get to the gates only to find
21:33 that we are too late and the gates have closed?
21:37 It will be open for some, but it will be closed for many.
21:41 You know, vision without action, Nelson Mandela told us, is just a dream.
21:51 And action without vision just passes the time.
21:56 But vision with action can change the world.
22:01 Our citizens believe that we come into a talk shop when we come here.
22:08 You and I know that it's potentially different.
22:12 But it will only be different when those of you who have the responsibility to act on
22:17 behalf of governments can ask your governments to come to the point of the decisions that
22:25 we need to make to provide the funding, the tools, and the solidarity, rebuilding the
22:32 trust that this debate calls for.
22:35 And if we can do that, then we will not save all, but we can save the majority of people
22:42 who are currently on the front line.
22:44 We, for those of us who work on the SDGs, believe that as we work to save the planet,
22:51 we have to redouble our efforts.
22:53 And I leave you with one thing.
22:55 The efforts to provide education and to save people from hunger and to remove gender discrimination
23:02 are not simply the actions of governments.
23:04 They have now equally to be the actions of individual citizens.
23:09 But governments must help personalize those SDG goals for their citizens.
23:15 If we can do that and we can continue to make the case for finance and if we can continue
23:20 to stay focused on the climate crisis, then yes, we shall see a better world and we can
23:26 shine the light on the future of many.
23:29 I thank you.
23:30 On behalf of the Assembly, I wish to thank the Prime Minister, Minister for National
23:40 Security and the public.
23:42 We were listening to the statements of Mayor Mowgli, Prime Minister Barbados, at the 78th
23:48 General Assembly of the United Nations.
23:50 She stated that actions should be in motion in order to preserve democracy and stop hunger,
23:55 poverty in the world.
23:57 Moreover, she expressed the need to value education and quality of life for all the
24:01 people of the world, and she also pointed out the need to fight climate change and save
24:06 the diversity.
24:07 And that Barbados is committed to take actions in order to solve the problematics affected
24:12 in the world.
24:13 And she also mentioned Cuba and the unjust blockade imposed by the United States.
24:18 More breaking news coming up, stay tuned.
24:20 [Music]