Venezuela, 2014

At

the outset, as this is the first time that I am attending in

my capacity as the President of the Bolivarian Republic

of Venezuela, I wish to thank the General Assembly,

all its representative Governments and the various

bodies of the United Nations system for the heartfelt

tribute that was paid simultaneously at United Nations

Headquarters in New York, in Geneva and other

places in the world to an extraordinary human being,

Commander Hugo Chávez, who always carried the

banners of peace, equality and respect for our peoples.

That is the first thing I wish to convey from my heart

on behalf of the people of Venezuela and to recall and

invoke his spirit of tackling imperialism and injustice.

We have had debates for several decades now on the

need to reform the Organization, and various Presidents

that have presided over the Assembly. This morning, I

strongly reminded Presidents Dilma Rousseff, Cristina

Fernández, Evo Morales Ayma and other Presidents

of the Americas of the need to reorient, readjust and

tweak the entire United Nations system. This system

has been in place for 70 years since the end of the so-

called Second World War, which took place in Europe

and other parts of the world between 1939 and 1945.

The United Nations Charter is one of the most

beautiful poems that we could ever read. It has well

and truly become an instrument that has been set

aside, overlooked and consistently flouted in terms of

its fundamental objectives are concerned. The United

Nations is an historic human experiment that has become

a landmark because never before has humankind had

a forum to meet to address issues of peace, affecting

life and death, and to negotiate solutions to conflicts.

After 7,000 years of civilization as we know it — a

review of which reveals a history of empires and the

ongoing battle to distribute the wealth and territory of

the world — only with the establishment of this system

in 1945 did we begin to get a glimpse of future light

at the end of a long tunnel of battles, wars and global

conflicts.

We call for the renewed relevance of the United

Nations, above and beyond any criticism that may be

levelled against it. Given the human importance of

this institution, we insist on the need for an in-depth

transformation, as Commander Hugo Chávez said on

many occasions right here in this Hall. In his famous

statements in defence of the causes of humankind,

he stressed the need for a far-reaching democratic

overhaul of the United Nations system. As President

Jacob Zuma of our sister country South Africa said, we

must democratize and overhaul the Security Council.

The role of the regions today is different from

what it was in 1945. This is another world. The United

Nations was born to deal with post-war reconstruction

and the issues that had given rise to conflicts. The

United Nations has to deal today with a multicentric,

multipolar world of numerous actors, with emerging

countries and regions that have their own thoughts,

aspirations and desire to be respected in this world. The

United Nations has to adapt and submit to the broader

sovereignty of the peoples of this world, who are crying

out for their voices to be heard, heeded and respected.

We have heard speeches today at the start of this

sixty-ninth session. We also believe in strengthening the

role of the Secretary-General. As we have said so many

times we must have a Secretary-General who represents

all of us and who has the political and institutional

clout to find solutions to the world’s conflicts. We must

reconfigure the system and functions of the General

Assembly. We must democratize it and give it a leading

role to ensure that the great debates that take place here

can always successfully address the major issues facing

the world. That is why we believe that we must build a

new United Nations in a bid for a new multipolar world

of peace where there no empire can impose its will on a

unipolar world. This is urgent for the entire world.

Above and beyond what officials of the various

Governments represented in this Hall may believe,

we already have another world where we all wish to

speak, think and decide our own fate and to achieve

peace for our peoples. A new regionalism has come to

the fore. In the late 1940s and the 1950s, we saw the

birth of the European Union as an experiment in the

new regionalism that is admired and emulated by many

throughout the world. In the 1970s and 1980s, we saw

the emergence of the Organization of African Unity, an

extraordinary system to organize the brotherly African

continent to address the issues of development and

life. Our mother Africa was one of the most suffering

regions the world.

Now as we embark on the twenty-first century,

Latin America is taking its place. We have seen new

organizations arise in Latin America. On 14 December,

we will commemorate in Havana, Cuba, a heroic

island and great homeland, the tenth anniversary of

the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas. We have

assumed an important role in building a new social

and economic order in defence of such major causes

as climate change. In existence for 10 years now, that

youthful organization, partnership or alliance is now

looking forward to the rest of the twenty-first century.

I would also mention Petrocaribe and its

18 brotherly member States. I hope I may be forgiven if

I seem immodest, but PetroCaribe is a model that best

shows how we can have a new world of peace, justice,

solidarity, cooperation and complementarity among

nations. To the powerful of the world, those who wield

all the capital and all the economic power, I say that we

can have another world. We are starting to build it in

the Americas.

Also emerging is the Union of South American

Nations (UNASUR), representing a new southern

regionalism that was founded on 16 April 2007 with the

participation of new leaders in Latin America and our

Commander Hugo Chávez. It is a most interesting and

important bloc that is now starting to forge ties with the

rest of the emerging world.

