Venezuela, 1998

Please accept my sincere congratulations, Sir, on your

election. I am convinced that your solid academic

background and valuable experience as a statesman will

serve your country, Uruguay, well, and will strengthen

Latin America?s image.

I also congratulate the Secretary-General on the

excellent report he submitted to the General Assembly at

this fifty-third session. It is a document rich in profound

analysis and noteworthy proposals for these new times.

I am speaking on behalf of Venezuela before the

General Assembly of the United Nations at a time when my

Government?s term is drawing to a close, in just a few

months. Venezuela?s words are candid and sincere, for we

are ever at the ready to make our modest but solid

contribution to the establishment of stable friendship and an

effective and durable peace among all the peoples of the

world.

The century that is drawing to a close has left a deep

imprint on human history. Two gigantic wars nearly put

an end to our civilization?s impressive progress and,

above all, to the respect for human rights that is

fundamental to all progress. An unparalleled revolution

seemed destined to change decisively the face and destiny

of the world, and the end of that revolution was the most

striking and fortunate surprise the world has ever seen.

The world war that started in 1914 revealed to the

horror-stricken eyes of the world the human capacity for

evil and destruction. But it was followed by two decades

of lavishness and squandering that made people forget the

root causes of the conflagration. The attempt to create a

League of Nations awakened ideals and showed the way,

but it disintegrated when the thunder of cannons

announced the outbreak of the Second World War. The

subsequent post-war era, enriched by the bitter lessons of

experience, encouraged by suffering and inspired by the

ideals of peace and liberty, lived for five decades under

the threat of nuclear war. The terrible catastrophe

predicted as the inevitable result of the so-called cold war

remained at the forefront of the world?s concerns until the

memorable fall of the Berlin Wall, which opened the new

era in which humanity now finds itself.

For half a century peacekeeping has been a difficult

and sometimes agonizing task. Faith in ideals was not

enough to resolve the problems; what was needed was the

will and firm purpose, illuminated by experience.

The United Nations has undoubtedly played a very

important role in this peacekeeping task, despite all the

deficiencies and errors it could be accused of. It has been

the irreplaceable forum where all countries could talk to

each other, where all ideologies, all ethnic groups, all

political systems, could meet, without losing sight of the

goal of encouraging and fostering freedom everywhere

and of practising and promoting, by all legal means

possible, the democratic system, the only system that is

truly compatible with respect for human rights and the

free competition of all to govern. The Organization has

managed to keep its respected position, and today we

hope to be able to strengthen it further so as to work

firmly together to confront the new problems and

realities, something that will require ever greater efforts.

The century that is coming to an end has also been

a time of incredible transformations. Air travel, which had

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been the dream of a few visionaries, has become an

everyday reality, and each hour thousands of people fly in

and out of airports around the globe. The great adventure

of space exploration has now left progress in air travel

behind, starting with man?s travels to the moon.

The very nature of the planet we live on has been the

object of comparisons that take us across infinite distances

in our thoughts about the basic nature of the universe. The

position of our solar system and the global unity we live in,

in relation to the whole cosmos, is a subject we are trying

more and more to define and penetrate.

Furthermore, in just a few short years, compared with

the span of history, the communications revolution has

made the world more unified, more interdependent, more in

need of standards and systems that cannot be imposed by

the most powerful, but must be the result of consensus,

with respect for each individual?s identity and right to life.

In today?s society we are fully conscious of the

infinite presence of what is large, but we also have a

precise idea of the importance of what is infinitely small.

The technological revolution has not left an iota of

knowledge untouched by its transforming impact. And those

who cultivate thought, pure science and art laboriously

search for new avenues, driven by a zeal that arises from

the progress already achieved in changing mankind?s way

of life.

We strongly favour the Secretary-General?s plans for

reform of the Organization. We are convinced that the

Security Council must be enlarged. The establishment of

the International Criminal Court represents an important

step in the juridical life of the international community. The

fight against drug trafficking and terrorism increasingly

requires that the international community become its centre

of coordination. These are delicate and demanding problems

that cannot be left to the individual actions of States,

however powerful. The international community therefore

faces an arduous task.

The fight against poverty has been one of the most

important aspects of international action in the last few

years. The World Summit for Social Development reflected

one of the priority concerns of the United Nations. The

ongoing activities of specialized agencies and the projects

of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)

mark out a clear path in the search for a solution to this

problem, a path that must be extended over the whole

surface of the Earth. We know full well that peace, true

peace, stable and permanent peace, requires justice, and that

justice is most truly expressed in social justice. This was

recognized by the victorious countries in the Treaty of

Versailles at the end of the First World War, and it was

also expressed in the Declaration of Philadelphia of 1944

by the belligerents about to triumph in the Second World

War. The fight against poverty is ever more necessary

and urgent, for the market economy and the current

globalization process cannot on their own respond to the

demands that social problems make on world leaders.

