Venezuela, 2025

I now give the floor to His Excellency Ivan Gilpinto, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. Mr. President, Venezuela stands here talking to the world with a sense of truth. Over five centuries, the history of our homeland has been marked by one key ideal. That is the goal of achieving a society in which equality, justice and freedom reign. Simon Bolivar was the greatest man to ever have been born on American soil. He, in word and in deed, universalised the spirit and what it meant to be Latin American and Caribbean. His was the ideal that the world should live in balance, that any and all struggle for a better society must have as its homecoming port, its final destination, peace. Mr. President, the first vessels that arrived on our Caribbean shores came to bring us under control. They subjugated our ancestors for 300 years. More than 90 million indigenous inhabitants were exterminated. There began our long struggle to resist colonialism and humiliation. Three centuries later, the Liberation Army, comprising black people, indigenous peoples, white people, mestizos, it was an army in which slaves, peasants and free men from across the continent stood side by side as equals. They came up from the coasts of the Caribbean Sea and rose up to Ayacucho and its mountains to free South America once and for all. Mr. President, we have been a country that has learned to struggle for its own destiny and control thereof. In the 20th century, we saw the beginning of a blockade on our coastlines in the Caribbean Sea and a coup d'etat against our nationalist general, Cipriano Castro, that was financed by oil companies and the government of the United States. The 20th century was one of bitter disputes between the ideal held by a nation that demanded the sovereign right to enjoy its own wealth for its own development and puppet governments that subjugated the country to foreign and imperialist interests. These governments sold our nation down the river and, as such, plunged Venezuela for decades into the most abject misery, poverty and repression. It was at the end of last century, in 1999, that the Venezuelan people succeeded in giving shape to the historic strength it had built up over decades of struggle. They ushered in a project for an independent, just and sovereign nation. That project drew upon the original ideals of Bolívar and was led by an extraordinary leader, Commander Hugo Chávez. And the project proved itself able to compel a people's movement to rise up to wage a peaceful and democratic revolution. Mr. President, since the very beginning, President Chávez bravely led a nationalist sovereign oil policy and undertook an epic journey to get OPEC back on its feet as a major multilateral instrument and a guarantee for global energy security. Today, 26 years later, global public opinion and the peoples of the world are acutely aware of everything done by the United States government to topple Commander Chávez and everything it did to lay waste to the historic project of liberation that's been supported and given new mandates time and time again by the Venezuelan people in 32 elections. With the passing of President Chávez, the people, in myriad electoral and political events, have reaffirmed their staunch support for the historic Venezuelan Emancipation Project, which is now in the hands of President Nicolás Maduro. It is also widely documented and known to all that war has been waged upon us in myriad forms. There is the criminal aggression that in the last decade has been waged against Venezuela to allow external powers to get their hands on Venezuela's natural resources and usher in a so-called regime change. There have been countless aggressions, Madam President, against Venezuela in recent years. Actions seeking to destabilize the nation, plots, conspiracies. These included an assassination attempt using drones. There's been the economic war whose most cruel form has been the 1,042 sanctions that are criminally imposed upon our oil industry and the productive sectors of our nation. We've also seen several incursions using mercenaries. In addition to all of the above, now we have an absolutely illegal and completely immoral military threat hanging over our heads. That threat is a violation of the United Nations Charter as well as of the rights of Venezuela as a sovereign state. And it is even a violation of the very laws of the United States itself. Venezuela thanks this General Assembly for the solidarity shown to it by the overwhelming majority. The governments of the world and the peoples of the world have shown us that solidarity. I'm thinking particularly of CELAC, BRICS and the Non-Aligned Movement. All of these peoples and all of these groups have repudiated these immoral threats and have supported Venezuelan democracy and Venezuela's right to peace and development. Madam President, in these early decades of the 21st century, we have seen false and tasteless justifications invoked to invade our sisterly country, Iraq. We have witnessed the bombing and destruction of Libya and the 20-year invasion of Afghanistan. The aggression waged by global powers has not let up for even a second. As such, a short while ago, we saw the criminal and cunning bombing of the peaceful Islamic Republic of Iran. Today, the target of this aggression is now Venezuela, a peaceful country built on solidarity. In view of the fact that Venezuela cannot be accused of having weapons of mass destruction or nuclear weapons, today, unbecoming and perverse lies are being levelled against us that no one in the United States believes them or in the world as a whole. They're being invoked to justify a billion-dollar military threat which is despicable, outlandish and immoral. Consequently, we're once again grateful to global public opinion and the public opinion of the United States. We're also grateful to the governments and the peoples of the world that are speaking out