SÍNTESIS DE LA REUNIÓN DEL 3 DE NOVIEMBRE DE 1998
CONSEJO PERMANENTE DE LA
ORGANIZACIÓN DE LOS ESTADOS
AMERICANOSCOMISIÓN DE SEGURIDAD HEMISFÉRICA |
OEA/Ser. G
CP/CSH/SA.58/98
2 diciembre 1998
Original: inglés |
1. Efectos del Huracán Mitch en América Central
El primer Vicepresidente planteó
ante la Comisión el tema del fenómeno del paso del Huracán Mitch por
América Central. Al destacar las pérdidas de vidas y destrucción
sufridas en la región, la Comisión observó un minuto de silencio y
expresó su solidaridad y envió sus condolencias a los gobiernos y
pueblos de las naciones afectadas.
Los Representantes Permanentes de
Nicaragua y Honduras, Embajadores Felipe Rodríguez Chaves y Laura
Elena Núñez Flores respectivamente, y el Representante de Belice,
informaron a la Comisión sobre los daños sufridos en sus países a
consecuencia del Huracán Mitch.
Invitado por el Primer
Vicepresidente, el Jefe de Gabinete del Secretario General informó a
la Comisión sobre las iniciativas de la Secretaría General destinadas
a asistir a las naciones afectadas.
La Comisión solicitó con urgencia
asistencia para los países afectados de América Central, al Banco
Interamericano de Desarrollo (BID), al Fondo de Emergencia de la OEA (FONDEM),
y a la Fundación Panamericana de Desarrollo (FPAD). La Comisión le
solicitó a la Secretaría General que presente un informe con relación
a la incidencia y severidad de los desastres naturales y sobre la
capacidad instalada existente. Dicho informe asistirá a la Comisión en
sus deliberaciones sobre la conveniencia y viabilidad de establecer un
fondo especial para responder a estas situaciones de emergencia
causadas por desastres naturales.
2. Consideración de la resolución
de la Asamblea General “Preocupaciones especiales de seguridad de los
pequeños estados insulares” AG/RES. 1567 (XXVIII-O/98)
• Presentación del Primer
Vicepresidente
El Primer Vicepresidente hizo una
presentación oral sobre las preocupaciones especiales de seguridad de
los pequeños estados insulares del Caribe.
• Exposición del Coordinador de
Asuntos de Seguridad Hemisférica de la Secretaría General
El Coordinador de Asuntos de
Seguridad Hemisférica de la Secretaría General, señor Ricardo
Santamaría, hizo una presentación oral actualizada sobre la respuesta
de la Secretaría General a las preocupaciones especiales de seguridad
de los pequeños estados insulares. El señor Santamaría informó que, de
conformidad con el Plan de Trabajo de la Comisión para 1998-1999, en
enero de 1999 la Secretaría presentará su último informe escrito
actualizado. /
• Comentarios de las delegaciones
Varias delegaciones hicieron uso de
la palabra para referirse al mencionado tema y sobre las
presentaciones formuladas por la Vicepresidencia y la Secretaría
General. Se observó que los Estados miembros de la OEA están más
actualizados con respecto al carácter singular de la seguridad de los
pequeños estados insulares. También se reconoció que hay necesidad de
continuar identificando y promoviendo la aplicación de nuevas medidas
de cooperación para abordar estas preocupaciones de seguridad.
La Comisión solicitó a la
Secretaría que distribuyera las presentaciones del Vicepresidente y
del Representante Permanente de Antigua y Barbuda, Embajador Lionel A.
Hurst. /
3. Otros asuntos
Firma del acuerdo de paz entre
Ecuador y Perú
En nombre de la Comisión, el Primer
Vicepresidente felicitó a los gobiernos del Ecuador y del Perú por la
firma del acuerdo de paz y expresó que este evento representa un hecho
histórico en la solución de este problema pendiente desde hace tanto
tiempo.
