Statement by the Head of Delegation

of

Antigua and Barbuda at the XXXII OAS General Assembly

Bridgetown, Barbados

June 3, 2002

Dialogue of Heads

Item: 1 Plenary Session: Hemispheric Security- Terrorism

(This document was digitalized from an original document and may contain errors)

Since this is the first time that I have taken the floor, I wish to congratulate you for your election to the chairmanship of this Assembly. Barbados has always played a leadership role in the history of the Anglophone Caribbean region. Its writers, its thinkers, its diplomats, its political and trade union leaders continue to win the respect and admiration of those of us whose lives and dreams have been impacted by their sacrifices and contribution. Barbados is more than a pretty place. You, Madame Chairman, are the embodiment of its beauty and its brilliance. You continue the history of excellence and leadership which this hemisphere has grown to expect from this incredulous font of Caribbean pride and industry.

Among the most lasting literary legends in Caribbean fictional production is the relentless: In The Castle Of My Skin, written by world famous Barbadian George Lamming. Although it is nearly four decades old. Lamming foresaw this day and could foretell this discussion on terror, as a concern for civilization-In The Castle Of My Skin is concerned with the uses of illegitimate power and the oppression which flows there-from. Yet, it is a young boy, rescued by a fisherman who uses a fishing net to haul the imperiled youth back to safety, that best reflects this Assembly's role and our determination to rescue civilization from the evil which terror threatens.

Can the nations gathered here in Barbados succeed in destroying the threat of terrorism? Not completely and not forever, I would assert. Yet, any semblance of success in this grand undertaking requires collaboration among the member-states of the GAS, large and small. The countries of the CARICOM, on whose behalf I speak today, are ready and willing to play their part. Several of our parliaments have enacted legislation making terrorism itself an organic crime; and we have made a number of predicate offenses, crimes that fall within the ambit of terrorism.

CARICOM countries have also passed laws and taken measures to ensure that our banking and financial systems join in suffocating the terrorist networks, squeezing the life out of their illicit ambitions. We want to be able to deny them the use of financial systems without which the terrorists are not able to undertake their criminal ventures.

At the same time, we wish to ensure that legitimate enterprises are not deterred from doing business with us. The Chairman of American Airlines recently quipped that the safest airplanes are the ones that aren't flying. Our most secure banks cannot be the ones that aren't banking. Our banks in our CARICOM jurisdictions must be free to offer their services to legitimate international businesses while denying the terrorists the same privileges. Laws that are tailored to compel forfeiture of illicit funds, or funds intended for terrorism financing, can be identified and confiscated.

Madame Chairman, we believe that the terrorists are also likely to target their venom and suicidal drive at spectacular targets. One such target may be the ships carrying nuclear wastes from Asia to Europe, using the Caribbean Sea and the Panama Canal as a shipping route. The delegation of Antigua and Barbuda to the GAS, acting with the full approval of the CARICOM Foreign Ministerial Council, has relentlessly pursued an end to that practice.

The CARICOM states have called on the three friendly states, involved in that nuclear- waste-shipment exercise, to select another route. Our small states are fearful that a deliberate act of terror aimed at those ships may bring an end to our very existence. This is not fanciful or farfetched fiction.

The ships bearing the wastes are designed, in the event of a fire, to withstand temperatures of 800 degrees Centigrade for a maximum period of thirty minutes. A recent fire aboard a ship designed for transporting highly radioactive wastes burned for more than twenty four hours before the fire was extinguished. In this context;, Madame Chair, we cannot help but be awakened to the dangers that are involved in the movement of nuclear wastes in our waters. The risks to our fish, our bio-diversity and our peoples are .real. The possibility of a nuclear accident continue to heighten our fears, and the likelihood of a terrorist attack is one that cannot be ignored.

For Caribbean countries, even news of a failed terrorist attack or of an accident would devastate our fragile tourism-driven economies. The events of September 11, 2001, have left the travel industry rather skittish and we are fearful that any news of danger in our region would spell our economic death. We therefore appeal once more for the end of those shipments through the Caribbean Sea.

The CARICOM countries support the call for a study on the best defense postures which the coastal and island-states of the Caribbean can adopt to minimi7:e the danger to their peoples and property in the event of an accident or an attack on these waste-bearing ships.

I conclude, Madame Chairman, by noting that George Lamming's In The Castle Of My Skin ended on an optimistic note. The youth is rescued from danger and receives no more than a scolding from the imaginative fisherman. We are of the view that these youthful, New World countries, having become attractive targets for terrorism, can indeed be rescued by the same mature thinking and multi-purpose creative use to which existing technologies can be put. This General Assembly, in this magnificent country, is testimony to the creative use of the net of human ingenuity brought to bear on a danger which we will lessen, in this hemisphere, in our lifetime. I thank you.