Argentine President Javier Milei criticized Venezuelan socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro’s decision to “bring forward” Christmas to cover up the regime’s ongoing brutal crackdown on dissidents during a Thursday speech at the latest gathering of the conservative Madrid Forum in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Milei also criticized Brazil and its radical-leftist president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, over the nation’s decision to ban the social media platform X (formerly Twitter).
The Madrid Forum is a conservative, anti-communist, and anti-leftist group created in 2020 by the Disenso Foundation, a think tank of the Spanish populist party Vox. The group is holding its third regional encounter in Buenos Aires, Argentina, from September 5-6, 2024.
According to its organizers, the meeting’s main objectives are to express support to the Venezuelan people and denounce the “lukewarm response of the international community” amidst Maduro’s ongoing attempts to fraudulently stay in power after the July 28 sham presidential election, as well as to “recover the spaces of freedom taken away by the criminal left and the non-left in the Western world.”
The event will also cover other topics — such as the “importance of consolidating conservative networks between Europe, the United States, and Latin America, the state of the cultural war against the left, and the commitment to Israel’s right to exist and defend itself.”
Milei participated in the two-day conservative event on Thursday, delivering a speech in which he questioned the “state party,” which he described as political structures that reject freedom “because their very survival depends on it.”
The Argentine president also issued a fierce warning against socialism, which he described as a “bottomless abyss.” Milei recounted how Argentina was once a world power but collapsed after it embraced socialist ideas.
“We Argentines are prophets of an apocalyptic future that we are already living but that the rest of the West still has ahead of us,” Milei said. “In the leading countries of the free world, the ideas that plunged Argentina into misery are becoming more and more popular.”
After asserting that the only solution is “freedom and not bringing in the state to ruin our lives,” Milei described Europe, Great Britain, and France as “historic leaders of the free world, today torn apart by recurring cultural and social conflicts, where the response of governments is oppression and censorship.”
Milei continued by criticizing the Venezuelan socialist regime and its latest actions:
Let us look at the murderous dictatorship of the criminal Maduro in Venezuela, which — at this point — is, directly, a human cemetery, in which they bring forward Christmas to October to cover up that they committed the highest electoral fraud in history and where — now — they are putting in prison the one who won the elections while the free world stands idly by.
We must understand — once and for all — that for evil to triumph, it is enough for the righteous to do nothing, with those lukewarm, politically correct positions, or the imbeciles of right-thinking centrism, the only thing they achieve is that the filthy leftism takes us ahead. What is more, there are still degenerates in Argentina who are nostalgic for the Bolivarian revolution.
Milei followed his condemnation of the Venezuelan socialists by criticizing Brazil over its decision to ban X after the platform’s owner, Elon Musk, refused to comply with a list of censorship orders issued by Brazilian Supreme Federal Tribunal (STF) Minister Alexandre de Moraes, a self-styled “anti-fake news” crusader.
Milei said:
And, finally, let’s look at Brazil, where the justice — addicted to the petista [ruling Worker’s Party] power — is, right now, banning X, which is nothing else than the public arena where Brazilian and world citizens can express their voice and express their dissidence. That is, they want to ban the space where citizens freely exchange their ideas.
“Who but a tyrant, who is wrong in everything, can endorse such an act of oppression?” he continued, referring to Lula, who defended the Brazilian court’s decision to ban X in remarks given to CNN.
Maduro responded to Milei in remarks given at an official event held on Thursday evening.
“Then comes — forgive me for this commentary — the imbecile Milei in Argentina protesting that Maduro brought forward Christmas,” Maduro said. “What does Milei have to do with Venezuela and Christmas? He is making Argentina’s life and Christmas bitter, and he feels bitter because the people of Venezuela start the party on October 1, the day Christmas starts.”
Lula has not publicly referred to Milei’s recent comments at press time. The Brazilian president maintains an impasse with Milei after the Argentine president repeatedly described him as an “angry communist” and “corrupt” in the past.
Lula has repeatedly demanded that Milei apologize to him “and Brazil’s citizens” for statements he issued in the past acknowledging Lula’s several criminal convictions on charges of corruption. Lula started demanding an apology in November 2023, shortly after Milei was elected.
In June, Milei responded to Lula and his demands for an apology by, once again, calling him “corrupt” and a “communist” and stating that he would not issue an apology to the Brazilian people, asking, “Since when do you have to apologize for telling the truth?”
