MEDIA REACTION: WESTERN HEMISPHERE: SOUTH AMERICA-AFRICA

UNCLAS SAO PAULO 001234

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

STATE INR/R/MR; IIP/R/MR; WHA/PD

DEPT PASS USTR

USDOC 4322/MAC/OLAC/JAFEE

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: KMDR OPRC OIIP ETRD BR
SUBJECT: MEDIA REACTION: WESTERN HEMISPHERE: SOUTH AMERICA-AFRICA
SUMMIT, BRAZIL'S FOREIGN POLICY, DARFUR; VENEZUELA, ECUADOR, MANTA;
SAO PAULO


1. "In Bad Company"

Liberal, largest circulation daily Folha de S. Paulo editorialized
(12/3): "Third world leaning is an aspect that the Lula
administration's foreign policy explores ad nauseam. It is part of
the rational with which the administration feeds ideological groups
as a way to symbolically offset the conservative agenda it has
adopted in other areas. Such a strategy has frequently led Brazil to
embrace anachronistic positions that are inadequate and sometimes
unjustifiable to the national interest. Brasilia has just given its
support to the planet's worst current genocide: the Darfur massacre,
which has already killed more than 200,000 people and made 2.5
million refugees in Sudan. On Tuesday, at the UN Human Rights
Council, Brazil's Foreign Ministry abstained from voting a
resolution requesting from Sudan the trial of those responsible for
the massacre.... Sudanese diplomats could not disguise their
satisfaction resulting from the Brazilian decision.... Brazil
abandoned the company of nations like Canada, Finland, the
Netherlands and Switzerland - which condemned Sudan - to join some
of the world's worst dictatorships, whose vote favored Khartoum -
Saudi Arabia, Algeria, China, Cuba, Pakistan, Russia and Zambia....
The spurious alliance between dictatorships and nations without
moral scope makes Israel the only nation that is always condemned by
the Council. When Brazilian diplomacy sacrifices moral principles in
favor of pragmatism in an as serious a matter as Darfur, it places
Brazil in the uncomfortable position of a nation that is silent
before genocide."


2. "Childish Disease Of [Brazilian] Diplomacy"

The lead editorial in center-right O Estado de S. Paulo (12/2)
remarked: "The lack of meaning and substance of the meetings
President Lula has attended reduces the goal of exposition of a
Brazilian leader in foreign media to a mere photo opportunity.... It
would be better for him to stay at home working on how to unblock
the economy instead of attending the event - actually the non-event
- he participated in Abuja, Nigeria. First, because the Africa-South
America Summit confirmed its expected weakness. Representatives of
66 nations attended the summit, but only 25 of them were heads of
state.... Such an obsession for great meetings is a kind of childish
disease of [the Brazilian] diplomacy.... It is an extremely poor
substitution for a robust foreign policy. Such an attitude lacks
strategic endurance because it does not follow the world's
realities.... [The GOB] intends to exempt 50 poor nations, 34 of
which African, from import taxes. It is a humanitarian gesture. But
in view of an issue that has revolted the civilized world - the
Darfur massacre - Brazil has been seen to be less humanitarian by
absenting itself from the UN when demanding Khartoum's Muslim
government end the killings and the punishment of officials
involved. Brazil's decision was celebrated by Sudan's delegates as a
'reflex of the Lula administration's policy in regards to Africa.'
The phrase could be an epitaph."


3. "Re-Re-Election"

Political columnist Eliane Cantanhede commented in liberal, largest
circulation daily Folha de S. Paulo (12/3): Three days before his
re-election, President Hugo Chvez said he was considering changing
the Constitution to end the limits for reelection so the president
could be reelected as many times as he wished. It's the right to
'indefinite reelection,' as Chvez clearly said in an interview
during which he spoke for more than three hours like Fidel Castro,
his greatest living idol.... Chvez learned from Fidel and has
taught his followers Evo Morales, in Bolivia, and Rafael Correa, in
Ecuador. All of them say they are 'leftists' and use oil and gas as
political force and economic threat. Chvez continues to sell to the
U.S. regardless of his rhetoric and bellicose campaign.... The
challenge of Chvez's followers is, like Chvez, to confine the
opposition into limits that permit them to act, shout, change the
Constitution and win elections. Morales is already facing strong
domestic problems. The same will happen with Correa. Chvez and
Correa will visit Brazil this week and then will meet Lula and
Morales in Bolivia. The three need Brazil's support and Lula's
endorsement. They are the 'revolutionaries' who set fire. Lula is
the reformer who extinguishes the fire."


4. "The Ecuadorian Cost Of Bush's Domination"


Columnist Elio Gaspari opined in liberal, largest national
circulation daily Folha de S. Paulo (12/3): "A major problem has
emerged for the Bush administration's imperial diplomacy. Rafael


Correa's election in Ecuador has confronted the gun diplomacy that
the US is trying to impose on South America. Correa announced that
he will send back home the 400 US military currently in the Manta
air and naval base, where the US built one of the continent's best
landing strips. The Manta Base was yielded for ten years in 1999 to
permit the surveillance of coca cultivation in Colombia and the
monitoring of international drug trafficking in that area of the
Pacific. The domination emerged in the following developments. The
Americans transformed what would be cooperation against drug
trafficking into a domestic police operation. Ships of the US Coast
Guard and Navy began to patrol Ecuadorian territorial waters. They
seized dozens of boats, detained thousands of citizens and sank at
least eight boats.... President Rafael Correa wants the Americans to
pack and leave in 2009. The initial contract had a justification.
Its degradation, however, recommends ending the experience. It will
be a good fight, because if South America does not wake up, the next
Guantanamo Base will be in the neighborhood."
McMullen