US embassy cable - 05TEGUCIGALPA1940

UNCLAS TEGUCIGALPA 001940 
 
SIPDIS 
 
FOR IIP/G/WHA AND IIP/T/ES, 
FOR WHA/PDA, IO/UNP, AND WHA/CEN 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: OIIP, PREL, AORC, KPAO, PGOV, KDEM, HO 
SUBJECT: MEDIA REACTION ON THE UN, SEPTEMBER 21, 2005 
 
 
1. On 9/21 the San Pedro Sula-based liberal daily "La 
Prensa" published an op-ed by Roger Martinez Miralda 
entitled "UN's difficulties."  "Although my points of 
convergence with the Venezuelan president are few and his 
way of making his expositions be taken seriously do not seem 
the most suitable to me, but I agree with him when he says 
that the UN is more and more inoperative." 
 
"The war in Iraq is a clear example of how a third world 
country (Iraq) ignores the UN's warnings and, at the same 
time, the first world power country (U.S.) pulls aside the 
majority of the international community and does what it 
desires to protect itself with the denominated right of 
`preventive' defense." 
 
"It is also true that one perpetual difficulty is that the 
central offices of the UN are located in a country whose 
protagonism in the world-wide political panorama is so big 
that, as a sovereign state and guardian of the security of 
its citizens, it can deny entrance of a Chief of State 
(President Chavez) to its territory and limit the 
representation of nations in a forum created so they can all 
express themselves. 
 
"It is not true that it (the UN) is useless, as Chavez said, 
but it certainly needs to be more agile, reduce its 
personnel, remember that is not a super state that is above 
the governments of the big and small countries, and this is 
urgent and fundamental, to free itself from the influence of 
death lobbies so that it will be truly representative of the 
entire world's aspirations for peace." 
 
Williard