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=> End Imperial War On Libya

End Imperial War On Libya
Posted by Marcello (Guest) - Wednesday, September 28 2011, 13:56:26 (UTC)
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End Imperial War On Libya

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By Hugo Chavez


Source: Black Star News

Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Hugo Chavez's ZSpace Page

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President Hugo Chavez address to the 66th Session of United Nations General Assembly
Your Excellency the President of the General Assembly. Honorable Representatives of the peoples of the world. Ladies and Gentlemen.

I address these words to the United Nations General Assembly, to this great forum where all the peoples of the earth are represented, to express the Bolivarian Venezuela's truths and to reassert our inalienable commitment with justice and equality, that is to say, with peace.

Peace, peace, peace... We do not look for cemetery's peace, as said Kant ironically, but a peace based on the most zealous respect for international law. Unfortunately, UN, through all its history, instead of adding and multiplying efforts in favour of peace among Nations, ends up supporting, sometimes by act and others by omission, the most ruthless injustices.

It should always be remembered that saving future generations from the scourge of war... is mentioned in the Preamble of the Charter of the United Nations; just a dead letter. From 1945 on, wars have done nothing but inexorably increase and multiply themselves. Let us see, once again, Libya destroyed and bloodstained by the will of the powerful ones of this world.

I want to call the governments of the world for reflection: since September 11th, 2001, a new and unprecedented imperialist war started, a permanent war, in perpetuity.

We have to look directly at the terrifying reality of the world we live in. It is necessary for a series of questions to be asked on the basis of the risks and threats we face: Why is the United States the only country that scatters the planet with military bases?; what is it afraid of to allocate such a staggering budget for increasing its military power?; why has it unleashed so many wars, violating the sovereignty of other nations which have the same rights on their own fates?; how can the international law be enforced against its insensible aspiration to militarily hegemonizing the world in order to ensure energy sources to sustain their predatory and consumer model?; why the UN does not do anything to stop Washington? If we answered these questions, sincerely, we would understand that the empire has awarded itself the role of judge of the world, without being granted this responsibility by anyone, and, therefore, imperialist war threatens us all.

Washington knows that a multipolar world is already an irreversible reality. Its strategy consists of stopping, at any price, the sustained rise of a group of emerging countries, by negotiating great interests with its partners and followers in order to guide multipolarity along the path the empire wants. What is more, the goal is to reconfigure the world so it is based on the Yankee military hegemony.

Mankind is facing the real threat of a permanent war. The empire is ready to create the political conditions for triggering a war anywhere, and the case of Libya proves it. Within the imperial view of the world, the well-known Clausewitz's Axiom is being reversed: politics is the continuation of war by other means.

What is behind this new Armageddon?: the absolute power of the military-financial leadership which is destroying the world aiming at accumulating more profits; the military-financial leadership which is subordinated, de facto, to an increasingly larger group of States. Be it born in mind that war is the capital's modus vivendi: the war that ruins the majorities and makes richer, up to the unthinkable, a few people.

Right now, there is a very serious threat to global peace: a new cycle of colonial wars, which started in Libya, with the sinister goal of refreshing the capitalist global system, within a structural crisis today, but without any limit to its consumer and destructive voracity.

Mankind is on the brink of an unimaginable catastrophe: the world is inexorably marching towards the most devastating ecocide; global warming and its frightening consequences are announcing it, but Cortes and Pizarro's likeminded ideology on ecosystem, as rightly said by the influential French thinker Edgar Morin, pushes them to continue predating and destroying. Energy and food crises are sharpening, but capitalism is still trespassing all the limits with impunity.

Given such a meager outlook, the great US scientist Linus Pauling, awarded the Nobel Prize on two occasions, continues enlightening our path: I believe that there is a greater power in the world than the evil power of military force, of nuclear bombs -- there is the power of good, of morality, of humanitarianism. I believe in the power of the human spirit. Let's mobilize all the human spirit power: it's time now. It is imperative to unleash a great political counter-offensive in order to prevent the powers of darkness from finding justifications for going to war: in order to unleash widespread global war through which they pretend to save the western capital.

Venezuela calls for the establishment of a broad peace-based alliance against war: with the supreme aim of avoiding war at all costs.

Warmongers and, especially, the military-financial leadership that sponsors and leads them must be defeated.

Let's build the balance of the universe predicted by the Liberator Simon Bolivar: the balance that, according to his words, cannot be found within a war; the balance that is born out of peace.

It is necessary to remember and to recur to our immediate memory: Venezuela, alongside the member countries of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of the Americas (ALBA), was actively advocating for a peaceful and negotiated solution to the Libyan conflict. That is, also, what the African Union did. However, after all, the logic of war decreed by the UN Security Council and put into practice by NATO, the armed wing of the Yankee empire, was imposed.

