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Brazil could act as a power broker in negotiating the exit of Venezuela’s leader Nicolás Maduro by establishing back-channel talks with officials in the regime, suggested Hamilton Mourão, the retired general who is Brazil’s vice-president.
“We do not refrain from seeking a channel of dialogue with Maduro, so someone tells him: ‘my friend, time has come’. But we do not have these channels open yet,” General Mourão, one of the most powerful figures in Jair Bolsonaro’s cabinet in Brasília, particularly on foreign policy, told the Financial Times. Juan Guaidó, the 35-year-old head of Venezuela’s Congress, declared himself interim leader of the crisis-struck country last month with the backing of the US, Brazil and dozens of other nations.
He was recently in Brasília drumming up further support. “Brazil’s policy when it comes to Venezuela is very clear: Brazil does not recognise the legitimacy of the Maduro government, it recognises Guaidó” as the country’s legitimate president, Gen Mourão said.
Gen Mourão said his government would be willing to start talks with Venezuela’s top brass in a bid to help Mr Guaidó’s cause, curb the influx of Venezuelan migrants crossing into Brazil and avoid further instability on its northern border.
“The political pressure is there,” he said. But he warned there is not much Brazil can do in terms of “economic pressure”, as Venezuelan officials who committed crimes “don’t have their assets here”.
Mr Maduro is being kept in place by the continued support of parts of the Venezuelan military with the alleged involvement of Cuban intelligence and the protection in the streets of armed militias, he said. Gen Mourão knows Venezuela’s military well following a two-year stint as Brazil’s military attaché to Caracas during an attempted coup against the late Hugo Chávez in 2002.
“I saw the start of this all,” he said in a November interview. The solution, he believes, lies with the divided armed forces. “They must be able to neutralise the Cubans, neutralise the militias, and by doing that, put Maduro in a position to tell him: ‘look, Maduro, it’s your time to leave the country’, and then call in Guaidó to start the process” of transition, he said. “I think the military is slowly trying to get things right. My view is that they lack operational capacity, and even the right planning to do so at the moment.”