Unofficial transcript 

JORGE VALERO (VENEZUELA):  Thank you very much Mr. President.  Mainly to -- to open a debate on the responsibility to protect populations from genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing.  if we were to discuss this on the abstract thing and all actors involved in the dynamics of international relations were to be inspired by the truth, truly inspired by a holistic vision, then this topic should not generate any disagreement.
However, in the light of contemporary historical experience, this issue is deeply controversial.  It is controversial firstly because of the dominance in today’s world which we are certain will change in the future of the dominant imperial powers.  Their interests generally determine the trend of dynamics of international relations.  And besides that, at this point in time, there is a prominent feature which is the lack of binding rules in the framework of this forum.  And in this sense, paragraphs 138 and 139 of the outcome document of the World Summit of 2005 are the only -- only points which are available for consideration in this General Assembly.
Mr. President, my delegations in good faith defend the responsibility to protect.  They’re sincerely concerned because of acts of genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing.  These acts have taken place in some parts of the world.  We do not doubt that those who -- that there are those who are sincerely concerned by the commission of these crimes.  These crimes, indeed, wound the consciousness of human civilization.  They are crimes that must be condemned and prevented in any part of the world.  
Who could remain indifferent in the face of such unspeakable acts as those which took place in Rwanda and other parts of the world?  We must prevent the perpetrators from getting away Scott free.  Venezuela takes this concern as its own.  Venezuela condemns equivocally acts of genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing no matter who commits them.
Mr. President, the leader of the Bolivarian revolution, President Hugo Chavez Frias, in a historic statement which took place in this very hall in 2005, asked two very relevant questions.  Who is going to protect, and how is protection going to be given?  And at that time, the majority of the delegations were excluded from the discussions of the priority issues covered by the document, including the responsibility to protect.  
And thus, it is very timely that the interactive exchange took place promoted by the president of the General Assembly, Father Miguel D’Escoto where four outstanding intellectuals spoke.
Yesterday’s distinguished panelists, to whom we listened with close attention, offered us two focuses on the responsibility to protect.  One is a very enthusiastic focus.  It calls on us to have faith and to forget the oppression that stronger countries have exerted against weaker ones.  The other is an analysis of undeniable historical facts, as one of the panelists, Dr. Chomsky recalled.  And it invites us to dwell on the structural causes and the imperial hegemonite domination and exercise throughout history by the imperial powers of the west as the determining elements of the most severe conflicts that humanity has suffered from and continues to suffer from today.
Mr. President, classic political doctrine recalls that the population is the constitutive part of the state and that the state has intrinsic faculties of protection.  In this sense, we can see as a universally valued principal that it is -- which is kind of substantial and synonymous with the existence of any human society.
It is part of the attributes that each state has to guarantee conditions of equality to its population for the full enjoyment of their political, civil, economic, social and cultural rights.  Along these lines, states attempt to make their citizens happy and they have legal standards and principles for this purpose both on the national and the international level.
From this point of view, Mr. President, respect for sovereignty and the territorial integrity of states are universal principals which allow states to exercise their responsibility to protect the population.  To meet this responsibility, developing countries have raised two this august body insistently and repeatedly that all countries of the world should have their right to development recognized as well as their right to justice and to peace.
In this context, international law recognizes that states have the right to use, administer and extract their natural resources and wealth, that they have the right to a new, fair, equitable economic order in solidarity, that peoples have the right to cooperation and solidarity.  Any justification of violence, intolerance, discrimination and xenophobia is prohibited.  All countries are to respect the international principles encouraging friendship, dialogue and conciliation.  
Force is not to be used, nor is the threat of force to be used.  This is not a comprehensive list.  These are just some of the central aspects which if respected by all, but particularly by imperial powers, would prevent the generation of conflicts which all too often end up in the commission of serious crimes against humanity.  
The high indices of poverty, of hunger and all the other scourges affecting humanity stand out in stark contrast with the accumulation of a chosen few.  These are indisputable indicators of the failure of the production distribution and consumption model which is selfish, individualistic and inequitable and a characteristic of capitalism.
Mr. President, paragraph 138 of the outcome document of 2005 highlights that the state has the responsibility to protect its population from crimes described in international humanitarian law.  But the novel thing about this is the indication of the responsibility that the international community has to encourage and assist states in exercising this responsibility and establishing mechanisms for early warning in the framework of the United Nations.  
The so-called early warning system for Venezuela as a prevention mechanism should respond above all to the demands of the peoples, to their inalienable rights, their historic demands to attain societies based on justice, equality and solidarity.  
Mr. President, paragraph 139 of the outcome document calls for a comprehensive process of discussions in the framework of the General Assembly.  We believe that the points covered there if they are to be applied, will call for a substantial reform of the United Nations charter, but we do not support those who do not belief it necessary to build a legal basis for the potential implementation of the responsibility to protect.
