Venezuela's president criticises the General Assembly, the North and the United States and denounces the Summit's outcome document as "unlawful".
See Hugo Chavez full speech in spanish
When the Summit outcome document (PDF document) is put to a vote Friday, many of its endorsers will be the same folk who applauded yesterday when President Hugo Chavez denounced it as "unlawful".
The Venezuelan president was in a fiery mood when he arrived to address the General Assembly yesterday and immediately attacked the U.N. and the outcome document.
"This is over. This document, the manner in which it was conceived, its contents, how they are eroding the modest goals of the Millennium, all this shows that at 60, the United Nations system is suffering from terminal cancer," Chávez said.
Three times delegates interrupted Chávez to applaud, especially when he said that the document had been imposed by diktat by the president of the General Assembly, Jan Eliesson, the Swedish ambassador to Washington. Eliesson appeared irritated by the length of Chávez's speech.
At a press conference later, the Venezuelan president said that the United Nations, as it is now, is of no use and will have to be rebuilt from scratch. The document (PDF document), ostensibly approved by consensus Tuesday, was negotiated by an "elite" group of 30 countries and submitted "five minutes before the session started", he charged.
Chavez noted that before anyone could react, there was the sound of "the dictatorial gavel of the president of the General Assembly".
Given the circumstances of its endorsement, he continued, Venezuela considers the document unlawful and will not recognise it.
To illustrate his contention that the document was illegal under U.N. regulations, he read the text of rule 78/38 of the General Assembly (PDF document), which states that "no proposal shall be discussed or put to the vote at any meeting of the General Assembly unless copies of it have been circulated to all delegations not later than the day preceding the meetings".
"If others do not wish to complain, well, let them be. But I am complaining, I have a duty to complain," Chávez said, adding that he had support from millions of people around the world in his demands for a more democratic United Nations.
The Latin American leader also denounced the United States for denying visas to his doctors and security officers, who "are stranded in an airplane 200 kilometres" from the U.N. Secretariat. He described the US action of separating him from his medical and security personnel as "terrorism" and went on to brand the United States a "terrorist state" for protecting Cuban native Luis Posada Carriles, accused of masterminding a bomb attack that destroyed a Cuban civilian airplane with 73 passengers on board off the coast of Barbados in 1976.
In his speech before the Assembly Chávez noted that the purpose of the Summit had been "distorted". A "reform process has been imposed, leaving aside the most urgent issue, which is the adoption of measures to confront the real problems that hinder our countries' efforts toward development", he noted.
"Venezuela considers that United Nations reform cannot be limited to a simple cosmetic change of the Security Council, aimed at ensuring the unipolar hegemony of developed countries," he said.
Chávez told journalists that it was time the world admitted that it was not moving towards realising the Millenium Development Goals (MDGs), but rather in the opposite direction. He blamed much of this trend on the North, singling out the United States, with its thirst for oil, for special criticism.
"The world cannot afford the 'American Way of Life'," he said, "the planet is dying."
See Hugo Chavez full speech in spanish
Millennium +5 Summit
In September 2005, the United Nations will host the Millennium +5 Summit to review the progress so far in the implementation of the UN Millenium Declaration, adopted by 150 Heads-of-State in September 2000. |
