[News] Venezuelan Foreign Minister at UN: Trump Acted Like “World Emperor”

[Anti-Imperialist News]

https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/13394


  Venezuelan Foreign Minister at UN: Trump Acted Like “World Emperor”

By Rachael Boothroyd Rojas - September 26, 2017
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Bogota, September 26 2017 (venezuelanalysis.com 
<http://venezuelanalysis.com>) - Venezuelan Foreign Minister Jorge 
Arreaza launched a scathing attack on the US government Monday during 
his address at the 72nd General Debate of the United Nation’s General 
Assembly.

During his twenty minute speech, Arreaza hit back at US President Donald 
Trump, who used his maiden speech at the UN body last week to launch a 
tirade of criticism at Venezuela and threaten the country with “further 
action”.

“A week ago today, this room and the world witnessed via the media yet 
another dangerous profanation of the principles and objectives of the 
United Nations, when US President Donald Trump, as if he were world 
emperor, used this podium that was built for peace, to announce wars and 
the total destruction of member states… as if he had absolute 
dictatorial powers,” said the foreign minister.

The top Venezuelan diplomat condemned US threats against his government 
— including recent economic sanctions — as a violation of international 
law and the UN Charter. He said that Venezuela had suffered a series of 
“permanent aggressions” against its “economy, currency, and ability to 
produce” that are aimed at toppling its socialist government.

“Today we have the obligation to denounce before the world that our 
people have been directly threatened by the Unites States President, 
with the use of the most powerful military force that has existed in the 
history of humanity,” he told the assembly.

Citing a statement from the Non-Aligned Movement rejecting international 
“coercive measures” last Tuesday 
<https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/13380>, the foreign minister went on 
to urge the UN to find “effective mechanisms to neutralize these warlike 
ambitions and attempts to supplant the multilateralism that has cost us 
so much to build, in exchange for dictatorial unilateralism”.

“The governments that have imposed (sanctions) illegally, should have 
the obligation to compensate those peoples who have suffered their 
effects,” he added.

*US Human Rights Violations*

The Venezuelan foreign minister also turned his attention to human 
rights abuses in the US, citing a string of figures ranging from poverty 
statistics to examples of racism against Afro-American and indigenous 
communities. Arreaza described the US as the biggest human rights 
violator “not just in its own territory, but throughout the world”.

Listing dozens of recorded human rights abuses, Arreaza accused the US 
government of “unjustifiable wars, bombing civilian populations, secret 
prisons for the use of torture methods, the imposition of unilateral, 
illegal measures against the economies of many countries… and frightful 
immigration policies”.

“The US has not ratified 62% of principle human rights treaties… 28% of 
people in poverty have no access to medical coverage… 10 million 
children are currently housed in prisons for adults… children can be 
condemned to life imprisonment, 70% of these children are Afro-American… 
The US is one of the seven countries that has not ratified the 
convention for the elimination of discrimination against women… One in 
three indigenous women in the US will be raped in her lifetime,” listed 
the foreign minister.

“I apologize for so many details and pieces of information, but there 
are things you should know, and I know that the media hides,” he stated.

He also lambasted the Trump administration for attempting to renege on 
the Paris climate change agreements, signed by former US President 
Barack Obama.

“It seems to us incredible and hostile that the US… is trying to remove 
itself from the Paris climate change agreements. Although they might not 
be a panacea, they are nonetheless a collective step towards mitigating 
the effects of climate change,” he said.

*Human Rights Around the World*

During his address, Arreaza also outlined his government’s position on 
numerous human rights violations around the world, condemning the 
extension of the US-sponsored financial blockade against Cuba, US 
sanctions against Russia and Iran, and the proliferation of nuclear 
weapons globally.

“Venezuela is vehemently opposed to the continued existence of nuclear 
weapons on our planet. Possession [of these] subjects humanity to 
unjustifiable and unimaginable anguish and risk.”

“We must make a supreme effort so that nuclear crises are de-escalated 
and disappear, hopefully, in exchange for weapons, we can have dialogue 
and humanist rationality,” he continued.

In other comments, Arreaza voiced his support for the re-commencement of 
dialogue between the governments of Israel and Palestine, and 
recommended that “state terrorism” be included in diplomatic definitions 
of global terrorism.

In more controversial statements, the top diplomat urged economically 
powerful countries to take responsibility for global inequalities. In 
particular, he said that consumer countries should do much more to 
tackle the international drugs trade, and petitioned the UN to provide 
alternative sources of funding for countries that have expressed 
willingness to meet the organization’s 2020 development goals but which 
lack the resources to do so.

Referencing the string of powerful hurricanes that recently tore across 
the Caribbean and parts of the United States, Arreaza also demanded that 
the first world take responsibility for the devastating effects of 
climate change.

He said that the “capitalist system is destroying mother earth” and 
inflicting a war on impoverished countries in the Caribbean that least 
contribute to global emissions.

“In the words of international ecological movements, let’s change the 
system, not the climate,” he said.

-- 
Freedom Archives 522 Valencia Street San Francisco, CA 94110 415 
863.9977 www.freedomarchives.org
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