In addition to its positive aspects and the progress it

undeniably entails, the complex phenomenon we have

come to call globalization can also have progressively

negative effects on the emerging developing countries.

Faced with the world?s present imbalance, we must

therefore make a special point of emphasizing the harmful

effects of international financial speculation. The balance

of terror imposed by the cold war has been replaced by

a lack of financial discipline, by ruthless speculation that

is alien to the values of solidarity and ethics that should

prevail even in technology?s most sophisticated advances.

The poorest countries are the traumatized victims of this

reality, but the whole world community may be

threatened by this situation that will affect even the

advanced countries. No one can escape the consequences

of this situation. I therefore believe that today?s

international agenda must concentrate on this critical

point, giving it priority over other objectives that, though

also important, must give way to this indispensable

matter.

My country?s delegation to the United Nations has

set forth, first to the Group of 77 and then to the General

Assembly, the need to call a special meeting to study the

financing of developing countries. If financial assistance

to the developing countries is not addressed on a priority

basis, if the necessary resources are not forthcoming from

the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, as

well as other agencies dealing with the basic aims of

development, globalization will not be as successful as we

could hope it to be.

The effects of the Asian crisis on Latin America

have resulted in the weakening of some currencies, a

significant downturn in the capital markets, rising internal

interest rates, restrictions to the obtention of external

credits and a rapid increase in the risk factors for many

emerging countries.

The visible effects of the phenomenon of

globalization have demonstrated the imperfections of the

international financial and monetary system, which has

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recently been characterized by, inter alia, the sharp impact

of the participation of powerful financial groups and the

decisive actions of certain parties, such as the agencies that

assess risk, certain of which have become a worse threat

than the terrible forces of other times. The time is ripe to

encourage a better understanding between developed and

developing countries, all equally affected by financial

instability. Venezuela believes that financial and monetary

issues must have a permanent place on the agenda of the

United Nations system. To that end, the exchange of ideas

between the Organization and the international financial

institutions that make up the Bretton Woods system must be

encouraged and strengthened.

Fundamentally, globalization will depend on the

balance between rich and poor, between the more advanced,

the intermediately advanced and the least developed

nations, and on the application of equitable formulas to

alleviate the external debt burden referred to by the

Secretary-General in his report.

At the end of the twentieth century, there is no more

important objective than to steer the concern of the

international community in this direction. If measures are

not taken to put an end to the abuses of what His Holiness

John Paul II called savage capitalism, which gives rise,

with its excessive desire for profit, to unstable situations

that are transmitted with vertiginous speed to all the world?s

economic centres, we will have replaced the fear of nuclear

war with the threat of an economic and social catastrophe.

It is my view that in today?s globalized world, one of

the primary commitments of the community of nations,

working through and coordinated by the United Nations, is

to strengthen its resolve to prevent and correct unacceptable

imbalances, and to ensure the awareness and capacity of the

international financial mechanisms for facing contingencies.

In a few weeks, the people of Venezuela will go to the

polls to elect their new leaders. For 40 consecutive years,

at each constitutionally determined interval, the transfer of

power stipulated by the Constitution of the Republic has

been carried out. In shifting circumstances, the institution

of democracy has remained stable in an atmosphere of full

and absolute freedom. A difficult economic situation and

the winds of change that are blowing throughout the world

and are becoming stronger on the eve of a new millennium

have focused Venezuela?s political debate on the idea of

change. I am nevertheless convinced that, despite the

change Venezuela envisages, its people?s love for liberty

and democracy as the best system of government and its

commitment to fight for peace and understanding among

all nations will remain unaltered.

May I remind the Assembly that, although our fight

for political independence was perhaps the bloodiest of

the nineteenth century, we have not had a single violent

conflict with any other country since the birth of our

Republic. In international forums, Venezuela has

distinguished itself by its constant support for universal

peace and has always made its modest contribution to any

initiative in favour of justice and peace. That is why I can

assure the Assembly that the next Government of

Venezuela, whatever the electorate may decide, will

continue to follow the same path within the United

Nations. The Organization can rely on Venezuela for

anything relating to service to any and all human beings,

or to friendship, cooperation and peace among nations,

and anything required by the fight against crime, poverty,

drug-trafficking, terrorism, hatred, discrimination — all

the evils that have beset humanity. We trust that the

United Nations will always stand against those evils as a

shield against adversity and a beacon of hope.