Venezuela, 2002

The

heroic people of Venezuela and its revolutionary

Government greet all peoples and all Governments of

the world represented in the General Assembly of the

United Nations.

I must begin by underlining the intense activity

that Venezuela has undertaken within the framework of

the agenda of the United Nations this year of 2002. For

that reason, we made the effort to come here to this

most timely session of the General Assembly.

Venezuela began the year by assuming in January

the presidency of the Group of 77 and China. We

coordinated and managed that very important group of

countries of the world, primarily the countries of the

third world. First, we coordinated the preparations,

documents, agreements and dialogues leading up to the

Monterrey Summit, where we attended, speaking on

behalf of the countries of the South and especially on

behalf of the countries of the Group of 77 and China.

Venezuela then continued that effort by coordinating

our Group in preparation for the important

Johannesburg Summit on Sustainable Development,

held a few days ago. The discussions at the

Johannesburg Summit are still fresh in our minds.

This year, the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela

also held the presidency of the Group of 15, another

important group of developing countries fighting for

greater scope in the political, economic and social

domains.

Finally, Venezuela has had a very intense agenda

at the United Nations during this year of 2002, and in

the remaining months we wish to finish the year with

an even greater intensity, making proposals,

coordinating actions and seeking decisions to complete

and contribute our modest effort in the search for the

solutions, goals and objectives set out in this Hall

during the historic Millennium Summit of 2000.

Thus we come once again to this Hall to ensure

that the world hears the voice of millions of men,

women and children who fight daily for their life and

dignity by striving towards justice in the homeland of

SimÛn Bolvar.

To begin, I would say that this session of the

General Assembly is meeting amidst the suffering and

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mourning afflicting the people of the United States, the

people and city of New York and all peoples of the

world, on this first anniversary of the heinous acts of

11 September. The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela,

from the soul of its heroic people and from the heart of

its revolutionary and democratic Government, prays to

God our Lord for the eternal peace of the victims of

those horrible events. It also reiterates its sentiments of

solidarity and condolences to their families. It affirms

its condemnation of those who planned and carried out

those terrorist actions. We also offer our efforts in the

fight against the scourge of terrorism in the world in its

most diverse facets and manifestations. However, at the

same time, Venezuela stresses the necessity of

recognizing the complexity of the alarming situation in

the world today. The direct condemnation of terrorism

must necessarily be accompanied for ethical and

moral reasons by an equally forceful condemnation

of the causes and processes that have transformed the

world into an infinite sum of marginalized individuals

and a reign of injustice, inequality and poverty. It is

written in the Bible, which contains God's words, that

the only path to peace is justice.

The resolute repudiation of terrorism must also be

accompanied by an unreserved political resolve on the

part of the leaders of the world to acknowledge, for

example, that today's international economic system

fuels a process in which the perverse doctrine of

unbridled neoliberalism leads to greater poverty,

inequality and despair among the poor peoples of our

earth.

For example, 17 people die of hunger every

minute in the world. If we were to fulfil all the

commitments undertaken to combat poverty, it would

take us 130 years to eradicate it from the planet,

according to figures cited in the most recent report of

the United Nations Development Programme.

The condemnation of terrorism must go hand in

hand with a decision-making process that will make it

possible to make greater headway in the war the

war, I stress against poverty. For that reason,

Venezuela has consistently advocated first at

Monterrey and then, more recently, at Johannesburg

that an international humanitarian fund should be

created whose resources might come, for example,

from a percentage of global military expenditure. It

could be funded by a percentage of the immense

resources, those billions and billions of dollars, that

we, the developing countries, the poor countries,

annually transfer to the developed world through the

perverse mechanism of external debt or eternal debt,

I should say.

I am sure that the countries of Africa and Asia

can tell the same story as we in Latin America do. In

the last 20 years of the twentieth century, Latin

America paid off more than twice the amount of its

external debt. But now it turns out that we owe more

than when we began this whole perverse process.

It seems only fair to me that, given the situation

that faces the world and the bleak path that we are

following, this issue must be debated. Why not transfer

a portion of this eternal debt' to an international

humanitarian fund a fund that could also be

financed by monies confiscated from drug traffickers,

who do so much harm in the world, and from corrupt

individuals who have walked off with billions of

dollars from poor countries.

