Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó has accused Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of doing a «disservice» to democracy if he continues, he says, without taking a stand in favor of human rights, which involves disavowing the legitimacy of the government of Nicolás Maduro.
«If Lula wants to defend the self-determination of the peoples, it is necessary to address this issue. Attacking me to put hot cloths or not mentioning this issue does not help democracy», said Guaidó about the alleged position of the Brazilian not to condemn Human Rights violations in Venezuela.
«President Lula does a disservice to democracy by not positioning himself frontally in favor of Human Rights and consequently with democracy,» Guaidó said in an interview for the newspaper ‘O Globo’, in which he said that Lula attacked democracy when he valued as «abominable» his self-proclamation as president in charge of Venezuela.
«A president with 24 days of government who minimizes or does not pronounce on the most severe humanitarian crisis ever seen in the continent, worse than that of nations at war such as Syria and Ukraine, is not knowing about Venezuela,» he has reproached.
In this sense, he also criticized Lula for supposedly approaching the situation in Venezuela as a dispute between left and right, since what is happening in that country has a «terrorist basis» and «against basic rights».
«It is about democracy against dictatorship. Human rights versus crimes in Venezuela. When Lula was questioned about Venezuela and Maduro, he should have positioned himself on the need for justice and free elections, instead, he used a rhetorical resource to position himself against the dictatorship,» he said.
Guaidó’s criticisms respond to the position of important leaders in the region such as Lula himself or the president of Argentina, Alberto Fernández, so that Maduro’s Venezuela may once again have weight in spaces such as the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) or Mercosur, from where it was expelled.
Regarding the internal politics of Brazil, Guaidó has chosen to tiptoe when he was reminded in the interview of his support to Jair Bolsonaro in the electoral campaign, comparing the attacks of January 8 in Brasilia with those suffered by the Venezuelan Assembly during these years.
«An attack on Congress is deplorable in any country. In the last seven years this has happened at least three times in my country, with a lot of violence, including injured deputies. I understand that this did not happen in Brazil», he said.
«For us, democracy is independence among powers, with checks and balances and respect for institutions, but if the attack on the Brazilian Parliament is deplorable, the attack on the Venezuelan Congress by Maduro is also deplorable», compared the opponent.
After three years being recognized by a wide string of countries as president in charge of Venezuela, a position without legal effects that only allowed him access to certain assets in foreign banks, Guaidó finally lost that status both in the international community and among the internal opposition.
At the end of last year, the 2055 opposition National Assembly voted in favor of ending his «mandate» after failing to achieve the objectives envisaged by those who raised him in 2019, who criticize him, among other things, for having fallen into excessive bureaucracy and the public relations game by opening «embassies».
His fall from grace began with the changes of government in the region, which have turned to the left in the last year, losing among others two of his great supporters in the continent, the Colombian Iván Duque and the aforementioned Bolsonaro.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
