Lula: “An armed intervention in Venezuela would be a humanitarian catastrophe and a dangerous precedent”

This is the assessment made by the government of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT), according to a source interviewed confidentially by BBC News Brasil.

This scenario, said this member of the Brazilian government, would be similar to what happened respectively in Libya and Iraq after the fall of Muammar Gaddafi and Saddam Hussein.

Both countries faced civil wars after the overthrow of the two dictators following the military actions of the United States, in the case of Iraq (in 2006), by a coalition between North Americans and European countries, in the case of Libya (in 2011).

Still according to this source, this fear partly explains the strategy adopted by the United States in recent days.

Instead of launching an offensive supported by available military ships and aircraft in the Caribbean Sea, the United States began to focus its action against Venezuela with the aim of financially suffocating the country, making it difficult to export oil, the country’s main source of income.

Lula’s concern about the situation in Venezuela led the president to raise the issue directly with Donald Trump in the last two telephone conversations they had.

The most recent took place on Tuesday (12/02).

This Wednesday, Lula spoke about the conversation with the American leader and said that he had tried to make Trump aware of the possible negative effects of a military intervention in the country.

“I told President Trump, ‘The power of words can be worth more than the power of guns.’ It costs less and takes less time if we’re willing to do it. I told Trump, ‘If you want to talk properly with Venezuela, we can help make that happen.’ Now you have to be ready to talk, you have to be patient,” Lula said.

Lula’s speech reflected the Brazilian government’s concern about a possible conflict in Venezuela.

According to an interlocutor of President Lula, American pressure has not yet reached “0 to 100 kilometers per hour”, but the country’s actions in the Caribbean Sea generate continued tensions on the neighboring country.

The Brazilian government fears that US military action in the country will cause instability in Venezuela and lead to a new humanitarian crisis at the border in Roraima, caused by the sudden increase in the number of Venezuelan immigrants who may want to flee the neighboring country.

Since the deterioration of the social and economic situation in the country in 2018, Brazil has set up a humanitarian assistance operation to welcome Venezuelan immigrants. Called “Operação Acolhida”, the action has already welcomed more than 125,000 immigrants.

According to an interlocutor of President Lula, a sudden fall of Maduro could generate a momentary power vacuum and it would not be clear which political forces would be able to lead the country the next day.

This concern also led Lula to have a telephone conversation with Nicolas Maduro last week.

It is the first direct contact between the two men since 2024, when the country held presidential elections and Maduro was announced as re-elected president, but the result of which Brazil has not yet recognized.

A person with knowledge of the content of the conversation told BBC News Brasil that the Brazilian government had not offered to mediate the crisis, but the assessment at the Palácio do Planalto is that Brazil would be well placed to do so as it now maintains direct contact with the leaders of Venezuela and the United States.

According to this source, the Brazilian government has not proposed or discussed the possibility of political asylum to Nicolas Maduro.

The US military operation in the Caribbean began in August this year with the deployment of air and naval forces, including a nuclear submarine and reconnaissance aircraft, according to US officials.

In September, the US military launched air attacks on boats sailing off the coast of the South American country, under the pretext of fighting drug trafficking.

It is estimated that at least 80 people have already been killed in these attacks.

The North American government accuses the Venezuelan government of being responsible for sending drugs to American territory, an accusation refuted by Nicolas Maduro.

Now the operation brings together aircraft carriers, destroyer ships and amphibious assault ships capable of landing thousands of troops.

Satellite images identified at least six military ships in the region in early December.

The aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford, the largest in the U.S. Navy, was located about 75 miles (120 km) south of the Dominican Republic, about 430 miles (700 km) from the Venezuelan coast, at the end of November.

In mid-November, the ship was spotted farther east, about 125 miles (201 km) south of Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory in the Caribbean, and then sailed south toward the Dominican Republic.

More than 330 meters long, the USS Gerald R. Ford operates as a strike group accompanied by support ships.

The tension between the two countries led the Secretary General of the United Nations (UN), Antonio Guterres, to call, this Wednesday, for an “immediate de-escalation” of the crisis after a telephone conversation with Nicolás Maduro.

In a statement released about the conversation, the UN said Guterres had called for “restraint” to “preserve regional stability”.