Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, warned Friday of the emergence of a “global organized ultra-right” and called for attention to the “Nazi attitudes” that may arise from it, in an interview in Washington on the occasion of his visit to the White House on Friday.
Although Lula said he was convinced that “democracy will prevail” in Brazil after the attacks on the institutions of January 8, he warned that there is “an organized ultra-right in the world”, present, he said, in countries such as Spain, France, Hungary, or Germany.
“If we are not careful, there will be Nazi attitudes from there”, he has highlighted in a conversation with CNN, in which he dealt with various issues, such as the presence of Jair Bolsonaro in the United States, the environmental crisis, or the war in Ukraine, a conflict for which he has proposed himself as a “man of peace”.
Taking advantage of his visit to the United States, Lula commented on the great similarities between the attacks on the Capitol in Washington on January 6, 2021 and those on the Esplanade of the Ministries on January 8 of this year, underlining the links between former presidents Bolsonaro and Donald Trump.
“We could never imagine that in a country that was the symbol of democracy in the world, someone could try to invade the Capitol,” said President Lula, who described Bolsonaro as a “faithful imitator of Trump” who “does not like unions, workers, women, or blacks.”
Speaking of his political rival, Lula has ruled out that he has any intention of asking U.S. President Joe Biden to intervene to extradite Bolsonaro. “I’m not going to talk about that, let the courts decide, one day he will return to Brazil and face the trials he has against him,” he said.
In this sense, he estimated that Bolsonaro has almost half a dozen lawsuits open against him, and although he predicted that “more will come”, he is confident that he can be condemned “in an international court for the genocide” that his management of the health crisis of the coronavirus pandemic entailed.
In turn, he said that Bolsonaro could also be “punished” for “the genocide against the Yanomami indigenous people” due to the abandonment of the institutions and the permissiveness of his government with illegal mining despite the fact that the lands are protected by the State.
In relation to environmental problems, Lula acknowledged that much remains to be done in Brazil, especially after the inheritance received, and stressed his commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by up to 39 percent and to fight against legal deforestation Finally, with regard to Ukraine, Lula, who has been very critical of the Western powers since the beginning of the Russian invasion for the role they were playing in the conflict, insisted that Brazil will not join the war in any way, since his objective is to “end” it.
However, he has stressed Ukraine’s “right to defend itself” after Russia’s “mistake” involving the invasion and has proposed himself as an intermediary in the conflict. “I want to end the war,” he has emphasized.
To this end, he has revealed that he took advantage of the recent visit of the German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, to Brazil to let him know that he wants to talk about this issue with the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, and even with the Chinese President, Xi Jinping.
“I want to talk peace with Putin. I want to talk peace with President Biden, I want to talk peace with Xi Jinping. I want to talk peace with India, with Indonesia, because for me the world will only develop if we have peace,” he said.
Lula’s trip to Washington takes on a new perspective after the events of January 8, when a disgruntled mob of supporters of Jair Bolsonaro attacked the headquarters of the three branches of government in Brasilia. These events were reminiscent of those on Capitol Hill in early 2021.
Before meeting this Friday, the two had already had the opportunity to speak by telephone on two occasions; the first after Lula’s election victory last October 30 and the second, a day after the Esplanade of the Ministries was assaulted, although they personally met at a summit held in Chile when the now head of the White House was vice president.
The environmental crisis is expected to be one of the topics to be discussed, as well as other development policies on energy transition, human rights and the fight against poverty, according to Brazilian government sources.
This is his first trip outside Latin America after taking office, after visiting Argentina and Uruguay, to be followed by China and Portugal in the coming months.
