Speech by Mia Amor Mottley, Prime Minister of Barbados, at the 79th Session of the UNGA. teleSUR
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00:00Welcome to Tell Us Your English, let's go live to the United Nations as the 79th UNGA
00:07is underway and Prime Minister Alvarado's Miriam Motley is about to take the stand.
00:11Let's listen.
00:12Mr. President, we need a reset and we need to reset.
00:30Mr. President, in your absence, I congratulate you on your assumption of this chairmanship
00:37of the General Assembly.
00:44We can't wait.
00:59As I said, Mr. President, we need a reset and we need to reset.
01:05Those of us here today representing our brothers and our sisters the world over have endured
01:12four years of poly crises.
01:15As the children of Mother Earth, we continue to wrestle with the climate crisis.
01:21As a human family, we grapple with the legacy of the pandemic.
01:25As a digitally connected people, we are now regrettably confronted by multiple theaters
01:33of war and scenes of horror and famine flowing from that war, armed conflict instead of pursued
01:42development.
01:45Citizens of every country as well, struggling to contain the rising cost of living and the
01:51implications for them and their families on a day-to-day basis.
01:56Mr. Speaker, Mr. President, we are all now threatened by the second but silent pandemic
02:04of antimicrobial resistance together with a growing incidence of death and disability
02:09from chronic non-communicable diseases.
02:13We cannot afford the distraction of war.
02:17If ever there was a time to pause and to reset, it is now.
02:25Collectively as an international community and individually as leaders in each of our
02:32countries, we must now deliver new opportunities and solutions to these crises which dampen
02:38economic growth, which restrict the ambitions of our people and numb our sense of the beauty
02:44and goodness that the world ought to be offering because it has it to offer.
02:51The reset for which I am calling and indeed all of our citizens are demanding must see
02:57an end to all forms of discrimination.
03:01The rules and institutions today exist which create first and second class citizens as
03:06we have said from this podium year after year, depending on your nation of origin, militate
03:13against the trust and the credibility and the hope and it fosters a crisis of confidence
03:18in the existing international order which must become inclusive and responsive for all.
03:26More than any other complaint from this podium has been the disparity in treatment and the
03:32inability to be able to have fair and transparent treatment for all that would lead to the trust
03:39necessary for us to solve the problems of our times that are truly beyond man-made causes.
03:48Neo-colonialist structures that perpetuate and reflect an old world order characterized
03:55by racism and classism and misogyny while ignoring the legitimate aspirations of billions
04:03will not help to foster the hope or trust that is necessary to meet these poly crises.
04:09We must ensure that the global institutions give developing countries, especially small
04:13vulnerable states like my own or vulnerable middle income countries, seats at the table
04:18of decision making where we can be seen, heard, become active agents in our own cause and
04:24lead our own development paradigms.
04:28My friends, we are reminded that 2024 is the final year of the United Nations decade for
04:35the people of African descent.
04:38Much has been achieved, but the recognition, the justice and development for people of
04:43African descent that was promised by this decade has, to say the least, not yet been
04:50fully realized.
04:52And it is for this reason that the Caribbean community joins the growing chorus, and my
04:58own country in particular, for the immediate proclamation of a second decade to complete
05:03the unfinished work and address the matter of reparations for slavery and colonialism.
05:15I start here because this is a necessary but complex conversation, and the Caribbean community
05:23is resolute that it must happen.
05:26Its resolution lies, and I want to be very clear, its resolution lies in a multigenerational
05:34approach in the same way that the £20 million sterling debt that was incurred by the British
05:42government only was repaid in this 21st century, almost 200 years later, so that the notion
05:51of unaffordability becomes a non-issue once we recognize that the solution to reparations
05:58must be multigenerational and grounded in development.
06:03Mr. President, of necessity, the reset must also be characterized by institutional reform,
06:11which has to start in the United Nations Councils.
06:16These councils suggest that some are full members and others are only part members,
06:21and some may be part-time members and some may be occasional members.
06:26All of this has no place in the 21st century, and the anger and the mistrust of our citizens
06:31and institutions, in leaders, in multilateralism and in the processes which exclude while yielding
06:38much talk and little action is very real.
06:43Nowhere is reform and consequentially trust and hope more important to the well-being
06:50of billions of people today than in relation to the global financial architecture.
