Venezuela, 1993

Allow me, on behalf of Venezuela, to extend

to you, Sir, our very special congratulations on your election

as President of the General Assembly at its forty-eighth

session. It is of great significance to us that the Permanent

Representative of Guyana - a country with which we

maintain special relations of friendship and cooperation -

should be directing the work of this important Assembly.

The President of Venezuela, Mr. Ramon J. Velásquez, would

have liked to be present on this important occasion.

However, the current situation in the country necessitates his

remaining in Caracas.

In recent months Venezuela has had to assume

exceptional responsibilities. Yesterday marked the end of

our term as president of the Security Council. During that

term, events of vital importance have taken place in the

world. In particular, during the past 12 months we have

witnessed with horror the re-emergence of hatreds, barbarism

and episodes of ethnic cleansing that we thought had been

consigned for ever to the saddest and blackest pages of

history. In the conflict that is tearing apart the former

Republic of Yugoslavia, Venezuela has played an important

role - a role widely recognized by the other members of the

Council - in the protection of human rights. Acting within

the framework of the international bodies, we have sought,

above all, to restore peace to that tormented region.

The United Nations has accumulated a wealth of

experience in the deployment of operations for the

maintenance of order - even in some situations in which

peace had not yet been attained. With the new situation in

the world, an organization that was established for purposes

of dialogue and negotiation is faced with challenges of a

different kind. From the maintenance of order in a

traditional sense, it has moved on to operations that include

military aspects, humanitarian, institutional and electoral

assistance, the monitoring of human-rights issues and even

development aid. In recent months the United Nations has

played an active and varied role against an ever-changing

international background.

This year, too, the world has seen the emergence of new

hopes. In one of the most strife-torn regions of the planet,

where there appeared to be no prospect of understanding or

future coexistence, two old enemies, the State of Israel and

the Palestine Liberation Organization, have taken significant

steps towards a joint search for peace and the harmonious

development of the two peoples. Venezuela welcomes the

Washington agreement between Israel and the PLO, and will

work within the framework of the United Nations to achieve

a body of measures and resolutions that will help to erase

the hatreds of a past that is still too close. Similarly, we

support the peace initiatives and the process of

demilitarization and the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons

that have always been an essential part of the work of this

Assembly.

Forty-eighth session - 1 October l993 9

During our months on the Security Council, we have

experienced, at first hand, the accelerated pace of world

events today. We are concerned at the uncertainty of the

roads to be taken and the instability that prevails in many

corners of the world. There are no longer any ideologies,

established values or clear directions. Nevertheless, amidst

all the confusion a few issues have emerged which could

become the single prevalent ideology of mankind. These are

human rights, the defence of democracy and the protection

of the environment.

Last June, in Vienna, the United Nations sponsored that

remarkable encounter, the World Conference on Human

Rights. We engaged there in a fruitful dialogue between

Governments and non-governmental organizations, with the

aim of working together to wipe out the injustices that still

exist in our countries. In Vienna, we came to realize that

the protection of human rights has become a topic of interest

to people of different races from all parts of the world. The

Conference confirmed the universal value of those rights and

reaffirmed that democracy, human rights and development

are equally important and mutually reinforcing objectives.

The further improvement of democracy might begin in

this Organization, where the reform of the Security Council

continues to be necessary in order to make its decisions

more representative. The General Assembly must attach the

proper importance to the discussion of this issue. Venezuela

shares the general concern with making the United Nations

a more transparent and democratic Organization. The new

international scenario calls for a more representative Security

Council without exclusive rights that discriminate against

some Member States.

In the context of the defence of democracy, the United

Nations and regional organizations have made outstanding

efforts, especially in Haiti, where it is our hope that the

lawfully constituted Government will be restored, and in

Guatemala, where forces attempting a coup d’état were

defeated by the weight of civil society. Today, democratic

regimes prevail in almost all of Latin America. However,

our democracies are still young and have experienced

difficulties in recent months.

In Venezuela, we have overcome a severe political

crisis which undoubtedly had the result of strengthening our

institutions. Following a process which took place entirely

within the framework of the law, Mr. Ramón J. Velásquez

succeeded to the highest office. He is a distinguished

historian, respected by all political forces in the country for

the honesty he has shown in his career and for his profound

knowledge of the Venezuelan mentality.

Democracy is a system of values within which respect

for institutions is not only a duty but a necessity. There

have always been attempts in Latin America to justify the

use of force. Order, the fight against terrorism or

communism, the inefficiency of the State: these reasons

have often been used to justify regimes that, finally, did not

re-establish order but abolished freedom. In the past, this

has happened in Venezuela. Today, we have the serenity of

waiting for our institutions to function, and we can now say

with pride that democracy persists in Venezuela and that we

have been able to overcome a serious political crisis.

Nevertheless, our future is clouded by economic

difficulties. The defence and maintenance of democracy

requires the full cooperation of the industrialized countries

in the search for a form of economic development that will

afford our impoverished peoples a life of dignity. Hence,

we support the proposal by the President of the General

Assembly, Mr. Samuel Insanally, for a summit to discuss the

world’s economic problems and agree on programmes of

action to solve them. We agree that the "Agenda for Peace"

put forward by the Secretary-General,

Mr. Boutros Boutros-Ghali, should be complemented by an

agenda for development which would place socio-economic

problems on the same level as those of a purely political

nature. The establishment and preservation of democracy

involves reaching a balanced and equitable global growth

rate.

