Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Photo: Presidential Press/AP.
By Luis Fuenmayor Toro – Oct 29, 2024
I am not an expert on this topic, nor do I intend to be, but I have the ability to give a general opinion on it, just like any moderately informed Venezuelan can. Furthermore, I consider it a duty, to the Venezuelan nation and those who engage in politics within it, to express my opinion on this and other significant matters.
The BRICS+ is an association of emerging economies, established in 2010 by Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, which has expanded to add Egypt, Ethiopia, the United Arab Emirates, and Iran in January of this year. It constitutes a new international economic and political space, as an additional space and not necessarily as an alternative to the G7, the group of the major capitalist countries of the West plus Japan. The BRICS is another example of building a more pluralistic world.
For Venezuela, a country in severe economic and social crisis, caused by internal and external factors, and subjected to perverse economic sanctions that strike its people and greatly hinder its recovery, the BRICS+ could indeed represent a development alternative that is currently denied to us due to the neocolonial actions of US imperialism and governmental incompetence, negligence, and corruption.
But in order to join an organization that is fundamentally economic, which must surpass a global system of a monopolistic nature, dominated by the G7, one must be very serious in the organization of the economy, very meticulous in the administration of finances, very formal in the respect of legal provisions and legal security, as well as not wavering in the field of political and institutional matters.
The absence of these points conspires against the interests of Venezuela and its own government, not only internally, where disorder and chaos of all kinds exist, but also externally, as the country is not considered as a safe place for large capital investments, nor as a serious ally that can be counted on for the strengthening of all. The BRICS+ is not the International Red Cross, nor is it willing to jeopardize its finances.
The Venezuelan government could not establish a more permanent and stable link with this body, despite its diplomatic efforts, and that is the reality of what happened, regardless of the statements made and Putin’s supportive speeches. And we are not falling into the baseness of certain opponents, who not only rejoice at the closing of a door of hopes for recovery but also mock the government in the most vulgar ways possible.
We have warned the Maduro administration many times that the policy of international isolation has never been beneficial for any country: neither for its government, nor for the nation. Isolating oneself has a very high cost, and even more so when those who had maintained their solidarity until now begin to participate in that isolation.
The government must ask itself: what have we done that made our accession to BRICS+ impossible? It is not Lula’s veto. That is the simple answer, the one that does not address the causes of the situation, as China and India, in addition to Russia, are the powers of that alliance, and which, if they had had the necessary arguments, would have perfectly pressured Brazil. There is also Iran, the most important of the new members.
The answer cannot be the stereotype used by some about Lula’s betrayal of his principles, his rightward shift, having sold out to the gringos, or even considering him as another Uribe. No. The Brazilian foreign minister spoke about the lack of trust towards the Maduro government. It is up to the government to analyze its share of responsibility in that loss of trust, because in a two-way relationship, both have responsibilities, perhaps not of the same magnitude, but they have them.
I want to make it clear that I am not supporting Brazil’s decision, because once again the one who has been harmed is not the government but the people, the Venezuelan nation, all of us.
Luis Fuenmayor Toro is a surgeon, a professor and former rector of the Central University of Venezuela.
(Aporrea)
