Venezuela, 1992

On

behalf of Venezuela, I congratulate our President and the Government and

people of Bulgaria on his election to preside over this session of the General

Assembly.

I welcome the new Member States, whose presence among us makes this

Organization more universal.

I also wish to place on record our gratitude to the Permanent

Representative of Saudi Arabia, Ambassador Samir Shihabi, who presided over

the work of the forty-sixth session with such distinction.

We are meeting at a time of particular instability and uncertainty. The

international system is trying to find a new order and basic principles and

guidelines to enable us to build a more just and egalitarian world. We are

living at a time of rapid historical change. The most dramatic events and the

most unexpected changes are taking place before a seemingly helpless world

leadership.

The end of communism is already a thing of the past; the collapse of the

Soviet empire is ancient history. The absolute triumph of the West is

beginning to be questioned, given the financial and exchange rate problems

which the industrialized countries are experiencing, together with their

profound social crisis. We might be talking about a post-capitalist era in

which the quest for supposedly free competition has turned into a total

dehumanization of the economic model, producing a yawning gap between rich and

poor in world society.

We are facing not the end of history, but rather a great lack of

leadership, of confidence and of enthusiasm for the future. The

industrialized countries, bogged down in their economic rivalries, cannot

coordinate their actions in favour of peace, stability and justice. Deprived

of the enemy which used to make them act together, they are now experiencing a

substantial weakening of the bonds which used to unite them.

The times in which we live require strong, democratic international

organizations if the preventive diplomacy the Secretary-General has described

in his "Agenda for Peace" which we are studying very carefully is to take

root. We support the more active role he envisages for the Organization, in

the area not of intervention, but rather of prevention. To achieve this, the

United Nations and the specialized agencies must cooperate

"to address the deepest causes of conflict: economic despair, social

injustice and political oppression." (A/47/277, para. 15)

The Security Council, which should have been the most efficient United

Nations body, is an anachronism. It still reflects the interrelationship of

forces that existed when it was created. When the United Nations came into

being, its keystone was the Council, controlled by its five permanent members,

which was given predominance to try to eliminate the limitations which had

made the former League of Nations ineffectual. The founders of the

Organization thought that this time the big Powers would be able to exercise

effective leadership, in keeping with their power; that is, they would have

the ability to act as world monitors and arbitrators and bring order to the

world.

To the frustration of humanity, the two super-Powers proved that they

alone were enough to lay the foundations of international order. The Security

Council, from the day the Organization was established until the end of the

cold war, was to play second fiddle in the management of world affairs.

After the collapse of the Soviet system, the Security Council began to

regain its original functions. But it is doing so under the aegis of the

triumphant values. Thus the major countries can outline an international

scenario in accordance with their interests. This situation should be

reconsidered so that, as the Secretary-General has said:

"Democracy within the family of nations means the application of its

principles within the world Organization itself." (A/47/277, para. 82)

Before the General Assembly, the President of Venezuela,

Carlos Andres Perez, clearly conveyed his concern over the need to make the

Security Council more representative. He said:

"Our own people's aspiration to democracy can also become a

permanent aspiration of the United Nations. The Organization will not be

strengthened unless an agreement is reached to eliminate the right of

veto exercised by the permanent members of the Security Council, a right

that responded to circumstances and realities that have ceased to exist.

This mechanism runs counter to the spirit of the Charter of the United

Nations and limits its effective contributions to collective security.

"The right to veto Security Council resolutions is a mechanism that

limits the achievement of consensus among the Member States of the United

Nations. The Security Council must be a representative body, and in no

way should any of its members negate the majority view of the United

Nations. If we want collective and democratic security, we must aspire

to universal egalitarian law." (A/46/PV.8. p. 13)

In our changing times, concepts of State sovereignty and integrity are

also being re-examined. Paradoxically, the "champions of freedom", once

victorious, are trying to impose a homogeneous and intolerant world order in

which an independent protagonist would be seen as a destabilizing and

threatening factor. This is a matter of serious concern to the States of the

southern hemisphere. In the past, we were important to the North in two

ways: as the natural scenario for the East-West confrontation and as

essential suppliers of raw materials.

