Temas de relações internacionais, de política externa e de diplomacia brasileira, com ênfase em políticas econômicas, em viagens, livros e cultura em geral. Um quilombo de resistência intelectual em defesa da racionalidade, da inteligência e das liberdades democráticas.
O que é este blog?
Este blog trata basicamente de ideias, se possível inteligentes, para pessoas inteligentes. Ele também se ocupa de ideias aplicadas à política, em especial à política econômica. Ele constitui uma tentativa de manter um pensamento crítico e independente sobre livros, sobre questões culturais em geral, focando numa discussão bem informada sobre temas de relações internacionais e de política externa do Brasil. Para meus livros e ensaios ver o website: www.pralmeida.org. Para a maior parte de meus textos, ver minha página na plataforma Academia.edu, link: https://itamaraty.academia.edu/PauloRobertodeAlmeida;
Chego a sentir vergonha pelo Mercosul, pelo meu país...
Paulo Roberto de Almeida
América Latina
Venezuela: ex-deputada é acusada de incentivar violência
Com mandato cassado, opositora María Corina Machado não pode deixar o país
A ex-deputada venezuelana María Corina Machado (Sérgio Lima/Folhapress)
A ex-deputada opositora María Corina Machado afirmou nesta segunda-feira que foi acusada pelo Ministério Público da Venezuela de instigação à violência durante os protestos que estouraram no país em fevereiro.A acusação foi divulgada depois que a política compareceu ao Palácio da Justiça, em Caracas, para conhecer as razões de ter sido proibida pela Justiça de deixar o país, medida imposta no final de junho.
O Judiciário, controlado pelo Executivo chavista, já usou o mesmo tipo de acusação para intimidar e prender o opositor Leopoldo López, outra figura destacada entre os adversário so chavismo. A imputação desse tipo de crime para silenciar a oposição já provocou protestos de organizações de defesa dos direitos humanos, como a Anistia Internacional.
Logo depois de divulgar o caso em sua conta no Twitter, María Corina acusou o presidente da Assembleia Nacional, o chavista Diosdado Cabello, de estar por trás do seu indiciamento e da proibição de viajar. Foi justamente Cabello que divulgou publicamente no final de junho que a ex-deputada não poderia deixar o país por causa de investigações relacionadas ao protesto de 12 de fevereiro, o primeiro da onda que sacudiu a Venezuela pelos meses seguintes.
Nesta segunda-feira, Corina voltou a apontar que a divulgação do inquérito por parte de Cabello foi "ilegal e inconstitucional", já que esse tipo de investigação é sigilosa. Sua defesa disse ainda que o presidente da Casa soube da decisão antes mesmo da notificação dos interessados. A ex-deputada também disse que não existe nenhum risco de ela fugir do país.
Um dos homens fortes do chavismo, Cabello já havia articulado a cassação da deputada, em abril, após María Corina ter tentado proferir um discurso na sede da Organização dos Estados Americanos (OEA) em que denunciaria as violações de direitos humanos na Venezuela. Os chavistas também já acusaram a ex-deputada de participação em um plano mirabolante paraassassinar o presidente do país, Nicolás Maduro.
Hugo Chávez chegou ao poder na Venezuela em fevereiro de 1999 e, ao longo de catorze anos, criou gigantescos desequilíbrios econômicos, acabou com a independência das instituições e deixou um legado problemático para seu sucessor. Nicolás Maduro assumiu o poder em 2013 e está dando continuidade aos erros do coronel. Confira:
A criminalidade disparou na Venezuela ao longo dos 14 anos de governo Chávez. Em 1999, quando se elegeu, o país registrava cerca de 6 000 mortes por ano, a uma taxa de 25 por 100 000 habitantes, maior que a do Iraque e semelhante à do Brasil, que já é considerada elevada. Segundo a ONG Observatório Venezuelano de Violência (OVV), em 2011, foram cometidos 20 000 assassinatos do país, em um índice de 67 homicídios por 100.000 habitantes. Em 2013, foram mortas na Venezuela quase 25 000 pessoas, cinco vezes mais do que em 1998, quando Hugo Chávez foi eleito.
