Our people, from the Bolivarian Republic of
Venezuela, have followed last week’s debate of
General Assembly. They are a people in the middle of a
revolution that has succeeded in building new spaces
for a political culture; a people that is informed and
educated, that has followed closely the positions put
forward at this Assembly. We could say that the debate
has reflected the current situation in the world, a world
that is struggling to build itself in peace, a world that is
seeking new directions.
A year ago, the President Hugo Chávez Frías
spoke from this podium to warn the world, to confirm
the alert of many in the world on the madness, the
warmongering madness that has been imposed
alongside the desire for peace, a desire of the majority
of the world.
Today, we can take stock of this warmongering
madness. Six years ago, through a lie, invasion and
aggression were sold to a brotherly people, the people
of Iraq. It was built on the basis of a global campaign,
a justification for the military occupation of the Arab
people of Iraq, of the Iraqi nation.
Today, five years later, we can see the result of a
policy filled with hate and evil. From 2002 to 2006 of
the United States budget, $610 billion have been
invested in maintaining the war in the Middle East
$610 billion to bring about death and destruction, $610
billion that were taken from American taxpayers in
order to invest in bullets, bombs and death. That $610
billion invested in war, if it had been invested during
the past six years that the Iraqi occupation has lasted,
today could have meant social progress, equality and
justice for the people of Iraq.
But the results are obvious, and clearly visible.
Research by the world’s universities states that more
than 600,000 Iraqis have died as a result of the
invasion and military occupation. More than the 3,600
young American were sent to their deaths. More than
25,000 young Americans have now returned to their
country crippled, blind, deaf or disabled for life. The
$610 billion invested in death has only multiplied the
violence, and the result that we see today is that the
invasion has not led to a safer or more balanced world.
The result has not been a world at peace. Today, the
nations of the world must acknowledge that we have a
world that is less safe, with greater dangers because of
terrorism. We have an unbalanced Middle East, filled
with violence and divisions.
If that $610 billion invested in war and death in
Iraq had been invested in life, we would be looking at a
different situation today. With $610 billion, we could
build 3 million clinics to provide health services to the
world, as is done today by the people of Cuba and
Venezuela through the Bolivarian Alternative for the
Americas for people throughout Latin America and the
Caribbean. With the $610 billion invested in war, we
could build more than 12 million decent homes for
needy men and women of the three neediest latitudes
of the world: Africa, Asia, and Latin America and the
Caribbean. With that $610 billion invested in bullets
and bombs for the purpose of killing, we could have
built more than 300,000 schools that would have
received at least 350 million children and young
students around the world.
But no, madness and greediness for the natural
resources of the world lead the elites of the United
States to undertake an absurd and irrational war and to
bring violence and death to the world. Today, if we
took stock of the situation, of the direct results of this
senseless and irrational war, we would have to say that
this war has led to death, destruction and
destabilization and has created even more sources of
terrorism than it has been able to heal. That is why this
senseless war is the worst example of how the security
system has functioned to protect balance and peace in
the world.
Today, the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela calls
upon our brothers in the world to think. We must adjust
the mechanisms to find balance and peace and to stop
the madness of war.
We have seen how in recent days there has been
an increase in the international media campaign to
demonize the people and Government of Iran. We have
seen how dangerously successive threatening
statements have been made against the peace of the
people of Iran. Has the world, or have the
Governments represented in this General Assembly,
wondered what would happen if the insatiable madness
of the elite who govern the United States were to lead
to a dreadful attack on the peaceful people of Iran?
Where would such a situation lead us? It is time to stop
that campaign of demonization, to issue warnings, to
build restraining walls, to call for an end to, and make
alliances to stop, the belligerent madness of the elite
who govern the United States of America.
Today, the war and the struggle against terrorism
occupy a very prominent place in the international
public agenda. From this podium, we would like to
reiterate to the Government of the United States of
America the legal request for the terrorist Luis Posada
Carriles to be extradited, in accordance with
international law, and to be prosecuted for the crimes
he committed in Latin America and the Caribbean
against our peoples. Does this Assembly know that one
of the most dangerous terrorists, Luis Posada
Carriles the head of a terrorist gang, who has been
convicted of and confessed to crimes committed in
South America during Operation Condor, who was
responsible for the disappearance of hundreds of men
and women, who has been convicted of and confessed
to having blown up a Cubana Airlines plane in
Barbados in 1976 and who placed bombs in tourist
spots in Cuba in the 1990s is now free in Florida
and protected by the Government of United States of
America? Does this Assembly know that this terrorist
provided his services to the Central Intelligence
Agency for 40 years?
