Latin American countries must unite and pursue independent policies instead of trading their sovereignty for empty promises of US aid, former Brazilian president Lula da Silva told RT in an exclusive interview from jail.

Luiz Inácio "Lula" da Silva, who was Brazil’s leader from 2003 to 2010, is now serving a 12-year prison term on charges of corruption and money laundering. He vigorously denies the accusations, saying that his sentencing was politically motivated. In late September, the 73-year-old rejected the offer of semi-open prison conditions and insisted that he would only leave his cell after being fully acquitted.

“Every president, who won an election in Latin America, is expecting help from the US now. It’s just unprecedented,” Lula said in the extensive interview.

If the US were really helping Mexico [like they say] it would’ve been Canada, not Mexico. The only assistance that the Americans are providing for Mexico is building the wall, which would prevent poor Mexicans and Latin Americans from making it to the US. The rich ones just fly above this wall on their planes anyway.

The US doesn’t care about other nations and “help themselves, in the first place,” the leftist icon pointed out. “The Americans already made a custom of occupying every country that proclaims its own sovereign interests.”

Lula’s political nemesis and Brazil’s current president, Jair Bolsonaro, “keeps licking the American boots,” he said. To Lula, this means he has “no respect for himself and his country.”

Bolsonaro speaks of Brazilian sovereignty, but at the same time sends his son [Eduardo Bolsonaro] to the US as an ambassador to give the Amazon to the Americans for further exploitation. That’s definitely wrong.

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Just a few weeks ago, the US and Brazil agreed to promote the private-sector development in the Amazon and established a special biodiversity conservation fund for this purpose. They claimed that opening the region for business was the only way to preserve the rainforests, which were recently hit by massive fires – but have faced man-made deforestation for years.



Lula believes that “Brazil shouldn’t depend on the US. Brazil should only count on its own intellectual resources: its own scientists, universities and hardworking people.”

Our internal market has 210 million consumers and the market of Latin America is 450 million. If we find common ground and establish closer ties, we’ll be able to form a very powerful political bloc on the international level. The governments should understand that the only way forward for South and Latin America is having sovereignty in developing its own policies.

The former president of Brazil also blasted Washington for pushing for regime change in another Latin American nation, Venezuela.

“I object to any attempts of manipulating a sovereign state… when fake candidates like Guaido are being appointed,” Lula said, referring to opposition leader Juan Guaido, who proclaimed himself an “interim president” with the full backing and support from the US, to challenge the rule of Venezuela’s democratically elected president, Nicolas Maduro.

“The world shouldn’t be a hostage to US policies; to the madness of Donald Trump, who thinks he can intervene in any country; kill any president,” Lula added.

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