Ambassador Celso Amorim, special advisor to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) for international affairs, stated this Tuesday (3) that Brazil will not accept a possible arrest of the opponent Edmundo González in Venezuela, as determined by the country’s Justice Department at the request of the Venezuelan Public Ministry.
For him, the arrest is “very worrying” for Brazil and will be “political”, which the government will not accept if it occurs. “It would be a political arrest, and we do not accept political prisoners”, he said in an interview with Reuters.
According to him, the arrest warrant against the opposition was “the wrong thing to do”, and that the electoral situation in Venezuela “is not resolved”.
Amorim repeated the speech that Lula and the government have been adopting since the troubled election under strong suspicion of fraud on July 28, that he does not recognize the reelection of Nicolás Maduro nor the alleged victory of the opposition without the official presentation of the voting records.
“The electoral situation in Venezuela is not resolved, we do not see a victory for one side or the other,” the ambassador added. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has not yet commented on the arrest warrant issued by the Venezuelan courts.
A little earlier, Minister Rui Costa, from the Civil House, toughened his speech on mediation and demands for voting records, and stated that the repression directly affects the Venezuelan people.
According to Costa, Brazil may grant political asylum to González if requested, following a tradition of granting shelter to fugitives from authoritarian regimes.
“In the specific case [de González] It is clear that the Brazilian embassy and the president of the Republic will be the ones to take a position. However, I believe that, following tradition, Brazil welcomes all those who seek a space to live in peace,” said the minister in an interview with GloboNews.
According to him, Brazil is one of the countries that receives the most Venezuelans “seeking” to live here – he avoids talking about fleeing. According to the Ministry of Justice, almost four thousand citizens crossed the border fleeing the Chavista regime after the July 28 election alone.
In the entire month of July, 9,331 Venezuelans crossed the border through Pacaraima, according to the Federal Police. In June, there were 8,602. Data from the Ministry of Justice show a daily flow of 273 Venezuelans entering Brazil between July 29 and August 11.
He also stressed that Venezuela needs to present the documents to achieve a level of normality that will allow the country to once again interact with other nations in the world. Costa, however, ignored the criticism that Maduro’s government made of Brazil after the Venezuelan courts confirmed his reelection.
On Monday night (2), the Venezuelan prosecutor’s office – controlled by the Chavista regime – issued an order against the politician for allegedly committing six crimes linked to the election with strong evidence of fraud that reelected Nicolás Maduro just over a month ago. The request was accepted by the country’s Justice Department, also under the command of the dictator.
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