Brazil’s performance in BRICS: “An announced war doesn’t kill soldiers”

By Sergio Rodríguez Gelfenstein

I had not wanted to express an opinion on the decision of Brazil and Lula to veto Venezuela’s entry into BRICS. But I was struck by the statement from the Venezuelan Foreign Ministry that exonerates the president of Brazil, the foreign minister and even the presidential advisor Celso Amorim.

Now President Maduro has released details of the fact in which he states that Lula was not well informed. I believe that the statement from the Venezuelan Foreign Ministry is of high importance; it exposes a position of the State, but with all due respect I do not share it.

I don’t know if Vice President Delcy Rodríguez remembers it. When she was minister of the office and I was director of international relations of the presidency, a similar and pretty dramatic event occurred.

It was in July 2006 when a Mercosur Summit was held, where Venezuela would join the membership of that institution. The Presidents Néstor Kirchner of Argentina, Lula da Silva of Brazil and Tabaré Vázquez of Uruguay were already in the country. Comandante Chávez was waiting for President Nicanor Duarte to arrive in the Maiquetía airport to go to the Teresa Carreño theater where the according document was to be signed. Given the urgency that emanated from the fact that there were three presidents waiting, President Chávez had ordered that the Guaraní president be transferred to Presidential Palace Miraflores by helicopter as soon as he arrived at the airport so that, together, they could get to the Teresa Carreño.

At that moment, the Foreign Ministry informed us that a third-level Paraguayan official (some time later it became publicly known that he worked for a U.S. government agency) refused – without known cause – to sign a document essential to finalize the process. This situation threatened to fail the Summit and paralyze Venezuela’s entry into the subregional organization.

To gain time and enable a solution to the problem, Comandante Chávez changed his initial decision and instructed that President Duarte be transferred to Miraflores by land. He would receive him and talk with him until the impasse was resolved. In turn, Minister Delcy ordered me to go to the Teresa Carreño, look for the Paraguayan official and solve the problem… And the problem was solved. Venezuela entered Mercosur on July 4, 2006.

There is the possibility that a third-level official will make a state decision even against the opinion of his bosses, but a decision taken and executed at that level is weak and can be reversed if action is taken quickly and appropriate measures are taken.

I say this because diplomacy sometimes does not take place through the usual channels and it is necessary to resort to non-traditional mechanisms. Without doubting in the least the explanation of President Maduro and recognizing that he has handled this situation with great wisdom in defense of Venezuela’s strategic interests, I allow myself to disagree with respect to the responsibility of Amorim and Lula in the decision that led to this situation, where our country is able to join BRICS.

It is possible that Lula’s dialogue with President Putin has led him to a reflection that placed him – for a moment – on the stage of the strategy to realize that his advisors had led him to the terrain of conjunctural smallness to serve the interests of Europe and the United States. And that such introspective deliberation has given him the pattern of the tremendous mistake committed. 

But it seems to me that in this case there is a premeditated action based on the framework of ideological definitions that have been manifested for a long time.

I have tried to follow up on these actions. On April 5, I published an article under the title “Lula and Petro: “Tell me who you are with and I will tell you who you are.” In one of its parts it says: “Lula has been, without a doubt, a great social fighter who confronted the dictatorship that devastated his country for more than 20 years. However, he is not a revolutionary nor has he confronted the system of domination of his country; on the contrary, he is part of it. His objective is to produce reforms that improve the living conditions of Brazilians without touching the interests of large foreign companies that remain in the country. As was said at the end of the last century, he is a traditional social democrat in the style of Willy Brandt or Françoise Mitterrand, whom he adores and admires.”

To that extent, he has not abandoned the idea inherited from his predecessors of strengthening Brazilian sub-imperialism by trying to build a subordinate integration. Hence his effort to ally Mercosur and even Latin America with Europe. His political operator in these fights was and is Celso Amorim, a career diplomat, a typical product of Itamaraty (Brazilian Foreign Ministry, UWI), who became a PT militant due to circumstances and mutual interests. It is Amorim who has “bombarded” Lula – after receiving instructions from the Elysée – about the “democratic shortcomings” of Venezuela based on the legal and constitutional impossibility of Mrs. Machado (Venezuelan opposition leader, UWI) to be a candidate in the elections.

It must be said that it is natural for Lula and Amorim to act like this. They respond to the DNA of the Brazilian elite that has never fought against anyone. They have obtained everything by negotiating and giving in within the framework of a systemic institutionality against which they have never rebelled. Of course, in the history of Brazil there have been great revolutionary leaders such as Tiradentes, Carlos Marighella and Luis Carlos Prestes among others. Lula is not one of them.