APPENDIX
Presentation by Ambassador Richard
Bernal
Permanent Representative of Jamaica
to the OAS
First Vice-Chair of the Committee
on Hemispheric Security
The issue of the security of small
states is one of critical importance in this hemisphere because over a
half of the membership of the Organization of American States consists
of small states. Indeed, very small island states make up about a
third of the membership. In addition to that, I might direct your
attention to the fact that if you look at the number of countries
which make up the world today and you were to use a population of say
10 million, you would find that at least half of the countries of the
world today are small. If you were to use one million you would find
that there are about 40 of the 190 odd countries have a population of
less that one million. Small states are therefore, an important
phenomenon in the global society. In addition to that, the number of
small states has increased because a) there has been fragmentation of
larger states, and b) increasingly micro-states are finding it
feasible to become politically independent. Clearly, the security of
small states is an issue which is here to stay and one which is likely
to become even more important in the future.
The importance of the security of
small states was recognized by the Twenty-Eighth Regular Session of
the General Assembly in Caracas, when it adopted resolution AG/RES
1567. This resolution highlighted the conclusions of the High Level
Meeting on the Special Security Concerns of Small Island States which
was held in San Salvador last February. This Organization has
recognized the importance of this issue and sought to give meaningful
expression to addressing this issue in the work of this Committee.
These conclusions were once again
acknowledged in the recognition of the special needs and the diverse
dimensions of the security needs of small island states. It was also
recognized that these concerns go beyond the military and political
aspects which have traditionally constituted the approach to national
security of states in the past. Today, the concept of security
encompasses a much broader range of economic, social, cultural and
other aspects of security. This type of multidimensional approach to
the scope of security recognizes the strategic link between economic
development and social peace on the one hand, and political stability
and democratic governance on the other. Where the former conditions do
not exist, poverty and violence threatens the ability to sustain the
latter and thus constitutes a major threat to the national security of
small island states. In an era of rapid globalization and increased
interdependence in every sense, exogenous events spread or spill over
between countries and can have a profound impact on the national
security of small developing states.
FACTORS INFLUENCING SECURITY
I will first look at some of the
social and environmental factors which can militate against the
security of small island states in the Caribbean and then go on to
talk about the economic threats to security. We now recognize that
these include:
1. drug trafficking and money
laundering;
2. illicit arms trafficking and the
link to terrorism, crime and violence;
3. natural disasters and long-term
ecological change such as climate change;
4. transborder shipment of nuclear
and hazardous wastes through sea and airspace of small island states;
and
5. economic vulnerability and
poverty.
These are just some of the aspects
of the newer dimensions which we have recognized in the security of
small states, particularly small island states. Such problems are of
course not unique to small island states in the Caribbean. However,
these states because of their extremely small size suffer the
consequences to a much greater extent than would normally be
associated with these dimensions.
In addition, the geographical
location of the small island states of the Caribbean make them a
natural area through which transit a range of materials including
illicit drugs and arms – it is a natural corridor for their
transhipment and movement, and therefore these small island states are
exposed, to a considerable extent, to the movement of dangerous goods
through this area.
1. Drug Trafficking
The transshipment of arms is of
particular concern as it now poses a major security challenge. It
directly threatens the social fabric of small island states because it
stimulates violence and is associated with the illicit drug trade
which now assumes such enormous size and involves so much money that
it is difficult for small island states to withstand the pressure.
Small states are particularly vulnerable because of their very limited
defence capability. These states are not able to withstand the
enormous resources that are involved in drug trafficking, and the
associated traffic in arms which is so closely related to drug
trafficking. In addition, the traffic in drugs involves introducing
and spreading the use of drugs in these small societies and this is
associated with crime, violence and corruption.
