Lee An­na Ma­haraj

Re­porter

leean­na.ma­haraj@guardian.co.tt

Ahead of the elec­tion of the Pres­i­dent of the 78th ses­sion of the Unit­ed Na­tions Gen­er­al As­sem­bly (UN­GA) lat­er this week, Min­is­ter of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Dr Amery Browne asked mem­bers of the diplo­mat­ic corp to sup­port T&T’s can­di­date for the post.

At a meet­ing at the Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts (NA­PA) yes­ter­day morn­ing, he told the am­bas­sadors to T&T in at­ten­dance, “To­day I call on you as rep­re­sen­ta­tives of for­eign states to con­vey to your prin­ci­ples the re­quest of Trinidad and To­ba­go for sup­port of the can­di­da­ture of His Ex­cel­len­cy Den­nis Fran­cis, Per­ma­nent Rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go to the Unit­ed Na­tions in New York, for the Pres­i­den­cy of the 78th Ses­sion of the Unit­ed Na­tions Gen­er­al As­sem­bly.”

Browne said if Fran­cis is elect­ed, it would be a his­toric mo­ment for T&T.

“We hope 1st June 2023 will be a day that will stand out in the his­to­ry of our coun­try’s diplo­mat­ic ef­forts. As you are aware the po­si­tion of the pres­i­dent of the Gen­er­al As­sem­bly is of im­mense sig­nif­i­cance to the con­duct of glob­al af­fairs. Trinidad and To­ba­go’s elec­tion to the pres­i­den­cy of the UN Gen­er­al As­sem­bly con­sti­tutes a ma­jor for­eign pol­i­cy pri­or­i­ty for the gov­ern­ment. As a fur­ther man­i­fes­ta­tion of our undi­lut­ed faith in mul­ti­lat­er­al­ism in gen­er­al and our com­mit­ment to the Unit­ed Na­tions in par­tic­u­lar,” he said.

He told the diplo­mats that Fran­cis is the longest-serv­ing T&T am­bas­sador with 18 con­sec­u­tive years of ser­vice and re-em­pha­sised his be­lief that he is the most suit­able can­di­date for the role.

“We are con­fi­dent that he, if suc­cess­ful­ly elect­ed, will pre­side im­par­tial­ly over a Gen­er­al As­sem­bly which will con­tin­ue to work in ded­i­ca­tion to fur­ther the wel­fare of all the world’s peo­ple,” Browne said.

Fran­cis, who spoke via a video at the meet­ing, said his fo­cus will be on peace, pros­per­i­ty, and progress.

“In the com­ing weeks, I will con­tin­ue to en­gage re­gion­al and oth­er groups as we col­lec­tive­ly col­lab­o­rate to bring for­ward a re­newed at­mos­phere of co­op­er­a­tion and shared com­mit­ment in ad­dress­ing the many chal­lenges be­fore the Gen­er­al As­sem­bly,” he said.

“I have cho­sen, if elect­ed, peace, pros­per­i­ty, progress, and sus­tain­abil­i­ty as my watch­words. I am con­vinced that they con­sti­tute the four supreme ob­jec­tives be­fore the in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty at this junc­ture. Ob­jec­tives, which if suc­cess­ful­ly ac­com­plished, would sig­nif­i­cant­ly al­ter the cur­rent tra­jec­to­ry of dis­ap­point­ment and dis­il­lu­sion­ment.”

He added, “Dur­ing my tenure, I will there­fore pro­vide the nec­es­sary sup­port to fa­cil­i­tate the full and ef­fec­tive im­ple­men­ta­tion of the DO­HA Pro­gramme of Ac­tion for Least-De­vel­oped Coun­tries, as well as the up­com­ing Third In­ter­na­tion­al Con­fer­ence on Land­lock De­vel­op­ment Coun­tries, and the Fourth In­ter­na­tion­al Con­fer­ence on Small Is­land De­vel­op­ing States to be held in 2024. As these con­fer­ences are cru­cial op­por­tu­ni­ties to call for the scal­ing of the sup­port re­quired to en­sure that no one is left be­hind.”

The elec­tion will take place at the Unit­ed Na­tions head­quar­ters in New York on Thurs­day. Min­is­ter Browne left for New York yes­ter­day to take part in events in the buildup to the elec­tion.