RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said in an interview published on Friday by the Spanish version of Russia Today channel that he believes that Brazil “will not progress” while leaders like Fernando Henrique Cardoso and current President Jair Bolsonaro “continue sucking up” to political leaders of the United States.
“As long as there is a president who does not respect himself, who does not respect his sovereignty and who continues sucking up to the Americans, as Fernando Henrique Cardoso did with Clinton and as Bolsonaro does with Trump, the country will not progress. This country must be sovereign,” Lula told ‘Russia Today’.
The leftist spared no criticism of the current president of the United States. “[Trump] was elected president, but he believes he was elected to be God. (…) The world cannot be hostage to American politics,” said the former president, criticizing what he terms the “madness of a president who believes that he can invade any country and kill any president.”
“It is necessary to stop this! And Brazil can stop it. Brazil is big enough for this, it is great enough for this, it borders ten countries in South America”, commented Lula. “Unfortunately, the world is regressing. It is regressing in Europe, in South America, in the United States. It’s a very bad thing,” he added.
“Bolsonaro talks about sovereignty, but at the same time, he sends his son to be ambassador to the United States to give them the Amazon for exploitation,” he criticized.
The issue of “sovereignty” was not only an agenda in the Brazilian context; Lula also said he opposes interventions in Venezuela: “I don’t agree with the American, Brazilian, Colombian interference, whatever the interference to govern a sovereign country. Inventing a candidate, a lie like [Juan] Guaidó.”
The former president of the Republic has served one-sixth of his eight-year sentence for a conviction in the Guarujá triplex case and is now entitled to the work-release regime; however, he is refusing to accept the change of his incarceration and is threatening not to leave the room reserved for him in the Federal Police superintendency in Curitiba.
During the interview with ‘Russia Today’, Lula explained his position. “I do not refuse freedom. If there is one thing I want in my life, it is to go home with my children, to live with my family. I don’t like being here. What I cannot accept is the theory that I am waiting for a different form of penalty because I have committed a crime,” he said.
“I want to leave here with my innocence fully proven. I want those who lied to the Brazilian people to be brought to popular justice just as I am. I am challenging a judge who lied in my trial, Sérgio Moro [current Minister of Justice and Public Safety],” he concluded.