In addition, the fact that small
island states in the Caribbean are located close to major production
points of drugs and also major markets for drugs encourages drug
smuggling and encourages the multinational drug trafficking groups to
begin to locate increasingly in small island states. Efforts to combat
drug smuggling have proven to be an expensive exercise, diverting
substantial resources from social investment in areas such as
education and health. In addition, the police and military capability
in small island states is very limited particularly in equipment such
as ships and airplanes, which makes it difficult, despite the strong
commitment of governments in this area, to struggle against drug
trafficking and firearms; it makes it difficult to translate that will
into efficacious action.
2. Arms Trafficking
The OAS action in this area has
been the adoption of the Inter-American Convention Against the Illicit
Manufacturing of and Trafficking in Firearms, Ammunition, Explosives
and Other Related Materials; CICAD's Model Regulations for the Control
of the International Movement of Firearms, their Parts and Components
and Ammunition; CICAD’s Model Regulations Concerning Laundering
Offences Connected to Illicit Drug Trafficking and Related Offences.
CICAD’s assistance to the Caribbean has included communications
support for national drug enforcement agencies; the strengthening of
national drug prevention committees; the design of shared
documentation systems for the control of commercial firearms cargo;
and technical assistance. This has been of substantial help in
assisting small island states to try to cope with the illicit traffic
in firearms and the associated drug traffic.
3. Natural Disasters
Natural disasters and environmental
degradation pose a severe and ongoing threat to the security of small
island states in the Caribbean. In these countries, economic progress
can very easily be disrupted because of the region's susceptibility to
natural disasters such as hurricanes. In fact, because of the very
small size of these countries, when there is a natural disaster it is
not confined to one part of the country but affects the entire
country. In countries with large land areas such as the United States
it is unlikely that a natural disaster would affect the entire
country, but in the small island states a natural disaster like a
hurricane affects every aspect of life, and damages every part of the
country. Most countries lack the economic diversity and the level of
development which is necessary to enable them to withstand and to
respond quickly to natural disasters. In addition, several important
economic activities such as tourism rely on the quality of the
environment. Therefore, any developments which affect the environment
including in the coastal waters, affect the economic viability of
these countries. Infrastructural damage occasioned by hurricanes has
had a major impact on tourism and agriculture as well as other foreign
exchange earning sectors.
These require substantial repair
and reinvestment to bring them back into operation. Indeed, a
substantial portion of GDP is lost each year in small island states
because of the effects of natural disasters on the physical capital
country and on economic activity in these countries. There have been
several recent examples of devastation wreaked by hurricanes in the
region, particularly recently in the Eastern Caribbean. There are
still countries which are trying to recover from the impact of
hurricanes. It seems too that hurricanes are becoming more frequent
and that certainly this hurricane season indicates that not only the
regularity is increasing but the severity of these hurricanes seems to
be intensifying and therefore this is a problem we are going to have
to deal with in the long term.
The damage to Jamaica from
Hurricane Gilbert in 1988 amounted to about 33% of GDP; to Antigua
from Luis and Marilyn in 1995, to about 66% GDP; to Monserrat of Hugo
in 1989, to about 500% of GDP. In comparison, the damage to the United
States from Hurricane Andrew in 1992, while much larger in absolute
amount, amounted to only 0.2% of GDP.
In this regard, OAS action has
contributed to handling these disasters in the short term but also
trying to build a capability to achieve sustained development in the
long run, in particular, the Unit for Sustainable Development which
has undertaken projects in the areas of disaster mitigation and
preparedness; programmes for Caribbean coastal zone management
designed to strengthen institutional capacity to maintain these
valuable natural resources; and a plan for adaptation to global
climate changes, in cooperation with the Global Environment Fund.
