From Castro’s marathon to Chavez’s ‘devil’: UN speeches that shook the General Assembly

Leaders at the 81st session of the UN General Assembly in New York have delivered pointed speeches on Palestine, Iran and Cuba this week, echoing a long tradition of confrontational addresses at the world body. The General Assembly has been the world’s largest diplomatic forum for nearly eight decades. Every member state can present its views there, but a few speeches have gone well beyond protocol and are still remembered years later. At this year’s session, leaders from Turkiye, Jordan, Qatar, France and Britain criticised Israel’s military action in Palestine. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian set out Tehran’s position in New York, responding to remarks on Iran by US President Donald Trump. On Tuesday, Trump called Cuba “an absolutely failed state” that “will fall”, prompting its delegation to walk out of the hall. He said his administration was seeking “a fundamental change” there and that Secretary of State Marco Rubio was in talks with Havana. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres opened the debate on Tuesday with what was described as his final address in the role. He spoke of wars, inequality, climate change and artificial intelligence. On Gaza, he said the scale of killing and destruction was unlike anything he had witnessed as secretary-general, and he criticised settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank. He said all parties must comply with the International Court of Justice’s orders. “We cannot allow the two-State solution to disappear before our eyes, ” he said. Imran Khan, 2019 Former Pakistani prime minister Imran Khan’s address to the 74th session on September 27, 2019, is among the most-viewed videos on the UN’s YouTube channel. Khan spoke without a script for close to 50 minutes, covering four global and regional issues. He devoted 15 to 20 minutes to Islamophobia and rejected anti-Islam narratives. “Western leaders have linked terrorism with Islam. There is only one Islam, the one our Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) taught us. No religion permits extremism, so there is no such thing as ‘radical Islam, ’” he said. He compared the sensitivity shown in the West to the Holocaust with the respect he said Muslims’ feelings deserved. He also asked the UN to designate a global day against Islamophobia. In 2022, the General Assembly passed a resolution declaring March 15 the International Day to Combat Islamophobia. Muammar Gaddafi, 2009 Libya’s late leader Muammar Gaddafi addressed the General Assembly for the first and only time in 2009. He accused the five veto-holding permanent members of the Security Council of holding the world hostage and demanded an end to the veto. “It should be called, not the Security Council, but the Terror Council, ” he said. He waved a copy of the UN Charter and read from it aloud, accusing the organisation of applying its principles unevenly. He demanded an investigation into the 2003 US invasion of Iraq. He asked why the Charter was treated as sacred when Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, but discarded when the US attacked Iraq. Leaders are allotted 15 minutes, though speeches often overrun. Gaddafi spoke for well over an hour, and his interpreter reportedly stopped translating from exhaustion. A section of the speech in which he claimed that many deadly viruses were laboratory-made biological weapons, created so that vaccines could later be sold for trillions of dollars, resurfaces on social media whenever pandemics are discussed. He offered no evidence for the claim. Hugo Chavez, 2006 At the 61st session, with US-Venezuela relations badly strained, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez began by pointing to the podium where US President George W. Bush had spoken the previous day. “The Devil came here yesterday, right here. It still smells of sulphur today, ” he said. Diplomats in the hall were stunned, though some delegations applauded. Chavez also made the sign of the cross. He went on to criticise Bush administration policy, citing Iraq, Lebanon and Palestine, and accused Washington of seeking dominance through war. He later said he had not planned the remark and had genuinely smelled sulphur that day. Yasser Arafat, 1974 On November 13, 1974, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat addressed the General Assembly for the first time. He was the first representative of a non-state body to do so, invited as chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO). He arrived in military-style dress and the keffiyeh, now a global symbol of Palestinian resistance, with a pistol holster at his waist. Aides said the holster was empty. “Today I have come bearing an olive branch and a freedom fighter’s gun, ” he said, and urged the world not to let the olive branch fall from his hand. Fidel Castro, 1960 Fidel Castro holds the record for the longest General Assembly speech, four and a half hours (269 minutes) on September 26, 1960. He opened by acknowledging his reputation for long speeches. “We shall do our best to be brief, ” he said. The UN’s own archive later titled the speech Cuba’s longest “brief” speech at the UN. It was his first UN visit since the January 1959 revolution that toppled US-backed dictator Fulgencio Batista. Ties with Washington were badly strained after Castro began nationalising US companies in Cuba. He arrived in green military fatigues rather than a suit, and defended the revolution at length. A few months later, in January 1961, the US cut all diplomatic ties with Cuba. A US-backed invasion by Cuban exiles, known as the Bay of Pigs, followed and failed. Castro later declared Cuba a socialist state and signed defence and economic agreements with the Soviet Union. The October 1962 Cuban missile crisis brought the world to the brink of nuclear war before back-channel diplomacy between Washington and Moscow defused it. US-Cuba relations remain tense.

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