06:56Restricted access to capital, its disproportionately high costs barring us from doing that which
07:03we must, its inadequate scale and the overwhelming burden of debt often imposed on us by circumstances
07:12beyond our control, these are all now combining to force governments in the world's poorest
07:19countries and frankly across many vulnerable middle-income countries to devote more resources
07:27to debt service than to health and education and in some instances even infrastructure.
07:35For far too many members of the human family, cold ground is our bed and rock is our pillow.
07:43Too many go to bed with their bellies hungry and too many may not even have a bed.
07:54Our reset must therefore collectively build a common agenda that reflects and reinforces
08:00our shared humanity. It is that shared humanity that binds us together.
08:05Mr. President, you know better than most our African brothers and sisters got it right
08:11with the principle of Ubuntu and have used this principle, this General Assembly, to
08:18remind us that its simplicity is what we should aspire to. I am because you are. I am because
08:28we are. My well-being is tied to yours and our collective well-being is connected to
08:36Mother Earth's. This best voices the approach needed to give expression to the reset that
08:44is absolutely necessary.
08:47We acknowledge that there are glimpses of hope. We have, for example, on Monday agreed
08:54to a pact for the future, but we still have war. We have agreed on a global digital compact,
09:02but we still have raging pandemics in the slow motion silent pandemic. All of this rests,
09:09my friends, on the common agenda that the Secretary General has set out for us before.
09:15Yesterday, we agreed in a high-level meeting on a political declaration on antimicrobial
09:21resistance. A lot of fancy words, but this is where the rubber hits the road because
09:27all of us in this room know people who have died from infections and for whom the antibiotics
09:33simply are no longer effective, so that within 48 hours a person's life is snuffed out almost
09:41as if they were at war.
09:43My friends, following on the intervention of the Bridgetown Initiative and the Paris
09:48pact for people and planet, the efforts of many across the board, we acknowledge that
09:56there is some hope, and it is evident in the beginnings of the reform that we are seeing
10:02little by little, but nevertheless they have started. These are all important steps, but
10:09we cannot take our eyes off the prize. Barbados' call for fundamental reset includes attitudes
10:17and behavior as much as actions or reforms.
10:22Sides of government are in agreement that we must trigger national development agendas
10:27of transformation with both speed and scale. We have a date with destiny against 1.5 degrees.
10:36We know that that is what is needed to survive, and the implications for people even as we
10:42speak can be dire, but if there is a failure to act with clarity of purpose and if the
10:49political will retards progress on the front of the much needed reform within the international
10:55financial institutions purely because heads of government do not speak to ministers of
11:00finance when they reach Washington, D.C., or their board directors, if there is a need
11:08for that to be dealt with, then my friends, there must be a commitment to be equal to
11:16the current challenges of member states if we are not to perpetuate the discriminatory
11:22practices that result in undermining the transformational opportunities that we need. Depriving vulnerable
11:29countries from being able to access concessional income that is long enough to build the resilience
11:35to save lives and to protect livelihoods is unjust, and that is why we must remain focused.
11:43That is why, my friends, we launched yesterday the third iteration of the Bridgestone Initiative,
11:49which identifies three key principles very simply. One, we must change the rules of the
11:54international financial system and reform its governance and instruments. Two, we must
12:00shockproof vulnerable economies by dealing with debt and liquidity in a comprehensive
12:06development-focused manner, and if we need to give countries a shot of liquidity like
12:11we give them a shot of adrenaline to avoid them falling off the cliff of debt, then we
12:16must do so. And thirdly, we must augment financing by boosting country capacity to invest in
12:23resilience by several means, including what has been announced already, the rechanneling
12:30of special drawing rights through our multilateral development partners, but that will only be
12:35truly effective if there is another issuance of SDRs in the near future. Indeed, we must
12:42also address the challenge, and this I believe to be the fundamental mission of this generation,
12:51of how we are going to secure the global public commons to be able to maintain our safety
12:58and stability as a global community. We're going to have to discuss how we can secure
13:03it and, of course, how we must finance it. And that is not only the climate crisis or
13:10the loss of biodiversity that we speak about, but the other many global challenges that
13:15can truly destabilize countries and regions. Mr. President, these considerations are of
13:21fundamental importance to the sustainable existence of our generations, future generations.