We recently held a very interesting and important

meeting for the remainder of the decade between the

BRICS countries — Brazil, Russia, India, China and

South Africa, who represent the hope for development

through new mechanisms — and UNASUR in Brasilia,

and we decided to share our experiences. The BRICS

Bank and the Banco del Sur would be a new financial

architecture for the world that must emerge from this

new regionalism. The Community of Latin American

and Caribbean States (CELAC) was established on

3 December 2011 in Caracas, and is already growing

strong. We have held summits in Santiago de Chile and

Havana and will hold another in San José in January.

All of Latin America is coming together optimistically

in this new regionalism.

Based on this experience, we are seeing new

structures arise towards the establishment of a road

map for overhauling the United Nations system. Let

the call for reform of the Organization not fall through

the cracks here in this Hall. We must find the way.

We must try to come up with a common road map for

humankding because we need it if we are to tackle the

major issues before us.

For 22 years, the United Nations has customarily

voted with record insistence for a cause that is not

just a cause of the Americas but one espoused by the

peoples and Governments of this world. I speak of the

rejection of the economic embargo against our brother

Republic of Cuba — an anachronistic vestige of the

Cold War. The President of Estonia spoke earlier about

the anachronisms of the Cold War and the systems of

economic persecution used to impose political regimes

and subjugate peoples. We are here on behalf of the

Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela to confirm our support

for the 50-year struggle of the people and Government

of Cuba against the criminal blockade. I ask President

Obama: When will you seize the opportunity to go

down in history by putting an end once and for all to the

criminal economic and trade embargo and persecution

of our brother country of Cuba?

We also see new causes arise in the current

struggles facing our region. We have taken them on in

unison. I wish here to recognize as a great step forward

the decision taken by the General Assembly two weeks

ago in support of the Argentine Republic and President

Cristina Fernández in her struggle against the financial

plundering of the vulture funds. We want to support her

in every way we can to ensure that the General Assembly,

in accordance with the proposal of the Group of 77

and China and in as timely and efficient a manner as

possible, drafts a high-quality document mandating the

defence of the nations represented by the Organization,

especially the poor countries of the developing world,

against vulture funds that seek to plunder our economies

and impose detrimental economic, institutional and

political systems. We confirm the full solidarity of the

people of Venezuela with the people of Argentina, and

indeed the solidarity of the CELAC countries. Let us

move towards this historic decision. We received 124

votes in favour last week.

As we did at the CELAC summit in Havana,

Venezuela also calls on the United Nations to support as

closely and warmly as it can and enforce the decisions

calling on the United States of America to enforce and

execute a decolonization plan for Puerto Rico. Puerto

Rico was invited to join CELAC because it is Caribbean

and it is ours. We raise our voice to make it heard in this

Hall to call for the release of a man whose name many

here will hear for the first time. President Jacob Zuma

of South Africa spoke of the great Madiba, Nelson

Mandela, who was forgotten for many years, despite

the fact that many now claim him as a representative

of their causes. That is fine. Nelson Mandela represents

the human capacity of resilience and resistance enjoyed

by people as they seek to achieve the objectives of

justice and peace.

That is why I raise the name of a man who almost

35 years ago was imprisoned and has been subjected

to torture — a man with a family, a man from Latin

America and the Caribbean, a man like us. We are

talking about the Puerto Rican Oscar López Rivera, the

longest-held political prisoner who remains in a United

States prison to this day. We demand his immediate

release. His only sin was to fight for independence and

to defend the beautiful flag and star of the dignity of

our sister country of Puerto Rico. These are the causes

of this historic moment.

Venezuela is in the midst of a people’s democratic

revolution that began with an unimpeachable

constitutional event. For the first time in the history

of our country, the Constitution of the Republic was

debated by the people and approved by a referendum

with the participation of the sovereign vote of the

people of Venezuela in 1999. Since then, we have been

developing and carrying out a process of political and

social liberation.

We are trying to overcome poverty. In 2015, we

will have the post-2015 development agenda and the

Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) will be over.

Through great effort, the Bolivarian Venezuela led

by our Commander Hugo Chávez, was fortunately

able achieve practically all the MDGs. We have an

enrolment rate of more than 90 per cent in almost all

schools, and we offer free, quality education from basic

schools through to universities. We have lowered the

unemployment rate from 20 per cent five years ago to

5.5 per cent at the end of last year. We have changed

the curves. We had vulnerable employment to the

tune of 60 per cent; now, 60 per cent of those jobs are

protected by social security, and are remunerated at a

fair, regulated rate.

I could spend hours here talking of the progress we

have made towards the MDGs. We have been able to

salvage our oil wealth. I am sure Members will know

that we have the largest oil reserves on the planet in

the beautiful Orinoco basin, and we have the largest oil

fields there. For the first time in 90 years, we recovered

full control over our own petroleum resources as the

anchor for our economic and social development.

Venezuela has had to suffer ongoing harassment and

persecution at the hands of the imperial forces and the

allies of the United States empire, who have sought

again and again to undermine our democracy. One such

attempt was the attempted coup against Hugo Chávez.

