CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Voices across the globe expressed concern Sunday over the growing number of arrests in Venezuela following last weekend’s disputed elections.
Pope Francis said Venezuela is “living a critical situation” in his traditional Sunday remarks at the Vatican, adding, “I appeal to all parties to seek the truth, to avoid all kinds of violence.”
The remarks came hours after Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro announced Saturday that the government has arrested 2,000 opponents. At a rally in the Venezuelan capital Caracas, Maduro pledged to detain more people and send them to prison.
I live in Brazil, in the Venezuelan election Sunday there were widespread manifestations from Venezuelan refugees and migrants in many cities here. In front of my city’s Town Hall there was a large group chanting “Fuera Maduro”.
Ignorant American here, are any of the parties in Brazil trying to defend Maduro? I was very surprised to see even Lula take a stand against him.
Not that I’m aware of. Maybe some extreme anti-American-Imperialism parties, but since Bolsonaro I don’t look much at political news for sake of mental health.
Lula is first and foremost a Mercosul proponent, and Chaves’ and Maduro’s crap got Venezuela kicked out.
It’s a shame we never got to see a bigger Mercosur though
We might still, if I’m not mistaken there are (or were) at least two countries considering joining. A big one would be Chile, and negotiations have been going for a long time now.
PT (Lula’s party, a labour party with socialists, communists and other leftists) put out a statement by the party’s president congratulating Maduro without telling him…which really pissed Lula off, and then some of the main voices of the party dissented from the official view, many of Lula’s ministers condemned Maduro and asked for the official release of the disaggregate vote tally certificates.
So now the party is split in two either because it makes the party look bad (the neoliberals, the conservatives and the far right are having a field day with this) and because many agree that it goes against all they hold dear (e.g. Dilma, the former president, was tortured in prison by the former right-wing military dictatorship)
Lula doesn’t want to break ties, because he wants leverage to prevent Maduro from trying to invade Guyana.