13:28The SIDS agenda is another story of promises made but not kept. Thirty years ago, the international
13:36community gathered in my own country to take action for the first time on the unique challenges
13:41faced by small island developing states. We birthed in my home country the first ever
13:48global agenda for small island developing states, which became known as the Barbados
13:52program of action. I thank Mauritius for its strategy of implementation, Samoa for
14:00its pathway. They were carriers of the baton of a development agenda for small island developing
14:05states in the intervening years, in the face of multiple global crises from health to climate
14:11to finance. The vulnerabilities, yes, of our countries as small states have become more
14:16pronounced. In May of this year, we gathered in Antigua and Barbuda for the fourth international
14:23conference on small island developing states. I call on the international community and
14:27the multilateral system to let us work together to ensure that the promise created in Bridgetown
14:34in 1994 is delivered and realized through the Antigua and Barbuda agenda for SIDS 2024,
14:44otherwise known as ABUS. Let me use this opportunity as well to inform
14:51you that two days ago, we took over the presidency of the Climate Vulnerable Forum, the V20 countries
14:57of the world from Ghana, whose president I would like to thank for the excellent stewardship
15:02of the group over the past two years, and indeed for the strengthening of its institutional
15:07capacity. The priorities of our term as chair of the V20 countries will be the multiple
15:13dimensions of climate crisis, dealing with them, the impact of the climate crisis on
15:19human health, and of course, the issue of debt and climate, because if we don't solve
15:24that, we cannot take the appropriate actions to deal with climate. I invite all United
15:31Nations members who are not yet members of the V20 but who are climate vulnerable to
15:37join this group, because it is only through amplification of our voices and consistency
15:44of our message and solidarity that we will continue to see the pace and scale of reforms
15:52that we need to be able to save our people's lives. I commend to you the declaration of
15:58the leaders of the Climate Vulnerable Forum that was adopted this week on Wednesday.
16:05Mr. President, above all else, we need a global reset on peace. There needs to be a global
16:15reset on peace. Those of us who are old enough would have recognized that there are peaks
16:23and valleys as it relates to this issue of conflict. There are few areas where the world
16:30is more in need of the United Nations acting as the United Nations to secure the objectives
16:38of the Charter than in the area of peace and security. The silence that has engulfed Sudan
16:48is unacceptable and may well be rooted in the racism that the world still carries as
16:54a badge of honor from the victories of the last great war of World War II. The actions
17:02in Myanmar cannot continue. Ukraine has sucked more oxygen out of the global community and
17:12the global financial system than any of us can appropriately accept at the very time
17:21when the world needs to be applying its resources and efforts to fit in the greatest crisis
17:26known to mankind. And the spread of the war from Gaza to the consequences in the West
17:35Bank to now clearly what is happening in Lebanon as we speak with Israel, all of these are
17:45but the tip of an iceberg of death, violence and instability and robs the global community
17:52of oxygen and resources at the very time when we need it most in a strategic way. We
18:00all know as students of history that even the longest war in history came to an end.
18:08These wars, yes, they too will come to an end but the question is when and at what cost
18:16and without much loss of life, with how many children not being able to be either given
18:21the chance to live or will now live with memories of war that will affect their every action
18:28for the next 60, 70, 80 years of their lives. Innocent people are paying the price with
18:37the one thing that is theirs to give and they don't give it willingly. It is their life.
18:45Unless we address the root causes of these wars one by one and the manners in which they
18:52are being sustained and financed, we will never, never know anything else other than
18:59war and rumours of war in these theatres. The transmittal of these scenes of horror
19:06in real time into people's bedrooms, into people's living rooms will trigger two extreme
19:13reactions, neither of which are acceptable to us in the third decade of the 21st century.
19:22We will either get the desensitising of ordinary people to the loss of lives, especially those
19:29of innocent children and women on the one hand or we will get on the other hand the
19:35anger and inclination for vengeance that it spawns necessarily. We need peace. We need
19:43it. And it cannot be too difficult for us to work for peace.
19:55It is the same Bible that tells us in the stories of the Old Testament, much which has
20:02guided many people across this world. But when we turn from the Old Testament to the
20:07New Testament, it is Romans that says to us, vengeance is mine, saith the Lord, not
20:15any country, not any human being. So that the Bible can't be used as a convenient aid
20:23when it suits us and rejected when it doesn't. In the midst of this maelstrom, we were very
20:31clear. My country took the step this year of recognising and establishing diplomatic
20:36relations with the State of Palestine in spite of having supported a two-state solution
20:42since 1969. And we did this because it is clear to us that the state of Palestine is
21:00a place of peace. It is clear to us that the State and people of Palestine, human beings,
21:07are entitled to full recognition by integration into and support from the international community.