Venezuela has a list that it will provide to the

police forces of the world. It will assist them in getting

back billions of dollars and in transferring them to an

international fund. Such a fund could also be financed

through a tax that could be levied, quite justly, on

major speculative capital transactions. There could be

other possible sources as well; of course, this would

require a very high-level political decision at the global

level.

Today, faced with the world's tragedy, Venezuela

insists on this idea, and we ask the United Nations to

engage in a debate on this issue. In Johannesburg, for

example, I recall that we began very interesting

discussions in a number of round table meetings in

which Venezuela participated. We discussed this topic,

and I was very gratified to see a consensus emerge

among the heads of State and Government present

there. I was very pleased with the support expressed for

that idea by the President of brotherly Brazil, Fernando

Henrique Cardoso, who, during the Johannesburg

round tables, commented on the need to create

instruments such as this, given that today's

international financial agencies are not adequately

equipped to combat poverty a scourge that besets all

of humankind.

President Cardoso referred to the Marshall Plan,

which was put into effect to assist Europe in the post-

war period. I think that today we would need hundreds

of Marshall Plans around the world to save the

countries of the third word from hell and from death.

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But just as we condemn global terrorism and its

causes, I have come to the Assembly also on behalf of

the valiant people of the Bolivarian Republic to

denounce out loud other kinds of terrorism and other

kinds of causes. In Venezuela, we have seen the

beginning of a process of planned, systematic

terrorism, which erupted in violence and blood also on

the eleventh 11 April, not 11 September this year,

that is, five months ago. On that day, a fascist putsch

overthrew the legitimate Government that I am

privileged to head, and installed, for an extremely brief

period, a dictatorship that filled with fear the streets,

cities and villages of our beloved Venezuela.

What were the causes of that bloody terrorist

coup d'état, which resulted in the loss of dozens of

human lives and wounded hundreds of people, who are

still recovering from their very serious injuries? Quite

simply, what we had was a democratic Government

a legitimate Government elected by the people; a

Government that has committed itself to revolutionary

democracy and to political, economic and social

change; a Government that has very resolutely and very

seriously undertaken to put into effect the principles of

the United Nations; a Government that has undertaken

the task of carrying out social actions that will

transform society in order to bring justice and equality

to our people; a Government that has doubled the

budget for education in less than three years; a

Government that has doubled the health-care budget; a

Government that has reduced by 10 per cent infant

malnutrition; a Government that has increased by 10

per cent its people's access to drinking water; a

Government that has reduced infant mortality from 21

per 1,000 to 17 per 1,000; a Government that has

increased by 30 per cent children and adolescents'

access to free and compulsory public education. This is

a Government that has had to deal with the wild

neoliberal privatization of health and education, a

Government that began by reducing poverty and

marginalization in a country that is full of wealth but

has been governed by senseless elitists who were

completely insensitive to people's needs. A

Government such as this was overthrown by a fascist

alliance among privileged sectors, factions instigating a

coup d'état using media terror.

There is an issue in today's world that needs to be

discussed in the world but few dare to do so; I would

like to be bold enough to discuss it. This issue is the

use of mass media in the world. Venezuela is a good

case to be studied. Mass media, exploiting the freedom

of expression and the freedom of the press, supported

the putsch and manipulated society. The most appalling

thing was that, when the people reacted against the

dictatorship, the popular reaction was silenced and

broadcasting was stopped and nobody knew what was

happening in Venezuela. I think this is a special case of

ethics in media communications that deserves to be

studied.