The logic of war having its spearhead in transnational mass media: let us bear in mind that the "Libyan Case" was brought before the Security Council on the basis of an intense propaganda by the western mass media, who lied about the alleged bombing of innocents civilians by the Libyan Air Force, not to mention the grotesque media setting of the Green Square of Tripoli. This premeditated bunch of lies was used to justify irresponsible and hasty decisions by the Security Council, which paved the way for NATO's military regime change policy in Libya.

It is worth wondering: what has the no-fly zone established by Security Council resolution 1973 become? How Could NATO perform more than 20,000 missions against Libyan people if there was a no-fly zone? After the Libyan Air Force was completely annihilated, the continued "humanitarian" bombing shows that the West, through NATO, intends to impose their interests in North Africa, turning Libya into a colonial protectorate.

How can we say that an arms embargo was imposed on Libya, when it was the NATO itself that introduced thousands of heavy weapons to support a violent upheaval against that country's legitimate government? The embargo was, of course, meant to prevent the Libyan government from defending its sovereignty. This shows, once again the cruel logic of the International relations, where the law only applies to the weak.

What is the real reason for this military intervention?: Recolonizing Libya in order to take over its wealth. Everything else is related to this goal. Nobody colonizes innocently, as the great Martinican poet Aimé Césaire said, quite rightly, in his extraordinary essay named Discours sur le colonialisme.

By the way: the Residence of the Venezuelan Ambassador in Tripoli was invaded and looted, and the UN kept it to itself, remaining ignominiously silent.

We call for the immediate cessation of the bombing operation on the Libyan territory. Similarly, we will continue calling for respecting international law in the case of this sister nation: we will not remain silent in the light of the evil intention of destroying the bases of its sense and reason.

Therefore, we put the question to this Assembly: Why is the Libyan seat in the UN granted to the "national transitional council", while the admission of Palestine is blocked by ignoring, not only its lawful aspiration, but also the existing will of the majority of the General Assembly?

Venezuela hereby ratifies its unconditional solidarity with the Palestinian people and its unrestricted support to the Palestinian national cause, which naturally includes the immediate admission of a full Palestinian member state within the United Nations.

And the same imperialist speech is being repeated regarding Syria.

Should some permanent members not show a firm stance, that everything would be defined within the Security Council to authorize shooting
missiles and sending bombardiers against Syria.

It is intolerable that the powers of this world intend to claim for themselves the right to direct the lawful rulers to resign immediately. This was the case of Libya, the same apply against Syria. These are the existing asymmetries in the international setting and these are the abuses against the weakest nations.

It is not for us to bring forward a conclusive judgment about the national situation in Syria, firstly, because of the inherent complexity of any national reality and, secondly, because only the Syrian people can solve their problems and decide their fate in the light of the right to self-determination of the peoples, an inalienable right in all respects.

Now, let's direct our eyes to the Horn of Africa and we will witness a heartbreaking example of the UN historical failure: most serious news agencies report that 20 to 29 thousand children under the age of 5 have died in the last three months.

The great journalist Frida Modak, in her article To Die in Somalia, reveals all the misery, worse than the one ravaging the vast region of the Horn of Africa, that consumes main international organizations, the UN in first place: what is needed to face this situation are one-thousand-four-hundred-million dollars, that are not for solving the problem, but for addressing the emergency that Somalia, Kenya, Djibouti and Ethiopia are going through. According to all information received, the next two months will be determinant in order to prevent more than 12 million people from dying and the most serious situation involves Somalia.

This reality could not be more atrocious if, at the same time, we ask ourselves how much is being spent to destroy Libya. This is the answer of US congressman Dennis Kucinich: This new War will cost us 500 million dollars during its first week alone. Obviously, we do not have financing resources for that and we will end up cutting off other important domestic programs' funding. According to Kucinich himself, with the amount spent during the first three weeks in the northern area of the African continent to massacre the Libyan people, much could have been done to help the entire region of the Horn of Africa, saving dozen thousands lives.

Reasons behind the criminal military engagement in Libya are not humanitarian at all: they are based on the Malthusian postulate "there are just too many people in the world" and they have to be eliminated by generating more hunger, destruction and uncertainty, and creating --at the same time- more financial profits. In this regard, it is frankly regrettable that in the opening address of the 66th General Assembly of the UN, an immediate appeal to solve humanitarian crisis in the Horn of Africa was not made, while assuring that "the time has come to act" on Syria.

From Venezuela, we believe it is time to demand the United States not only the immediate and unconditional end to the criminal blockade imposed against the Cuban peoples, but also the release of the five Cuban antiterrorist fighters held hostage in the prisons of the American Empire for the sole reason of seeking to prevent the illegal actions that terrorist groups prepare against Cuba, under the shelter of the Government of the United States.

