UN Speech - PM Barbados - Mia Mottley

Mia Amor Mottley is the Prime Minister of Barbados and one of the Caribbean's most prominent voices on the world stage. Listen to her commanding speech to the UN General Assembly on war, inequality, climate finance, artificial intelligence and UN reform before making an emotional call for reparatory justice for slavery.

She quoted Haley Salassi, the last Emperor of Ethiopia and the central religious figure of the Rastafari movement, from his October 4, 1963 speech to the UN, “Until the philosophy which holds one race superior and another inferior is finally and permanently discredited and abandoned. Everywhere is war. Until there are no longer first class and second class citizens of any nation. Until the color of a man's skin has of no more significance than the color of his eyes, there will be war.”

Barbados PM Mia Mottley used her UN address to back Guyana’s UN Ambassador, Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett, for Secretary-General. No woman has ever held the post.