|
The US State Department has already received the agrément from the Brazilian government with the name of the new Brazilian ambassador in Washington. He is Antônio Patriota, the Foreign Ministry's (Itamaraty) general undersecretary for political affairs.
Patriota, 52, a close friend and aide to Foreign Minister Celso Amorim replaces Roberto Abdenur, 64, who was apparently taken by surprise by the announcement. And Abdenur hasn't been the only one surprised. The whole Brazilian diplomatic establishment expected a more seasoned professional for a post, which has been traditionally occupied by veteran career diplomats. Abdenur, for example, is one of Brazil's most experienced diplomats. The change should occur only after President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's inauguration on January 1st. While most of the current ministers still don't know if they will be kept in Lula's second mandate, Amorim has already been assured that his place is secure. He is wasting no time and firing the current ambassador to Washington was his first major act. Patriota's ties with the foreign minister go back to the 1990s at the time when Amorim was the chief of the Brazilian UN Mission and the diplomat was the head of that mission's political sector. The new ambassador to the US is considered a bright rising star who has ended first in his Rio Branco Institute (the state-owned school that trains diplomats in Brazil) class. From there, he went with Amorim to Geneva, where he would acquire vast experience on multilateral economic deals, an important skill in a moment when Lula wishes to increase bilateral economic relations between Washington and Brasília. Even though the FTAA (Free Trade Area of the Americas) seems dead Brazil is engaged in two important negotiations with the US right now: the Doha Round, where Lula wants to see Americans cutting their agricultural subsidies and the GSP, the Generalized System of Preferences, a list of preferential partners from which Brazil doesn't want to be excluded. Patriota's good relations with Nicholas Burns, the number two in the US State Department, and the rapport he established with John Danilovich, when the American was Washington's ambassador in Brazil have also contributed to him being chosen to the prestigious new post. In response to rumors that the chancellor was favoring a friend, Amorim himself told reporters in Brasília: "The removal was a routine change and resulted from the end of the ambassador's term to stay overseas. It wasn't a political but an administrative action." The explanation didn't convince however. Analysts in Brasília say that Abdenur was on the cut list since the beginning of the year when he opposed Amorim criticizing his decision to recognize China as a market economy, arguing that is impossible for Brazil to have a strategic partnership with Beijing. Abdenur was sacked just two days after Lula's second-round victory for a second term in office. He might have been expecting the news, but it still was a surprise when the ambassador called his staff to tell them about the dismissal. In an emotional meeting he told his subordinates that he would move back to Rio, his hometown, apparently ending his diplomatic career. His unceremonious dismissal caused malaise among the diplomatic community. But this is not news at the Lula's administration. The president is known to have fired his Education Minister, Cristovam Buarque, in a phone call to Portugal while Buarque discussed government matters in that country.
 |
Subscribe to this comment's feed
Brazil received a huge boost in its international image with its selection as the host of the 2016 Olympics, but it was really just the cherry on top of the overall recognition of the country's ascension to the ranks of one of the world's most important countries. Now, as it finally takes its place on the world scene, there has been a great deal of concern about what kind of image Brazil hopes to project, now that the world is really paying attention. 
The only good thing to say about the visit to Brazil of Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, on Monday November 23, is that it was mercifully short and lasted less than 24 hours. Ahmadinejad had his picture taken being hugged by president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva who gave him a warm welcome and said Iran had every right to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. 
The small, coastal town of Condé is located just a twenty minute's drive from João Pessoa, the capital of Paraíba. The Northeast of Brazil has historically been a place of encounter and mixing between peoples. For millenia groups of indigenous people fished, farmed, migrated and sometimes fought along this large, fertile area. 
The Brazilian diplo-MÁ-cia (bad diplomacy) carries on its accelerated course towards the non-acknowledgment of human rights, although sometimes it takes pleasure in saying that it does precisely the opposite. The visit of Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is another example of a diplomatic omission that verges on hypocrisy. 
On July 4, 2006, representatives of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay met in Caracas to sign the protocol for the entrance of Venezuela into the Southern Common Market (Mercosur). After two and a half years, the protocol was approved by the legislative bodies of Argentina and Uruguay, and as of now it may be only days away from being ratified by the continent's economic megalith, Brazil. 
Some sectors of the fight against AIDS have suggested that Thabo Mbeki, the former president of South Africa, committed genocide through his absence from the fight against the illness in his country throughout his two terms. 
One hundred and eleven years after Brazil abolished slavery, the number of workers deprived of their freedom is still huge. They raise cattle, produce charcoal, sugar cane or timber. Some of them, most undocumented Bolivians, work in basements of small apparel factories in São Paulo and other metropolis. 
On November 7, 2009 a few friends and I had an opportunity to take a look inside a Brazilian jail outside the city of Rio de Janeiro. We were able to take some amateur footage of our experience on video (see link below). It's no surprise, of course, that the typical Brazilian jail lacks some of the functionality of those in North America or Europe, but our experience that day was quite shocking. 
Depletion of the Amazon Rainforest is not a new concern facing environmentalists, biologists, ecologists, and a growing number of the Amazonian indigenous peoples. For decades they have feared for the fate of the world's most biologically diverse and species-rich hothouse. 
Geisy Arruda made history this week in Brazil, but for all the wrong reasons. What began as a poorly planned fashion statement has become a worldwide tale. Geisy decided to wear a pink mini-dress to her private college in São Paulo state, and after that, all hell broke loose.