Delcy Rodríguez on NATO’s Role in World Conflict
Vice President of Venezuela Delcy Rodríguez gave a speech on “Multilateralism for Peace and Stability” at the Antalya Diplomacy Forum in Turkey last month. The Vice President spoke on NATO’s role in world conflict and made an appeal for dialogue between the warring sides: the United States, Europe, NATO and Russia.
During the course of the event, Rodríguez and the Venezuelan delegation participated in bilateral meetings and the VP was also interviewed following her speech to the Forum. Below we’ve transcribed a portion of her talk given to the Antalya Diplomacy Forum. The full speech can be seen on our YouTube channel.
Vice President Delcy Rodríguez at the Antalya Diplomacy Forum
If we analyze the real causes of conflicts, we’ll find the global geopolitical domination that the United States of America and its satellite countries are agonizingly trying to exert.
There is resistance, towards a new geopolitical morphology leading to pluri-polarity with the emergence of new poles of power and the construction of a new world geopolitical order.
Today the world is witnessing this dangerous vital contradiction between unilateralism and pluripolarity. It is enough to take a look at the background to understand the current grave situation that in Gramscian form presents itself as the old supremacist, exceptionalist world, that has yet to become extinct, and a new world of multiple poles that is about to be born.
If we take a look at the contemporary background of these contradictions, we find that in April 1949, NATO was established, in the context of the cold war and the threat posed to the West by the power of the Soviet Union and its intentions to “expand communism”. NATO was thus born as an armed wing of Washington, of the United States in Europe, to establish US hegemony and the arms industry market under the Security Doctrine.
By 2019, on its 70th anniversary, the Alliance accumulated more than 900 billion dollars of defense spending. After the fall of the Soviet Union. NATO was consequently destined to disappear, as its main reason for existence had expired. But no, it did not die out. Rather, it expanded further eastward, seeking to extend its power and warmongering character to the detriment of other nations.
This was evidenced by its unilateral incursion into the war in Yugoslavia. Between March 24 and June 9, 1999, NATO planes carried out 38,400 bombing sorties firing 23,614 shells hitting at least 25,000 residential buildings,100 schools and kindergartens, 30 hospitals, 176 cultural heritage properties, and some embassies such as the Chinese Embassy.
The same year that NATO culminated its so-called humanitarian intervention in Yugoslavia, a country that actively participated in the anti-Hitler coalition, the Atlantic Alliance scored in a new conflict in Afghanistan, in Iraq, in Libya, in Syria, just to name a few. It preached that as collateral damage, bombings, hospitals, kindergartens, embassies and other targets of civilian and humanitarian life should fall victim to its attacks.
Today, NATO members even have bases in the Latin American and Caribbean region, in contradiction to CELAC’s declaration of our region as a territory of peace.
On the other hand, a long standing conflict, even since the founding of the United Nations itself, is the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory, which today already reaches 85% of the occupied territory, leaving frightening images of true crimes against humanity.
We could say that as a balance, since the founding of the UN we have less multilateralism, less diplomacy, which has today been replaced by conflicts and tensions between countries. In general, it is about domination, but the domination that in a globalized era has more weight is global domination, which is a geopolitical issue. The exercise of this domination is sustained by de facto, communicational, financial and military powers, which together have seriously undermined the founding foundations of the United Nations, making its preventive intervention in favor of international peace and stability almost impossible.
Thus, at a time like the present, to speak of world wars in the European style of the 20th century falls short of the magnitude of the threats and consequences that they can entail in the globalized era, which also has the availability of more massive and lethal technologies. I am referring to nuclear capabilities.
A fundamental fact to understand the present moment and the risks it entails for humanity, is that the model of unipolar domination concentrated by the United States and its reproducers for some time now, is confronted with the irruption of new powers, among which stand out large economies competing for markets. The major hegemon resists this new equilibrium and the consequence is dangerous provocation for its purposes.
The current crisis between Russia and Ukraine is a clear example of accumulated stealthy provocations that have broken the equilibrium between nuclear powers. China’s Foreign Minister rightly said that a lake does not freeze over in a day.
Guarantees have been deliberately disregarded for NATO to stop moving towards the borders of one of the parties to the conflict with its nuclear warheads, sacrificing not only the people of Ukraine, but also the peoples of Europe and the world in general. They will be significantly harmed by the effect of the economic war imposed against Russia. If the Minsk agreements and the founding act of Cooperation and Security between NATO and Russia in 1997 had been respected, we would not be in these hours of danger and concern for humanity.
No one, let it be understood, no one will win in this conflict. They have asked the people of Europe to turn off the heating at home and reduce dependence on Russian gas. Is it not time to call for responsible reflection of their rulers for diplomacy and active dialogue with one of the parties in conflict, instead of asking for vital sacrifices from the peoples?
The parties to the conflict must, with humility, engage in a sincere and effective dialogue. The United States, Europe, NATO and Russia are called upon to restore the balance in order to alleviate hours of anguish and suffering which is beginning to have effects on the global order and which is even making appearances in the form of bio-pathogens, threatening the whole of humanity.
Venezuela joins the voices calling for a peaceful and dialogued solution to this conflict. Avoiding suffering to the peoples of the parties involved is an imperative necessity. We salute the efforts that this forum has made to bring the parties in conflict closer together.
The model of domination must someday understand that in the 21st century the cost of its hegemony could extinguish the planet.
By Kawsachun News
