Lula says he has “no information” about the crisis in Venezuela with the UN

After comparing Israel’s attacks on the Hamas terrorist group in the Gaza Strip to the Holocaust, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) avoided commenting this Sunday (18) on the crisis in Venezuela regarding the expulsion of UN officials.

When asked about the expulsion of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights from Caracas, Venezuela, Lula said he does not “have the information about what is happening.” The statement was made during a press conference with Ethiopian journalists.

The Venezuelan dictatorship ordered last Thursday (15) the suspension of the activities of the local technical advisory office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and gave its employees a 72-hour deadline to leave the country.

A local technical advisory office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has been operating in the country since 2019, with the aim of investigating allegations of disrespect for these rights by Chavismo.

Political parties and NGOs in Venezuela denounced that the decision of Nicolás Maduro’s dictatorship risks increasing human rights violations. The attitude was also repudiated in a joint statement by Argentina, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Paraguay and Uruguay. Former Uruguayan president José Mujica, a reference for the Latin American left, called Maduro “authoritarian”.