Former Civil House Minister José Dirceu criticized the actions of the United States and the European Union in the crisis between Ukraine and Russia, saying that the Western powers are to blame for the outbreak of the war by having supported the overthrow of the pro-Moscow government in the country, in 2014, and the expansion of NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) into Eastern Europe.
In an article published in his weekly column on the news website Poder 360, Dirceu, a historical figure from the PT (Workers’ Party), also wrote that the case of Ukraine should serve as a lesson to Brazil, which is “on the wrong path in submitting our economy and our national defense of US hegemony”.
Dirceu says that the US and NATO use the defense of democracy and human rights as an excuse to undertake an anti-China escalation and face the rise of Russia, India, Turkey and Iran.
“The tragedy of the war and the risks for the whole world, from the sanctions decided by the United States and its allies, which are not the majority, much less represent the world as some Brazilian media sell, are proof that there is no limits for the empire that refuses to redesign the governance of the world based on the emergence of new powers, starting with China,” he said.
The PT cites as examples of US interventionism the conflicts in Iraq, Kosovo, Libya, Afghanistan and Syria. Regarding the country that has been in civil war for more than ten years, he wrote that it was only not occupied because Bashar al-Assad, backed by Russia and Iran, had “enough with the ‘pax americana'”.
The Syrian dictator was bailed out by Putin in 2015, amid a post-Arab Spring scenario in which rebels could overthrow him and members of the Islamic State terrorist group were gaining ground in the country. Russian support was instrumental in keeping the authoritarian regime in power — where it continues to this day.
Criticism of the US, which for Dirceu no longer constitutes a democratic republic, but “an empire and a plutocracy”, extends to fake news. The PT says that “the use and abuse of social networks controlled by US technology multinationals are the rule in the international arena”, not to mention the fact that Russia is considered a power in the field of disinformation.
In the Ukrainian case, he says that the US and the European Union “turned a blind eye to the truculence of the new government [ucraniano] and encouraged the policy of ethnic cleansing, the banning of Russian as a second language in Ukraine, attacks on the Russian population and support for fascist militias”, echoing Putin’s accusations, for whom residents of the pro-Kremlin breakaway Donbass region , lives with Russophobia.
“Unfortunately, reality set in, and the Russian response was the invasion of Ukraine. Both the United States and the European Union were not able to resolve, through diplomatic, peaceful means, preferably via the United Nations, a conflict of legitimate interests: maintaining the Independent Ukraine, but demilitarized and outside of NATO, without nuclear weapons, as demanded by Russia, in addition to the autonomy of the Donbass regions according to the Minsk agreements.”
Dirceu ends by advocating that Brazil review its national development strategy and resume “the thread of history and our role in Latin America and in the world”. “For us Brazilians, supporters, in accordance with our Federal Constitution, of the principles of non-intervention, of self-determination of peoples, of equality between States, of the peaceful solution of conflicts, there is a lesson that we are on the wrong path in submitting our economy and national defense to US hegemony. This will have serious consequences, as we are experiencing, for our survival as an independent and sovereign nation.”
Like Dirceu, parties and exponents of the Brazilian left claim that the responsibility for the situation that led to the entry of Russian troops into Ukraine lies largely with NATO and the US.
In an interview with the Brasil 247 website, former foreign minister Celso Amorim, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT)’s main assistant on foreign policy, said that “a large part of the blame, the responsibility, lies with the US and the expansion of NATO”. . A note from the PT bench in the Senate, published on the day the war began, went in the same direction, but, after protests, the text was taken off the air and replaced by a milder one.
Former president Lula, who is expected to be a candidate for the presidency in October, reinforced his position against the war and in defense of Ukrainian sovereignty, without, however, ceasing to refer indirectly to the USA. “The great powers need to understand that we don’t want to be anyone’s enemy. It is unacceptable for a country to believe that it has the right to install military bases around others,” he said on a trip to Mexico.
Days later, former Chancellor Amorim clearly condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine live on left-wing channels, calling it a “mistake” and saying that the action is unjustified. PT leaders believe that Lula’s and the party’s international connections with authoritarian regimes will be exploited by opponents in the campaign and argue that it is urgently necessary to unify the discourse in this area.