The confrontation between East and West is gone and with it the political

and strategic usefulness of the third world. Raw materials have become

marginal in the present world economy. The slump in the demand for

commodities becomes more acute with every passing year. The phrase

"mobilizing effect" used to mean that any surge in the rich economies would

carry the developing economies along with it. When the North was growing, so

were exports of raw materials. The situation has completely changed

traditional export commodities no longer have the same value. International

markets can almost do without us.

The only way to preserve peace is to find balanced links between the

hemispheres, put an end to relations of confrontation and strengthen

cooperation between peoples. I have not come here to point out the mistakes

made by the North. The countries in the South also bear heavy

responsibilities. We must meet our challenge. The era of demagogic populism,

inefficiency and corruption is over. If we wish to compete in a world of open

markets we must devote ourselves to productive work and reward creativity.

Venezuela has realized this and is in a position from which it can look to the

future with optimism, provided there is compliance with the rules of open

markets and competitiveness between nations.

However, we must emphasize that while large regions in the South,

especially in Latin America, are striving to internationalize their economies

by opening them up to competition, the North is increasingly locking itself

into inward-turning blocs. Ultimately, the free market one of the triumphant

values to which I have already referred would seem to work in a single

direction.

If the rigid attitude of some international financial institutions

persists, together with the dangerous protectionism that is again emerging

among the industrialized countries, then the 1990s, which in Latin America

began with severe economic measures and hopeful signs of growth, may also turn

out to be another lost decade.

The North is not making a contribution to the establishment of the

necessary economic links between the two hemispheres. The new world order

implies a dual concept: on the one hand, the failure of the South and, on the

other, the defeat of the communist East. The power logic being applied is

simple and direct. There is no longer any question of the loss of any given

strategic resource or strategic position falling into the hands of communism.

There being no enemies, there is no longer any danger of losing friends; worse

yet, there is no longer any need for friends. What is important now is that

there be no disorder and no anarchy. What matters now is the willingness of

the South to submit to certain global rules of the game as defined by the

North in terms of its own interests.

Yet they fail to understand that these rules of the game become

inoperative in situations ->f anarchy and civil strife, which can dismember a

State and have spill-over effects on those surrounding it. Somalia is a

tragic example of what the southern hemisphere could become, on a larger

scale, in the twenty-first century. Some wealthy States may feel that they

can live unaffected by such realities. They are mistaken. We must not forget

that the South has its own ability to make an instinctive response: the

migratory flows of its impoverished masses to the North. This flow, which is

always difficult for any Government to control, could come to undermine the

bases for the democratic and social stability in many developed countries.

The best proof of this is the resurgence of extreme rightist movements and the

outbreak of racial violence and xenophobia in many countries.

These problems and the persistent imbalance between the North and the

South highlight a series of essential issues that the Assembly should

consider. The first is the democratization of the decision-making processes

in the Security Council. This implies a new debate on the veto procedure and

an increase in the number of permanent members so as to allow for the

representation of the new world realities.

The new circumstances in the world have been conducive to solving various

regional problems, such as those in Angola, Namibia, Central America,

Mozambique and Cambodia; to a large extent, in other areas, such as

Afghanistan, Western Sahara, South Africa and the Middle East, there are

signs, because of the new circumstances, that warrant hope for negotiated

solutions to conflicts. Venezuela supports measures designed to achieve

peaceful solutions to these problems and hopes that the favourable

international climate will help maintain peace.

We also supported the Rio summit on the environment and hope that the

decisions adopted there, particularly those related to the problem of

financing Agenda 21, will be implemented as soon as circumstances permit. '

Similarly, we give our full support to the Second World Conference on Human

Rights, to be held next year, as well as to the forthcoming conferences on

population and on the status of women and to the summit on social development.

Despite the endeavours of the United Nations, the outlook is not

encouraging. None the less, when all the countries gathered here in the

Assembly commit themselves to working for change, for a world where hunger and

war have vanished, where the environment is protected, and where realistic

measures are adopted to prevent conflicts, then we shall be building the just

society of which we have always dreamed.