21:14The Charter does not say, we the people, with the exception of any one group from any one
21:20part of the world. We join with others therefore in congratulating the State of Palestine and
21:27the people of Palestine on this day. And we do this as they did on the 10th of September
21:32of this year. And let me be clear, we condemn the actions of Hamas on October 7th. But we
21:43equally and strongly deplore the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza which is the result of
21:49the disproportionate use of force by Israel. There is no justification for it.
21:57That is why treaties exist governing the rules of engagement for war. Because we as
22:03human beings learnt better and know better and committed to better. A two-state solution,
22:10no matter how elusive it may appear to be now, is the only answer. And I've said already
22:16this week that we have known difficult battles in mankind's history. But when we were in
22:23Afghanistan, we did not think we could achieve it. But we did. We abolished slavery. We removed
22:29apartheid in South Africa. These battles are not beyond our creativity, our capacity and
22:37our resilience to resolve them. Similarly, we insist that the killing in Ukraine really
22:43has to stop. The people of Ukraine must be allowed to live within the internationally
22:48recognized framework of peace and freedom from the threat of use or force. And as I
22:53said, it is sucking too much oxygen out of the global financial system and countries
22:58that should be the beneficiary of aid are being told that they may have to wait in the
23:05interest of the defence of others because of war. I say to us truly, there has to be
23:13a singular commitment to build a peace. Truly.
23:18Mr. President, my own region has not escaped the scourge of instability and violence. The
23:25Americas do not constitute today a theatre of war. But we are today witnessing, for some
23:32years now, an unprecedented escalation in the number and calibre of assault weapons
23:39which are finding themselves in the hands of criminals who are wreaking havoc on the
23:43legal systems and our societies, particularly in the small island developing states of the
23:48Caribbean, and indeed in the wider states of Central and Latin America. This scourge
23:53caused by guns manufactured in the United States of America primarily also requires
23:59a fundamental reset. The right of persons to bear arms in countries not engaged in military
24:05conflict should not be an opening to accept as legitimate the presence of assault weapons
24:12in countries. It is simply not right. There is no place for assault weapons in our societies.
24:19I turn now to the fate of the people of Haiti, which continues to be of major concern to
24:27our people in the Caribbean region. The global community now has an opportunity for an essential
24:34reset with how it addresses its relationship with Haiti and which has been born in all
24:41kinds of semi and partial concern over the course of the last few decades. We continue
24:51to have it as a recurring decimal because we have failed to solve the problems and put
24:56them on a sustainable path to development for its people. What is needed is transformation
25:04of our sister nation. And yes, we must provide first and foremost security, but transformation
25:10must be its handmaiden. The government and people of Haiti need the full support of the
25:15international community, not just in the short term but in the long term.
25:20And yes, this starts by extending the mandate of the multinational security support force,
25:30escalating the work of the United Nations, deploying all the tools of bilateral, regional
25:35and global cooperation, not excluding countries who want to participate for spurious reasons,
25:43ensuring that those of us who can step up to the plate by significantly increasing the
25:49pledge funds that we do so because we know that it takes cash to be able to deploy the
25:56forces and the police necessary to help with the restoration so that Haitian mother or
26:02that Haitian child can go about their day to day life without fear of being assaulted
26:09or killed or being denied the right to work because of their simple fear of walking the
26:17streets. The Caribbean community has been working hard this year to support our largest
26:23member state. And in the early part of the first few months of this year, we met on Haiti
26:28almost three to four times a week to guarantee the stability that we ask you now to help
26:34us secure. We thank the efforts of the eminent persons group of former CARICOM prime ministers
26:41who were on the front line of helping to resolve this complex problem day in and day out so
26:48that we could find a political consensus for Haiti that Haiti had at this General Assembly.
26:54Both the interim president of the Transitional Council and Prime Minister Cornille is a
27:00remarkable achievement given where Haiti was in February of this year. Let them continue
27:06on a path, please, of securing their future. And we cannot be on this podium speaking about
27:16Haiti without thanking Kenya and President Ruto for their remarkable leadership. After
27:22many delays and in what represents now a historical precedent for an African country, they have
27:30ensured that an African country has taken the lead in helping to tackle the peace and
27:37security challenge beyond its own continent. That is the kind of reset that we need in
27:44the international community.
