Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has criticised what he called the return of a colonial approach towards developing nations during a summit in Colombia.
But while Lula did not mention United States President Donald Trump in his remarks, he gestured at actions undertaken by the Trump administration, including the January 3 abduction of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro and the fuel blockade in Cuba.
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“It’s not possible for someone to think that they own other countries,” Lula said, in an apparent reference to US policy.
“What are they doing with Cuba now? What did they do with Venezuela? Is that democratic?”
Lula delivered his remarks at Saturday’s summit for the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), which featured a high-level forum with delegates from Africa.
He told delegates that their countries had already experienced being plundered for gold, silver, diamonds and minerals.
“After taking everything we had, now they want to own the critical minerals and rare earths that we have,” Lula said, without specifying who “they” might be. “They want to colonise us again.”
The left-wing Brazilian president also criticised the ongoing war launched by the US and Israel against Iran.
He drew a parallel between that conflict, which began on February 28, and the US-led Iraq war, which began in 2003 on the pretext of eliminating “weapons of mass destruction”.
“Iran has been invaded under the pretext that Iran was building a nuclear bomb,” Lula said, before pivoting to the US campaign in Iraq, which resulted in the overthrow of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.
“Where are Saddam Hussein’s chemical weapons?” Lula asked. “Where are they? Who found them?”
A history of intervention
Washington’s history of intervention in Latin America goes back more than 200 years to when then-President James Monroe claimed the hemisphere as part of the US sphere of influence.
While large-scale, overt US involvement in the region mostly petered out after the Cold War, Trump has rekindled the legacy.
Since assuming office last year, Trump has launched boat strikes against alleged drug traffickers in the Caribbean, ordered a naval blockade on Venezuelan oil exports, and gotten involved in electoral politics in Honduras and Argentina.
Trump imposed a 50 percent tariff on Brazilian goods last year, citing the trial against the country’s former president, Jair Bolsonaro, as a motive. The US has also shown keen interest in Brazil’s rare earth deposits.
Then, on January 3, US forces abducted and imprisoned Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro, flying him to New York to face drug and weapons charges.
While such actions have thrilled right-wing leaders across the continent, they have raised fears among left-wing politicians, who have voiced grave concerns over what they see as US bullying.
“We cannot allow anyone to interfere and violate the territorial integrity of each country,” Lula said Saturday.
Frustration with the UN
Lula, who has said he will run for a fourth, nonconsecutive term in Brazil’s upcoming October elections, also criticised the United Nations for its inability to stop multiple conflicts around the world.
“What we are witnessing is the total and absolute failure of the United Nations,” he said, pointing to the situations in Gaza, Ukraine and Iran.
He called, once again, for reform of the UN Security Council, which is mandated with ensuring international peace and security. But it has failed to stop major conflicts because of the veto power of its five permanent members: China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States.
There have been decades of efforts to reform the Security Council. But they have all been unsuccessful.
Colombian President Gustavo Petro, whom the US Drug Enforcement Administration has designated a “priority target”, echoed Lula’s condemnation of the UN.
The body “is acting in impotence, and that is not what it was created for. It was created after World War II precisely to prevent wars. And yet, what we have today is war,” Petro said at the summit.
But the world needs the UN to provide climate solutions and curb global warming, Petro said.
“The more serious humanity’s problems become, the fewer tools we have for collective action. And that path leads only to barbarism.”
Relatively few presidents and prime ministers from Latin America and the Caribbean attended the summit in Colombia, a sign of the continent’s deep divisions.
Those present included the presidents of Brazil, Uruguay, Burundi and Colombia, as well as the prime ministers of Guyana and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, along with deputy ministers, foreign ministers and ambassadors.