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• 11 / 14 / 2009

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Venezuela said on Friday that the UN fails to meet democratization expectations harbored by people worldwide and therefore it has to be changed.

  The call was made by Venezuelan permanent representative to UN Jorge Valero as he spoke in the General Assembly plenary about the reform of the Security Council.

The diplomat said that UN democratization must be assumed as the exercise of a real democratic culture and added that "no country can pretend to dominate the UN and no country must be excluded."

He added that the UN reform must be translated into a stronger role of the General Assembly regarding peace and security, as these issues "should not be of the exclusive competence of the Security Council."

It is necessary to reverse the Council's tendency to involve in the examination of matters out of its competence, thus weakening the central role of the General Assembly, stressed Valero.

He also expressed concern about the validity of old undemocratic practices in the Security Council that have a negative impact on its democratization, transparency and legitimacy.

The reform of the Council must broaden the categories of permanent and no permanent members, revising the decision-making mechanism by eliminating the veto and improving working methods, he said.

The right to veto is an anachronism that breaks the sovereign equality of states and questions democracy that the body should promote on the international scene, he added.

Valero supported the entry of developing countries from Africa, Asia and Latin America and the Caribbean as permanent members as "a long standing, inescapable demand."

A peace based on privileges is discriminatory and fragile, contrary to aspirations of democratization, the Venezuelan diplomat stressed.

Source: Prensa Latina