“I refuse to choose between Hamas terrorism or the massacre and genocidal conduct of Netanyahu’s Israel. We do not have to choose between barbarism. I choose humanity!”
With these words, spoken before the UN General Assembly, the President of Chile, Gabriel Boric, harshly criticized the so-called “double standards” in human rights.
During his participation in the annual meeting of the UN General Assembly in New York on Tuesday, Boric criticized the fact that members of the international community condemn the bad actions committed by their adversaries in terms of human rights, but when the action comes from a supposed friend, “they look the other way or ambiguity prevails.”
“From Chile We rebel against the double standard in human rights”, said.
The Chilean president defended that Human rights must always be respected and that this respect must be demanded regardless of the political color of the government that violates them.
“And the Palestinian teenager murdered in Gaza, The Venezuelan worker forced to migrate from his homelandthe Ukrainian child kidnapped by Russia, the opponent silenced in Nicaragua, or the woman expelled from school in Afghanistan simply for being a woman, are first and foremost human beings,” he noted.
The Chilean president had expressed the same idea during his participation in the meeting “In defense of democracy, fight against extremism”, also held on Tuesday at the UN headquarters in New York.
At that meeting he said that violations of Human rights “cannot be judged by the dictator in power who violates them or the president who violates them. Whether his name is (Benjamin) Netanyahu in Israel or Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela. Whether his name is (Daniel) Ortega in Nicaragua or (Vladimir) Putin in Russia.”
“A dictatorship that intends to steal an election”
In his speech to the UN plenary, Boric expressed his commitment to democracy “as the only system capable of maintaining peace, achieving sustainable development, and protecting the dignity, rights and fundamental freedoms of people.”
But also He expressed his concern about the disaffection of citizens towards that form of government in many parts of the world, as well as by the rise of authoritarian leaders “who persecute or insult those who disagree with them.”
Boric referred to the political crisis in Venezuela and said that Chile is paying close attention to what happens there.
“We are facing a dictatorship that intends to steal an election, persecutes its opponents and is indifferent to the exile of not thousands, but millions of its citizens.”A political solution to this crisis is needed, one that recognises the opposition’s victory in the last elections and leads to a peaceful transition to a proper democracy,” he said.
At the same time, the Chilean president criticized the sanctions imposed by the United States against the government of Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela, because they consider that instead of helping, they aggravate the conflict.
“The economic sanctions hit the Venezuelan people harder than their current leaders. They hit the humble, the workers. Because the political crisis is combined with the economic crisis and together they have pushed more than 7 million Venezuelans into exile, of which 800,000 are in Chile. And out of responsibility I must be clear on this point: Chile is not in a position to receive more migration”, he warned.
“I call on the United States authorities to lift the economic sanctions that we in the South know only cause more poverty in the towns and not in the dictators,” he added.
Boric’s references to the crisis in Venezuela contrast with the interventions of the presidents of Brazil and Colombia, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Gustavo Petrowho despite being direct neighbors of Venezuela -and in the case of Colombia, being the most affected by this wave of migration- They did not speak about this crisis in their speeches on Tuesday.
In the case of Petro, the only mention he made about Venezuela was to say that, like Cuba, they are “rebel countries” economically blocked by the “powerful global oligarchy” because “they do not fit into its domain.”
The president of Guatemala, Bernardo Arevalowas another of the Latin American rulers who also referred to the political situation in Venezuela in his speech.
“We reject, in the hemisphere and in the world, any attempt to repress the aspirations for freedom and justice expressed by the peoples of the world through free and democratic processes, as is happening right now in Venezuela and Nicaragua,” he said.
Also the president of Argentina, Javier Mileimentioned Venezuela during his speech before the General Assembly, but in this case to criticize the UN itself.
“In this very house, which claims to defend human rights, they have allowed bloody dictatorships such as those in Cuba and Venezuela to enter the Human Rights Council, without the slightest reproach,” said Milei.
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