Apesar de rica em petróleo, a Venezuela é o país com a terceira maior taxa de homicídios do mundo, atrás de Honduras e El Salvador. Entre as razões para tanto está a baixa proporção de criminosos presos. Enquanto no Brasil a média é de 274 presos para cada 100 000 habitantes, na Venezuela o índice está em 161. De acordo com uma ONG que promove os direitos humanos na Venezuela, a Cofavic, em 96% dos casos de homicídio os responsáveis pelos crimes não são condenados.
Chinese diplomats on Wednesday said Congress’ decision to rename the street in front of Beijing’s embassy in the U.S. capital after a Chinese dissident is "really absurd" and motivated by concerns not entirely related to human rights.
On Tuesday the House Appropriations Committee voted to rename the street outside the Chinese Embassy in Washington, D.C., to “Liu Xiaobo Plaza” — after a Chinese dissident who received the Nobel Peace Prize in absentia and is currently serving an 11-year prison term for subverting the government’s authority. Liu has called for an end to one-party rule in China.
The bipartisan move, led by Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va., would effectively have all correspondence sent to the Chinese Embassy addressed to No. 1 Liu Xiaobo Plaza.
“This attempt driven by some personal interests runs counter to the joint efforts by and interests of the vast majority of peoples in both China and the United States to pursue a win-win cooperative partnership between our countries,” Chinese Embassy spokesman Geng Shuang said.
“This amendment is really absurd.”
Wolf had not responded to an interview request from Al Jazeera at time of publication.
U.S. trade union United Steelworkers (USW) was among the key proponents of the bid to remind Chinese diplomats of the jailed dissident, according to a statement released by Wolf’s office late Tuesday.
At the time of publication, USW had not answered questions regarding its support for the renaming effort. But according to a copy of a letter sent to Congress by USW President Leo W. Gerard, he said, “The fight for freedom, democracy and human rights depends on people like Dr. Liu and our willingness to stand by their sides.”
China has long been the world’s leading producer of crude steel and its top steel exporter, according to the World Steel Association, ahead of the European Union, Japan and the U.S.
The USW said it has on numerous occasions mounted efforts to protect American industry and consumers from what it called subpar Chinese-produced steel and other products, ranging from green technology to tires.
“What would be gained for [USW], I guess is the question,” said Elizabeth Economy, U.S.-China relations expert at the Council on Foreign Relations, adding that labor rights groups have a history of teaming up with proponents of human rights.
Regardless of intentions, Economy said that renaming a street will not do much to support political reform in China — an ongoing, albeit controversial, project of the Xi Jinping administration, which has mounted a massive crackdown on corruption in the public sector.
“By and large, what the U.S. says doesn’t really affect what the Chinese government does. The Chinese government does what it wants to do with reform in politics and human rights,” she said. “I just think you need to grant the Chinese government more autonomy in its decision-making than perhaps you are.”
Opponents of human rights advocates in China, including in Chinese state media, have often criticized homegrown reform movements for receiving support from the West. Analysts have said that Western administrations’ and activists’ criticisms of China’s human rights situation have set back the work of Chinese human rights advocates.
Gao Wenqian, New York–based senior policy adviser with the international advocacy group Human Rights in China, disagrees with the idea that gestures like Washington’s further the belief that the West has a monopoly on human rights.
“China’s human rights situation must first and foremost rely on people on the inside, but also depends on international support,” he said.
Like Economy, Gao believes that renaming the street in front of the embassy after a dissident is a major show of support for democracy advocates in China.
“This shows that [the U.S. Congress] cares about the popular movement in China,” Gao said.
Supporters of the planned renaming cited a move in the 1980s by the Washington, D.C., City Council to rename the street outside the Soviet Embassy as Andrei Sakharov Plaza, after the noted Soviet dissident and human rights advocate. The move was hailed as a major symbol of Washington’s support for human rights internationally.
