Lula's full UN address Reform and sovereignty

Sep 22

United Nations Web TV carries Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's complete September 22 address, with official English simultaneous interpretation, the chair's introduction and closing thanks. Lula criticizes the UN's failure to prevent war, Security Council paralysis and veto privileges, and calls for collective leadership. He briefly cites the Assembly's recognition of the trafficking of enslaved Africans and a world-map decision as examples of institutional action. He accuses Netanyahu's government of genocide in Gaza, also condemns Hamas terrorism against Israeli civilians, defends the ICC and Francesca Albanese and argues for the two-state solution. He condemns threats of civilizational extinction and the conversion of Hormuz into a battleground, describing global costs, then renews a Ukraine diplomacy appeal and cites the Brazil–China Friends of Peace group. He rejects a backyard role for Brazil, electoral interference, spheres of influence and resource incursions while calling for regional cooperation. His Venezuela, Nicaragua, Haiti and Cuba positions remain attributed. On organized crime, he rejects outsourcing border security and aircraft-carrier intervention, seeks cooperation against weapons and money laundering, recalls a proposal handed to the U.S. president and cites domestic coordination, the Amazon police center, a 2025 operation and the anti-faction bill. These recollections do not establish new foreign acceptance or a new deployment. He condemns tariff coercion and weakened multilateral institutions, recalls COVID-19 negligence and antivaccine harms and warns against weakening the WHO. Lula urges renewed climate action and describes possible El Niño effects. He pledges continued oil exploration, including the equatorial margin, alongside decarbonization and forest protection, cites the COP30 forest facility and claimed deforestation reductions, and rejects disguised protectionism. He conditions mineral access on Brazilian value creation, technology transfer and supply for national strategic sectors. He calls for AI and big-tech rules through the UN, criticizes corporate power and quotes Pope Leo XIV on technological responsibility. He condemns betting profits from addiction, cites digital protections, promises fair creator compensation and refuses alleged pressure to privatize the public Pix payment system. He defends the SDGs, redistribution, public education and health, rights and Global South cooperation; cites the hunger-and-poverty alliance and inequality-panel initiative; and attributes growth, investment and prospective export success to Brazil's economic model. He calls for replacing six-days-on/one-day-off work with two weekly rest days, retains the care-work burden on women as a qualification, and advocates women's participation in power and a country free of femicide. Quoting Martin Luther King Jr., he returns to the UN's historical achievements and urges renewed political will. He closes with October 4 election assurances, his democracy-versus-denialism framing, broad candidate speech rights, warnings about foreign-aligned actors and misinformation, and a pledge to protect popular will and sovereignty. Accusations, historical claims, forecasts and pledges remain his; no completed reform, peace deal or election result is established.

At the September 22 UN general debate, Lula warns of renewed hegemonic ambitions in Latin America and the Caribbean, says Brazil cannot be treated as another power's backyard and calls for constructive partnerships and regional integration despite ideological differences. He criticizes electoral interference, spheres of influence and incursions for strategic resources. He says Venezuelans should choose their own destiny, criticizes exclusion of Nicaragua's opposition, invokes the Haiti crisis and condemns what he calls collective punishment of Cuba through an illegal economic and energy embargo. These are his attributed regional positions; no intervention, election decision or new bilateral agreement is established.