Statement by Vice-president Delcy Rodríguez at the 74th Session of the United Nations General Assembly - MPPRE

Statement by Vice-president Delcy Rodríguez at the 74th Session of the United Nations General Assembly

Distinguished General Assembly of the United Nations Organization, a very respectful greeting to the President of this Assembly, a greeting to all the heads of delegation and heads of delegation as well who are in this sacred place for the public international law. I come in the name of the only Venezuela, of the dignified Venezuela, the brave one, the one who does not kneel before any imperial power. I bring the greetings of President Nicolás Maduro Moros and the Venezuelan people. It is a Bolivarian greeting, also in the name of the spirit of our commander Hugo Chávez Frías. We come with the purpose of be bearer of very good news about the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. The first one is that Venezuela is at peace and the 120 delegations that recently participated in the Summit of Non-Aligned Countries in Venezuela were first level witnesses of this in spite of the war that powerful transnationals of communication have unleashed to stigmatize the Bolivarian Venezuela. In spite of the coup d’etats attempted by extremist sectors of the Venezuelan opposition, which has even contemplated assassination attempts against the head of state, and have tried to assassinate the entire Military High Political Command of Venezuela, and the authorities of the Venezuelan state, as well as accredited ambassadors in Venezuela. The world media says nothing about that, so I salute this space where we, the peoples talk each other, we, who do not have the power to access this machinery that is exclusively at the service of the hegemon of the world and its satellites. Nothing says the world media about the social protection system that exists in Venezuela and that it includes, without distinction, almost nineteen million Venezuelans. This model of inclusion, justice and social protection has been determined as an objective to be destroyed by the government of the United States of America; it is the real threat to its model of capitalism. It is the Bolivarian model, intrinsically contrary to the Monroist project which aims to show that all of our America is a backyard of the United States of America. Within the framework of the extraordinary social programs, we highlight the 20/30 Agenda as a joint commitment of this General Assembly, and the way forward of this Organization. In this international community house, common mechanisms of cooperation are also encouraged, to address the imperative need to preserve the environment, impacted by the devastating capitalist model. We express our solidarity with the brother Caribbean people of the Bahamas, a recent victim of the ravages of climate change. And as an Amazonian country, we raise our voice to reject the barbaric commodification of our Amazon, led by Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro. He has moved his extremist ideology to attempt against our natural lung. We proclaim then the rights of nature, an indispensable flag of the peoples. We also came to this Organization to effectively address the urgent fight against poverty and inequality, where twenty-six people have the same wealth as the three thousand eight hundred million poorest people in the world. We agree with the Secretary General of this Organization Mr. Antonio Guterres, when he urges nations to come with concrete actions and not with ornate speeches. I also say not to come with falsehoods and speeches that lie to an entire General Assembly. The point, respected Secretary General, is precisely how to reach these noble and commendable commitments as an international community seriously involved in its multilateral and legal structure. I want to particularly stop to expose the unilateral and therefore illegal coercive measures to which millions of people in the world are subjected. These measures constitute the use of force prohibited by the Charter of the United Nations and International Public Law, which threatens peace, security and massively violates Human Rights. Between 2015 and 2019, the United States Government has decreed more than 350 unilateral coercive measures against the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, which include: Unlawful misappropriation of all our resources and assets abroad; total financial and commercial blockade; affectation to health, education, food, directed mainly to asphyxiate the Venezuelan economy and subdue our people. I want to share (the translators have asked me to speak slowly to be able to carry out the translation, my apologies) I want to share with this Assembly, terrifying data about the dimension that unilateral coercive measures represent against conventional wars. It is well known that the use of the Armed Forces of the US Military Industrial Complex is an important business. The last three presidents of the United States have increased illegal bombings in violation of the United Nations Charter without any authorization from the Security Council. In the period between 2001 and 2009, President George Busch dropped 70,000 bombs, which gave an average of 24 bombs per day. In the period 2009 to 2017 leading President Barack Obama, this government launched one hundred thousand bombs, giving a daily average of 34 bombs. In the