Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva reported on Dec. 18 that he has told both Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and U.S. President Donald Trump that Brazil is available, if and when there be interest in a dialogue. Brazil has a many-kilometer border with Venezuela, and feels a responsibility for maintaining peace in the South American continent. Lula told reporters: “we do not want a war here in our continent.”
Lula raised a pointed question: What is the real reason that this situation is heading toward confrontation? “No one ever says specifically why this war is necessary. I don’t know if the interest is only in Venezuela’s oil, or if it’s critical minerals, rare earths. No one puts what they want on the table…. Every day there is a threat…. I am concerned about what is behind it. It can’t just be a matter of overthrowing Maduro. What are the interests that we don’t know about yet?”
“There are people who, in order to engage in politics, need to have an enemy,” he suggested.
Lula revealed that he had held a nearly 40-minute conversation with President Maduro in days past, after which he spoke with President Trump. He did not specify when those calls occurred, but he said that he is thinking of speaking with President Trump again, perhaps before Christmas.
“I told President Maduro that if he wanted Brazil to help in any way, he had to tell us what he wanted us to do,” he reported. As for President Trump, Lula told him that “things would not be resolved by shooting…. It would be better to sit around a table so we could find a solution.”