The ambiguity of his speech (and that of Dilma Rousseff, even more accentuated), isolated him from the people. Both abandoned the humble who brought them to power. I remember when, in 2006, the popular and social organizations of Brazil asked Comandante Chávez to intercede with Lula so that he would listen to them. With the latter’s approval, Chávez risked his political capital and, taking advantage of a trip to Curitiba, met in a full theater with leaders and social leaders who came from all over the country to present their demands face to face. Even putting his physical integrity at risk because a small group of hotheads wanted to violently approach him, he listened patiently, took note and told them that he understood their reasons, that he was going to do what they asked of him but that in his opinion, at the present moment in Brazil, he thought that Lula should be supported. I don’t think that in his entire life, Chávez has received such a big squeal as the one he listened to patiently that day until, once the tempers calmed down, he spoke at length to the attendees of the superior cause of Latin America and the Caribbean, closing the event with continuous and effusive applause and cheers.

Years later, when she was hit by the coup d’état, Dilma called on the people to take to the streets. No one did. It was normal, she hadn’t pick up the phone from the social leaders, hadn’t receive them, nor did she answer them. Her alliance was with the businessmen. One of them, her vice president, was the leader of the coup that overthrew her. The abandonment of the people is paid dearly. They gave us lessons, I remember the petulance and arrogance of some PT leaders who told us what we should do, but here, Chávez resisted the coup d’état, because the mobilized people restored him to power.

They did not even mobilize in favor of Lula when he was in prison. The great events calling for his freedom brought together 40,000 people in a country of 215 million people. And this is normal. At the moment when he was being taken to jail, Lula, in the most finished version of a man of the institutions, said: “I trust the legal system of Brazil.” He did not call on the people, no, he trusted the institutions.

Perhaps these are positive characteristics: conciliation, pusillanimous character and weakness of spirit. At the end of the day, the monarchy permitted them independence and the Republic, and it is possible that this history has shaped their conciliatory spirit. But no one gave Venezuela anything. We had to fight for it and at a very high cost. Therefore, we do our own and they do theirs, but it is not Lula who can teach us in democracy.

Nor can Lula give lessons from Latin Americanist sentiment and spirit. I said earlier that he thinks about the need for subordinate integration. These are not empty words: Who prevented the establishment of a financial architecture in South America? Who put all kinds of obstacles in the way of SUCRE (regional currency introduced by ALBA, UWI) until it prevented it from functioning? Who paid little attention to the creation of CELAC until they understood that they needed it as a platform to launch themselves into the conquest of a permanent seat on the UN Security Council? Who supported UNASUR only when Itamaraty was sure that it could control it? Who fled Mar del Plata when Chávez, Kirchner, Tabaré Vázquez and even the conservative Nicanor Duarte stood up against the empire? Who delayed as long as they could the construction of the Abreu e Lima refinery that Chávez promoted for the well-being of the forgotten and marginalized northeast of Brazil? Who, in the face of the coup d’état against President Castillo in Peru, said that it had been a transition in institutional terms?

I respect what Lula may have done in favor of his people. I don’t know if it is all he could, but he cannot, nor should he be giving lessons in democracy to anyone, at least in Venezuela, we do not allow it. If Mrs. Machado granted him that right, he must get along with her and assume the responsibility of allying himself with those who advocate terrorism and favor a foreign military intervention in the country. How is it wrong when Bolsonaro does it, and right when Machado does. Why did one act outside the law and another did it in favor of democracy? Why is Bolsonaro a coup plotter and Machado is not? Clarify it, Mr. President Lula, because if not, President Maduro could have the right to ask for an end to the persecution against former President Bolsonaro. What do you think? Of course, President Maduro will never do that, first because he does not interfere in the internal affairs of Brazil and second because he will never support a violent terrorist and coup plotter as you are doing in Venezuela.

Dear comrade Lula, I would like to remind you that the first president to express solidarity with you after your unjust imprisonment was Nicolás Maduro and the first president to express his rejection and repudiation of the coup d’état against Dilma Rousseff was Nicolás Maduro. There was no political calculation in deciding those actions. Today we gather the courage and solidarity of the Brazilian people who reject his manifestations of support for terrorism in Venezuela. It is also good to remember that on July 25, 2019, Mrs. Machado tweeted against you and the danger that the Sao Paulo Forum would demand your freedom.

As young people say now, “you are in another”, President Lula. While African peoples rebel and break with France, you declare your love for Macron in the same place where French companies devastate the Amazon without mishap. More coherence president, because that is serious.

On August 8, I reiterated these concepts in a radio and television interview with journalist Carlos Arellán of Venezuela News and when asked specifically what I thought of the actions of Brazil and Lula, I replied: [transcribed version]

“You have to understand Lula in his circumstances. He was a great union leader, recognized for his struggle against the dictatorship of the last century in his country. He was imprisoned several times, never stopped fighting against the dictatorship and when democracy was implanted in Brazil in the 80s of the last century and Lula tried to open a space far beyond the local, he found Fidel Castro, discovered Fidel Castro. In doing so, discovered a model of behavior that in his conditions seemed positive to him by assuming more radical positions that set a point of view and behavior of the Workers’ Party and of him throughout that period of about 20 years from approximately the years 84-85 until he came to power in 2003.