recent period chaired by Donald Trump, 44,096 bombs have been dropped carrying the record with 121 bombs per day. Bombs that have caused suffering to entire populations, to the civilian population without any distinctions, boys, girls, senior adults, but nevertheless, there is a new type of terror or State terrorism that is imposed on the people and it uses no bombs, but banks and insurance companies that are within the easy reach of a key in the digital age. These are precisely measures imposed by the United States using the dominance of the dollar as a world reserve currency. It is the Department of the Treasury, the Economic Pentagon, that militarizes international relations and punishes millions of innocent people to apply doctrines of regime change and blatantly steal the resources of nations. The existence of these measures evidences a collapse of the international legal order. In this sense, Venezuela has become the best perverse experiment against multilateralism. Economic terrorism against Venezuela has caused a decrease of more than nine times its income, and it is estimated that between 2015 and 2018 the losses for the Venezuelan economy reached one hundred and thirty billion dollars due to the brutal financial blockade imposed by the US government, which only means a blatant robbery and dispossession of our resources. But this is not over in Venezela, the supremacist hatred of President Donald Trump has stretched his imperial claws against the sister Revolution of Cuba, wildly exacerbating the extension of these coercive measures, illicit sanctions, is it that perhaps, more than five decades have not been enough to let them know that Cuba will never surrender? that Fidel’s Cuba will never submit to any imperial design? More than five decades resisting the economic blockade What else does it take for them to become aware that they will never defeat the Martian revolution in this way? Similar fate is also intended for our sister Nicaragua, and then these three revolutions of this continent, the Martiana, the Sandinista and the Bolivarian, are a geopolitical objective that has drawn the Monroist project. In this same orther of ideas, I want to highlight the special relationship that exists between the first cocaine producer in the world and the first consumer of that drug on the planet, in a kind of narcotic relationship that exists between Colombia and the United States. It is widely certified that Colombia produces seventy percent of all cocaine consumed in the world, increasing its production in the last year by more than thirty percent and exceeding all its historical production. I remind the United States that it gave more than ten billion dollars to Plan Colombia to combat the production of this scourge. US citizens must feel it deep, those who pay taxes are the vast majority not the oligarchies. We were, thanks to Commander Hugo Chávez and President Nicolás Maduro. We were companions, an accompanying country of some peace agreements that received the blessing of this Organization and the global advertising machinery, and that today, in one fell swoop, President Iván Duque staged a thunderous breach and assault on these agreements. The the United Nations Organization, since the signing of the peace agreements has verified the murder of one hundred and twenty three former combatants, seven hundred and thirty nine people were killed in the last year, social leaders of our sister Colombia. Colombia is the country with the highest number of internally displaced persons, almost eight million people, only in Venezuela almost six million Colombian live, but they will never say this in the media that serves the hegemonic power of the world. Two days ago … I want to stop here, because two days ago the President of Colombia broke into this dignified General Assembly to lie about Venezuela, and brought here some material that he said was the proof that in Venezuela we harbor irregular Colombians. We have reached such a level of disrespect to come to lie to this community. A slight examination, as you well know, because it has been a worldwide scandal in all the media, a slight examination has shown that those photos that Mr. Iván Duque brought supposedly from Venezuela, really correspond to Colombian territory, in the case of Cauca and in the case of Catatumbo. It is contrary to any mutual aid mechanism that we owe to each other in the framework of conventions, mutual cooperation and judicial cooperation; what corresponds is the diplomatic path, what corresponds is that the countries establish their respectful media within the framework of international legality. I am going to ask President Duque to take a pencil because he has forced us to bring to this General Assembly the precise and concise coordinates of the existence of camps where terrorists are being trained to attack Venezuela. Three sites, in the northwest Presidente Duque, Santa Marta. Hacha and Maicao River. In Santa Marta I provide the coordinates that will also be delivered to the Secretary General of this Organization, eleven degrees, fourteen minutes, nineteen seconds to the north. Seventy nine degrees, six minutes fifteen seconds west. Camp in Santa Marta- Camp in Río Hacha, coordinates eleven degrees, thirty two minutes three seconds north. Seventy five degrees fifty five minutes fourteen seconds west. Camp in Maicao, coordinates: eleven degrees, twenty two