4. Shipment of Hazardous Waste
May I now turn to a question which
has troubled the Caribbean island states to a great extent in recent
times which is potential disasters not of a natural kind, made and
occurring from the actions of other countries, sometimes countries
outside of this hemisphere, and I refer here to the shipment of
nuclear and hazardous wastes through the Caribbean Sea. This is an
issue which requires urgent and immediate attention. The fragile
ecosystems of the Caribbean region are threatened by the passage of
such dangerous shipments. There is a need for cooperative action to
preserve the natural environment of the Caribbean and this was
recognized as I cited earlier in AG/RES 1567 which calls on member
states to engage in discussions to develop a cooperative programme to
address maritime and air transport of nuclear and other hazardous
wastes and to work with relevant international bodies to strengthen or
develop standards governing the shipment of such goods and their
safety. My delegation notes with satisfaction that the first step
towards this will be taken at the Transport Ministers Meeting in New
Orleans in December. Indeed, it was the delegations of the small
island states who brought this to the attention of the Ministers and
it will be fully discussed in that agenda.
5. Economic Vulnerability
The economic aspects of security of
small island states has not received sufficient attention. It is
difficult to maintain stable democratic governance if the majority of
the population of these societies are experiencing extreme poverty.
Poverty is associated with underdevelopment or inadequate development.
Economic development is a foundation for long term social and
political stability and is a basis for minimizing the threats to
democratic governance, because it discourages involvement in the
illicit drug and arms trafficking. It is also a basis for the
development of these societies in a way which is conducive to
sustainable development, i.e., development which does not harm the
long term prospects of these countries.
Size is a major additional
constraint to economic development, although it has been fashionable
in some circles to dismiss size and to argue that whatever a large
country can do a small country should be able to do even more easily
because with fewer players, it is easier to organize. This is not a
valid notion. Size affects development because small economies have
certain characteristics, such as a high degree of openness, limited
diversity in economic activity, export-concentration on one to three
products, significant dependency on trade taxes, and small size of
firms:
5.1. Smaller economies are
characterized by a high degree of openness, that is, external
transactions are large in relation to total economic activity. Smaller
economies tend to rely heavily on external trade as a means of
overcoming their inherent scale limitations, i.e., a narrow range of
resources and an inability to support certain types of production
given the small scale of the market. Economic openness is measured by
imports and exports of goods and services as a percentage of gross
domestic product [(X+M)/GDP]. This measure indicates the proportion of
the economy that is involved in external trade.
5.2. The limited range of economic
activity in small economies is reflected in concentration on one to
three exports, accompanied by a relatively high reliance on primary
commodities. As shown in Table 6, most of the economies that exhibit
the characteristics of small economies in Table 4 are relatively
undiversified in terms of their exports. Furthermore, over one-quarter
of their total exports are concentrated on one or two products. In
extreme cases, one primary product export accounts for nearly all of
exports, e.g., in 1991, bananas accounted for 92% of total exports in
Dominica and 87% in St. Lucia. The predicament is compounded by the
fact that banana exports depended almost entirely on a single market.
Britain absorbed 80% of Dominica’s bananas in 1992 and 90% of St.
Lucia’s exports in the same year.
5.3. Smaller economies, which lack
economic diversity, tend to have a high dependence on trade taxes as a
percent of government revenue. Larger economies, as measured by
population size, tend to rely more heavily on income taxes rather than
on trade taxes (such as customs duties). This pattern is not related
to income levels. Those countries that are small in population, land,
and GDP, and which depend heavily on external trade, also rely heavily
on external trade taxes for government revenue. There is a relatively
strong correspondence between the countries that could be considered
small and a high reliance on revenues from import duties. All of the
island states, with the exception of Barbados, St. Vincent and
Trinidad and Tobago, obtain more than 20 percent of their government
revenues from trade taxes. Trade taxes account for more than one-half
of government revenue in St. Lucia and the Bahamas, and over 1/3 of
government revenue of the Dominican Republic.
5.4. It is firms, not countries,
which conduct international trade and trade investment. Nationally
owned firms from small countries are small both by global standards
and by comparison with firms in large economies and multinational
corporations owned by or based in large countries. Except for a few
sectors where economies of scale are not a significant factor, size
makes a significant difference in a firm’s ability to survive and
compete in the global marketplace. Small firms are at a disadvantage
because they cannot realize economies of scale, are not attractive
joint venture partners and cannot spend significant funds on
marketing, market intelligence, and research and development. There
are huge differences between the top 20 companies in the United States
and the top 20 companies in the English-speaking Caribbean. Wal-Mart,
the largest employer in the United States, has a staff complement of
675,000 compared (see table 8) to the Caribbean’s top employer,
Lascelles Demercado (Jamaica), which employs 6,800. Total sales of
General Motors is 328 times larger than that of Neal and Massey
(Trinidad and Tobago).