But Economy believes that, as Chinese diplomats indicated, the move will not affect China’s domestic policy and will exacerbate perennial tensions between the world’s two largest economies.
“I don’t think, frankly, that this symbolic act — clearly irritating — will have any effect on Chinese policy,” she said.
BEIJING — Even by the standards of the clampdowns that routinely mark politically sensitive dates in China, the approach this year to June 4, the anniversary of the day in 1989 when soldiers brutally ended student-led protests in Tiananmen Square, has been particularly severe.
The days preceding June 4 often mean house arrest for vocal government critics and an Internet scrubbed free of even coded references to the crackdown that dare not speak its name.
But this year, the 25th anniversary of the bloodshed that convulsed the nation and nearly sundered the Communist Party, censors and security forces have waged an aggressive “stability maintenance” campaign that has sent a chill through the ranks of Chinese legal advocates, liberal intellectuals and foreign journalists.
In recent weeks, a dozen prominent scholars and activists have been arrested or criminally detained, and even seemingly harmless gestures, like posting a selfie in Tiananmen Square while flashing a V for victory, have led to detentions.
The police have been warning Western journalists to stay away from the square in the coming days or “face grave consequences,” according to several reporters summoned to meetings with stone-faced public security officials. Amnesty International has compiled a list of nearly 50 people across the country that it says have been jailed, interrogated or placed under house arrest.
“They say it’s springtime in Beijing, but it feels like winter,” said Hu Jia, an AIDS activist and seasoned dissident who has been forcibly confined to his apartment for the past three months.
The growing list of those swept up by China’s expansive security apparatus includes a group of gay rights advocates gathered at a Beijing hotel, several Buddhists arrested as they were meditating in the central Chinese city of Wuhan and an ex-soldier turned artist who staged in a friend’s studio a performance piece that was inspired by the government’s efforts to impose amnesia on an entire nation.
“The response has been harsher and more intense than we’ve ever seen,” said Maya Wang, a researcher at Human Rights Watch in Hong Kong.
To political analysts and rights advocates, the campaign provides further evidence that President Xi Jinping, 15 months into the job, is determined to stamp out dissent amid an ideological assault against liberal ideas that many view as part of a wide-ranging drive to consolidate power. “Until this latest crackdown I was agnostic about Xi, but recent events suggest he would like to be a Mao-style strongman if he could,” said Perry Link, a China scholar at the University of California, Riverside.
Although the red line of permissible public discourse often shifts with the seasons and the whims of those in power, many longtime China watchers say the changes have caught even the most battle-scarred dissidents off guard.
As evidence, they point to the authorities’ forceful response to a seminar, held at a private home in early May, during which more than a dozen people met to discuss the events of 1989. In the days that followed, the participants, including relatives of those killed during the crackdown, were summoned for questioning by the police.
But unlike a similar, much larger event in 2009, five of the attendees were formally arrested. Among them: Hao Jian, a professor at the Beijing Film Academy; Xu Youyu, a philosophy scholar at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences; and Pu Zhiqiang, a charismatic rights lawyer. All face charges of “creating a public disturbance.”
Since then, the police have repeatedly searched Mr. Pu’s law office and home, carting away computers, financial documents and a DVD of a documentary about the dissident artist Ai Weiwei, a former client.
In an interview, one of his lawyers, Zhang Sizhi, described the charges as illogical. “How can you create a public disturbance while meeting in a private residence?” he asked.
Mr. Zhang and others say it seems increasingly unlikely Mr. Pu will be released after June 4, the pattern of previous anniversary-related detentions.
In building a case against him, the authorities have rounded up a number of Mr. Pu’s friends and associates, among them Vivian Wu, an independent journalist, and Xin Jiang, a news assistant with the Japanese newspaper Nikkei. Friends say they are unclear why the authorities detained Ms. Xin, although some thought it might be related to an earlier interview she conducted with Mr. Pu.
