Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva revealed on Monday that since Pope Francis asked him to defend the status of bishops in Nicaragua, his Nicaraguan counterpart, Daniel Ortega, has not answered the phone.
“I spoke with the Pope and he asked me to speak with Ortega about a bishop who is imprisoned,” Lula said in an interview with foreign correspondents, regarding religious Rolando Alvarez, who is imprisoned for his opposition to the Nicaraguan government.
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“The specific thing is that Ortega didn’t answer the phone and didn’t want to talk to me,” he added. “So I never spoke to him again.”
Lula expressed his regret for what happened to “the man who made a revolution like the one Ortega made to defeat (Anastasio) Somoza” and said that today he does not know if that revolution was “because he wanted power or because he wanted to improve the lives of his people.”
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The Brazilian president said he supports “the rotation of power” in every country, because it is “the healthiest thing” for democracy.
According to Lula, “When it occurs to the leader that he is necessary or irreplaceable, then the spirit of the dictator begins to emerge.”
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