Former Bolivian minister accuses Brazil and Latin American dictatorships of subservience to Russia, China and Iran

In an article published this Sunday (2) by the Argentine website Infobae, lawyer Carlos Sánchez Berzain, former minister of the Presidency, Government and Defense of Bolivia and director of the Inter-American Institute for Democracy, stated that Latin American dictatorships and the Brazil are subservient to the interests of Russia, China and Iran.

In the text, Berzain called Bolivia, governed by the leftist Luis Arce, a dictatorship, adding it to the group of Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua, and pointed out that the four governments “directly support the invasion of Ukraine by Russia and to them are added governments that in democratic countries are subordinated to dictatorships, the para-dictatorial governments of López Obrador in Mexico, Fernández/Kirchner in Argentina and that of Lula da Silva in Brazil, who actively assumed the command in international politics of the Latin American dictatorial group”.

The former Bolivian minister argued that, when he was in China, Lula “proposed an alliance of dictatorships from around the world against the democracy that, following the narrative, he calls imperialism.”

Afterwards, he “refused to meet the President of Ukraine at the G7 Summit [em maio, no Japão]produced the failed meeting of South American presidents [em Brasília, no final de maio] in which he tried to rehabilitate the dictator of Venezuela, sabotaged resolutions against Nicaragua and other dictatorships at the 53rd General Assembly of the OAS [Organização dos Estados Americanos] and now sponsors the Foro de São Paulo meeting in Brazil,” wrote Berzain.

Finally, the former Bolivian minister stated that Lula promoted a European Union Summit with the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (Celac), to be held in Brussels this month, and argued that the group of Latin American countries, to which Brazil returned this year, “is one of the mechanisms created by Hugo Chávez in 2010 to try to legitimize dictatorships”.

“The President of Ukraine [Volodymyr Zelensky] denounced having been invited to this summit, scheduled for July 17, where the dictator of Venezuela is expected, but that ‘Latin American leaders blocked this invitation’, indicating Brazil, Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia and Nicaragua”, pointed out Berzain.

Zelensky’s comment was made this Saturday (1st), during the visit of the president of the government of Spain, Pedro Sánchez, to Ukraine. The Iberian country has just assumed the presidency of the Council of the European Union. In his statement, Zelensky did not name the countries that would have blocked the invitation to Ukraine.

Afterwards, the Ukrainian presidency reported that Sánchez had not extended a formal invitation to Zelensky to attend the summit, which had yet to be sent by the presidency of the European Council.

Lula was heavily criticized in April when he commented on the conflict in Ukraine, which began with the Russian invasion in February of last year, and said that “the decision to go to war was taken by two countries”.

Faced with the negative repercussions, he condemned “the violation of Ukraine’s territorial integrity” and said that Brazil seeks to remain “neutral” in order to negotiate peace between the two countries. Also after much criticism, the Brazilian government backtracked on attempts to soften an OAS resolution against the Nicaraguan dictatorship in June.