KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

Yes­ter­day’s 47th Ple­nary Meet­ing of the Unit­ed Na­tions (UN) Gen­er­al As­sem­bly was his­toric for T&T as for the first time a T&T na­tion­al was elect­ed Pres­i­dent. Den­nis Fran­cis, Am­bas­sador Ex­tra­or­di­nary and Plenipo­ten­tiary Per­ma­nent Rep­re­sen­ta­tive of T&T to the UN, was elect­ed by ac­cla­ma­tion in New York.

The first para­graph of the an­nexe to the Gen­er­al As­sem­bly Res­o­lu­tion 33/138 of De­cem­ber 16, 1978, states that the Pres­i­dent at the 78th ses­sion should come from Latin Amer­i­can and the Caribbean. In Feb­ru­ary, the group en­dorsed Fran­cis, a diplo­mat with more than 40 years of ex­pe­ri­ence. In ac­cor­dance with res­o­lu­tion 70/305 of Sep­tem­ber 13, 2016, the Pres­i­dent-elect will take the oath of of­fice at the mo­ment of hand­ing over the gav­el in the fi­nal ple­nary meet­ing of the 77th ses­sion. Fran­cis re­places Hun­gar­i­an diplo­mat Csa­ba Ko­rosi.

At a me­dia con­fer­ence af­ter the meet­ing, Fran­cis said he was ho­n­oured that the as­sem­bly placed trust and con­fi­dence in him. He said 193 coun­tries spoke unan­i­mous­ly, which ex­press­es a great deal about the pow­er and po­ten­tial of the UN in mak­ing im­por­tant de­ci­sions and it was his hope and ex­pec­ta­tion that dur­ing his lead­er­ship, the as­sem­bly make con­sid­er­able progress on sev­er­al is­sues.

“This is not in de­nial of the fact that chal­lenges ex­ist. They are there. We have iden­ti­fied them, but I am com­mit­ted to work­ing close­ly with my col­leagues to see whether we can iden­ti­fy a way for­ward that could help en­sure the de­liv­ery of Agen­da 2030 by 2030 to up­lift mankind to give peo­ple every­where who need our help and sup­port to give them hope so that they can live their fullest lives,” he said.

He said the Rus­sia/Ukraine war did not stop the As­sem­bly’s work as it meets rou­tine­ly and the war pro­vides con­text on how it would act.

On the is­sue of refugees, he said this is a re­al­i­ty of the time and a prob­lem for coun­tries gen­er­at­ing and re­ceiv­ing them. Fran­cis said there are tough, mul­ti-di­men­sion­al is­sues which the As­sem­bly will con­front and the out­come will ex­press the in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty’s po­lit­i­cal will.

Fran­cis said the val­ue of ed­u­ca­tion is uni­ver­sal, re­gard­less of whether it is in the most so­phis­ti­cat­ed coun­try or the poor­est of the poor. It is the key to un­leash­ing peo­ple’s cre­ative en­er­gy and in­tel­lec­tu­al ca­pac­i­ty, he added, not­ing that it was UN pol­i­cy that T&T as­cribed to in pro­vid­ing free pub­lic ed­u­ca­tion to its cit­i­zens.

“It was not so 70 years ago. It was on­ly for the elites. You had to have the mon­ey to pay. If you did not have the mon­ey, you could not get an ed­u­ca­tion. I am a prod­uct of that sys­tem,” he said.

Fran­cis de­scribed the sit­u­a­tion in Afghanistan, where girls can­not get an ed­u­ca­tion, as un­ac­cept­able.

Ad­dress­ing the As­sem­bly, Min­is­ter of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Dr Amery Browne re­layed Gov­ern­ment’s grat­i­tude for elect­ing Fran­cis. He said dur­ing T&T’s 60 years as a mem­ber, its con­tri­bu­tion to mul­ti­lat­er­al­ism in­flu­enced and helped shape the UN’s work.

Browne added that T&T lis­tened to oth­ers, in­clud­ing those who did not nec­es­sar­i­ly share its point of view, and con­sis­tent­ly chose the path of con­struc­tive en­gage­ment and served in the role of bridge build­ing. He said T&T con­tin­ues to of­fer the world a unique per­spec­tive as a small state that val­ues peace, se­cu­ri­ty, eq­ui­table de­vel­op­ment and the rule of law.

“The Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go holds the firm view that our na­tion’s at­trib­ut­es will con­tin­ue to add great val­ue as one of our best and bright­est will serve as Pres­i­dent of the Gen­er­al As­sem­bly. It is a po­si­tion we have nev­er held be­fore in our his­to­ry, and our cam­paign has un­der­scored our un­wa­ver­ing com­mit­ment to the Unit­ed Na­tions and its found­ing prin­ci­ples,” he said.

He told the As­sem­bly that Fran­cis is one of T&T’s most dis­tin­guished diplo­mats and he com­mands re­spect and ad­mi­ra­tion at all lev­els.

Browne said the T&T Gov­ern­ment is con­fi­dent he will con­tin­ue to demon­strate great lead­er­ship and the high­est de­gree of pro­fes­sion­al­ism in pre­sid­ing over the as­sem­bly.

“To­day, the peo­ple of my small na­tion are beam­ing with pride and en­thu­si­asm as Trinidad and To­ba­go con­tin­ues to do our part to en­sure that mul­ti­lat­er­al­ism pre­vails and that no one is left be­hind,” he said.