The BRICS summit held in the Russian city of Kazan marked a substantial advance in the consolidation of the operational mechanisms that will allow us to increasingly abandon the Dollar in international transactions, reducing the dominance of the international economy, limiting US excessive power and the perverse effects of politics of sanctions used by the West as an illegitimate tool in market competition and global political influence.
The political triumph of the summit is objectively Russia’s work. The presence of 36 countries, of which 24 represented by their Heads of State, definitively buried the dreams of Washington and Brussels who wanted Moscow isolated on an international level. The presence of UN Secretary General Guterres was a strong slap in the face to the pressure coming from the various Western symposia – in which a few dozen countries participate, therefore not representative of the international community as a whole – so that Russia is ignored.
No country dared to criticize the presence of Guterres, whose presence gave the Russian President maximum diplomatic cover and the recognition of an increasingly important political influence. His presence made clear the world’s interest in the development of the movement.
The results obtained by the Russian presidency in all stages of the aggregation process and the absolute political protagonism of President Putin were sanctioned in two days of wide-ranging debates and decisions and summarized in a document which, although in some passages it may appear generic , shows how the BRICS intend to move towards an idea of global governance, well beyond an exclusively economic and financial direction.
The end of the summit, however, along with many positive aspects, also brought an unpleasant surprise, with the government of Brazil, a founding member of the BRICS, vetoing Venezuela’s entry into the group of members (not members). To this veto was added another, that of India against Turkey, presumably as a consequence of Ankara’s relations with Pakistan (incidentally, another country that has already applied to join the BRICS).
This attitude is not shared by Russia and China, which although they stick to the unanimous vote rule, certainly support Venezuela in the BRICS. Moscow, among other things, despite having had a tough confrontation (partly also military) with Turkey in the Syrian affair, favors the importance of good relations with Ankara, Europe’s next oil hub and a strategic country from a geopolitical point of view and military. Attitude that it maintains in all the forums where it is present (for example the SCO). As for China, the constant diplomatic effort that has favored the reopening of relations between Tehran and Riyadh is an example of how Beijing intends to demonstrate the centrality of diplomacy in relations between states and that the distances, however large they may be, must be reduced with patience and political clarity in the common interest.
There therefore seems to be a different approach on the part of Russia and China on the one hand and India and Brazil on the other, even if it is too early to see how long the closing positions will resist under the pressure of the other members. The reason for this difference lies partly in the different history of the respective foreign policies and partly also in the different awareness of the urgency of expanding the BRICS if they want to definitively transform themselves into a true alternative platform in every sense to Western unipolarity. Beijing and Moscow in fact have a strategic vision of the bloc that represents the global South and the East; a bloc that, by expanding, intends to compete until it overcomes US hegemony. And this is not necessarily the ambition of Delhi and Brasilia.
In the meantime, however, in the crossed vetoes an objective inconsistency is measured for an organism that asks for inclusion but practices exclusion. The decision on Türkiye could reflect elements of perplexity about Ankara’s dominant role in NATO and Erdogan’s propensity not to respect the alliance, but this too seems to be a mistake. The one about Venezuela, however, is meaningless no matter how you look at it.
There is a basic criterion that needs to be reworked: if entry was authorized only to countries that do not have and have never had disputes or alliances in opposition to the five founders, then the body’s ability to expand would be truly limited to a few others and the entire aggregation process aimed at changing the international balance of power would be affected. Therefore, the mechanism conceived at birth should necessarily be revised and improved, in line with the BRICS appeal to the entire Global South.
Lula, a sad epilogue
The veto that has aroused the greatest opposition is undoubtedly that of Brazil against Venezuela. Lula’s decision appears wrong and serious. It is so both in the overt political hostility towards Caracas and in the hidden ones, which see Brazil trying to establish itself as the leading country of the continent and the sole point of reference for the major players in international politics, both in the West and in the South and in the Global East.
Venezuela, like all ALBA countries, has every right, as well as the need, to become part of a multilateral organization that could be a decisive element in breaking the imperial siege on democracy and the country’s development Bolivarian. Brazil’s veto on Caracas’ entry into the BRICS is an endorsement of US policies and highlights a pernicious continuity with what the Bolsonaro government has done on the same issue.
Unfortunately, Lula’s political hostility towards Venezuela and the other ALBA-TCP countries is reiterated, as it has been expressed on several occasions over the last 20 years, when Brasilia significantly opposed the strengthening of the financial structure and Latin American military created by Chávez.
It is clear that there is no longer any trace of the Lula who gave the final blow to the ALCA, just as he contributed decisively to the birth of the São Paulo Forum and of CELAC itself. Today’s Lula seems much more concerned with supporting Washington in its policies to contain ALBA and also with his next and umpteenth candidacy for the presidency of Brazil.
From Brasilia there is substantial opposition to the development of the political role of Venezuela in particular and of ALBA-PTC in general. This is probably a hegemonic idea of the development of the subcontinent based on the BAC axis (Brazil, Argentina and Chile) as the foundation of the political and economic centrality of Latin America.
But it is an axis, that of the Southern Cone, which has always contemplated the pre-eminence of the relationship with the United States and the European Union, which towards Venezuela ask for a policy of non-recognition of its institutional status and push in the direction of its insulation. A request which, unfortunately, finds ready ears in some Latin American capitals which are too attentive to obedience towards the North and not enough to rebellion from the South.
And so Lula’s Brazil objectively joins the sect of supposed progressives such as Fernández, Boric, Arévalo and Lenin Moreno. By associating with ultra-right and faux-left Latin American governments, it adds to the political persecution of the continent’s revolutionary governments. Above all, from the point of view of political ethics, it marks a shameful page towards those who, during his imprisonment and after the challenges to the vote that brought him back to Planalto, took his side without hesitation despite having no proof that confirmed the truthfulness of the theses in defense of Lula, both in the trial and in the vote.
This gesture puts an end to any possible closeness with a president who, although his current mandate contradicts in words and options all his electoral promises, had until now enjoyed tolerance and understanding. Those who underlined the incompatibility between the announced ideals of Latin American liberation and emancipation and the policies of subjugation to the Monroist empire to which Brasilia was linked, evidently with more convenience than discomfort, were right.
Lula’s attitude confirms what has already been seen in recent years, namely the tendency to go from opponent of US interference in Latin America to its faithful interpreter. In this way, a decades-long story ends, every bond of solidarity with it is broken and the common battles of the Latin American left are placed in the archives of memory. Ideals and battles today sacrificed on the altar of a hegemonic plan shared with the North and of a personal ego out of time and certainly worthy of a better cause.
Fabrizio Casari
