The International Affairs Advisor to the Presidency of Brazil, Celso Amorim, expressed his "concern" on Wednesday regarding the deployment of three United States warships in the Caribbean, near the coast of Venezuela. However, he clarified that Brazil doesn't recognize dictator Nicolás Maduro as the legitimate Venezuelan leader.
"I can't hide that I view this mobilization with concern," Amorim stated during a hearing before the Foreign Relations Committee of Brazil's Chamber of Deputies.
Amorim, former Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2003 to 2010 during the first two terms of socialist dictator Lula da Silva, clarified that he would not make "any political judgment" regarding the decision by the United States to send those vessels to the Caribbean.
El asesor de Asuntos Internacionales de la Presidencia de Brasil, Celso Amorim
According to the Donald Trump administration, the objective is to employ all of the United States' power to stop drug trafficking to its country and confront Latin American narco-terrorist groups, holding, among others, Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro responsible.
White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt stated on Tuesday that "the Maduro regime is not the legitimate government of Venezuela, it's a drug cartel," and described the Chavista dictator as "a fugitive leader," indicted in the United States for drug trafficking.
Amorim clarified that his concern centers on the risk that this military movement could entail under the pretext of combating organized crime, which, he said, in his view, should be addressed "through cooperation among countries and not through unilateral interventions."
Nicolás Maduro, dictador de Venezuela.
In this context, Amorim also reiterated that the Brazilian government doesn't recognize the results of last year's fraudulent elections that granted a false new term to dictator Maduro, and that Brazil keeps with Venezuela simply "a state-to-state relationship." "The records never appeared, and we never took any steps to recognize the government. We maintained a state-to-state relationship," he stated.
According to his explanation, this relationship is based, among other reasons, on the presence of a community of 20,000 Brazilian residents in Venezuela, as well as the arrival in Brazil of nearly half a million refugees from that country in recent years.
