2006 Chávez speech at the UN

On 20 September 2006, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez delivered a speech to the United Nations General Assembly damning U.S. President George W. Bush, with particular focus on foreign policy. While the speech was received with sustained applause in the General Assembly, it was met with abrasive bipartisan criticism in the United States.

Speaking one day after Bush addressed the same session of the General Assembly, Chávez announced, "The devil came here yesterday, and it smells of sulfur still today, this table that I am now standing in front of." At that point, Chávez made the sign of the cross, positioned his hands as if praying, and looked briefly upwards as if invocation of God. He continued "Yesterday, ladies and gentlemen, from this rostrum, the President of the United States, the gentleman to whom I refer as the devil, came here, talking as if he owned the world." Chávez also said that President Bush "...came [to the General Assembly] to share his nostrums to try to preserve the current pattern of domination, exploitation and pillage of the peoples of the world." Chávez began his talk by recommending Noam Chomsky's Hegemony or Survival: "It's an excellent book to help us understand what has been happening in the world throughout the 20th century, and what's happening now, and the greatest threat looming over our planet." Citing Chomsky's book, Chávez explained, "...the American empire is doing all it can to consolidate its system of domination. And we cannot allow them to do that. We cannot allow world dictatorship to be consolidated."

The speech was delivered in Spanish with voice-over U.N. interpretation.

A Zogby poll conducted in October 2006, a month after Chávez's speech, revealed that 36 percent of Venezuelans polled said the speech made them proud of Chávez as their president, while 23 percent said it made them ashamed. An additional 15 percent were indifferent, while 26 percent said they were either unfamiliar with the speech or unsure what to think about it.

...
Wikipedia