On Tuesday, two weeks after her disappearance, Ms. Xin’s husband took to social media, posting a family photo and a frantic cry for help. “It’s a mess at home,” the husband, Wang Haichun, wrote. “Please come back. I can’t bear this alone.”
The anguish is shared by friends of Liu Wei, a young factory worker from southwest China who was detained on criminal charges on May 17 after returning home to Chongqing from a visit to Beijing. According to a friend, Huang Chengcheng, Mr. Liu’s apparent crime was posting online photos of himself in Tiananmen Square, including one in which he flashed a victory sign, a common pose among Chinese tourists that can also be seen as a sly act of subversion.
Gay rights advocates have also been feeling the heat. Over the past few weeks, the authorities have canceled a number of events in Beijing, including a film screening and a panel discussion to mark International Day Against Homophobia. Earlier this month, the police raided a hotel where a group of civil society advocates had gathered for a seminar focused on the obstacles facing gay and AIDS nonprofits.
Yu Fangqiang, one of the event organizers, said the police arrived at 1:30 a.m., confiscated his cellphone and then used it to text about 30 other would-be participants, telling them the event had been canceled. Mr. Yu and eight others were then bundled off for interrogations that, for several detainees, stretched into the following evening.
Sometimes the authorities’ fears of public unrest have led to confounding measures, like the postponement of a restaurant awards ceremony scheduled for Thursday night in the capital.
Other times their efforts were nothing if not creative.
Chen Yongmiao, a political commentator and rights activist in Beijing, said the police gave him the equivalent of $800 to leave town. “They just don’t want people from the opposition in the political center of Beijing,” Mr. Chen said by phone last week as he traveled through northwest China.
In past years, the noose would tighten in mid-April, coinciding with the anniversary of the death of Hu Yaobang, the reformist Communist Party secretary purged for his “bourgeois” liberal leanings in 1989. It was an outpouring of public mourning after his death on April 15 that coalesced into the demonstrations that swept the nation with demands for justice, democracy and an end to official corruption.
This year, however, many activists say restrictions kicked in months earlier. When they placed him under house arrest in late February, Mr. Hu, the AIDS activist, said the police told him this was an “especially sensitive” year and that they were taking no chances. “The authorities want to create an atmosphere of terror, something they’ve largely succeeded in doing,” he said by phone, listing a number of friends who had been compelled by the police to “go on holiday” and leave Beijing for May.
But Mr. Hu said he thought the campaign was ham-handed and ultimately ineffective. Although party leaders have expunged the episode from Chinese history books and the Internet, leaving a younger generation unfamiliar with the events of June 3-4, Mr. Hu estimated that a million or more people were on the streets of Beijing the night soldiers opened fire on unarmed civilians, killing hundreds, if not more.
“No matter how hard they try,” he said, “they cannot erase this experience from everyone’s memories.”
AS long as I live, I’ll never forget the rickshaw driver, tears streaming down his cheeks, rushing a gravely injured student to hospital — and away from the soldiers who had just gunned him down.
That rickshaw driver was a brave man, a better man than I, and he taught me an indelible lesson.
Millions of protesters filled the streets in hundreds of cities around China from mid-April through early June that year, demanding free speech, democracy and an end to corruption. I was living in China then as the Beijing bureau chief for The Times, and it was an unforgettable — and, initially, inspiring — tapestry of valor and yearning.
Protesters acknowledged that their lives were improving dramatically, but they said that it was not enough. They insisted that they wanted not just rice, but also rights.
To this day, it is the most polite protest movement I’ve ever covered. After shoving their way through police lines, student marchers would pause, turn around, and chant, “Thank you, police!” Some students were assigned to pick up any shoes lost in the commotion and return them to the students or police officers who had lost them.
The student protesters took over central Beijing for weeks. Then, on the night of June 3, the army invaded Beijing from several directions as if it were a foreign army, shooting at everything that moved. Miles from Tiananmen Square, the teenage brother of a friend was shot dead by soldiers as he simply bicycled to work.
