UN General Assembly
2003

Sao Tome and Principe strongly supports the Millennium Development Goals, but much remains to be accomplished. The rules of the international economy continue to be dictated by a small number of countries that promote free markets while closing their own. The latest World Trade Organization meeting in Cancún is the natural result of this hypocrisy. Developing economies like that of my country can be competitive only if there is a level playing field, if all markets are open and if subsidies and protectionism are erased. As an island nation, Sao Tome and Principe continues to see its very existence threatened by global warming. Our shorelines are eroding and our national territory is shrinking as the seas rise. Is my small country to end up as nothing but a tiny volcanic peak sticking up above the waves, with the last of our people clinging to the land left unclaimed by the rising sea? The Kyoto Protocol must be implemented by all for the benefit of all. For many years, the people of Cuba have been