Intervention by Ambassador Lionel
A. Hurst
Permanent Representative of Antigua
and Barbuda to the OAS
Mr. Chairman, I wish to make
reference to AG/RES. 1567 (XXVIII-O/98), which formed the basis of the
discussion this morning and I would like to focus on three of the
paragraphs of that resolution which received attention. I would like
merely to provide some additional information to be included in the
remarks that were heremade. I would propose to look at paragraphs 5, 8
and 9.
Paragraph 5 focuses upon
instructing the General Secretariat to strengthen programmes of
cooperation for the prevention and mitigation of the effects of
natural disasters. Earlier when we touched on Hurricane Mitch in
Central America and its impact I believe that we had come to the
conclusion that hurricanes and other natural disasters, other natural
phenomena, pose a special threat to the security of small states and
you yourself, Mr. Chairman, expanded on this theme. We would just wish
to note that when Hurricane Georges struck Antigua and Barbuda, St.
Kitts and Nevis, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, several gulf cities of
the United States, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, that FONDEM, an
institution of the OAS, responded by providing a small quantity of
resources but, nevertheless, a very useful number of dollars were put
to immediate use in providing such emergency relief supplies as
tarpaulin and bottled water in Antigua and Barbuda. For that we are
extremely thankful.
We wish to point out that FONDEM in
fact requires a more permanent source of funding so that when
disasters of the magnitude as we have seen in Central America strike,
and in our view they are going to strike again and again, FONDEM will
not have to scramble, as it were, to find the resources to assist
these countries in their emergency relief efforts. We believe that a
budgetary allocation annually would be very useful in making FONDEM an
institution within the OAS that can respond effectively and
immediately following a disaster. In order to do that there would have
to be some budgetary allocation which could be reviewed annually
whenever the OAS budget is being debated. As you know, the budget
process is moving ahead at this moment since our Special General
Assembly is only 10 or so days away. Our hope is that for the 2000
budget, we can in fact get the support of member states to include an
amount that would reflect our commitment to the recovery of member
states when hit by natural disasters.
On paragraph 8 which specifically
urges member states to cooperate with the small island states in the
eradication of transnational criminal activity, I am pleased to report
that in fact the meeting which I attended in Honduras was the meeting
of CICAD, the Inter-American Commission Against Drug Abuse and
Control, and we were at that meeting working on what is known as the
Multilateral Evaluation Mechanism (MEM) which was mentioned by the
General Secretariat's Coordinator for Hemispheric Security Affairs.
The MEM is an extremely complex mechanism which is being developed by
member states. It is intended to be an alternative to the unilateral
certification and decertification mechanism employed presently by one
of our member states. But it is not quite like an exam grade or
anything of the sort; in fact, our hope is that it will be so full of
information each year, or whenever it published, that the information
itself would be so rich that one could conclude that member states are
in fact attacking the problem of drug trafficking in a meaningful
manner. This MEM will include, for example, the quantities of drugs
seized; the number of persons arrested; the number of illicit arms
captured; the number of plants that have been eradicated; the
alternative development schemes implemented by member states, and so
forth.
