MEDIA REACTION ON THE UN, SEPTEMBER 21, 2005

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