At the outset, on behalf
of the people and the President of the Bolivarian
Republic of Venezuela, Mr. Nicolás Maduro Moros, I
would like to convey to General Assembly President
John Ashe our congratulations on his recent election to
lead this organ of the United Nations.
As is known, President Maduro Moros is not here
at this session of the General Assembly because of a
whole range of delays, obstacles, conditions imposed
and lack of guarantees for him and members of his
delegation, imposed by the Government of the United
States in flagrant violation of the obligations incumbent
upon it under the Headquarters Agreement. Despite
that, we have come here on behalf of the people of the
liberator, Simón Bolívar, to speak the truth and to ask
some questions, firmly but respectfully, as we learned
from our leader, Hugo Chávez Frías, who passed away
in March. In that regard, on behalf of my people, I
should like to express our gratitude for the heartfelt
tribute paid to President Chávez Frías last March (see
A/67/PV.67).
How happy we would be to be here if we were
really in a place where we realized the noble ideals
enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations. The
Charter talks about saving succeeding generations
from the scourge of war, but the truth is that various
military interventions have been decided upon or have
been allowed here that have engulfed countries and
whole regions of the world in long wars and instability.
The Security Council has been taken hostage by the
hawks of war, and when they can, they justify their
attacks from there; when they cannot, they simply bang
on the table and still do whatever they want, which is
what they are doing when they declare that there will be
future bombings in the Syrian Arab Republic.
The Charter also states that the purpose of the
Organization is to preserve international peace and
security. But let me ask: How do some members of the
Security Council think we can achieve that purpose by
arming and protecting terrorist groups such as Jabhat
Al-Nusra and Al-Qaida, which are obscurantist forces?
Many of those groups are linked to horrible acts such as
the destruction of the Twin Towers in this very city. They
deny the existence of anybody who thinks differently
from them — whether they be Christians, Muslims
or Jews — and profess special hatred and rejection of
women. Why are such groups supported? Why do some
members of the Security Council sponsor such terrorist
groups, window-dressing them as political opposition
and even allowing them to give press conferences at this
venue? What would representatives of Governments
with ongoing internal armed conflicts say if the violent
groups they faced were to be given space and a voice
here at Headquarters to justify their downfall?
The Preamble of the Charter also sets out another
noble goal: to promote social progress and raise the
standard of living in a broader concept of freedom.
In reality, however, poverty, hunger and injustice are
continuing to grow and the standard of living and the
standard of freedoms are falling lower and lower. That
is because what is imposed on us is a model of excluding
others — a neo-fascist model — a neo-liberal model.
In the meantime, countries such as Venezuela
have chosen the path to consolidate real democracy
with a socialist system, including the people, and that
has enabled us to reach the Millennium Development
Goals. Yet we are constantly attacked and demonized
and our political and social stability is being disrupted.
That is what is happening at this very moment with
the anti-democratic opposition in our country, which
is being supported by media corporations in the region
and from the whole world.
Paragraph 4, Article 2, of the Charter of the United
Nations emphatically states that
“All members shall refrain in their international
relations from the threat or use of force against the
territorial integrity or political independence of
any state”.
Yet the President of the United States — and there is
the additional irritant that he is a Nobel Peace Prize
laureate — is threatening to bomb this or that country if
it does not comply with his country’s unilateral demands,
which can even include removing a Government that
the United States Government does not like. Perhaps
that could explain why, despite the fact that the Charter
talks about the equality of large and small nations, the
President of the United States said just a couple of days
ago that the United States was “exceptional”. Does that
mean that they are not equal with the other 192 States
Member States represented here?
The gap today between the noble ideals of the
Charter and what is happening by act or omission
here in the Organization is truly alarming. Why does
nobody in the General Assembly venture to propose
that sanctions be imposed for open violations of the
Charter on the Government that has an illegal detention
centre in the military base at Guantánamo, in occupied
Cuban territory, where torture and cruel and degrading
and inhuman treatment is being meted out to persons?
Why does nobody discuss sanctions against
the President who has admitted to illegal espionage
activities against Heads of State and Government
represented here? That was a point courageously
made by the President of Brazil, Dilma Rousseff (see
A/68/PV.5).
Why do we not consider the use of unpiloted
planes — so-called drones — which have taken the
lives of tens of thousands of innocent victims, including
children and old people, in North Africa, the Middle
East and parts of Asia to be crimes against humanity?
Why do we not impose sanctions against a
Government that for more than 50 years has maintained
an illegal and criminal economic blockade against the
worthy Cuban people, and flouted decisions adopted by
overwhelming majorities in the Assembly in favour of
ending the embargo?
Why do we not implement the resolutions adopted
by the plenary so that the State of Palestine can be
established as a peaceful, just and lasting solution to
the ongoing Arab-Israeli conflict?
Why does the United Kingdom not agree to start
negotiations with Argentina to resolve in a peaceful
way demands over the Malvinas Islands? Might it
perchance be because the elite of the United States and
some of its allies are exceptional?