A little while ago, a great intellectual and Latin

American writer, the Uruguayan Eduardo Galeano,

author of Open Veins of Latin America spoke of the

question of mass media around the world and said this

great truth: Never have so few deceived so many.' We

need to tackle this with courage as we face the

beginning of this century. The elitist perpetrators of the

putsch used the mass media and think they can

continue to use them. They used police terrorism and

military terrorism and achieved a very powerful

alliance that was successful in overthrowing the

Government and succeeded in taking me prisoner and

keeping me incommunicado for many hours on a

Caribbean island. This fascist coup eliminated the

Congress, overthrew all laws and all public branches of

authority and did away with the judicial branch. It

seized mayors and members of Parliament elected by

the population. However, in spite of all of this, they

could not oppress us. Within a few hours, something

happened in Venezuela that has scarcely ever happened

in any country or nation. People began to rush out into

the streets, without weapons, with only the weapons of

their courage and their hearts and with the Bolivarian

Constitution in their hands. Millions of men and

women and young people went out into the streets,

clamouring for respect for their dignity and miracle

of miracles in less than forty-eight hours, the

Government along with patriotic soldiers overthrew the

dictatorship, restored the Constitution, rescued the

President who had been abducted and restored

democracy to Venezuela. This was a miracle. Only a

people that is united can achieve this. Only a people

that is conscious and active can sweep away such

fascist and terrorist assaults. This was the first time

that this was ever seen in any nation for a very long

time.

Mine is a people that has regained its libertarian

essence and its liberating essence. A people that, since

the time of SimÛn Bolvar hardly two hundred years

ago, has worked together with Colombia, Ecuador,

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Peru, Bolivia, Panama to achieve the independence of

half of the continent of the Americas. This is the

Venezuelan people for whom I, once again, reaffirm

my undying love and devotion for their courage and

dignity.

And here, from this rostrum, on behalf of this

people, I offer my sincere and warm thanks for all the

gestures of solidarity that we received from here, from

the United Nations, from the Organization of American

States, from Governments and above all, from many

countries of the Americas. Messages came also from

Asia, Europe, Africa and Oceania, because this was a

unique situation at the beginning of this century. This

constitution is a revolutionary peaceloving and

democratic document. It was drafted by the people

itself and is now being defended and promoted by the

people.

In conclusion, following these events we in

Venezuela are aware, we know I realize that many

people do not yet know we have experienced

terrorism first hand.

A few days ago a video came out, more proof of

what was being planned in Venezuela. In that video an

international journalist made some revelations, stating

that he was called in the morning on the day of the

coup and that, long before the first person fell dead as a

result of shooting by a number of snipers there were

some foreigners among them the coup perpetrators

were already recording a message in which they said

that President Ch·vez had ordered people to be killed

and that there had been six deaths. Well before the

firing and the massacre of defenceless people began,

they had already recorded this message.

Ultimately, fortunately, the military and civilian

reaction was very rapid, because the terror that had

been planned against the Venezuelan people on a

massive scale would have meant that terrorist practices

would be applied against anything that was popular or

democratic in Venezuela. They expected to repeal the

Constitution. But, of course, it was restored within

forty-eight hours because of the peaceful democratic

revolution brought about by the people.

We are grateful for the international community's

unequivocal condemnation of the coup d'état the

nightmare that we experienced for some days in

Venezuela. And we reaffirm that our Government, in

which Venezuelans have placed their confidence in a

number of successive democratic processes, will not

engage in a witch hunt, or carrying out summary trials

or executions. As the people say there is a song they

sing in the streets: He's back, he's back, he's back.'

With strict adherence to our humanitarian and

Bolivarian tradition and upholding our national

Constitution, we came back with our Constitution in

our hands on the popular tide that swept the legitimate

Government back, along with the Constitution, and put

an end to the terrorists, the coup d'état and its

perpetrators. For the first time in Venezuela's history,

victory in a political conflict and bear in mind that

this was the overthrow of a dictatorship meant that

the Government that returned respected those who had

been defeated.

We have now engaged in a major national

dialogue, a national debate. In this we have also

requested the help of the United Nations through the

United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and

asked for support from representatives of the

Organization of American States. We have also

requested support from the Carter Center headed by

former President Jimmy Carter.

We are grateful for their support and we reaffirm

that Venezuela will continue to be guided by God and

by the hand of its people, with the Bolivarian

Constitution in its grasp. In doing so we will be joining

the world to contribute to seek out alternatives to the

economic models that have unleashed hunger and

misery upon the world. We will continue to make our

modest contribution, backed by the efforts of millions.

We will continue to make a supreme effort to change

the world and to make it viable so that, as soon as

possible in the twenty-first century, justice will be

achieved. For, as the word of God has asserted for

thousands of years, justice is absolutely the only path

to genuine peace.