For almost four years now, Argentine Matias Capeluto, 36, has been trying to make the return of Unasur a priority in South America. Previously isolated by right-wing governments in the region, he was already losing heart. Until Lula won the elections in Brazil and “gave new oxygen” to the agenda, he says.
For that reason, he saw the meeting of leaders of the 12 countries this week in Brasilia, the first in nine years, as a great victory, which will not be shaken by the presence of Venezuela or by controversial statements by the Brazilian president that the Caribbean dictatorship is a question of “narrative”.
Capeluto argues that Caracas should never have been isolated from the discussion tables. “If Unasur had not been closed, this whole situation in Venezuela would not have happened. It was the space where negotiations could still be carried out”, says the director of Casa Pátria Grande, linked to President Alberto Fernández’s office.
The institution, named after its creator, former president Néstor Kirchner (2003-2007), was conceived precisely to encourage integration in the region. It is there, in the historic building in downtown Buenos Aires, that more than 400 boxes and 20 terabytes of information lie dusty since the monumental headquarters of Unasur in Quito was abandoned in 2019.
On Tuesday, Capeluto was not even shaken by the withdrawal of Unasur from the final document of the meeting, after resistance from countries like Uruguay, Paraguay and Chile. “We are not in love with the name or the institution, but with the instruments. It can have another name, put it under another organism, it makes no difference, as long as it is done.”
What is your assessment of the meeting in Brasilia? It was very positive. First, it had been nine years since South American presidents had sat at a table, precisely because of the strategy of isolating Venezuela, and the presence was practically total. The second positive result is the formation of a working group that will have to decide what will be the political strategy for integration in the region.
There are countries that still want to make some changes, think a little more, but we are going to keep pushing Unasur together with Brazil. In any case, it is positive that everyone agrees on this need. The third positive result is to have an instance of dialogue with Venezuela again. Today we are much better than before: there is a return to dialogue to start solving problems.
Is Venezuela’s presence an obstacle to the negotiations? How do you see the statements made by Lula? Within the Argentine government there is no single vision of Venezuela, but everyone agrees that it is necessary to talk to them — some more, others less. Venezuela is by no means an obstacle to integration. A photo of Guillermo Lasso was seen at the meeting. [presidente do Equador, de direita] with [o ditador venezuelano Nicolás] Mature. They don’t agree, but they have to talk, because there are a lot of common problems between the two countries.
In relation to Lula, the phrase he used, about building a narrative, was very strong, but Lula also asked Maduro to allow international observers to participate in the election. We all want free elections in Venezuela, which, moreover, is entering a process of internal dialogue between its political forces, with external mediation, and has confirmed new elections next year. We hope it’s as soon as possible.
Unasur has a clause that requires member countries to be democratic. How does it apply to Venezuela? This clause was activated several times during the operation of Unasur: in the attempted police uprising in Ecuador in 2010 to try to overthrow Rafael Correa, in Bolivia in 2008 [contra Evo Morales] and in Paraguay in 2012, when there was a coup against Fernando Lugo [ele sofreu um impeachment]. If Unasur had not been closed, this whole situation in Venezuela would not have happened. Because it was the space where you could still negotiate. Faced with the technical closure of the group, Venezuela was isolated and what happened happened.
This clause has to be maintained in the new Unasur. But it is activated in cases of coup d’état, not in the situation in which Venezuela is today, where there is a government recognized by all South American countries. The issue there is more of human rights, and if Unasur were actually active today, one could easily think of a mission aimed at that. We had 26 electoral missions that worked very well. When Unasur ceased to exist, many elections entered a crisis process, such as [Jair] Bolsonaro in Brazil, who did not concede defeat for weeks.
There was an expectation that the meeting in Brasília would be a kind of reactivation of Unasur, but the mention of the group was vetoed in the final communiqué. Even so, do you think the agency has a future? The call was for a presidential retreat to build bridges again, not a Unasur conference. Unasur is perhaps in last place; first you need to rebuild a lot of things. There were presidents who didn’t talk to each other, who didn’t even know each other. We are not in love with the name Unasur or the institution, but with the instruments, with the possibility of having infrastructure and health councils again, like the 20 working groups that Unasur once had. For us, it can have another name, put it under another organism, it’s the same thing, as long as it’s done.
But we think that Unasur is the way to go and we are going to start demonstrating why to others who are not fully convinced. I hope we can convince [o presidente uruguaio Luis Alberto] Lacalle Pou, for example, that it is good for him and that it is necessary to de-ideologize integration. [O venezuelano Hugo] Chávez signed the Unasur treaty, but [o colombiano Álvaro] Uribe too. Cristina Kirchner participated, but also [o chileno Sebastián] Pinera. That is, if at some point this coexistence worked and it was possible to work, now it can also be.
And how do you intend to do this? With the concrete demonstration of the results that Unasur can give. For example: it had the South American Defense Council, where a new doctrine was built that understood that we are a peace zone, so we do not have to prepare our Armies to face neighboring countries as in the rest of the world, but think about defense of our natural resources. It is something that suits everyone. We also had the Health Government Institute, with a bank of 30 drugs that were purchased by the block and allowed savings of US$ 1 billion a year.
With these topics, I want to show you that ideology is not behind anything, they are concrete projects, which provide solutions for our peoples, for our economies. It is possible, for example, to free up the free movement of students between our countries, who today only think about studying in the US or Europe.
Uruguay argued that “enough of institutions”. What would another group do? We South Americans form an organism on average every three years. And then new bodies appear with similar tasks and we overlap functions, budgets, employees and it gives less and less results, we get stuck in bureaucracy. Indeed, we need to converge.
In the case of Unasur, Mercosur and ECLAC, there is no overlap. Mercosur is registered in the World Trade Organization, designed to promote a common market among the bloc’s countries. Unasur was born out of politics, not economics, and is recognized by the UN, that is, it is designed more for development decisions, culture. And CELAC functions as the political chancellery of Latin America and the Caribbean, vis-à-vis other blocs or powers such as the European Union, China, the USA. It should be the place to discuss a common position on the Ukrainian War, for example.
X-ray | Matias Capeluto, 36
He is executive director of Casa Pátria Grande, linked to the Presidency of Argentina and heir to the assets of Unasur (Union of South American Nations). With a degree in political science from the University of Buenos Aires and a degree in regional integration from the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences, he is also president of the political party Red for Buenos Aires.