The most heroic people on that terrible night and into the morning of June 4 were the rickshaw drivers, driving three-wheel bicycle carts used to haul goods around the city. With each pause in the shooting, these rickshaw drivers would pedal out toward the troops and pick up the bodies of the students who had been killed or injured.
The soldiers were unforgiving, shooting even at ambulances trying to pick up bodies. But those rickshaw men were undeterred.
Their bravery particularly resonated because I had heard so often that spring, from foreigners and Chinese officials alike, that China was unready for democracy, that its people weren’t sufficiently educated or sophisticated. And it’s true that democracy tends to find firmer root in educated, middle-class societies.
Yet I vividly remember that one rickshaw driver, a burly man in a T-shirt who perhaps had never graduated from high school. Yet what courage! I found myself holding my breath, wondering if he would be shot, as he drove out to pick up a body. He placed the young man on his cart and pedaled for his life back toward us. Tears were streaming down his cheeks.
He saw me, the foreigner, and swerved to drive slowly by me so that I could bear witness to what the government had done. It was a terrifying night, and I can’t remember just what his words were, but it was something to the effect that I should tell the world what was happening.
Sure, he couldn’t have offered a robust definition of democracy. But he was risking his life for it.
A quarter-century has passed. The bullet holes in the buildings along the Avenue of Eternal Peace have been patched, and history similarly sanitized. I was staggered when a Chinese university student looked puzzled when I mentioned the June 4 Massacre; it turned out that she had never heard of it.
That rickshaw driver may not have the vote, but his children may well attend university. The progress is unarguable. Yet human dignity demands not just rice, but also rights.
The great Chinese writer Lu Xun once wrote, about an earlier massacre: “Lies written in ink cannot disguise facts written in blood.”
As China prospers and builds an educated middle class, demands for participation will grow. I’ve covered democracy movements around the world, from Poland to South Korea, and I’m confident that someday, at Tiananmen Square, I’ll be able to pay my respects at a memorial to those men and women killed that night. I’m hoping the memorial will take the form of a statue of a rickshaw driver.
Trecho da entrevista concedida à Veja por José Miguel Vivanco, diretor da ONG Human Rights Watch, sobre o papel do Brasil em relação ao quadro gravíssimo de desrespeito aos princípios democráticos e de violação dos direitos humanos sendo cometidos atualmente pelo governo venezuelano contra manifestantes pacíficos.
Paulo Roberto de Almeida
O Brasil, por ser a maior economia da região, maior país e líder regional, poderia fazer algo além do que está fazendo?
Sem dúvida. A crise na Venezuela coloca em xeque o papel do Brasil como líder regional e global. É importante notar que estamos falando de graves violações de direitos humanos que estão sendo cometidas sistematicamente e com impunidade num país vizinho. Se o Brasil aspira assumir o papel de líder global, deveria adotar uma posição pública clara de reprovação aos abusos na Venezuela. Para começar, deveria liderar a Unasul para que insista que o presidente Maduro cesse as declarações que desqualificam seus opositores como fascistas ou golpistas. Prova disso é que membros das forças de segurança venezuelanas têm empregado as mesmas ofensas de cunho político ao castigar brutalmente os manifestantes.
Gostaria que o senhor fizesse um balanço da atuação do Brasil nesse caso. Brasília deveria mostrar um empenho maior para condenar a violência e os abusos contra os direitos humanos na Venezuela?
O silêncio do Brasil diante de fatos tão graves como os apontados em nosso trabalho, justificado pelo Itamaraty com argumentos históricos de não intervenção, defesa da soberania e preponderância da atuação de organismos internacionais, é de fato preocupante. Dada a inegável assimetria entre o Brasil e o restante dos membros da Unasul, parece que Brasília prefere manter silêncio e firmar posição frente à Venezuela por meio da Unasul. Devemos entender que o sucesso ou o fracasso da iniciativa dessa organização está, em grande medida, nas mãos do governo brasileiro.
A brutalidade promovida pelo Estado venezuelano chama a atenção, mas parece contar com uma “vista grossa” dos governos da região. O senhor concorda?
