Lula: "My policy is simple. It is to include poor people into the budget"

The defense of democracy as a value, the construction of a country that combines economic development and poverty reduction with a sustainable perspective, and the search for a global forum that has peace as an essential value. These were some of the topics addressed by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva during an interview with journalist Christiane Amanpour, from CNN, in Washington, United States.

"Defending democracy is an obligation of all democrats in the world. I never imagined that an invasion of the Capitol could happen in the United States, just as I never imagined that in Brazil, after a democratic election, there could be an invasion of the Congress, the Supreme Court and the Presidential Palace. This means that you have a rabid extreme right loose in the world, which uses fake news as if it were an instrument of politics. And we need to destroy this narrative that they use against the democrats", Lula pointed out.

The president was questioned by Amanpour, one of the most respected journalists in the United States, about investments by richer countries around the climate issue and the protection of the Amazon. The Brazilian leader stated that this is a debate that needs to go beyond Brazil's borders.

"I think the discussion cannot just be about helping Brazil and the Amazon. We have several Amazonian countries that have large forests. In South America we have Colombia, we have Ecuador, we have Venezuela, we have Peru, we have Bolivia, which are part of the Amazon rainforest, besides the Guianas. At the same time, you have countries like Congo, you have countries like Indonesia, which have a lot to be preserved and everyone needs help", he pondered.

For him, it is possible to work together with other countries in a model of healthy exploitation of the wealth of the Amazon that benefits everyone, especially the inhabitants of the region.

"We need to transform the wealth of biodiversity that we have in the Amazon into a value so that the people who live there have the right to have access to the material goods that we like to have. It is possible for us to share the exploitation of the Amazon with all the science in the world. We want to share and invite people to take care of the Amazon with us".

He also stressed that this process necessarily includes the protection of indigenous peoples. "The indigenous issue is a humanist issue. We have 800,000 indigenous people in Brazil, spread across almost 360 ethnic groups, who we need to care for with respect. We need to give them the right to a decent life. To work, to eat, to produce. And that's what we have to guarantee. And that's what I'm going to guarantee".

PEACE — President Lula reinforced, when asked about the war between Russia and Ukraine, that his main objective is to lead a broad discussion with other countries in the search for a peace agreement. He even said, when asked by Amanpour, that this was the reason why he refused to send ammunition to Ukraine.

"If I order it, I joined the war. And I don't want to go to war. I want to end the war. What I think, in the case of Ukraine and Russia, is that you need someone to speak for peace. It is necessary to create interlocutors to try to talk to the parties. This is my thesis. That is, we need to find interlocutors who can sit down with President Putin and show the mistake he made by invading the territorial integrity of Ukraine and we have to show Ukraine that it is necessary to learn to talk more so that we can avoid this war. It is necessary to create a group of countries to negotiate peace", declared Lula.

Amanpour also questioned the president about the difficulties he will face over the next four years, with more than 33 million people facing serious food insecurity and a time that is not so favorable for the foreign market. Lula acknowledged that the conditions in which he received the country are different and more challenging than those he encountered in 2003, but that he is optimistic about the country's future.

"My policy is simple: it is to include poor people into the budget. Poor people have to participate in the economy. We have to have a very strong incentive policy for small and medium individual entrepreneurs. We have to help small and medium-sized companies, cooperatives a lot. We have to go back to making infrastructure policy, in the construction of popular housing, basic sanitation, in road and railroad works. That is, we already have the project in mind and, more importantly, we know how to do it. And you can be sure that in four years you will see Brazil much better than I received it", concluded the president.