In that regard, we would wish to
report that on the 19th of October, Antigua and Barbuda passed into
law, -our parliament passed into law, -an amendment to our
International Business Corporations Act, having to do with offshore
banking and squeezing out of our offshore banking system the criminal
element, money launderers and the like. As you know, Mr. Chairman, up
until 1972, Antigua and Barbuda had for more than 300 years produced
sugar and in 1972 we abandoned this activity because it could not
attract capital nor was it very profitable; in fact, it could not
attract capital because it was not very profitable. We turned almost
exclusively to tourism. Since 1972 we have seen more than a fourfold
increase in the incomes of Antiguans and Barbudans and in fact had
long decided that tourism would be the industry of the future. In the
past ten years, however, Antigua and Barbuda has experienced three
horrible hurricanes, to which we made reference this morning, and the
harm which these hurricanes caused to our emerging economy. We have
decided that to diversify away from tourism is in the best interest of
Antigua and Barbuda. We have made a conscious decision to move to the
same industry which has made Switzerland, Luxembourg, Lichestein,
Andorra and other small countries in Europe extremely wealthy; we are
talking about offering offshore financial services. We recognize that
there is a threat to honest business being attracted to offshore
financial services when the criminal element attempts to utilize the
same machinery and so Antigua and Barbuda's laws are now more
stringent in ways that will squeeze the criminal element out of our
offshore banking business.
But the evolution of our economy
from sugar to tourism and to offshore financial services is a direct
result of an increasingly hostile world. Hostile insofar as climate
change is concerned and the contribution of states to the climate
change phenomenon by their continued use, in such massive quantities,
of products which produce carbon dioxide and thus cloud our
atmosphere; hostile in the manner in which small states are relegated
to the sidelines even moreso as a result of their smallness. So we are
seeking ways to strengthen our economy and to strengthen our ability
to respond effectively, and ensure thereby, the security for which all
states yearn. So we believe that paragraph 8 of this resolution in
fact has gone some way to making Antigua and Barbuda a much more
secure place than it was when the General Assembly convened in Caracas
this past June.
The third paragraph, paragraph 9,
which instructs the Secretary General to cooperate within allocated
resources, with the small states, through the University of the West
Indies, to advance the examination of the special security concerns,
we think has also been somewhat achieved. We do not believe it is
complete, but we believe that we are beginning to see some movement.
We would like to make mention of the decision of the Inter-American
Council for Integral Development through the CENPES to fund a project
that will in fact allow the University of the West Indies to become
involved in the discussion of the security-policy decision-making on
the part of the small states. I believe the contribution of the CIDI
will be somewhere in the region of $65,000, while the contribution of
the University of the West Indies will be matched and/or exceeded by
its member states.
Now once again, Mr. Chairman, we
would like to take the opportunity to talk just a little bit about the
University of the West Indies. It is not only 50 years old this year,
but the University of the West Indies is, as you well know, Mr.
Chairman, having graduated therefrom, a special creation of the
English-speaking countries in the Caribbean with the exception of the
United States Virgin Islands. Every English speaking member of the
Caribbean country has a fixed number of seats allocated to it in the
university, with additional seats allowed on a competitive basis. It
has served our needs well. But it is of course a very small
institution with no more than 18,000 students. This is not nearly
enough to create the kind of economic machine which the small island
states in the Caribbean require. For example, Singapore, which has the
identical population size as Jamaica of about two-and-half million,
has more than 75,000 engineering students alone in its university, and
this has nothing to do with students studying other disciplines. There
we are with about 5 million people all told in the English speaking
Caribbean, and our University can provide no more than about 18,000
seats in total. You can see the limit which is placed on our
institution to deliver the kind of intellectual capacity which will be
required in the 21st century. Taking this into account, and knowing
that the University needs the assistance of multilateral institutions
in providing the kind of leadership which will be demanded in the 21st
century, we believe that this particular project will in fact begin to
deliver some of the necessary thinking which needs to go into the
special security concerns of small island states. This project
achieves this end.
So I thought Mr. Chairman, that
paragraphs 5, 8 and 9 could serve as a supplement to what has been
reported here this morning and, with your permission, I have taken the
opportunity to add to what has been said.
I thank you very much for the
opportunity; I thank member states for placing this item on the agenda
and I thank you for your leadership on this very troubling question of
the security concerns of small island states. Thank you Mr. Chairman.
|