Within the framework of the summit of Mercosur presidents, the Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, made a strong call for regional peace, warning that an armed intervention in Venezuela by the United States would trigger an unprecedented “humanitarian catastrophe” in the hemisphere.
With a speech focused on the defense of sovereignty, Lula denounced that, after four decades of the Falklands War, the South American continent is once again facing military harassment from an extra-regional power, which tests the limits of international law and the democratic stability of the region.
This warning comes at a time of maximum tension, marked by what various international organizations describe as an escalation of aggression by Washington. Currently, the United States maintains a massive force deployment in Caribbean and Pacific waters under the so-called “Operation Southern Spear”, which includes warships, nuclear attack submarines and thousands of troops.
For the Brazilian government, this military mobilization is a direct affront to the proclamation of Latin America and the Caribbean as a “Zone of Peace”, a status achieved through diplomatic consensus that is today threatened by the presence of foreign war.
The seriousness of the situation has escalated to the international legal field. United Nations experts and human rights organizations have pointed out that recent US actions, which have resulted in lethal attacks on vessels in international waters, not only violate the UN Charter, but many of them qualify as war crimes and extrajudicial executions.
These operations, which have left dozens of fatalities under the pretext of the fight against drug trafficking, are even being investigated by the US Congress due to alleged orders to “bomb first and ask questions later”, which constitutes a flagrant breach of international humanitarian law.
Against this backdrop, President Lula has reaffirmed his commitment to peace diplomacy and mediation. The president confirmed having maintained direct telephone contacts with his counterparts from Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, and from the United States, Donald Trump, with the aim of deactivating the triggers of a fratricidal conflict. Lula insisted that political disagreements in the region cannot be resolved through the use of operational force, but through frank dialogue and mutual respect for the self-determination of peoples.
Finally, the Brazilian leader emphasized that the unity of the regional bloc is the only guarantee to stop the claims of unilateralism that seek to turn the Caribbean into a scenario of global confrontation. Brazil’s position, supported by other nations of the Global South, reaffirms that Latin American sovereignty is not negotiable and that any attempt to impose a military solution will be rejected as a dangerous precedent for world order and collective security.
