Venezuela, 2013

At the outset, on behalf

of the people and the President of the Bolivarian

Republic of Venezuela, Mr. Nicolás Maduro Moros, I

would like to convey to General Assembly President

John Ashe our congratulations on his recent election to

lead this organ of the United Nations.

As is known, President Maduro Moros is not here

at this session of the General Assembly because of a

whole range of delays, obstacles, conditions imposed

and lack of guarantees for him and members of his

delegation, imposed by the Government of the United

States in flagrant violation of the obligations incumbent

upon it under the Headquarters Agreement. Despite

that, we have come here on behalf of the people of the

liberator, Simón Bolívar, to speak the truth and to ask

some questions, firmly but respectfully, as we learned

from our leader, Hugo Chávez Frías, who passed away

in March. In that regard, on behalf of my people, I

should like to express our gratitude for the heartfelt

tribute paid to President Chávez Frías last March (see

A/67/PV.67).

How happy we would be to be here if we were

really in a place where we realized the noble ideals

enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations. The

Charter talks about saving succeeding generations

from the scourge of war, but the truth is that various

military interventions have been decided upon or have

been allowed here that have engulfed countries and

whole regions of the world in long wars and instability.

The Security Council has been taken hostage by the

hawks of war, and when they can, they justify their

attacks from there; when they cannot, they simply bang

on the table and still do whatever they want, which is

what they are doing when they declare that there will be

future bombings in the Syrian Arab Republic.

The Charter also states that the purpose of the

Organization is to preserve international peace and

security. But let me ask: How do some members of the

Security Council think we can achieve that purpose by

arming and protecting terrorist groups such as Jabhat

Al-Nusra and Al-Qaida, which are obscurantist forces?

Many of those groups are linked to horrible acts such as

the destruction of the Twin Towers in this very city. They

deny the existence of anybody who thinks differently

from them — whether they be Christians, Muslims

or Jews — and profess special hatred and rejection of

women. Why are such groups supported? Why do some

members of the Security Council sponsor such terrorist

groups, window-dressing them as political opposition

and even allowing them to give press conferences at this

venue? What would representatives of Governments

with ongoing internal armed conflicts say if the violent

groups they faced were to be given space and a voice

here at Headquarters to justify their downfall?

The Preamble of the Charter also sets out another

noble goal: to promote social progress and raise the

standard of living in a broader concept of freedom.

In reality, however, poverty, hunger and injustice are

continuing to grow and the standard of living and the

standard of freedoms are falling lower and lower. That

is because what is imposed on us is a model of excluding

others — a neo-fascist model — a neo-liberal model.

In the meantime, countries such as Venezuela

have chosen the path to consolidate real democracy

with a socialist system, including the people, and that

has enabled us to reach the Millennium Development

Goals. Yet we are constantly attacked and demonized

and our political and social stability is being disrupted.

That is what is happening at this very moment with

the anti-democratic opposition in our country, which

is being supported by media corporations in the region

and from the whole world.

Paragraph 4, Article 2, of the Charter of the United

Nations emphatically states that

“All members shall refrain in their international

relations from the threat or use of force against the

territorial integrity or political independence of

any state”.

Yet the President of the United States — and there is

the additional irritant that he is a Nobel Peace Prize

laureate — is threatening to bomb this or that country if

it does not comply with his country’s unilateral demands,

which can even include removing a Government that

the United States Government does not like. Perhaps

that could explain why, despite the fact that the Charter

talks about the equality of large and small nations, the

President of the United States said just a couple of days

ago that the United States was “exceptional”. Does that

mean that they are not equal with the other 192 States

Member States represented here?

The gap today between the noble ideals of the

Charter and what is happening by act or omission

here in the Organization is truly alarming. Why does

nobody in the General Assembly venture to propose

that sanctions be imposed for open violations of the

Charter on the Government that has an illegal detention

centre in the military base at Guantánamo, in occupied

Cuban territory, where torture and cruel and degrading

and inhuman treatment is being meted out to persons?

Why does nobody discuss sanctions against

the President who has admitted to illegal espionage

activities against Heads of State and Government

represented here? That was a point courageously

made by the President of Brazil, Dilma Rousseff (see

A/68/PV.5).

Why do we not consider the use of unpiloted

planes — so-called drones — which have taken the

lives of tens of thousands of innocent victims, including

children and old people, in North Africa, the Middle

East and parts of Asia to be crimes against humanity?

Why do we not impose sanctions against a

Government that for more than 50 years has maintained

an illegal and criminal economic blockade against the

worthy Cuban people, and flouted decisions adopted by

overwhelming majorities in the Assembly in favour of

ending the embargo?

Why do we not implement the resolutions adopted

by the plenary so that the State of Palestine can be

established as a peaceful, just and lasting solution to

the ongoing Arab-Israeli conflict?

Why does the United Kingdom not agree to start

negotiations with Argentina to resolve in a peaceful

way demands over the Malvinas Islands? Might it

perchance be because the elite of the United States and

some of its allies are exceptional?

