00:00 In this special interview for Telesur, the Prime Minister of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines,
00:04 Raul González, spoke with our special envoy to New York, Aiza GarcĂa,
00:09 in the framework of the 78th United Nations General Assembly.
00:12 Hi, welcome to the interview with the Prime Minister of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.
00:21 Hi, Mr. Prime Minister. You have a lot of work here in the United Nations as the President of
00:28 CARICOM and CELAC. Are you happy with the UN solutions to the many crises that simultaneously
00:37 afflict humanity? Well, first I want to thank you and Telesur for having us on the interview.
00:45 What is happening in the world today and the response from the United Nations, they're
00:52 complicated. There is an unevenness taking place. There's some progress in some areas
01:07 and then no progress in the regression in certain other areas.
01:16 First of all, let's take the important principle which undergirds the United Nations,
01:23 multilateralism. They're powerful countries which are not interested in multilateralism.
01:32 They're interested in hegemony. And despite the fact that they're not interested in
01:44 multilateralism, hypocritically they may wish to pretend and say they want to create a new world
01:50 order. I ask three simple questions in that regard. What's new? Which world? And who gives
01:59 the orders? That's right. So that's the general question. As the Secretary General of the UN,
02:06 Antonio Guterres, said in his opening speech on Tuesday morning that we need to bolster
02:13 multilateralism, genuine multilateralism, not unilateralist behavior, not imperial or hegemonic
02:22 behavior. Specific matters which concern us in the developing world. First,
02:31 the Sustainable Development Goals, the 17 Sustainable Development Goals.
02:37 We're halfway there in terms of the time span.
02:41 We are nowhere near achieving these goals and we're not going to achieve them.
02:49 Why? Well, several objective factors. Let's deal with a few intervening things.
02:58 COVID and natural disasters in several countries, including in St. Vincent and Grenadines in 2001,
03:06 21 volcanic eruptions in the month of April of that year.
03:09 But more generally speaking, you need resources to finance development.
03:15 And Goal 17 of the Sustainable Development Goals said that we must build efficacious
03:23 partnerships between the developed world and the developing world. And those partnerships
03:30 are not in existence. The pledges for financing, whether through the World Bank, the IMF,
03:37 the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, or the Paris Summit,
03:42 none of these things. We're not having the resources. And what the developed countries
03:52 expect us to do is to say, 'Thank you for trinkets, for crumbs'. Well, we're not doing that.
04:01 We are calling for a refashioning, a reconfiguration of the UN system and of power relations
04:11 throughout the world. And we see changes taking place in that regard. You go on the questions of
04:20 climate change, we're seeing reversals. Look, as soon as the pipeline from Russia to Europe
04:27 was disrupted, what did many European countries do? They went back and opened the coal mines.
04:33 And the coal mines provide more carbon in the atmosphere than before. So the benchmarks are
04:43 not being met, the benchmarks are not being met of the Paris Accord, and the financing is not in
04:50 place. So we have to have an entirely reformed financial architecture of the World Bank, the IMF.
04:57 And we need, in fact, the Bridgestone Initiative 2.0, advanced by Prime Minister Motley of Barbados,
05:07 which has been accepted by CARICOM and CILAC and the African Union and several other countries.
05:13 We need more concessionary resources. We need special attention to be paid to the debt.
05:21 We need a well-funded green bank and several other initiatives in the whole package
05:28 of the Bridgestone Initiative to address not only
05:32 financial development generally, but climate finance in particular. And then
05:41 there are specific matters in our hemisphere.
05:43 The United Nations, every single year, calls on the United States of America
05:52 to bring to an end the criminal embargo, illegal embargo.
05:58 But nothing happens.
05:59 Nothing happens. The state sponsorship of terrorism, which is a bogus declaration,
06:05 I mean, based on no facts, nothing happens.
06:08 Nothing happens.
06:09 So unilateral conduct continues.
06:12 In the case of Venezuela, the coercive measures, which are also illegal in international law,
06:19 those against Nicaragua, similarly.
06:23 In fact, in the case of Venezuela, you take the Petro-Caribbe agreement,
06:27 which has been so successful for the Caribbean, including St. Vincent and the Grenadines,
06:34 because of the weaponizing of the US dollar and the coercive sanctions,
06:41 Petro-Caribbe has fallen apart.
06:43 And thus, a country like St. Vincent and the Grenadines, we are collateral damage.
06:50 And why?
06:51 And all of this has been done by, out of the United States,
06:58 the foreign policy in relation to Cuba and Venezuela and Nicaragua,
07:02 determined by the domestic politics in South Florida,
07:06 presidential politics, congressional politics, governor-type politics.
07:10 So they're prisoners of that.
07:13 But we can't accept that.
07:15 And that's why we make these calls all the time.
07:18 And there's great resistance coming.
07:21 I mean, let's face it.
07:24 There are three approaches we can use in addressing this quest for hegemony.
07:29 One, we can roll over and play dead.
07:32 We are not doing that.
07:33 Secondly, we can make accommodations where practical, necessary and desirable.
07:40 But always bearing in mind that when you make those accommodations,
07:44 they're not taking you into a dead end.
07:47 You're going to the mountaintop,
07:49 even though it may take you a little longer time.
07:52 And at the same time,
07:53 we have to resist creatively with a series of initiatives.
07:58 And that's why SILAC is working closely with the African Union.
