‘Brazil is back,’ Lula tells Latin American leaders at CELAC summit

We are “back in the region and ready to work side-by-side with you,” declares Brazilian leader as he dominates meeting of regional leaders

Br azilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva declared this week that his country is “back in the region” after joining more than a dozen other Latin American leaders at a highprofile summit in Buenos Aires.

Less than a month after his inauguration, Lula arrived in the Argentine capital looking to rebuild bridges after his far-right predecessor Jair Bolsonaro previously pulled out of the grouping.

“Brazil is back in the region and ready to work sideby-side with you with a very strong feeling of solidarity and closeness,” said the 77-year-old leader during the seventh Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) summit, which brings together 33 nations.

Lula, who previously served as Brazil’s president from 2003-2010, was one of the founders of CELAC during the first “pink wave” of leftward political shifts on the continent over a decade ago.

But predecessor Bolsonaro pulled Brazil out of the group over what he perceived as its support for undemocratic governments in Nicaragua, Venezuela and Cuba.

‘MULTIPLE CRISES’

Lula spoke Tuesday about the “multiple crises” affecting the world – from the pandemic to climate change, geopolitical tensions, food insecurities and threats to democracy.

“All this happens in the midst of an unacceptable rise in inequality, poverty and hunger,” said Lula, the only leader to publicise his speech at the summit.

Democracy and its threats – especially from the far right – were a central theme of the summit.

“We cannot allow the recalcitrant and fascist far right to put our institutions and our people in peril,” said President Alberto Fernández, the host of the forum, in his opening remarks.

The Peronist leader drew criticism, however, after he made no mention of communist Cuba or the accusations of political oppression made against radical leftist regimes in Venezuela, Nicaragua and Bolivia. With Cuban President Miguel Díaz-canel in attendance, Fernandez called for an end to the Us-led blockade of Cuba and Venezuela.

‘LATIN AMERICA BANKRUPT’

President Fernández and Foreign Minister Santiago Cafiero said this week that there is a “new climate in Latin America,” with the region ushering in a fresh wave of left or centre-left governments since 2018 – including Mexico, Argentina, Honduras, Chile, Colombia and Brazil.

A forum for consultation and cooperation, CELAC has no power to enforce any agreements between its members. And while Fer- nández stressed the need to “strengthen the institutions in our region,” CELAC is struggling to unite members over successive regional crises, such as the ongoing political unrest Peru. “Latin America is bankrupt from the institutional point of view,” Ignacio Bartesaghi, an international relations expert at the Catholic University of Uruguay, told AFP. “There is not even a certain basic consensus in Latin America, as on the difference between a democracy and a dictatorship,” he stressed. “There are [at CELAC] presidents who do not even recognise each other,” he noted, alluding to situations such as Paraguay’s Mario Abdo Benítez, whose country broke diplomatic relations with Nicolás Maduro’s Venezuela in 2019.

‘ABSENCE OF DIALOGUE’

Maduro called off his own trip to the gathering at the last minute, citing “a risk of aggression” from “the neofascist right,” a possible reference to some Argentine opposition politicians calling for him to be arrested on arrival.

Other significant absentees in Buenos Aires include Mexico’s left-wing President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, leader of the second-largest economy in Latin America and host in 2021 of the last CELAC summit. CELAC however remains the partner of choice for China and the European Union to negotiate when cooperating with the region.

But the last joint-eu summit was in 2015, highlighting the lack of regional consensus, says Bernabe Malacalza, researcher at Argentina’s CONICET national scientific research centre.

In this sense, the return of Lula could give a boost to certain sub-regional issues, such as the free-trade agreement between the EU and the Mercosur group which comprises Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay.

The deal was finalised in 2019 but never ratified, due in particular to concerns about Bolsonaro’s environmental policy. Lula has indicated a willingness to resume contacts.