27:46And Mrs. President, you cannot come on this platform regrettably, although I look forward
27:57to the day when I will not have to say it, when we must ask for reprieve for the people
28:03of Cuba. It is unacceptable, it is unconscionable, and that it continues today is a mark on our
28:12international conscience. The Cuban people continue to face the most dire of economic
28:18circumstances and that this is directly as a result of its exclusion and its designation
28:26as a state sponsor of terrorism. And I have addressed our only knowledge of terrorism
28:32and Cuba is in fact the dungeon of the Cubana Plain off the waters of Barbados where Cubans,
28:39Guyanese and Koreans were killed.
28:41My friends, Cuba has been a valuable partner stepping up for us when it has mattered most
28:48by the provision of nurses and doctors in pandemics and by the provision of other essential
28:54workers when the global community needed it and when people needed to be liberated in
29:00Southern Africa. The reality is that we must have and continue to have resolve in calling
29:08for the embargo to be lifted and we will condemn it year after year after year because it is
29:14simply wrong. As we say so, we pray that the people of Cuba as they determine what damages
29:21they have found from Hurricane Helen, as well as we pray for the people of Florida who clearly
29:27are going to spend the next few days identifying the damage as a result of a hurricane that
29:34hit Category 4 when it reached Florida. This is the climate crisis that we speak about.
29:40The people of Nigeria are still counting the bodies with respect to the floods that took
29:46place there. We have hard work to do. In our own Caribbean region, Beryl literally decimated
29:55the islands of Caracu and Union Island and indeed would have affected Grenada and St.
30:01Vincent more broadly. Jamaica and my own country's coastal infrastructure was significantly
30:08affected with our fishing industry, 90% of it being decimated. This season of superlatives
30:15with its floods and droughts, its hurricanes and fires will take the lives and livelihoods
30:21of too many. The climate crisis is hitting us almost weekly across the globe. The deniers
30:28of the climate crisis, they too need a reset, a reset that will admit of the absolute necessity
30:35of collective action by the global community to save our way of life and our planet.
30:41Mr. President, at the start of this week, the skies were much darker. I truly believe
30:48so. We are starting to see some glimmers of light. We leave New York this week noting
30:54that the clouds are lifting, conscious that the sun is peeping out in certain areas, not
31:00all, but in certain critical areas, giving us a sense of renewed hope that reset is in
31:08fact not only possible but necessary in key areas, institutional reform, reform in our
31:17financial architecture, reform in how we view development, but above all else, reform in
31:23how we see each other and value each other. This hope springs from the pact for the future
31:29and the many declarations that we have made here, the terms in which my fellow leaders
31:34spoke from this platform for the most part, the urgent need to recognize reset, reset,
31:42reset, even if they didn't call it by that name. It is as if we all truly understand
31:48and accept the challenge of rising to solve the major difficulties that are faced by the
31:55people of the world and to recognize that global moral strategic leadership requires
32:00of us the commitment to redress the wrongs and to take care of saving people and planet.
32:07But recognition of the need for the reset, while it is the first step in any issue, what
32:13is now also needed is eternal vigilance as our companion so that as we take the steps
32:20to transform attitudes and institutions and rules, we will not succeed overnight. We will
32:26not succeed even in the next decade. But if we don't do the reset to change the legacy
32:34of centuries of exploitation and domination, we will not be fit for purpose to meet the
32:40needs of our people in the third decade of the 21st century. I can think, therefore,
32:45of no better way to conclude than with a song that I had cause to use almost 30 years ago
32:52from my own country. A song from Edwin Yearwood when I first stood on this podium almost 30
32:59years ago in 1995 as a young minister of youth. And I quote, a voice in my head keeps
33:06talking to me. It tells me the road is long. It tells me we must be strong. Roll with the
33:16pain and roll with the strife for today is the rest of the start of your life. Mr. President,
33:23may the new hope fostered here this week signal the start of a new deal for people
33:30who hitherto were not seen and even with the existence of this body whose voice and presence
33:36were not felt. These people have been recognized too often in these countries as mere statistics
33:44and not with the human dignity that is their birthright or the human dignity that is the
33:51conferred right from these United Nations. Mr. President, I thank you.
34:04We were listening to Prime Minister Verbado's Mia Mott-Lee as she addressed the 79th session
34:09of the United Nations underway right now at the headquarters and she was calling for a
34:15global reset to address all global challenges affecting every region of the world. We will
34:21have more information in upcoming news but stay tuned with Telus for English.