Until 2010, nineteen UN General Assembly voting confirm the universal will of demanding to the United States that it stops the economic and trade blockade against Cuba. Since all arguments of international good sense have been exhausted, we have no choice but to believe that such cruel actions against the Cuban Revolution result from imperial arrogance in view of the dignity and courage shown by the unsubmissive Cuban people in their sovereign decision of leading their own fate and fighting for their happiness.

From Venezuela, we believe it is time to demand the United States not only the immediate and unconditional end to the criminal blockade imposed against the Cuban peoples, but also the release of the five Cuban antiterrorist fighters held hostage in the prisons of the American Empire for the sole reason of seeking to prevent the illegal actions that terrorist groups prepare against Cuba, under the shelter of the Government of the United States.

Mister President and distinguished representatives of the peoples of the world:

We want to reiterate that it is impossible to ignore the UN crisis. Before this same General Assembly we expressed, back in 2005, that the UN model had been exhausted. Back then, we also proposed that it was necessary to rebuild it and it was something that could not be postponed.

Since then and until now, nothing has been done: the political will of the most powerful ones has prevailed. Sure: the UN, as for its current functioning, docilely pledges to their interests. For us, it is obvious that the UN is not improving and will not improve from the inside. If its Secretary General, along with the President of the International Criminal Court, take part in an act of war, as in the case of Libya, nothing can be expected from the current structure of this organization and there is no longer time for reforms: the UN does not accept any reform whatsoever, the illness within it is deadly.

It is unbearable that there is a Security Council that turns its back, whenever it wants to, against the majority's clamor, by deliberately not acknowledging the will of the General Assembly. If the Security Council is some sort of club with privileged members, what can it do? Which is the scope of its operation when its members violate international law?

Paraphrasing Bolívar --when he was referring specifically to the newly born Yankee imperialism in 1818- we have had enough with laws being enforced by the weak and abuses being committed by the strong. It cannot be us, the Peoples of the South, who respect international law while the North violates it, destroying and plundering us.

If we do not make the commitment, once and for all, of refounding the United Nations, this organization will lose the remaining credibility that still has. Its crisis of legitimacy will be accelerated until its final implosion. In fact, that is what happened to its immediate predecessor organism: the League of Nations.

A crucial first step to begin refounding the United Nations would be eliminating the permanent member category and veto power in the Security Council. Likewise, the decision-making power of the General Assembly must be democratically maximized. Also, the comprehensive review of the Charter of the United Nations is imposed soon with the aim of drafting of a new Charter.

Peoples of the World:

The future of a multi-polar world, in peace, resides in us. In the organization of most of the peoples of the planet to defend ourselves from the new colonialism, in order to achieve a balance in the universe, capable of neutralizing the imperialism and the arrogance.

This broad, generous, respectful, and inclusive call is addressed to all the peoples of the world but, especially, to the emerging Powers of the South, which must assume, with courage, the role that they are called to play immediately. Only in this Alliance of the South lies the possibility of a peaceful coexistence on the earth, for there is nothing to expect from the imperialist North, arrogant and violent.

From Latin America and the Caribbean, powerful and dynamic regional alliances have emerged, seeking to shape a regional democratic space, respectful of the particularities, and eager to put an emphasis on solidarity and complementarity, in order to foster what ties us and settling, politically, what keeps us apart. And this new regionalism allows for diversity and respects the pace of everybody.

Thus, the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA) advances as an avant-garde experiment of progressive and anti-imperialist governments, seeking ways to break the prevailing international order, and strengthening the capacity of the peoples to face, together, the factual powers. But this does not prevent its members to give a decisive and enthusiastic consolidation for the consolidation of the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR), political bloc that federates the 12 sovereign States of South America, with the purpose of grouping them under what the Liberator Simón Bolívar called "a Nation of Republics". Furthermore, the 33 countries that comprise Latin America and the Caribbean are currently preparing to give the historic step of establishing a great regional entity that groups us all, without exclusions, where we can design, together, the policies that will ensure our wellbeing, our independence, and our sovereignty, based on equality, solidarity, and complementarity.

Caracas, the capital of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, is proud to host, the next December 2nd and 3rd, the Summit of Heads of State and Government that will establish, definitely, the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC).

The people of Venezuela place their hopes on a broad alliance of the regional assemblies of the South, such as the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR), CARICOM, SICA, the African Union, ASEAN or ECO, and, more especially, the interregional instances of coordination of emerging powers, such as BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa), which should become a center of attraction coordinated with the peoples of the South.

I want to conclude by remembering the great Venezuelan singer: Alí Primera. In one of his songs he questions us: Which is the fight of men for achieving peace? Which peace? If men want to leave the World as it is. Today more than ever before, the worst crime against peace is to leave the World as it is: if we leave the world as it is, the present and the future are and will be determined by perpetual war.

On the contrary, achieving peace involves reversing radically everything that prevents mankind, quoting Venezuelan Alí Primera, from being human.


Hugo Chávez Frías, President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela



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