When he came to government and began for the second time to look for spaces in the world, he found that Fidel Castro was still there and now also Hugo Chávez, and he understood that allying with them could be favorable so that Brazil’s always potential as a subregional power was projected into new spaces. In this way, he assumed positions that commanders Fidel Castro and Hugo Chávez were already promoting. Lula folds them, assumes them but without being a revolutionary or a transformer.

Lula goes to Mar del Plata, but escapes. You can look up the photo from that day to confirm that it wasn’t there. Nicanor Duarte, the right-wing Paraguayan president, was there, as well as Maradona and Kirchner, but Lula wasn’t.

That is Lula’s personality, pusillanimous, doubtful and who also now, to the extent that Chávez and Fidel are not there, is approaching others who suit him better. Today, for reasons that I do not know, France and Macron have been better suited to him. This has led Lula to assume himself as an exponent of European policy towards Latin America, as a spokesman for the European Union in Latin America.

To that extent, he is acting with respect to Venezuela and as he is a shrewd guy, in a country that borders Brazil, he has been changing his discourse and his behavior according to the circumstances. That is what Lula and Brazil have always done: adapt to the situation, never take a position on anything. He has never done that, has never assumed a vanguard position in anything, always waiting to see if the United States has more strength to accommodate. Now he sees that there are very active emerging countries and meddles with BRICS. At some point he thought he could hegemonize South America. Hence, he made an effort to create Unasur but did not accept and sabotaged the creation of SUCRE and the Bank of the South. These were not realized because Lula didn’t want them.

In the case of CELAC, with Brazil’s evident influence in South America being evident, he had to face the influence of the other regional power, Mexico, powerful in the Latin American and Caribbean context. When did he became interested in Latin America and the Caribbean? When he realized that in order to realize his ambition to be a permanent member of the UN Security Council he needed the countries of the region. He then began to increase his presence, set up embassies in the Caribbean countries and strengthened his presence in Central America.

We cannot expect more than that from Lula because he is an accommodating, doubtful, pusillanimous person, endowed with a great nationalist feeling, but more than that, nothing.”

On September 17, in another article entitled “BRICS. Towards the Kazan Summit, perspectives and processes” I stated:

“The Kazan Summit will have to make decisions for the future. We should not repeat the disappointment that Lula, just to favor his friend Alberto Fernández, proposed and had Argentina’s entry approved, knowing that (which unfortunately happened) that the coming to power of Javier Milei could – and has – prevent the realization of that superficial and emotional proposal.

Although the Russian pro tempore presidency has said that it expected representatives of Latin American countries to attend the BRICS Summit in Kazan, it must be said that it is one thing to attend the Summit and another to join the organization. We do not know if with the frivolity that characterizes him and continuing with his policy of favoring the United States and Europe, Lula – who has not yet recognized President Maduro – “vetoed” Venezuela’s entry, putting China, Russia and the remaining members at a crossroads that leads them to have to decide between Brazil and Venezuela. It is worth saying that so far, Brazil is the only BRICS member country that has not recognized President Maduro.”

Finally, on October 3, in the second part of an article entitled “The left in Latin America. Trends and perspectives” I argued:

“As always, in victory the bad seams are hidden, but in defeat they are all exposed. The ebb that began in 2015 had a profound impact on the left. This time the imperial media effort supported by its powerful informational-cultural apparatus became a main instrument to accentuate the regression, stimulating negative perceptions that on this occasion the regression was definitive and total. It was, in the end, a kind of “end of Latin American history”, the weakness and lukewarmness of some emerged, stimulating defeat on the one hand and accommodating and intermediate positions that postulated that “yes, but no” on the other”.

At the end of that article, I pointed out that Lula was an exponent of this tendency.

The damage caused by Lula does not only affect Venezuela, which despite everything received the almost unanimous support of BRICS (members and new entrants) manifested in the multiple bilateral meetings of President Maduro in Kazan and the subsequent visits of the same president to Algeria and of Vice President Delcy Rodríguez to India and Vietnam.

The main damage has been inflicted on Brazil itself – as the Brazilian analyst and political leader Valter Pomar has pointed out in several articles – and above all on BRICS, subject to Lula’s whims and Amorim’s needs to pay tribute to his European masters.

I think it is extremely dangerous for the future of BRICS that today, there is talk of “Brazil’s veto of Venezuela’s entry”. That institution [the veto], present in the UN Security Council, is an expression of the dictatorship of that body. If BRICS intends to differentiate itself and build a democratic space that takes into account all the countries and peoples of the world, it will have to – in some way – get rid of the right to veto, the fundamental cause of injustices, war and the devastation of the planet.

Beyond Venezuela, which will resist and win, the challenge of BRICS is to transform itself into the platform for building a new world. If the right of veto is not eliminated, the group will be paralyzed. Looking ahead, BRICS cannot and must not allow blackmail and coercion from Brazil. First, it was the entry of Argentina, now the veto of Venezuela – until when will Brazil continue to impose its irresponsibility and its European agenda on BRICS?