Balanced growth was the central topic of the first

session of the Commission on Sustainable Development in

New York. The establishment of that Commission is one of

the most significant outcomes of the Earth Summit in Rio de

Janeiro. There is an intimate link between the issue of

development, the financial resources required in order to

attain it and the strict protection of the environment. Despite

the lack of encouraging results, we still believe firmly in the

Rio Declaration on Environment and Development, and we

wish to draw particular attention to Principles 3 and 4, which

read as follows:

Principle 3:

"The right to development must be fulfilled so as to

equitably meet developmental and environmental needs

of present and future generations."

Principle 4:

"In order to achieve sustainable development,

environmental protection shall constitute an

10 General Assembly - Forty-eighth session

integral part of the development process and

cannot be considered in isolation from it."

Accordingly, we are greatly concerned at what is

happening on Venezuela’s Amazonian border. My country

has attached very special importance to the preservation of

nature. Fully 17 per cent of our territory consists of

specially protected national parks in which economic

activities are closely monitored and restricted. On the

southern border, in particular, we have had the support of

scientific organizations and universities in the establishment

of the Alto Orinoco-Casiquiare Biosphere Reserve, covering

an area of 60,000 square kilometres. In this zone, by law,

economic activities must be compatible with the fragility of

the tropical forest ecosystem. Particular importance is

attached to the cultural and linguistic heritage of the

indigenous peoples, whose way of life has always been

compatible with preservation of the environment.

Over the past five years, unfortunately, we have

undergone a true invasion whose results are disastrous for

the environment and which has introduced a climate of

violence hitherto unknown in the area.

The cause is illegal mining, which, while taking

advantage of the forested and inaccessible nature of

Amazonia, is destroying rivers and whole hectares of

vegetation. This phenomenon has reached a scale large

enough to cause concern, to the point that it is escaping

control by the States. Just recently - last July - illegal

miners massacred a group of Venezuelans, of the Yanomami

tribe. Brazil and Venezuela, where the criminal act was

carried out, have established an ad hoc commission to

investigate the facts and to make sure that the criminals are

punished. But the fact that these events can occur gives a

clear idea of the seriousness of the situation we are facing in

Amazonia. Trees are being cut down, the sources of our

great rivers are being deforested, the waters of the great

tropical forest are being polluted with mercury and the

indigenous population, the original inhabitants of the region,

are being murdered.

The Amazonian border of Venezuela, 2,200 kilometres

long, has been preserved. On our side there is the biosphere

reserve, and in Brazil there is the Yanomami park,

established in 1992 and covering 94,000 square kilometres.

Nevertheless, the deaths of the indigenous Venezuelans show

that violence and destruction are beginning to penetrate these

protected areas. Illegal mining is a business behind which

are the gold and diamond transnationals that arm them,

provide them with machinery and build landing strips in the

forest. They are deforesting Amazonia. Each year an area

of forest the size of Portugal is destroyed. They are wiping

out plants and animals: it is estimated that

1,200,000 species will disappear in the next 25 years. They

are annihilating the local population, and this in 1993, when

the whole world is commemorating the International Year

for the World’s Indigenous People.

Therefore, Venezuela addresses the international

community to denounce this serious environmental situation.

All the countries of the Amazon Basin have clearly

proclaimed our sovereignty over the land in question.

Amazonia belongs to us, but we have the responsibility to

protect it, now and for future generations. We must work

together to preserve our tropical forest. Each country in the

region is making special efforts to take up the challenge of

sustainable development in this zone where the ecological

balance is so precarious. We particularly welcome the

establishment in Brazil of the Ministry of the Environment

and the Conservation of Amazonia, which will undoubtedly

be an important factor in solving the problem. Only open

and sincere dialogue between the countries of the region will

enable us to resist the gold and diamond multinationals that

are destroying, without regard for morality, this important

part of the heritage of mankind.

We must live up to the environmental commitments

entered into at the Rio Summit. We need technical support

and political, economic and social backing to confront the

economic interests that are destroying our heritage. I appeal

to the mining transnationals to understand that development

does not mean destruction; to international agencies to help

us implement the principles of sustainable development in

this zone; and to the wealthiest countries to understand that,

while poverty and ignorance persist among large segments

of the population in Latin America, violence and

environmental destruction will continue.

The United Nations has performed a monumental task

in convening the Earth Summit and the Conference on

Human Rights, and now the major meetings on population

and social development. The resolutions adopted at these

conferences are now being violated in Amazonia. Venezuela

is making a great effort to ensure the preservation of the

environment, often in areas to which access is extremely

difficult. We are fighting for human rights among people

who are not accustomed to respecting the law. We are

trying to proceed in accordance with the principles of

sustainable development, standing up to the companies that

are seeking only to extract the wealth of the soil at a rapid

pace. These are difficult tasks, but we are convinced that

this effort is necessary in order to conserve our Amazonia

and preserve it for future generations of our peoples and also

Forty-eighth session - 1 October l993 11

for future generations of all mankind. The United Nations

is the appropriate forum for the whole world to learn of our

efforts to preserve this territory, its biodiversity and the

integrity of its rightful inhabitants.