We have asked the Counter-Terrorism Committee
of the Security Council to examine that matter with all
due diligence, and we are asking for the support of
friendly Governments around the world for this
terrorist to be extradited and prosecuted for having
blown up a Cubana Airlines plane in Venezuela. This
two-faced behaviour shows the hypocrisy of a policy
that fuels war supposedly to combat terrorism but that,
on its own territory, protects one of the most dangerous
terrorists that the western hemisphere has ever known.
Likewise, we wish to express from this podium
our solidarity with the growing call by Governments
and peoples of the world for a fair judgement and the
immediate release of the five Cubans imprisoned in the
jails of the empire as part of the war on terror being
carried out on United States territory. This demand that
we are making before the General Assembly today is
part of the flags of struggle that the Bolivarian
Republic of Venezuela is raising today.
From this podium today, we would like to
welcome the victory of President Rafael Correa, of the
progressive forces and of the people of Ecuador in the
recent elections to designate the Constituent National
Assembly, which will direct the peaceful process of
change in Ecuador. This victory in Ecuador is part of a
group of processes of change that have peacefully and
democratically paved the way in South America, Latin
America and the Caribbean, processes of change that
they tried to stop through campaigns by national
oligarchies, through international conspiracies and
through media campaigns. But the voice of the people
of Ecuador is clear. They have joined the voices of the
people of Bolivia, Venezuela and Uruguay. South
America, Latin America and the Caribbean ask, we
demand that the right to peaceful democratic change in
our societies be respected. We demand that the right to
build, through democratic revolution, new processes
and new economic and social structures be respected,
making it possible to overcome poverty and to build
democracies that are truly established by equality.
The world knows that there has been an ongoing
conspiracy against the Venezuelan democracy and
President Hugo Chávez. The world knows that in 2002
our people defeated an attempted coup d’état that
sought the destruction of democracy and the
assassination of President Chávez.
Today, the people of Venezuela are in the midst of
a thorough reform of the Constitution. In December,
the people of Venezuela, following a debate on terms
and proposals related to constitutional reform, will go
to the polls to decide in a sovereign manner what our
country’s future should be and what reforms we should
undertake to expand the foundations of political, social
and economic democracy. Today, we reaffirm to the
world that we want respect for Venezuela’s sovereignty
and independence and an end to imperialist-led media
campaigns that try to distort the real conditions of
democracy building by our people and by our popular
revolution.
Today, we reaffirm the need for deep-seated and
comprehensive reform of the United Nations. A new,
multipolar world of equilibrium, without imperialistic
hegemony, is necessary, urgent and possible. We have
joined the debate on United Nations reform. We
believe that the Organization must be reworked. We
believe that the Organization must rebuild itself so that
it can faithfully serve a multipolar world, a world of
equilibrium, a world of peace, a world without
hegemony. Seventeen years of a unipolar world has
shown us the need for a deep-seated transformation of
multilateral organizations so that they can be placed at
the service of peace, equality, justice and the great
causes of humanity.
Today, we reaffirm our conviction that the
Organization must be thoroughly reworked and must
move forward by democratizing the Security Council,
expanding both its permanent and its non-permanent
membership; by establishing new functions for the
General Assembly; and by strengthening the political
role of the Secretary-General.
Finally, let us move forward with new
mechanisms for dialogue, coexistence and the building
of a multipolar world where we can all be equal a
world where our peoples can see themselves as equal
partners in a global cooperative undertaking to build
the foundations of peace and justice, to overcome the
insanity of war and to be able to thwart the desire of
the world’s elites to take control of the natural
resources and wealth of our people.
The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela reaffirms
its will to move forward together with the peoples of
the world in a thorough reform that will transform the
United Nations into a new Organization a genuine
instrument for peace, life and development.