“There will be no future without peace, and there will be no peace without development,” Venezuelan Foreign Minister Yván Gil told the UN Summit of the Future on Sept. 23. He was speaking not only on behalf of his nation, but of the larger “Group of Friends in Defense of the Charter of the United Nations” which Venezuela currently chairs.
And achieving peace, he emphasized, requires “the realization of the inalienable right to self-determination for people living under foreign and colonial occupation. He pointed to Palestine “and the human tragedy unfolding in the Gaza Strip” today as a “stark reminder” of what colonialism leads to. “We ought to advance towards the elimination, once and for all, of colonialism in all its forms and manifestations. It is our moral and ethical duty to conclude the pending decolonization processes around the world.”
