Finally Lula succeeded Venezuelan autocrat Nicolás Maduro You can participate in your government recruitment.

After an intense effort led by Vice-President-elect Geraldo Alckmin with the outgoing authorities, an executive order has finally been signed lift the ban imposed by Jair Bolsonaro against the Chavista leaders to enter Brazilian territory.

This was announced by the new Brazilian government will have relations with all countries of the region and argues that the policy of sanctions is useless for promoting democracy. This policy also extends to the Nicaraguan and Cuban dictatorships.

Until a few days ago, this project was blocked due to the outgoing government’s refusal to allow the Bolivarian autocrat to enter the country. The ban had been in effect since the beginning of the Bolsonaro government, extended to the other two Latin American countries with authoritarian regimes.

I had posted it then Justice Minister Sergio Moro in August 2019. The new decree lifting the ban was signed by Minister Ciro Nogueira.

Before that, the new authorities had analyzed the possibility that on swearing-in Sunday, Lula will raise that barrier, but his advisors had advised him to desist on account of high political cost and symbolic of having this ordinance as his first act of government.

A judicial source close to the next Brazilian government told this reporter “it is not clearBut at this point Maduro will really arrive on Sunday », for the important blasphemy. There are logistical problems to coordinate.

symbolic step

In any case, it is a symbolic step. Future Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira anticipated in statements a couple of weeks ago on the Inter portal or globe that the intention of the Lula government is to resume relations with all countries. “We don’t care about ideology”said the official.

“Brazil is back for everyone. We are a country present throughout the world, with embassies, which has established diplomatic relations with all the UN countries, one of the few which has relations with all countries. We think that we should simply listen and listen, diversity must be accepted”, I tell you in that interview.

“We are not interested in ideology – he insisted – We will reactivate diplomatic relations with Venezuela, normalize relations with Cuba and maintain relations with Nicaragua and other Central American and Caribbean countries”, he added.

the new government criticized the sanctions policy which has been applied against governments that violate the Democratic Charter of the OAS and commit human rights abuses. “They don’t serve to redirect democracy in those countries,” a source at the next foreign ministry told this reporter.

The situation has contradictory overtones. In a recent magazine interview The Economist, Before the elections, President-elect Lula da Silva strongly defended the alternation in democracy. And he claimed to have warned Venezuelan Hugo Chávez and Colombian Álvaro Uribe, both prone to perpetuation in their governments, that “More than two terms is a dictatorship.”

So, if these expressions are taken literally, for the new Brazilian ruler the leaders of Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua They are clearly dictators.

The abuses of those regimes against political opposition, the press and individual freedoms, among others, have been condemned by other center-left rulers in the region like the Chilean Gabriel Boric with whom the new Brazilian president publicly sympathizes.

Lula has the never denied intention of regaining leadership in this space that he is crossing a chain of crises and various rejections of the republican system.

There has been an attempted coup in Peru, the opposition leader and governor of Santa Cruz has just been arrested violently in Bolivia and without respecting his privileges, and in Argentina the government has tried to revolt against a ruling by the Supreme Court, an unprecedented action in the region, except in Venezuela, Cuba or Nicaragua.

Lula da Silva was the regional leader who reacted most clearly to the Peruvian crisis, stating that President Pedro Castillo He was fired “rightfully” after announcing a de facto government with the closure of Congress.

Coincidence with the United States

Lula has expressed herself in accordance with the US position who did not hide his preference for the victory of the PT leader in the Brazilian elections. Washington’s relationship with Brasilia during the Bolsonaro administration was extremely cold.

Furthermore, the outgoing president has no close ties with the region and has practically isolated his country. The White House, I wait until the election to fill the local vacancy at your embassy. The new head of the embassy, ​​Elizabeth Frawly Bagley, was appointed in time for the inauguration ceremony of the new president, a move with strong political implications.

Washington also sent a high-level delegation to Brasilia, led by Joe Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan, to invite Lula visit the White House even before hiring what could not be done due to the urgency of the agenda and political tensions in the country.

This administration confirmed the interest of the democratic administration to convert Brazil in your reference country in the area thanks to its political and economic power to try to influence this space and moderate its crises.

In this bread, Lula da Silva believes it is important keep open embassies with all countriesregardless of the quality of their governments. In this sense, Vieira defended this point of view, emphasizing that it is necessary “to examine and see what the circumstances are. But turning away and not speaking (to countries) goes against the very concept of diplomacy”.

Brasilia, special envoy

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