against this attempt to bring war to the Caribbean and South America in order to usher in a regime change which will allow external powers to rob the immeasurable oil and gas wealth of Venezuela. We are not surprised, Madam President. We are all well aware that the people of the United States have time and time again voted for governments that promised to bring peace and put an end to eternal war. Governments that promised to devote themselves to resolving internal problems. Poverty, the addiction epidemic, unemployment and inequality which today characterize the US and its society. And we've seen time and time again how the noble people of the United States have been disappointed. For this reason, today Venezuela wishes to reaffirm it is dedicated to peace as Simon Bolivar was. We are devoted to our self-determination and on the basis of the United Nations Charter, we once again affirm that we have a right to defend our sovereignty and to defend peace in the Caribbean and across South America. Venezuela is part of this new pluripolar world that has been ushered in. Simon Bolivar in 1824 in the altitudes of Junín was driven forward by the same ideal when on the eve of a decisive battle said to his soldiers, Peru and the whole of America is clinging to you as a hope for peace, the daughter of victory. Even liberal Europe is watching you enchanted under a spell because the freedom of the new world is a hope harbored by the universe as a whole. President Venezuela defends, struggles always and works for a world of balance, justice and equality, a world free of colonial empires. It was Chávez who was the great driver of the process to usher in such a world on our continent. He did so by founding Pedro Caribe, Alba TCP and the Union of South American Nations, UNASUR, as well as the community of Latin American and Caribbean states. The people of Venezuela are a peace loving people and for this reason they are always ready to defend that peace. We are not intimidated by threats, lies or cannons. The love for freedom crosses through our very veins. Bolivar taught us to espouse those ideals when in 1818 in the face of a threat leveled against him by an impudent Washington envoy said, and here I quote, it would seem to me, sir, that you are attempting to force me to insult you in return. I will not. But what I will tell you is that I will not allow this contempt to be shown for the government of Venezuela or this scorn for our rights. Fortunately, I have quite frequently seen a handful of free men vanquish powerful empires. End quote. President, the revolutionary government of President Nicolás Maduro fully reaffirms its commitment to building this world, which respects international law, a world free of hegemonic empires or warmongering empires, a world in which the people of the global south are able to enjoy their right to peace and future. We stand in solidarity with the heroic people of Palestine and we call for the end of the genocide waged by Israel's Zionist regime. We condemn attacks against the territorial integrity and sovereignty of the Islamic Republic of Iran. We stand shoulder to shoulder with Cuba and we demand that, as the rest of the world does, the lifting of this murderous and criminal blockade. Moreover, we once again express our unwavering solidarity with the people of Nicaragua, who are worthy heirs to the legacy of Augusto Cesar Sandino. We call for the complete, immediate, and unconditional lifting of the unilateral coercive measures imposed upon the brotherly republics of Belarus, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Eritrea, Iran, and Zimbabwe. Mr. President, we support President Putin and the noble Russian people in their struggle against neo-Nazism and the militarist aggression of the Western world. We support the initiatives of President Xi Jinping to build a community whose destiny we share. We reaffirm our historic position, that is, that we support the brave Argentine people in their struggle to reclaim the Malvinas Islands. We support them in their struggle to ensure that Argentina does not become a foreign military base that threatens peace on the continent. We reaffirm the stance of the great liberator, Simón Bolívar. He said, just as we do, that sooner rather than later we must achieve the definitive emancipation of the people of Puerto Rico, and we must found an independent, free, and sovereign republic there. We also renew our support for the rightful cause of the Sahrawi people. Moreover, we here affirm our total commitment to the Group of Friends in Defense of the Charter of the United Nations. That group comprises governments that seek to rescue the system of the United Nations. That is now on a dangerous path of decline, which may dangerously culminate in the extinction of the United Nations. The Nazis of today, just like the Nazis of Hitler yesterday, are working to destroy the United Nations. We are striving to restore its dignity and to make it ever stronger. President, today we reaffirm that the Venezuelan people will continue upon the path that they have freely chosen for themselves. The world must know that Venezuela is prepared to continue walking the path opened up for them by Simón Bolívar and the freedom fighters of America. We have given shape to a powerful national union. We stand together. We say before the world that Venezuela has never been, is not, nor will it ever be a threat for any nation whatsoever. Venezuela has been, is, and always will be a beacon of hope in terms of building a new humankind, building a world of equals, without empires, with no blackmail, and no threats. We will usher in a world where colonialism, slavery, and exploitation are vanquished once and for all. A world in which peace can grow stronger. And, as the poet and Venezuelan singer Ali Primera said, a world where humankind is human. Thank you, President. I thank the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. I now give the floor.