An instrument of less standing cannot authorize the permanent members of the Security Council to implement a mechanism which would enable them to exercise a supposed collective action to implement the responsibility to protect without any binding norm or standard unless the archaic structure of the council is changed and the discriminatory veto power is eliminated for once and for all.
One aspect which should be highlighted is if the aspiration is for the responsibility to protect to be a multilateral mechanism of joint action, it should be under the jurisdiction of the General Assembly.  
Mr. President, what body of the United Nations is to determine when intervention should take place?  What parameters will be taken into account to classify the situation as urgent, such that military intervention should take place immediately?  Who will ensure that this intervention will not take place for political reasons?  Will the 192 state members of this organization today have the same right to participate and to describe all classified situations as emergencies?
There are those who argue that the Security Council would be the appropriate body to implement armed or coercive action when it has to be -- when the responsibility to protect has to be enforced under the last resort.  On this point -- and please allow me to speak frankly -- my delegation wishes to express its complete disagreement with this focus.  
Mr. President, we agree that trust is the turning point when it comes to examining the responsibility to protect.  But who will guarantee that there will not be a selective implementation of that focus.  Who will ensure that the responsibility to protect will not serve as an excuse for imperial countries to intervene for political reasons in weaker countries?
Clearly, we need frank and free discussion in good faith on the responsibility to protect, and the General Assembly is the body par excellence where the decisions affecting all of humanity should be taken.
Mr. President, allow me now to briefly speak about the report of the Secretary General.  We wish to be completely sincere.  The report does not make any reference to the underlying causes of grave crimes against a population.  The cases of such crimes against a population are selectively cited.  One of the causes that has most moved the world’s conscience, the massacre of the Palestinian people in Gaza, is not mentioned.  Neither are the attacks against the defenseless population, women and children in Afghanistan.  
Likewise, the suffering of the Iraqi people, a war which has led to over -- to almost 1 million dead according to the British research group -- research -- opinion research business, and this is not mentioned either.  Who protects the Iraqi people in the genocide that has been committed?  Who calls to account those responsible for this criminal invasion which took place in the face of deafening silence from some ardent defenders of the responsibility to protect?  
In this sense, and as irrefutable proof of transparent commitment with this mechanism, we propose to all of you that the countries of the world exercise in this case, and with no further delay the responsibility to protect.  Let the Security Council call for punishment of those responsible for the genocide, which as I mentioned, has led to over 1 million dead in the civilian population and let former United Nations president George W. Bush and those mainly responsible for this massacre be brought to trial before the international criminal courts.  
We also call for the responsibility to protect be applied to the political and military elite of Israel for the crimes of genocide and ethnic cleansing they continuously, reiteratively commit, flouting the international community and ignoring the relevant resolutions of the Security Council.  I repeat, the crimes of genocide and the ethnic cleansing that they have committed against the Palestinian people.
The Secretary General’s report gives the same importance to the three pillars of the responsibility to protect.  Our delegation believes that if the aspects that as a constant practice of international organizations, and particular of the United Nations, if we strengthen then those aspects having to do with the responsibility of the state and with international assistance for capacity building, the implementation of a third pillar, in other words, military intervention, would not be necessary.  
But as it turns out, Mr. President, that third pillar is the challenge to the principals of international law, among them the territorial integrity of states, no interference in domestic affairs and, of course, the inadvisable sovereignty of the state.
The notion of the responsibility to protect attempts to restate the notion of sovereignty just as it attempted to restate the framework of governing north/south relations in the same way as an attempt was made to underestimate the relevance of the demands of the peoples of the south when the death of the non-aligned countries was proclaimed.  When the absolute, overwhelming victory of neo-liberalism was proclaimed, when the end of history was proclaimed.
Countless mention, Mr. President, is made of a so-called “responsible sovereignty.”  This notion, and at least the interpretation that some imperial powers make of it, goes much further than the objective that we seek to attain with responsibility to protect.  Our delegation believes that the United Nations should encourage peace and fight all crimes against humanity.  This should be done by examining the true causes of conflicts, not only their consequences.
Mr. President, allow me to conclude by saying that we live in a world dominated by the major powers of the west.  It is dominated by predatory, private, international monopolies.  These generally are the major cause of the violence that is generated between states and region.  They encourage rivalry between these regions and states and they drive war-making wedges between peoples.
These political and economic interests are exercised through their media power, their medial totalitarianism and their international lobby power, and they conceal the truth and criminalize developing countries they target, triggering greater massacres which condemnable and regrettable though they may be as a result of ethnic/religious conflicts or between countries of the south.
This in sum, Mr. President, is the position of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela on the discussion taking place here in these days.  Thank you sir.  








General Assembly Continues Debate on
Responsibility to Protect (Venezuela)
63rd GA Plenary – 07-24-09 PM		1