Lula warned Mercosur that a US armed intervention in Venezuela would be a “humanitarian catastrophe”

“The South American continent is once again stalked by the military presence of a power extra-regional (…) An armed intervention in Venezuela would be a humanitarian catastrophe,” Lula said during the meeting of heads of state of the South American bloc in the Brazilian city that is hosting the Mercosur summit in which Javier Milei also participates.

Trump is carrying out a campaign of attacks against the vessels of alleged drug traffickers in waters near Venezuela and on Friday he did not rule out a war with the Caribbean country, adding tension to a conflict that has the entire region in suspense.

Lula, who has proposed himself as a mediator between Venezuela and the United States and has held telephone conversations with both Trump and Maduro, stated that in today’s world it seems easier to build walls than bridges.

After citing Friday’s ceremony in which he inaugurated a new bridge connecting Brazil and Paraguay, he said that borders are not threats to sovereignty and that it is necessary to build connections to allow the free movement of goods and people.

“Las real threats to our sovereignty They are of a different nature. Are wars, antidemocratic forces and organized crime,” he said.

At the Mercosur meeting held in Foz de Iguazú, contrary positions were recorded regarding Venezuela, since Brazil refused to approve on Friday a ministerial resolution proposed by Argentina and Paraguay to condemn human rights violations and threats to democracy in the Maduro regime.

According to the Brazilian president, the weakening of institutions driven by antidemocratic forces in the region have opened more space for organized crime.

He added that Mercosur has already demonstrated its willingness to confront organized crime jointly and that in recent months it has adopted new tools in that regard, among which it cited asset recovery agreements and measures to protect children and adolescents in virtual environments.

He also made it clear that there is no joint body in South America to lead the fight against crime, which is why, he said, Brazil and Uruguay will propose a regional meeting of justice ministers in order to discuss measures to strengthen the fight against organized crime in the region.

Lula also assured that Latin America is the most lethal region in the world for women, for which he collected data from ECLAC according to which the region registers eleven femicides daily, and asked Paraguay, as the new temporary president of Mercosur, to promote the creation of a pact to end feminicide and the fight against violence against women.

The president of the United States said it in a telephone interview with the cadena NBC News.

The most relevant thing about the interview was that Trump did not rule out the possibility of a war with Venezuela. When asked directly if current operations could escalate into a war, he responded: “I don’t rule it out, no.”

He also defended the “blocking” order issued earlier this week against sanctioned oil tankers. He warned that seizures of ships near Venezuelan waters will continue.

|Although he did not explicitly confirm whether the overthrow of Maduro is his ultimate goal, Trump was cryptic in responding: “He knows what I want, and he knows it better than anyone.“.

Venezuela’s response did not take long to arrive. The Minister of the Interior and Justice of Venezuela, Diosdado Hairconsidered the number two of the Maduro regime, assured that the police forces are ready to defend his country from “any threat.”

“Today Venezuela is a territory of peace, that is how it should continue to be, because when we talk about popular, military, and police fusion, our police officials today are ready and willing to defend the homeland from any threat, internal or external“said the official at a ceremony to deliver vehicles and uniforms to the State security forces in Caracas.