US President Donald Trump during his address at the 80th UNGA summit ./SCREENGRAB
US President Donald Trump has earned his place in history as among the world leaders to use the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) meeting to deliver often divisive but inconsequential speeches.
The tough, at times outrageous, remarks have been associated with leaders that the West considers as strongmen, and Trump seems to be getting into the club going by his speech at the 80th UNGA meeting.
The US President has joined the ranks of Robert Mugabe (Zimbabwe), Col Muammar Gaddafi (Libya), Hugo Chavez (Venezuela), Fidel Castrol (Cuba) all deceased among others to use UNGA in delivering rants.
Western media outlets have criticised Trump, who used the forum to unlike his predecessors, to call out America’s traditional allies and warn them about ‘going to hell’ over immigration polices.
On and out of the podium, Trump has ranted, accusing the UN of setting him up over an incident in the elevator and also a technical hitch with a teleprompter.
“They’re being destroyed. Europe is in serious trouble. They’ve been invaded by a force of illegal aliens like nobody’s ever seen before. Illegal aliens are pouring into Europe,” Trump complained before calling clime change a ‘hoax and con-job’.
The US President told his European counterparts’; “You have to end it now – I can tell you. I’m really good at this stuff. Your countries are going to hell.”
President Trump's speech, filled with familiar grievances and false claims, criticized the U.N. as ineffective, the New York Times reported.
“For almost an hour on Tuesday, Donald Trump stood at the podium of the UN general assembly, where presidents, kings and statesmen have delivered some of the most important and moving speeches in modern history. But Trump delivered a long and humiliating rant, filled with personal grievances and attacks on the UN, European leaders, migration policies and clean energy,” the UK's Guardian wrote.
“President Donald Trump returned to the United Nations on Tuesday to boast of his second-term foreign policy achievements and lash out at the world body as a feckless institution,” US's PBS started in their reporting.
While UNGA speeches often focus on international cooperation and shared challenges, President Trump in his first term delivered a fiery attack on North Korea in his first appearance at the international body in 2017.
“The United States has great strength and patience, but if it is forced to defend itself or its allies, we will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea. Rocket Man is on a suicide mission for himself and for his regime,” he said, referring to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
Less than a year later, Trump would become the first US president to meet with Kim at a summit in Singapore.
In a dramatic speech to the UN in September 2006, Venezuela's Hugo Chavez famously described then US President George W Bush as the "Devil".
"The Devil is right at home. The Devil, the Devil himself, is right in the house. "And the Devil came here yesterday. Yesterday the Devil came here. Right here. [crosses himself] And it smells of sulphur still today.
"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. Truly. As the owner of the world."
In 1960, late revolutionary leader of Cuba Fidel Castro, used the UN General Assembly to speak for a record 269 minutes instead of the 15 minutes allocated.
Delivered just one year after the Cuban Revolution that led to the overthrow of the United States-backed dictator Fulgencio Batista, Mr. Castro used his time at the podium to criticize US imperialism and its interference in Latin American affairs.
“Although we have been given the reputation of speaking at great length, the Assembly need not worry,” Fidel Castro of Cuba said at the outset. “We shall do our best to be brief.”
While the General Assembly requests that delegates limit their addresses to 15 minutes, on 26 September 1960, he remained at the rostrum for more than four hours.
Former President late Dr Robert Mugabe is also another leader who has used the UN podium to confront the West, specifically the United States when confronted over human rights abuses back at home.
He once said “Nowhere does the Charter arrogate the right to some to sit in judgement over others, in carrying out this universal obligation. In that regard, we reject the politicization of this important issue and the application of double standards to victimize those who dare think and act independently of the self-anointed prefects of our time. We equally reject attempts to prescribe "new rights" that are contrary to our values, norms, traditions and beliefs.”
After more than four decades in power, the late Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi made it to the UN podium in 2009. And it was a debut to remember.
Gaddafi delivered a scathing speech against world powers that lasted nearly 100 minutes where he decried the veto powers of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council.
“Veto power should be annulled,” Gaddafi said. “The Security Council did not provide us with security but with terror and sanctions.”
