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href="https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/13394">https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/13394</a></font>
<h1 id="reader-title">Venezuelan Foreign Minister at UN: Trump
Acted Like “World Emperor”</h1>
<div id="reader-credits" class="credits">By Rachael Boothroyd
Rojas - September 26, 2017<br>
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<p>Bogota, September 26 2017 (<a
href="http://venezuelanalysis.com">venezuelanalysis.com</a>)
- 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.</p>
<p>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”. </p>
<p>“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. </p>
<p>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. </p>
<p>“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.</p>
<p><a
href="https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/13380">Citing
a statement from the Non-Aligned Movement
rejecting international “coercive
measures” last Tuesday</a>, 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”. </p>
<p>“The governments that have imposed
(sanctions) illegally, should have the
obligation to compensate those peoples who
have suffered their effects,” he added.</p>
<p><strong>US Human Rights Violations</strong></p>
<p>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”. </p>
<p>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”. </p>
<p>“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. </p>
<p>“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.</p>
<p>He also lambasted the Trump administration
for attempting to renege on the Paris
climate change agreements, signed by former
US President Barack Obama. </p>
<p>“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.</p>
<p><strong>Human Rights Around the World</strong></p>
<p>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. </p>
<p>“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.” </p>
<p>“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. </p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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. </p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>“In the words of international ecological
movements, let’s change the system, not the
climate,” he said.</p>
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