Faced with US deployment, Brazil, Colombia reject 'intervention'
by AFP Staff Writers
Manaus, Brazil Sept 9, 2025
The presidents of Brazil and Colombia spoke out against "foreign intervention and threats to our sovereignty" Tuesday amid a US military deployment off the coast of South America.
The US government recently sent warships with thousands of troops to the southern Caribbean and F-35 fighter jets to Puerto Rico in what it has labeled an anti-drug operation.
Last week, US forces blew up a suspected Venezuelan drug boat with 11 people aboard, and President Donald Trump threatened to shoot down Venezuelan jets if they endanger US forces.
Washington recently upped a bounty to $50 million for Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro's capture on drug charges, claiming he leads a narco-terrorist cartel.
Maduro, whose last two reelections were rejected as fraudulent by the United States and many other countries, denies the charges and any suggestion that Venezuela is a major drug hub.
"We do not need foreign interventions or threats to our sovereignty," Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva insisted Tuesday.
"We are perfectly capable of being the protagonists of our own solutions."
Lula was launching a multi-national anti-crime center in the Amazonian city of Manaus with Colombian counterpart Gustavo Petro.
The International Police Cooperation Center will oversee anti-crime operations by the security forces of nine countries with Amazonian territory, ravaged by criminals involved in deforestation, illegal mining and drug trafficking.
Petro, for his part, warned of a "possible invasion" of Venezuela, and said no one in South America should support it.
"One thing is resolving a political problem. Another is losing our dignity and sovereignty," said Petro.
The Colombian leader said criminal groups buy "police, judges, prosecutors, politicians, even presidents, not only in Latin America but also in the United States.
"These mafias have become the primary destroyer of the Amazon," he added.
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