minutes, thirty nine seconds north. Seventy two degrees, thirteen minutes fifty eight seconds west. We will also record the photos of these camps where mercenaries are being trained to attack Venezuela. Venezuela has done its part by resorting to public international law, and has offered the evidence regarding the Colombian government. The Venezuelan Prosecutor’s Office has also made available all the evidence of the presence of people involved in serious crimes against the constitutional order in Venezuela, terrorism crimes that attempted to assassinate authorities of the Venezuelan State and President Nicolás Maduro. The official response of the Colombian government has been to shelter these people requested by the Venezuelan justice, flagrantly violating resolution 1373 of the United Nations Security Council. With his lies we say that it is a lousy joke and Ivan Duque is a lousy liar. Twenty four hours have not passed yet and the truth was already publicly revealed: the truth of Venezuela is that Venezuela with its vigorous rule of law guarantees our untouchable territory, never lent to commit abuse or any crime to attack a sister country. I say it with absolute responsibility, the United States and its regional satellites prepare from Colombia an aggression against Venezuela, jeopardizing the security and stability of this continent. President Nicolás Maduro warned since 2015 what was going to happen after President Obama issued the infamous executive order that considers Venezuela a threat to its national security and foreign policy. This precedent would be the starting point of the most brazen exercise carried out in the Organization of American States, of which Venezuela is no longer part, by approving the illegal and obsolete International Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance, sowing the pillars to justify an armed intervention in Venezuela led by the United States and instrumentalized through other governments. They will report that they have already applied all of the existing mechanisms in the Rio Pact to Venezuela but one, the armed intervention. And that is why we have come here to alert and prevent this potential conflict that they want to sow in our region. The performance of several is not multilateralism, it is group unilateralism to slip away from the international law. We also reject any form of trade war against China, and we repudiate the illegal sanctions against Russia, a developing world power and builders of a new multi-center world, respectful of international legality. We also reject sanctions against Iran, against North Korea, against Syria, with Zimbabwe. There are more than thirty countries that have been taken as the objective to apply these illegal and criminal sanctions. We salute the election of our brother Mexico, to the presidency of the Celac, inheritance of giants like Fidel Castro, like Commander Hugo Chávez, who had the vision of rescuing our deepest roots of the great homeland, of the free homeland. We salute your presidency and repudiate any offense against the dignity of your people. We also ratify our historical rights over Guyana Esequiba, and we vindicate the Geneva Agreement of 1966 as the only valid instrument to settle this territorial dispute, which contemplates bilateral political negotiation and whose legal instrument is duly deposited with the United Nations Organization. In this great operation against Venezuela that began with a coup d’etat in 2002 against President Hugo Chávez by the United States, accompanied by the same actors who are now trying to overthrow our legitimate government. On January 23 of the current year an unprecedented event occurred in Venezuela, in the world, a deputy who did not reach more than ninety thousand votes in his parliamentary election, appeared in a public square and proclaimed himself as president of Venezuela- This deputy is an imperial artifice, he does not exist politically in Venezuela, he exists as an artifice, as a criminal and criminal instrument to attempt against the stability and peace of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. Self proclamations were followed by acknowledgments of a minority of governments of the unequal world, perhaps one of their worst mistakes made in the diplomatic history of these countries, while the unequal minority world urged this unlawful conspiracy, the legitimate government of President Nicolás Maduro received support of almost two thirds of the members of this Organization grouped in the Non-Aligned Movement. Exactly eight months have passed since that infamous and crooked accident in our republican history, and the legitimate and constitutional government with effective territorial control and the institutional mechanisms of the rule of law continues and will continue to be President Nicolás Maduro that we Venezuelans elected within the sacred right to self determination. –Applause The majority world that supports Venezuela knows that this imperial artifice and invention is also a criminal organization. An even more serious fact has been the coordination between this artifice, group of Colombian paramilitaries and the government of Iván Duque. I take this opportunity to show the photo of this self proclaimed with a leading member of the Los Rastrojos paramilitary organization, I show it to you so that you know what we are facing; we face the instrumentalization of