​Akash Sama­roo

Re­port­ing from UN­GA in New York

​Bar­ba­dos Prime Min­is­ter Mia Mot­t­ley has called on the Unit­ed Na­tions to de­sist from treat­ing some coun­tries like “chil­dren” and to re­form its Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil to in­clude per­ma­nent seats for small is­land de­vel­op­ing states (SIDS) and African na­tions.

Speak­ing at the Unit­ed Na­tions Gen­er­al As­sem­bly yes­ter­day, Mot­t­ley said the UN Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil must re­flect the “mul­ti­po­lar” world that ex­ists now and recog­nise that there have been sub­stan­tial geopo­lit­i­cal shifts since 1962, the last time the coun­cil was re­formed.

Mot­t­ley bold­ly told the UN that SIDS and African coun­tries can­not be used for con­ve­nience.

“We all have per­spec­tives that must be heard. You can­not ask us re­al­ly, to show up for fam­i­ly pho­tos and votes when you need them and then ex­clude us from the fam­i­ly’s de­ci­sion-mak­ing as if you are the grown-ups and we are the chil­dren. We are not mi­nors,” she said.

Mot­t­ley added, “We are in­de­pen­dent sov­er­eign states with full ca­pac­i­ty and we in­sist on be­ing treat­ed as such.”

The UN Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil is com­posed of 15 mem­ber states. This in­cludes five per­ma­nent mem­bers (Chi­na, France, Rus­sia, Unit­ed King­dom and Unit­ed States) with ve­to pow­er and 10 non-per­ma­nent mem­bers who serve for a set term. Guyana is cur­rent­ly one of those coun­tries.

For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers told Guardian Me­dia this week that T&T is up for non-per­ma­nent mem­ber se­lec­tion soon.

In her ap­prox­i­mate­ly 30-minute con­tri­bu­tion, Mot­t­ley al­so spoke out on what she called the build-up in mil­i­tary as­sets in the Caribbean by both the US and Venezuela.

“We be­lieve that any such build-up could oc­ca­sion just an ac­ci­dent and if it does, a sim­ple ac­ci­dent can put the South­ern Caribbean at dis­pro­por­tion­ate risk. I need not tell you, there­fore, what a war can do. It is not ac­cept­able for our is­lands, our coun­tries, to be viewed as col­lat­er­al dam­age.”

She added, “I say sim­ply for all who can hear and for all who read and can lis­ten, full re­spect for the ter­ri­to­r­i­al in­tegri­ty of each and every state in the Caribbean must be re­spect­ed and that in­cludes all states. Al­most all wars end as a re­sult of di­a­logue. Let us make a greater ef­fort to have the nec­es­sary con­ver­sa­tions to pre­vent war.”