UNESCO. General Conference; 30th; Records ... - unesdoc - Unesco

todo para decir que Venezuela ha retomado el rumbo hacia la reivindicación del ser humano, es decir, hacia la
búsqueda tan anhelada de la paz verdadera, de la paz social, de la paz económica, de la paz política, de la
democracia auténtica, de la igualdad, de la libertad, de la fraternidad, ese viejo eslogan que nació aquí en esta
misma ciudad hace ya 200 años pero que sigue clamando y que sigue iluminando la búsqueda de los caminos.
Como decía, y con esto termino, lleno de emoción, de afecto y de compromiso con todos ustedes y de
agradecimiento, un poeta dominicano, anciano ya, pero de pie siempre, allá en Santo Domingo, esa querida
ciudad en el corazón del Caribe. Pedro Mires escribió muchos poemas, y uno de ellos lo aprendí cuando era muy
joven y fui a jugar a béisbol a la República Dominicana. Conseguí un libro viejo de poemas y copié algunos. Uno
de ellos se llama Mi Patria; es muy largo, pero yo me aprendí una frase que he repetido años y años y que sigo
repitiendo. Yo me permito decirle al mundo y pedirle permiso a don Pedro para extrapolar: si alguien quiere
saber cuál es nuestra patria, la de la humanidad, no pregunte, pues no existe, vamos a luchar por ella. Muchas
gracias.
(21.1) Mr CHÁVEZ FRÍAS, President of the Republic of Venzuela (Translation from the Spanish):
Mr President of the General Conference of UNESCO, Mr Chairperson of the Executive Board,
Mr Director-General, ambassadors, ministers, representatives of the whole world, Marisabel, my fellow-citizens
from Venezuela, my friends from all over the world, the person here before you this midday in Paris is honoured to
have been asked to speak in this forum where so much has been said about and so much effort has been devoted to
the promotion of education, culture, science and, especially, peace; this same person being honoured at midday
today, looks back to a terrible midnight, almost 10 years ago, when he put on his combat uniform and his red beret,
took up a cold rifle, kissed his wife, blessed his children and went out into the awesome darkness together with
very many other young Venezuelans. That was Monday, 3 February 1992 in Caracas, the birthplace of Simón
Bolívar, the Liberator. It may appear to be a contradiction that now you are asking me to speak about peace, but I
am absolutely sure that those of you listening to me here who are representing the nations of the world that seek
justice know that there is no contradiction, just as there was no contradiction when Jesus took up a whip and burst
into the temple to drive out the merchants who had defiled the holy temple of his Father, our Father.
(21.2) Nor was there any contradiction when Bolívar - whose work and vision have been depicted in masterly
fashion by Kaldone Nweiheid, teacher to Venezuela and the world at large, in his book “Bolívar y el Tercer
Mundo” (Bolívar and the Third World) - when Bolívar, like many others, waged for over 10 years a terrible war in
South America against the empire of that time, which for over 300 years had held sway over our lands. In one
terrible year of that war, that revolution, 1813, he went so far as to order a war to the death. These would appear to
be contradictions, but in fact they are not.
(21.3) I come from a country - as our good friend Federico Mayor Zaragoza has already said - which is full of
riches and blessed by nature. But when Emperor Akihito asked me last week in Tokyo why there was so much
poverty in Venezuela I answered, “Your Majesty, it is very difficult to answer that question. It is as if we were
doing a sum and wrote up some figures on a blackboard, for example 200 + 500 + 600, and came up with a total of
minus three thousand”. It is difficult to explain a result like that in positive terms. Oil, gold, iron, bauxite, an
immense area of sea, broad rivers, and fertile land. The result in Venezuela right now is 80% poverty and 20%
unemployment, with 50% of children not attending school and 50% of young people suffering from social
exclusion, everywhere. That is the situation in a country that has been exploiting its petroleum resources and
exporting oil for almost a century, in addition to the other resources that I have already mentioned.
(21.4) That is where we have come from - from that Third World of ours, which I have just been seeing and
learning about in the course of a journey that is now drawing to an end. In fact this meeting marks the end of a 20day
circuit - tomorrow we shall be returning to Venezuela. We have travelled through Asia, visiting Shanghai,
Beijing, Hong Kong, Seoul, Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur and many other cities in that great continent, with a brief stop
in Bombay, where our plane was delayed by a wheel that refused to come down. In Africa, in the Caribbean, in the
whole of Latin America, from Mexico City to Buenos Aires, via Havana, San Salvador, Guatemala,
Quetzaltenango, Caracas, Maracaibo, Rio de Janeiro, Lima and La Paz, we have seen children abandoned in the
streets, we have seen millions of people living in houses made of tin and cardboard, without health care, without
education and without basic human rights, and we have seen - and I take my own country as a prime example - that
alongside the millions of human beings living in these terrible conditions there are elites that have acquired their
wealth under the protection of those in power.
(21.5) My country is a bad example of what democracy should be. Immoral elite groups have lined their
pockets, talking of democracy and human rights, while the people have been totally crushed. All of us here know it,
I feel absolutely sure. It can be breathed in the air, it can be seen in your faces and in your eyes; the Bible says the
same thing in various places and the wisdom of history, that other holy book, carries the same message: as long as
there is no justice in the world there will be no peace.
(21.6) When we took up the reins of government in Venezuela a little less than nine months ago, we came up
against one of those problems that affects our kind of society: poor people invading public or private property,
taking over land. The fashionable reaction to this is for the State to use force against the invaders.
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