We raise those questions for consideration when it
comes to the future of humankind, on behalf of the people
of Simón Bolívar — the people of Venezuela — who
love peace, equality and freedom.
Venezuela has come before the General Assembly
today to condemn a kidnapping. The Organization has
been kidnapped. The peace and dignity of the world
are being held hostage in New York. The kidnapper has
many faces. It changes names and sometimes even flags,
but it continues to be the same old imperalism. Eight
years ago, Commander Hugo Chávez Frías — a tireless
defender of genuine peace, not the peace imposed by
bombs, and of participatory democracy and a leader
for unity among peoples — called here for a genuine
transformation of the United Nations. Seven years ago,
he said that there was a whiff of sulphur here (see A/61/
PV.12). Today, alas, I have to say once again that there is
still a whiff of sulphur coming from those who consider
themselves exceptional.
Those words are truer now than ever before. The
courageous revelations of one young man offered a
great service to humankind — let us call it a wake-up
call. As a result, he is now being persecuted politically
and cannot walk freely in the streets of Manhattan. We
hope that Edward Snowden will one day be able to walk
freely among a future generation of Americans who
have taken back their civil rights and helped to ensure
peace in the world. That young man has shown us how
the privacy of every human being has been violated by
the most complex and sophisticated spying system that
humankind has ever been able to come up with.
Thanks to those revelations this year, we have
woken up to discover that George Orwell’s 1984 is
now here. And what is the United Nations doing about
that? Who is setting limits on so much arbitrariness
and running roughshod? Those are yet more questions
that find no answers from the General Assembly or the
Security Council of the Organization, which is now
almost 68 years old.
We would like to suggest that the Secretary-General
set up a body within the United Nations to ensure for
every inhabitant in the world the right to privacy and
the right to communicate without interception. Much
has been said here calling for peace, but that has often
fallen on deaf ears. Let us hope that we will all learn
how important it is to listen to the calls of the people for
peace, and employ that in tirelessly seeking to elevate
human dignity as our guiding star.
President John Kennedy spoke from this rostrum
50 years ago, the last time he would do so at the United
Nations before being assassinated. How good it would
be if his current successor, and many people here,
were to re-read just some of what he said. Whatever
differences we may have had with that historic figure,
ensuring peace requires that we seek out areas of
agreement such as this:
“For the value of this body’s work is not
dependent on the existence of emergencies — nor
can the winning of peace consist only of dramatic
victories. Peace is a daily, a weekly, a monthly
process, gradually changing opinions, slowly
eroding old barriers, quietly building new
structures. And, however undramatic the pursuit of
peace, that pursuit must go on.” (A/PV.1209, p. 5)
Let us hope that the leaders of the United States and
those that follow them blindly will think deeply about
the meaning of what Kennedy said and realize that if
they really want to be exceptional, they have to find
exceptional ways of bringing about lasting peace in the
world.
In Latin America and the Caribbean we are
showing that with exceptional decisions and actions we
can build a world of peace. Unity in diversity is what
we have in our regional organizations: the Bolivarian
Alliance for the Peoples of Our America, the
Community of Latin American and Caribbean States,
the Union of South American Nations, the Common
Market of the South and Petrocaribe. All those are tools
for democratizing our societies that promote socially
inclusive economic development and ensure political
stability. Despite various internal disputes and conflicts
between fraternal countries, we have been able to find
mechanisms for the peaceful settlement of conflict. We
have demonstrated that without military intervention,
drones or economic blockades, we can build and
preserve genuine democracy and move forward in
combating hunger, poverty and inequality.
The Venezuelan nation is proud of being part of a
region that is free of weapons of mass destruction. We
reaffirm our commitment to encouraging the complete
elimination of nuclear weapons and chemical and
bacteriological weapons as a way of ensuring that life
can continue on planet Earth.
In his various statements before the Assembly,
Commander Chávez Frías called for improving the
means for addressing problems and resolving conflicts
in a transparent manner. He also pointed out that, in
the face of today’s reality, there was a crucial need
to consider whether the Headquarters of the United
Nations should be here in this country where the
Government does not respect the Organization, much
less the sovereignty of each and every State Member.
The United Nations should be in a place where there
is respect for all Members; where the political will
flourishes, without pressure or fear, to end conflict in
the world through dialogue; where the path forward
is genuine social development and the elimination of
hunger and poverty; and where what matters is how to
stop war, not how to justify it.
Let us take the United Nations to the South, where
the antithesis to exclusion — solidarity — has often
taught us that we are in fact all equal. For now, we
welcome the proposal of President Evo Morales Ayma
that we should meet in the Organization’s various other
headquarters in different parts of the world. Beyond the
shadows that seem to darken the future of the human
race, from Latin America and the Caribbean we are
saying and showing that another world is possible
where all of us can, in peace and dignity and with
justice, enjoy lives worth living.