criminal gangs, paramilitary organizations and drug trafficking to destabilize Venezuela, and history knows a lot about this, our sister Nicaragua knows it well, when the US government used cons to overthrow Sandinismo; countries of the Middle East, which have suffered terrorist organizations instrumentalized, created, armed and financed just to overthrow governments that are not on the hegemonic satellite kow this very well. In this regard, I want to inform the international community that on Wednesday our ambassador to the International Criminal Court has delivered a video that contains the complete confession of a leader of the paramilitary band Los Rastrojos. It has been delivered to join the preliminary examination about Colombia and paramilitarism. Just to achieve, guarantee and preserve the peace and tranquility of the Republic, President Nicolás Maduro summoned all sectors of national life to a sovereign dialogue, our commitment to constitutional channels is immovable. In 2014 the United States had imposed coercive measures, about six thousand coercive measures to dozens of countries in the world… In 2019 that number has increased to eight thousand unilateral and illegal coercive measures. It is the preferred weapon of domination in this 21st century, less cost and greater neocolonial profitability, today thirty two countries suffer the economic aggressions of the US government, and according to the United Nations special rapporteur on the impact of these measures, one third of the humanity suffers the consequences of these collective punishments. The Non-Aligned Movement, yesterday justly proved a statement firmly rejecting the application of these illegal sanctions, it is the new economic terrorism that uses the suffering of the innocent civilian population to achieve political benefits for the hegemon, and obtains, at at the same time, illegally, billions of dollars at the touch of a button of the digital age. I have brought two statements that occurred in the year 2018 to textually read them, the first one: Statement by the United States Department of State. “The pressure campaign against Venezuela is working. The financial sanctions that we have imposed have forced the government to begin to fall into default, both in the sovereign debt and in the debt of Petróleos de Venezuela, its oil company, and what we are seeing is a total economic collapse in Venezuela, so our policy works, our strategy works, and we will keep it”. It is a confession of the Violation of the Charter of the United Nations, no doubt about it. Second statement by former Ambassador William Brownfield: “We must treat this as an agony, a tragedy that will continue until it finally reaches an end, and if we can do something to accelerate it we must do it, but we must do it with the understanding that this will have an impact on millions of people who are already having difficulty finding food and medicine. We cannot do this and pretend that it will not have an impact, we have to make a tough decision, the desired end justifies this severe punishment”. And what is the desired end for the United States of America? Defeat the Bolivarian revolution, maintain its hegemony throughout the entire phase of the planet, likewise they attack Iran, Russia, China, builders of a new world, in a nefarious policy to apply the illicit doctrine of regime change. Given these serious statements, Venezuela requests that all infamous violations of the United Nations Charter by the United States be investigated, which have undoubtedly constituted, as they have confessed, crimes against humanity, against Venezuela and the world. What are the measures that we must channel to stop the excessive and abusive actions of the United States government, also causing the suffering of its own people? President Trump, your people expect from their leaders true commitment to democracy and the eradication of poverty and inequality. they don’t expect their country to be involved in wars of any nature. The people of Walt Whitman are more like their poets and less like the arrogant and supremacist prose of the government that is exhibited without stupor. The world expects the United States for immediate rectification, and that once and for all it submits itself to international legality, respects and takes care of this common house. Less decorated speeches yes, as the Secretary General said, more concrete and effective action yes. Let us make a common front in a single song, in defense of the UN Charter, its principles, its purpose, the foundation of international legality and for what this Organization was formed, only this will guarantee the survival of the human race, and the harmonious and legal coexistence of the community of nations. I finish my words reaffirming that Venezuela is and will remain in peace. Beware of the worthy, brave people, we are the infinite legacy of the sword that we inherited from our father Liberator Simón Bolívar, with his spirit we reach the world to never give space to the Santanderist and oligarchic betrayal against the free peoples of the great homeland. Let’s build that common front to defend the Charter of the United Nations but also to defend the joy of our peoples. As the poet Benedetti said: defend joy as a trench, defend joy as a principle, as a flag, as a right. With our Bolívar we affirm, let us put the fear behind our backs and save the country today.