MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Brazil: FM heralds softer approach to Venezuelan crisis

Brazil does not intend to break up with Venezuela, Vieira stressed

Brazil's Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira insisted Wednesday that it was time to appease the diplomatic differences with Venezuela and not “repeat the mistakes we made with Guaidó's self-proclamation.” He was referring to the arguably illegal appointment of then-Congressman as interim head of state between Jan. 23 2019 and Jan. 25 2023 after not recognizing the elections' outcome. In the end, President Nicolás Maduro was never removed from the Miraflores Palace and Guaidó's legitimacy eventually faded away, with only some countries recognizing him.

In this scenario, Vieira pointed out that the situation in Venezuela needed to be solved through dialogue after Maduro was declared the winner of the July 28 polls without producing any corroborating evidence while the opposition Unitarian Democratic Platform (PUD) published 83% of the voting minutes attesting to the unsurmountable victory of Edmundo González Urrutia, who in September went into exile in Spain after an arrest warrant was issued against him.

Brazil's top diplomat underscored his country's desire to adopt a softer approach to the Venezuelan crisis. President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's Government has not recognized Maduro's triumph nor González Urrutia's. In this situation, In a statement to the Congressional Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, Vieira noted that the solution must be “built by Venezuelans themselves, not imposed from the outside with more sanctions and isolation.”

“We cannot repeat the mistakes we made at the time of Guaidó's self-proclamation as president,” he added while recalling that Lula's administration stood for “the defense of democracy, non-interference in internal affairs. and the peaceful resolution of disputes.” Earlier this week, Lula admitted that Maduro was Venezuela's problem, not Brazil's.

Vieira also pointed out that Brazil has insisted on dialoguing with Venezuela and other countries on the Venezuelan crisis not only because it is an important neighbor but also because it was a guarantor of the Barbados Agreement, in which the Government and the opposition defined the bases for this year's elections, and because, at Maduro's invitation, it was an observer of the elections.

Regarding the withdrawal of the Venezuelan ambassador to Brazil, Vieira clarified that it was a routine diplomatic procedure and not an indication of a permanent break in relations. There is “no sign that the ambassador's departure is definitive,” the minister explained.

“Even if circumstances inevitably impose a decrease in the dynamism of the bilateral relationship, that does not mean that Brazil should break off relations or anything like that with Venezuela. On the contrary, dialogue and negotiation, not isolation, are the key to building any peaceful and lasting solution in Venezuela,” he elaborated.