Venezuela, 2007

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.