Following his death on 5 March 2013, those forces

resumed their activities to undermine our country. I

thank the Governments of the world for their solidarity

with Venezuela, which has been struggling and

resisting. They could not prevail against Hugo Chávez

and they cannot prevail against us. We are still on the

path towards revolution, democracy, independence and

dignity, with our own voice speaking to the world.

There are major problems that we now have

to address at this point. As members well know,

one such problem — perhaps the greatest threat of

all — is the virus that causes Ebola haemorrhagic fever.

If this world and our United Nations system had been

somewhat more humane, we would have focused on

lending our support to tackling this real threat instead

of sending drones, missiles and bombs to destroy the

people of Gaza or to bomb the people of Iraq and Syria.

The President of Chad announced that his country had

decided to donate $2 million to the Ebola fund. The

Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela is going to be giving

$5 million to the fund to support Africa and the needy

people of the world.

Let us be clear. We should be discussing the

scientific reports here and taking decisions based

on those reports. We should be focused on another

important issue affecting the survival of humankind on

this Earth — climate change. A poem of the indigenous

peoples of the Americas, which was read out yesterday,

says that after they can no longer poison the rivers,

after they have poisoned our lakes, once there is not

even one fish left to eat, then the powerful of the

world will have to eat each other. They want to create

extraneous formulas when all they need to do is to make

an extraordinary effort and recognize climate change

as a climatic emergency. We should not just make

speeches and vague offers; we must restore sanity to

the Organization if we are to strengthen it, and place at

the forefront of our agenda the real common problems

facing us.

Today in the Security Council, they adopted a

series of decisions in a bid to combat terrorism. Let

us be clear: we must combat terrorism. The Bolivarian

Alliance for the Peoples of Our America has been

condemning terrorism for more than a year and a

half. We are deeply pained by the murder of Western

journalists and the dastardly acts of these terrorists, but

a year and a half ago when boys and girls were captured

by these terrorist and other groups in Syria, we were not

that pained at that time. They were beheading women

in mosques. The pain should be the same.

Should our pain be greater depending on the colour

or origin of the skin of a person or the origin of that

person? The loss of human lives should pain us all, and

we therefore condemn the terrorist attack perpetrated

by NATO and its allies to change the regime in Syria.

I am here to say, with force of truth, on behalf of the

Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America

and my Government, that if the Government of Syria

had been overthrown by those imperial attacks, today

in that entire region of Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Jordan

we would see the power of those terrorists take root.

As painful as it may be, we have to say that President

Bashar Al-Assad and the democratic and constitutional

Government of Syria has always combated terrorism

and has suffered thousands of deaths. We believe that

instead of the continual, demented bombing, must

strike a great alliance of peace against terrorism,

respecting the sovereignty of countries and sovereign

Governments throughout that region. I would ask the

delegation of the United States take note of this message

and convey it to President Obama.

Only an alliance that respects the sovereignty

of those nations, along with the cooperation of

their Governments, peoples and armed forces, will

overthrow the Islamic State and the terrorist forces

advancing like monster against the West. There is no

other way to overthrow them — certainly not with

bombs that kill mostly the innocent. They never kill the

armed forces; they always kill the innocent. After so

much death and bombing of the brotherly Arab people

of Iraq, we have to invite the sovereign Governments

of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon,

Jordan and Egypt and indeed the entire region to come

up with a comprehensive political, military, cultural

and communication strategy that can be supported by

the Security Council. Anything else is crazy.

Let us consider what happened in Libya, as noted

by the President of Chad. It only fomented hatred and

an anti-Al-Qadhafi front. What is happening in Libya?

It has become a territory for trafficking in arms and

explosives by terrorist groups fighting for scraps of

territory. We have seen the end of the beautiful history

of the people of our brother country of Libya. It is a

crazy race towards more violence and terrorism. A

more dangerous world has emerged from the demented

work of those who lead and make decisions in the

Organization.

We humbly lend our voice and our proposal to the

table, and we do so with genuine love. That is how we

show our solidarity with the people of Palestine. We in

the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America

will continue to show our solidarity with them.

Venezuela, as Members know, has opened a modest

air-bridge to provide logistical support, food, blankets

and medicines in support of the people of Palestine who

recently suffered a brutal attack. We want peace, total

peace. Our Organization needs to be overhauled so that

everyone can enjoy total peace. It is not through the

threat of the use of force, or the use of force, or internal

competition to overthrow Governments such as the

one that I lead, that we will have stable peace. No, it

is respect for international law that will lead to stable

peace and full security.

Lastly, I wish to thank the General Assembly for

its support. Next year, 2015, Venezuela, with members’

support, will assume leadership of the Non-Aligned

Movement for the next three years. We humbly aspire

to play a genuine role in mobilizing and revitalizing the

entire process of United Nations reform. The process

must include the elaboration of an agenda of world

priorities in which we will all have a voice and a vote,

and no one can impose their will on the others. Next

year, delegations from throughout the world will be

welcome at the historic Summit of the Non-Aligned

Movement in Caracas.