É evidente e lamentável que os Estados da região, salvo contadas exceções, apliquem dois pesos e duas medidas ao analisar a situação na Venezuela. É indispensável que se rompa essa dinâmica e que os governos entendam que o que se está em jogo aqui não são teorias sobre a democracia, nem teorias conspiratórias sobre possíveis golpes de Estado. O que se está em jogo é o livre exercício de direitos básicos da população venezuelana que se encontra protegida por obrigações jurídicas coletivas e valores universais que assumiram todos os governos democráticos.
Enviado por um colega de lista. Reproduzo suas palavras:
Quem não viu, perdeu um verdadeiro show.
Mas pode assistir agora. Vale muito a pena ver como se pode fazer Política na américa-latina. Um enorme tapa em nossas caras. O sentimento, ao ver essa senhora falar, é de constrangimento, vergonha. Vergonha do que temos em nosso Congresso e na nossa política.
p.s.: você nem vai se irritar com o nível baixíssimo dos entrevistadores....
Retomo. A Venezuela, hoje, não é apenas uma vergonha no plano da democracia e dos direitos humanos, ao se ter uma ditadura comunista a mando do Partido Comunista Cubano massacrando o seu próprio povo, mas ao se ter, também, a atitude pusilânime, covarde, conivente, da OEA (maioria dos seus membros), de TODA a Unasul, e de diversos governos latino-americanos, com pouquíssimas exceções (Panamá, por exemplo), complacente, coniventes, cúmplices do massacre perpetrado.
Vergonha também por não se poder fazer praticamente nada, sequer impulsionar autoridades para assumir uma outra atitude.
São vergonhas que não passam impunes.
Dois anos atrás era o caso do Paraguai, com um ativismo jamais visto na altiva, ativa e soberana. Dois anos depois, é a letargia ao cubo, a negação de todos os valores pelos quais deveriam ser guiados nossos atos.
Machado recibe apoyo de oposición brasileña y críticas de la base de Rousseff
Infolatam/Efe
Brasilia, 3 de abril de 2014
Las claves
La dirigente opositora pidió a Brasil que "no cierre los ojos" frente a la "represión que el pueblo venezolano" sufre "en las calles" y denunció la "ilegalidad" que supuso su destitución como diputada, refrendada esta semana por la Corte Suprema venezolana.
Grazziotin inquirió a Machado sobre su negativa a participar en conferencias de paz convocadas por Maduro y aseguró que el objetivo de una protesta "no puede ser nunca" derrocar a un Gobierno electo en las urnas.
La opositora venezolana María Corina Machadodenunció en el Senado de Brasil la “represión brutal” de un “régimen sin escrúpulos”, como calificó al Gobierno de su país, y obtuvo apoyo de la oposición brasileña, aunque escuchó críticas de la base afín a la presidenta Dilma Rousseff.
Machado fue recibida en la Comisión de Relaciones Exteriores del Senado brasileño, ante la cual justificó las protestas que hace más de dos meses comenzaron en Venezuela como la “respuesta de los sectores democráticos” frente a una “dictadura”.
“Cuando a una sociedad se le cierran las vías institucionales y se criminaliza a sus ciudadanos, los pueblos tienen dos opciones: o claudican o van a la calle pacíficamente a luchar por la libertad”, declaró.
La dirigente opositora pidió a Brasil que “no cierre los ojos” frente a la “represión que el pueblo venezolano” sufre “en las calles” y denunció la “ilegalidad” que supuso su destitución como diputada, refrendada esta semana por la Corte Suprema venezolana.
Machado fue despojada de su investidura parlamentaria debido a una supuesta violación de la Constitución de Venezuela en que habría incurrido al representar a Panamá ante la Organización de Estados Americanos (OEA) el pasado 20 de marzo.
Calificó esa decisión como una “prueba” de que el “régimen” del presidente venezolano, Nicolás Maduro, quiere “callar” su voz, pero aseguró que llegó a Brasil “más diputada que nunca”, pues ese cargo se lo dio “el pueblo y sólo el pueblo” puede quitárselo.