08:03 That is why CARICOM is working closely with the African Union and with India,
08:09 different countries with the Chinese civilization
08:14 and whatever their political expressions.
08:17 And we see the expansion of the BRICS.
08:21 So the global South, generally speaking,
08:26 what we are witnessing,
08:27 even though there is not yet a settled multipolarity,
08:31 the old way of unipolarity is coming to an end.
08:37 And that is representing both a danger
08:44 and at the same time, immense opportunities.
08:46 A danger because those who held the unipolar power
08:54 want to act in a preemptive way against rising powers.
09:00 But the multipolarity creates spaces and opportunities
09:06 for all of us in this world to more equitably live in peace,
09:12 in security and prosperity and to protect our planet.
09:15 Speaking about protect all the planet,
09:19 Prime Minister, how does the climate crisis affect the Caribbean this year specifically?
09:27 Oh, they affect us tremendously, in a very negative way.
09:32 There are more frequency of storms, hurricanes,
09:37 the alternating, interestingly, by the rainfall, the landslides,
09:44 warming of the seas, all of that.
09:46 All of those things are accompanied also by drought,
09:50 alternating droughts and land degradation.
09:55 And if you look at all of our islands,
10:03 we contribute very little, as is well known, to global warming.
10:07 But we are really on the dangerous front lines.
10:12 And among the money that we require in the budget,
10:16 the capital budget for St. Vincent and the Grenadines,
10:19 over 60% of our capital budget is devoted to matters touching and concerning,
10:27 adaptation and mitigation because of climate change.
10:31 - And... - And not in other issues.
10:35 - And that's important also. - Absolutely.
10:37 Just because this thing is existential,
10:39 we have to keep our lands, we have to do sea defences,
10:44 we have to do river defences, we have to build more resilient houses.
10:51 - To save people. - We have to invest capital resources
10:56 in renewable energies, sources and so on and so forth.
11:01 But we're not getting the funding.
11:06 Since 2009, they promised about $100 billion US per year.
11:12 But nobody has seen one cent of that money.
11:15 That money in any case is wholly inadequate for the challenges at hand.
11:20 And we are in danger of...
11:23 We are on a course, if we don't change,
11:27 that by 2050, this world is going to be more and more difficult to live in.
11:35 - Absolutely. I agree with you.
11:39 And I have a last question, Prime Minister.
11:41 Some president in this UN session said that
11:47 international monetary fund is financing the Ukraine war.
11:52 And the same international monetary fund is one of the charges increasing interest
12:00 to countries with the foreign debt.
12:02 You speak about the foreign debt.
12:05 What is your reaction about that?
12:07 - Well, certainly the increase in the United States,
12:11 the increase in interest rates is reflected in lending rates
12:16 from all institutions which lend money,
12:19 whether it's the World Bank, the IMF, the Caribbean Development Bank,
12:26 the sovereign funds in the Middle East and so on.
12:30 Because the trade is largely in US dollars.
12:35 And they dominate the global financial markets.
12:40 So that is becoming more and more difficult for countries,
12:46 not just poor countries, but middle-income countries to borrow money.
12:51 That's one of the reasons why you need the cheaper resources,
12:55 more of those cheaper resources
12:56 and a reform of the international financial architecture.
13:00 And it is clear in Ukraine that what is happening there,
13:08 the local is the Ukraine,
13:13 but this is a battle between,
13:15 it's a war between the NATO countries and Russia.
13:20 And Ukraine doesn't have the resources for the weapons,
13:26 to finance all what is going on.
13:28 And we see what is happening in the US Congress.
13:30 What, nearly a hundred million dollars?
13:35 And yet a pittance is offered comparatively to Haiti,
13:41 which is next door and which have some very serious problems,
13:44 which we have to try and solve because of the gangs,
13:47 the terrible humanitarian hardships and so on and so forth,
13:50 food insecurity.
13:52 There is no funds for the developing countries.
13:56 There is no fund for climate change,
13:58 but there is a fund, an important fund for Ukraine.
14:02 That's the point.
14:03 That precisely is the point.
14:06 And even for countries which would have criticized Russia,
14:14 those countries are getting weary and tired
14:20 that every time a conversation begins,
14:22 it's Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine.
14:25 When we have the climate change,
14:27 when we have the sustainable development goals,
14:30 we have poverty and inequality and hunger
14:34 and all the conflicts all over the world.
14:38 It's not only about one issue.
14:42 And all the attention is being paid by the countries
14:49 which have ruled this world,
14:50 essentially for the last 200 years on that issue.
14:55 Well, we are sorry.
14:56 That's not the only show in town.
15:02 There are other things which we have to talk about.
15:04 Big things.
15:06 It's not only one billion people in the world either,
15:11 or a small number within the countries with one billion people.
15:14 The world has eight billion people.
15:18 And we have a lot of people who are starving,
15:20 a lot of people who are hurting,
15:22 a lot of people who are not going to school,
15:24 a lot of girls and women who are still oppressed.
15:27 It's not just about this one issue.
15:32 And we are calling for peace in Ukraine.
15:36 And you may well have to have a settlement on Ukraine.
15:41 Not where everybody is satisfied,
15:45 but you may well have a mutually agreed level of dissatisfaction
15:49 so long as we have peace,
15:50 which will add to security and prosperity in the world.
15:53 Thank you, Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves,
15:57 for being today with Tel Aviv.
16:00 Thank you very much.
16:01 Thank you.
16:02 much. Thank you.
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