Brazilian socialist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said on Wednesday that his government will continue receiving Venezuelan migrants (who are fleeing from the regime of socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro), but hopes that its neighbor “returns to normal” so the migrants can go back “as soon as possible.”
Brazil is experiencing a new surge of Venezuelan migrants in the wake of the July 28 sham presidential election, which Maduro and the Venezuelan authorities — all under his control — fraudulently insist that he “won.”
“The Minister for Foreign Affairs [Mauro Vieira] has been instructed and determined by the Presidency of the Republic that we should treat people who are coming to Brazil out of a need to survive with great respect,” Lula said during an interview given to Rádio Norte FM. “You know that human beings are kind of nomadic, when they don’t have a place to eat, when they don’t have a place to work, they look for other places.”
“These people who are coming here will have to be treated well and the federal government has an obligation to help the state of Roraima take care of the education of these people, to take care of the maintenance of these people,” he continued, “because we don’t want these people to come here and spend even more time in need than they already did in Venezuela.”
Lula stated that he will visit Brazil’s northernmost state of Roraima — which neighbors Venezuela — at an unspecified date and discuss the issue of Venezuelan migrants with the state’s governor Antonio Denarium “so that we can definitely treat these thousands of Venezuelans who are in Brazil with great responsibility and respect.”
The Brazilian socialist president added that he hopes Venezuela “returns to normal” so that “these people can return to Venezuela as soon as possible.”
Over the past decade — and as a result of the collapse of socialism in Venezuela, led by the authoritarian socialist Maduro regime — Venezuela is undergoing what has been described as the worst migrant crisis in the Western Hemisphere, matched only in size by the Syrian and Ukrainian migrant crises.
According to U.N. estimates, over 7.7 million Venezuelans — roughly 27.5 percent of the country’s population of 28 million — have fled from socialism as of the end of 2023, of whom roughly 568,100 are now living in Brazil.
Voice of America reported on Tuesday that hundreds of Venezuelan migrants — at an average of 500 per day — are arriving daily to the Brazilian northwestern municipality of Pacaraima, Roraima, one of the two “entry points” for Venezuelans in the northern Brazilian state, along with Boa Vista, according to the state-owned Agência Brasil news agency.
“I’m not angry, but I’m sad to leave my city, my Venezuela,” a Venezuelan migrant told Voice of America.
According to statistical information from the Brazilian Federal Police, Brazilian authorities registered the arrival of 12,325 Venezuelan migrants to Pacaraima during August, making it the month with the highest flow of Venezuelan migrants arriving to the Brazilian town so far this year. The Brazilian police authorities registered the arrival of some 3,600 Venezuelan migrants during the first days of September.
Despite the continued claims of Maduro’s alleged “victory” in the sham election, Venezuela’s electoral authorities refuse to publish voter data or any form of documentation that can corroborate the dictator’s claims. The Venezuelan opposition has contested the results and published voter data obtained from tallies nationwide on the day of the election that they claim can demonstrate opposition candidate Edmundo González defeated Maduro in a landslide.
González, a 75-year-old former diplomat, fled to Spain last week, seeking political asylum days after Maduro regime authorities issued an arrest warrant for him for alleged election-related crimes such as “disobedience,” “conspiracy,” “usurpation of functions,” and “sabotage.”
Unlike other regional and international heads of state such as those of Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, and the United States, who condemned Maduro’s fraudulent “victory” claims, Lula failed to issue any condemnation of Maduro. He joined his fellow far-left Colombian and Mexican counterparts Gustavo Petro and Andrés Manuel López Obrador in calling for “negotiations” towards a possible end of the Venezuelan election crisis.
Lula ultimately announced towards the end of August that he recognizes neither Maduro nor González as the winner of the election and called for new elections to take place in Venezuela, a suggestion that has been fiercely rejected in Venezuela by both the ruling socialists and the opposition.
Polls published in mid-August indicate that more than ten million Venezuelans are now considering leaving their country following the sham election.
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.