Según Machado, las protestas fueron desatadas por el “cansancio” de la “sociedad” frente a un Gobierno al que acusó de “corrupto”, “represor”, “autoritario” e “incapaz”
La líder opositora citó la crítica situación económica, la creciente inseguridad, la enorme escasez de productos básicos, la supuesta “injerencia” de Cuba en el Gobierno de Maduro, la falta de libertades y otro sinfín de razones para protestar.
Machado instó a los brasileños a “solidarizarse con el pueblo venezolano” y afirmó que en su país no hay un conflicto “ideológico” entre izquierdas y derechas.
Según la dirigente venezolana, el conflicto es entre “el irrespeto a los derechos humanos y las libertades, entre dictadura y democracia, entre justicia y atropellos, entre un régimen opresor y un pueblo que clama libertad”.
La oposición brasileña, encabezada por el senador Aecio Neves, posible candidato presidencial del Partido de la Social Democracia Brasileña (PSDB) en los comicios de octubre próximo, manifestó un pleno apoyo a las denuncias de la exdiputada.
Neves criticó “la omisión del Gobierno brasileño” en la crisis venezolana y aseguró que “la violencia” que sufren los opositores a Maduro “es contra todos los demócratas” latinoamericanos.
“La causa de Venezuela es nuestra causa”, apuntó Neves, quien garantizó que Machado en Brasil “es recibida como parlamentaria” y afirmó que “los demócratas brasileños estarán atentos, como hermanos de fe, contra la opresión de un régimen que demuestra poco aprecio por las libertades”.
La senadora comunista Vanessa Grazziotin fue la voz más aguda de la base parlamentaria que respalda a Rousseff y mostró carteles atribuidos al grupo opositor venezolano JAVU, que dicen “Venezuela necesita de ti. Mata a un chavista”.
Grazziotin inquirió a Machado sobre su negativa a participar en conferencias de paz convocadas por Maduro y aseguró que el objetivo de una protesta “no puede ser nunca” derrocar a un Gobierno electo en las urnas.
En ese sentido, Machado respondió que “no puede haber” diálogo si quienes protestan “pacíficamente” son víctimas de una “represión brutal” que ha causado “decenas” de muertos y miles de heridos, así como personas torturadas o encarceladas sin el debido proceso.
Sobre una posible mediación, la dirigente venezolana declaró que “si hay alguien en el mundo que pueda generar confianza es el Vaticano”, pero apuntó que “eso sólo una vez que se demuestre que hay voluntad” por parte del Gobierno de Maduro.
Machado no consideró entre posibles mediadores a la Unión de Naciones Suramericanas (Unasur), de que la dijo que “el pueblo de Venezuela tiene serias dudas” en relación a su “imparcialidad”.
Entre algunas condiciones “no negociables” de cara a un diálogo, Machado citó la “liberación de todos los presos políticos”, que “cese la represión contra las protestas pacíficas” y que se castigue a los responsables de torturas y asesinatos.
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Depoimento (parcial) na Comissão de Relações Exteriores do Senado Federal:
La opositora venezolana María Corina Machado, destituida recientemente de su cargo de diputada, pidió el miércoles en el Senado de Brasil una mayor implicación y apoyo de los "demócratas" de América Latina ante las protestas que ya han dejado 39 muertos en Venezuela.
"¿Cuántas más violaciones a los derechos humanos, cuántos más venezolanos asesinados, perseguidos, torturados, qué más tiene que pasar en Venezuela para que los demócratas del hemisferio escuchen nuestra voz?", cuestionó Machado en una audiencia en la comisión de Relaciones Exteriores del Senado.
Es "incomprensible que países que fueron tan activos en crisis políticas planteadas en Paraguay y Honduras, frente a lo ocurrido en Venezuela nos dan la espalda", dijo Machado en una alusión tácita a Brasil y otras naciones.