Discorso Chavez 15-9-2005 all’ONU

Discorso Presidente del Venezuela Chavez 15-9-2005 all’ONU

17 set 2005, 01:01:48

[laconscience] discours du président Chavez aux Nations Unies

Speech by President Chavez at UN General Assembly, Thursday

September 15, 2005

Your Excellencies, friends, good afternoon:

The original purpose of this meeting has been completely distorted.

The imposed center of debate has been a so-called reform process

that overshadows the most urgent issues, what the peoples of the

world claim with urgency: the adoption of measures that deal with

the real problems that block and sabotage the efforts made by our

countries for real development and life.

Translated by Néstor Sánchez

Five years after the Millennium Summit, the harsh reality is that

the great majority of estimated goals- which were very modest indeed-

 will not be met.

We pretended reducing by half the 842 million hungry people by the

year 2015. At the current rate that goal will be achieved by the

year 2215. Who in this audience will be there to celebrate it? That

is only if the human race is able to survive the destruction that

threats our natural environment.

We had claimed the aspiration of achieving universal primary

education by the year 2015. At the current rate that goal will be

reached after the year 2100. Let us prepare, then, to celebrate it.

Friends of the world, this takes us to a sad conclusion: The United

Nations has exhausted its model, and it is not all about reform. The

XXI century claims deep changes that will only be possible if a new

organization is founded. This UN does not work. We have to say it.

It is the truth. These transformations – the ones Venezuela is

referring to- have, according to us, two phases: The immediate phase

and the aspiration phase, a utopia. The first is framed by the

agreements that were signed in the old system. We do not run away

from them. We even bring concrete proposals in that model for the

short term. But the dream of an ever-lasting world peace, the dream

of a world not ashamed by hunger, disease, illiteracy, extreme

necessity, needs-apart from roots- to spread its wings to fly. We

need to spread our wings and fly. We are aware of a frightening

neoliberal globalization, but there is also the reality of an

interconnected world that we have to face not as a problem but as a

challenge. We could, on the basis of national realities, exchange

knowledge, integrate markets, interconnect, but at the same time we

must understand that there are problems that do not have a national

solution: radioactive clouds, world oil prices, diseases, warming of

the planet or the hole in the ozone layer. These are not domestic

problems. As we stride toward a new United Nations model that

includes all of us when they talk about the people, we are bringing

four indispensable and urgent reform proposals to this Assembly: the

first; the expansion of the Security Council in its permanent

categories as well as the non permanent categories, thus allowing

new developed and developing countries as new permanent and non

permanent categories. The second; we need to assure the necessary

improvement of the work methodology in order to increase

transparency, not to diminish it. The third; we need to immediately

suppress- we have said this repeatedly in Venezuela for the past six

years- the veto in the decisions taken by the Security Council, that

elitist trace is incompatible with democracy, incompatible with the

principles of equality and democracy.

And the fourth; we need to strengthen the role of the Secretary

General; his/her political functions regarding preventive diplomacy,

that role must be consolidated. The seriousness of all problems

calls for deep transformations. Mere reforms are not enough to

recover that "we" all the peoples of the world are waiting for. More

than just reforms we in Venezuela call for the foundation of a new

United Nations, or as the teacher of Simón Bolívar, Simón Rodríguez

said: "Either we invent or we err."

At the Porto Alegre World Social Forum last January different

personalities asked for the United Nations to move outside the

United States if the repeated violations to international rule of

law continue. Today we know that there were never any weapons of

mass destruction in Iraq. The people of the United States have

always been very rigorous in demanding the truth to their leaders;

the people of the world demand the same thing. There were never any

weapons of mass destruction; however, Iraq was bombed, occupied and

it is still occupied. All this happened over the United Nations.

That is why we propose this Assembly that the United Nations should

leave a country that does not respect the resolutions taken by this

same Assembly. Some proposals have pointed out to Jerusalem as an

international city as an alternative. The proposal is generous

enough to propose an answer to the current conflict affecting

Palestine. Nonetheless, it may have some characteristics that could

make it very difficult to become a reality. That is why we are

bringing a proposal made by Simón Bolívar, the great Liberator of

the South, in 1815. Bolívar proposed then the creation of an

international city that would host the idea of unity.

We believe it is time to think about the creation of an

international city with its own sovereignty, with its own strength

and morality to represent all nations of the world. Such

international city has to balance five centuries of unbalance. The

headquarters of the United Nations must be in the South.

Ladies and gentlemen, we are facing an unprecedented energy crisis

in which an unstoppable increase of energy is perilously reaching

record highs, as well as the incapacity of increase oil supply and

the perspective of a decline in the proven reserves of fuel

worldwide. Oil is starting to become exhausted.

For the year 2020 the daily demand for oil will be 120 million

barrels. Such demand, even without counting future increments- would

consume in 20 years what humanity has used up to now. This means

that more carbon dioxide will inevitably be increased, thus warming

our planet even more.

Hurricane Katrina has been a painful example of the cost of ignoring

such realities. The warming of the oceans is the fundamental factor

behind the demolishing increase in the strength of the hurricanes we

have witnessed in the last years. Let this occasion be an outlet to

send our deepest condolences to the people of the United States.

Their people are brothers and sisters of all of us in the Americas

and the rest of the world.