We raise those questions for consideration when it

comes to the future of humankind, on behalf of the people

of Simón Bolívar — the people of Venezuela — who

love peace, equality and freedom.

Venezuela has come before the General Assembly

today to condemn a kidnapping. The Organization has

been kidnapped. The peace and dignity of the world

are being held hostage in New York. The kidnapper has

many faces. It changes names and sometimes even flags,

but it continues to be the same old imperalism. Eight

years ago, Commander Hugo Chávez Frías — a tireless

defender of genuine peace, not the peace imposed by

bombs, and of participatory democracy and a leader

for unity among peoples — called here for a genuine

transformation of the United Nations. Seven years ago,

he said that there was a whiff of sulphur here (see A/61/

PV.12). Today, alas, I have to say once again that there is

still a whiff of sulphur coming from those who consider

themselves exceptional.

Those words are truer now than ever before. The

courageous revelations of one young man offered a

great service to humankind — let us call it a wake-up

call. As a result, he is now being persecuted politically

and cannot walk freely in the streets of Manhattan. We

hope that Edward Snowden will one day be able to walk

freely among a future generation of Americans who

have taken back their civil rights and helped to ensure

peace in the world. That young man has shown us how

the privacy of every human being has been violated by

the most complex and sophisticated spying system that

humankind has ever been able to come up with.

Thanks to those revelations this year, we have

woken up to discover that George Orwell’s 1984 is

now here. And what is the United Nations doing about

that? Who is setting limits on so much arbitrariness

and running roughshod? Those are yet more questions

that find no answers from the General Assembly or the

Security Council of the Organization, which is now

almost 68 years old.

We would like to suggest that the Secretary-General

set up a body within the United Nations to ensure for

every inhabitant in the world the right to privacy and

the right to communicate without interception. Much

has been said here calling for peace, but that has often

fallen on deaf ears. Let us hope that we will all learn

how important it is to listen to the calls of the people for

peace, and employ that in tirelessly seeking to elevate

human dignity as our guiding star.

President John Kennedy spoke from this rostrum

50 years ago, the last time he would do so at the United

Nations before being assassinated. How good it would

be if his current successor, and many people here,

were to re-read just some of what he said. Whatever

differences we may have had with that historic figure,

ensuring peace requires that we seek out areas of

agreement such as this:

“For the value of this body’s work is not

dependent on the existence of emergencies — nor

can the winning of peace consist only of dramatic

victories. Peace is a daily, a weekly, a monthly

process, gradually changing opinions, slowly

eroding old barriers, quietly building new

structures. And, however undramatic the pursuit of

peace, that pursuit must go on.” (A/PV.1209, p. 5)

Let us hope that the leaders of the United States and

those that follow them blindly will think deeply about

the meaning of what Kennedy said and realize that if

they really want to be exceptional, they have to find

exceptional ways of bringing about lasting peace in the

world.

In Latin America and the Caribbean we are

showing that with exceptional decisions and actions we

can build a world of peace. Unity in diversity is what

we have in our regional organizations: the Bolivarian

Alliance for the Peoples of Our America, the

Community of Latin American and Caribbean States,

the Union of South American Nations, the Common

Market of the South and Petrocaribe. All those are tools

for democratizing our societies that promote socially

inclusive economic development and ensure political

stability. Despite various internal disputes and conflicts

between fraternal countries, we have been able to find

mechanisms for the peaceful settlement of conflict. We

have demonstrated that without military intervention,

drones or economic blockades, we can build and

preserve genuine democracy and move forward in

combating hunger, poverty and inequality.

The Venezuelan nation is proud of being part of a

region that is free of weapons of mass destruction. We

reaffirm our commitment to encouraging the complete

elimination of nuclear weapons and chemical and

bacteriological weapons as a way of ensuring that life

can continue on planet Earth.

In his various statements before the Assembly,

Commander Chávez Frías called for improving the

means for addressing problems and resolving conflicts

in a transparent manner. He also pointed out that, in

the face of today’s reality, there was a crucial need

to consider whether the Headquarters of the United

Nations should be here in this country where the

Government does not respect the Organization, much

less the sovereignty of each and every State Member.

The United Nations should be in a place where there

is respect for all Members; where the political will

flourishes, without pressure or fear, to end conflict in

the world through dialogue; where the path forward

is genuine social development and the elimination of

hunger and poverty; and where what matters is how to

stop war, not how to justify it.

Let us take the United Nations to the South, where

the antithesis to exclusion — solidarity — has often

taught us that we are in fact all equal. For now, we

welcome the proposal of President Evo Morales Ayma

that we should meet in the Organization’s various other

headquarters in different parts of the world. Beyond the

shadows that seem to darken the future of the human

race, from Latin America and the Caribbean we are

saying and showing that another world is possible

where all of us can, in peace and dignity and with

justice, enjoy lives worth living.