It is unpractical and unethical to sacrifice the human race by

appealing in an insane manner the validity of a socioeconomic model

that has a galloping destructive capacity. It would be suicidal to

spread it and impose it as an infallible remedy for the evils which

are caused precisely by them.

Not too long ago the President of the United States went to an

Organization of American States' meeting to propose Latin America

and the Caribbean to increase market-oriented policies, open market

policies-that is neoliberalism- when it is precisely the fundamental

cause of the great evils and the great tragedies currently suffered

by our people. : The neoliberal capitalism, the Washington

Consensus. All this has generated is a high degree of misery,

inequality and infinite tragedy for all the peoples on his

continent.

What we need now more than ever Mr. President is a new international

order. Let us recall the United Nations General assembly in its

sixth extraordinary session period in 1974, 31 years ago, where a

new International Economic Order action plan was adopted, as well as

the States Economic Rights and Duties Charter by an overwhelming

majority, 120 votes for the motion, 6 against and 10 abstentions.

This was the period when voting was possible at the United Nations.

Now it is impossible to vote. Now they approve documents such as

this one which I denounce on behalf of Venezuela as null, void and

illegitimate. This document was approved violating the current laws

of the United Nations. This document is invalid! This document

should be discussed; the Venezuelan government will make it public.

We cannot accept an open and shameless dictatorship in the United

Nations. These matters should be discussed and that is why I

petition my colleagues, heads of states and heads of governments, to

discuss it.

I just came from a meeting with President Néstor Kirchner and well,

I was pulling this document out; this document was handed out five

minutes before- and only in English- to our delegation. This

document was approved by a dictatorial hammer which I am here

denouncing as illegal, null, void and illegitimate.

Hear this, Mr. President: if we accept this, we are indeed lost. Let

us turn off the lights, close all doors and windows! That would be

unbelievable: us accepting a dictatorship here in this hall.

Now more than ever- we were saying- we need to retake ideas that

were left on the road such as the proposal approved at this Assembly

in 1974 regarding a New Economic International Order. Article 2 of

that text confirms the right of states to nationalizing the property

and natural resources that belonged to foreign investors. It also

proposed to create cartels of raw material producers. In the

Resolution 3021, May, 1974, the Assembly expressed its will to work

with utmost urgency in the creation of a New Economic International

Order based on- listen carefully, please- "the equity, sovereign

equality, interdependence, common interest and cooperation among all

states regardless of their economic and social systems, correcting

the inequalities and repairing the injustices among developed and

developing countries, thus assuring present and future generations,

peace, justice and a social and economic development that grows at a

sustainable rate."

The main goal of the New Economic International Order was to modify

the old economic order conceived at Breton Woods.

We the people now claim- this is the case of Venezuela- a new

international economic order. But it is also urgent a new

international political order. Let us not permit that a few

countries try to reinterpret the principles of International Law in

order to impose new doctrines such as "pre-emptive warfare." Oh do

they threaten us with that pre-emptive war! And what about

the "Responsibility to Protect" doctrine? We need to ask ourselves.

Who is going to protect us? How are they going to protect us?

I believe one of the countries that require protection is precisely

the United States. That was shown painfully with the tragedy caused

by Hurricane Katrina; they do not have a government that protects

them from the announced nature disasters, if we are going to talk

about protecting each other; these are very dangerous concepts that

shape imperialism, interventionism as they try to legalize the

violation of the national sovereignty. The full respect towards the

principles of International Law and the United Nations Charter must

be, Mr. President, the keystone for international relations in

today's world and the base for the new order we are currently

proposing.

It is urgent to fight, in an efficient manner, international

terrorism. Nonetheless, we must not use it as an excuse to launch

unjustified military aggressions which violate international law.

Such has been the doctrine following September 11. Only a true and

close cooperation and the end of the double discourse that some

countries of the North apply regarding terrorism, could end this

terrible calamity.

In just seven years of Bolivarian Revolution, the people of

Venezuela can claim important social and economic advances.

One million four hundred and six thousand Venezuelans learned to

read and write. We are 25 million total. And the country will-in a

few days- be declared illiteracy-free territory. And three million

Venezuelans, who had always been excluded because of poverty, are

now part of primary, secondary and higher studies.

Seventeen million Venezuelans-almost 70% of the population- are

receiving, and for the first time, universal healthcare, including

the medicine, and in a few years, all Venezuelans will have free

access to an excellent healthcare service. More thatn a million

seven hundred tons of food are channeled to over 12 million people

at subsidized prices, almost half the population. One million gets

them completely free, as they are in a transition period. More than

700 thousand new jobs have been created, thus reducing unemployment

by 9 points. All of this amid internal and external aggressions,

including a coup d'etat and an oil industry shutdown organized by

Washington. Regardless of the conspiracies, the lies spread by

powerful media outlets, and the permanent threat of the empire and

its allies, they even call for the assassination of a president. The

only country where a person is able to call for the assassination of

a head of state is the United States. Such was the case of a

Reverend called Pat Robertson, very close to the White House: He

called for my assassination and he is a free person. That is

international terrorism!

We will fight for Venezuela, for Latin American integration and the

world. We reaffirm our infinite faith in humankind. We are thirsty

for peace and justice in order to survive as species. Simón Bolívar,

founding father of our country and guide of our revolution swore to

never allow his hands to be idle or his soul to rest until he had

broken the shackles which bound us to the empire. Now is the time to

not allow our hands to be idle or our souls to rest until we save

humanity