BRAZIL: (KIND OF) MAKING THE WORLD SAFE FOR

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 BRASILIA 000057 SIPDIS SIPDIS FOR WHA, WHA/BSC, S/P, DRL E.O. 12958: DECL: 01/07/2018 TAGS: KDEM PREL EAID BR SUBJECT: BRAZIL: (KIND OF) MAKING THE WORLD SAFE FOR DEMOCRACY REF: STATE 169367 Classified By: DEPUTY CHIEF OF MISSION PHIL CHICOLA FOR REASONS 1.4 B A ND D ¶1. (C) Summary: For the world's fourth largest democracy, the promotion of democracy abroad remains an important, if secondary goal of Brazil's foreign policy, but its focus and execution has been only loosely defined under the Lula government, limiting potential efforts to forge bilateral initiatives with Brazil to non-controversial projects targeted at countries not deemed strategic by either Brasilia or Washington. While Lula and his senior officials liberally pepper their speeches with references to the importance of promoting democratic norms and institutions, practice reveals a mixed picture--one where the current set of senior policymaker's leftist ideological leanings and skepticism of U.S. intentions, together with Brazil's history and self-image as a non-interventionist country, exercise a strong influence and impede explicit democracy-promotion initiatives. Although the GoB's rhetoric and some of its initiatives do leave the door open to spur further engagement on Brazil's part, the possibilities for robust policies under the Lula government will remain low as long as "non-interventionist, but non-indifferent" defines the GoB's views on promoting democracy abroad. End summary. -------------- Brazil's View of Democracy is Malleable... -------------- ¶2. (C) Conversations with foreign policy analysts, members of the Brazilian Congress, and working level contacts at Ministry of Foreign Relations (Itamaraty) Human Rights Division, which handles democracy promotion, reveal an often repeated theme that, before the return of democratic rule in Brazil almost 20 years ago, the GOB had no articulated policy of international democracy promotion. Even after the return of democracy, Brazilian governments have placed a heavier emphasis, at the international level, on human rights, development, and trade issues. The situation changed with the advent of democracy in both Argentina and Brazil in the 1980s and with the creation of Mercosul. Together, these developments became the most important factors in reducing the historic rivalry between the two neighbors. ¶3. (C) Professor Maria Helena de Castro Santos, who studies democratic consolidation in the Americas at the International Relations Department of the University of Brasilia, told poloff that the importance of democracy in changing the dynamic between Brazil and Argentina was not translated within Itamaraty into a specific theoretical framework on democracy promotion. Instead, as seen through numerous statements made by President Lula and Foreign Minister Celso Amorim, almost any foreign policy initiative can be placed into the democracy promotion box. For example, Lula and Amorim have claimed infrastructure projects in Latin America, development initiatives in Africa, promotion of human rights at the United Nations, production and export of biofuels, strengthening the multilateral system and reforming of the United Nations Security Council, creation of the Mercosul parliament, opening agricultural markets in developed countries, support for global efforts to fight hunger and disease, and its role in international peacekeeping missions are all bulwarks of its democracy promotion policy. These can all be classified as such because, in their own words, democracy can only be achieved through an educated, healthy, hunger-free populace that enjoys peace. ¶4. (C) On the other hand, a mantra heard often in meetings with Itamaraty officials, and repeated in public speeches by senior Brazilian officials is the view that democracy is a means to other ends: namely, social justice, peace, and development. That formulation allows Brazil to defend what Foreign Relations and National Defense Committee member Federal Deputy Raul Jungmann (PPS, Socialist People's Party, opposition; of Pernambuco) described to poloff as "democraduras," such as Venezuela--countries that Brazilian officials believe are achieving those things even if through BRASILIA 00000057 002 OF 004 illiberal means. -------------- -------------- ...But Cautious and Multilateralist Above All Else -------------- -------------- ¶5. (C) Officials at Itamaraty often offer grudging support for democracy-promotion initiatives not-funneled through well-established international institutions. For example, Carlos Eduardo da Cunha Oliveira of Itamaraty's Human Rights Division repeated an often-heard Itamaraty line when he told poloff that Brazil prefers to work through existing international institutions and pour its energies into strengthening organizations that already exist, rather than engage in new ones such as Community of Democracies or the Partnership for Democratic Governance. Although Brazil decided to participate in both of these organizations, some at Itamaraty, including Oliveira, remain skeptical about their legitimacy and chances for long-term success, as they are seen as exclusionary organizations that are not founded on the premise of universalism. As an example, despite Brazil's involvement in the East Timor peacekeeping mission and the assistance it has given through Itamaraty's development arm, the Brazilian Cooperation Agency (ABC), Brazil was reluctant to engage in the East Timorese request for democracy capacity building as channeled through the Community of Democracies. In a conversation with poloff, Christiane Almeida, a foreign policy advisor in the Brazilian Chamber of Deputies, characterized Brazil's role in East Timor as "typically timid" and coming "just late enough to avoid facing hard choices." During the November, 2007 Community of Democracies ministerial meeting in Bamako, Mali, contacts at the Human Rights Division told poloffs proudly that the Brazilian delegation worked to soften any language that was critical of democratic norms in particular countries. One of the few exceptions to Brazil's multilateralist, hands-off approach has been the trilateral parliamentary capacity building initiative Brazil agreed to participate in with the United States in Guinea-Bissau signed through a Memorandum of Understanding in March 2007. Discreet, uncontroversial, requested by the government, and in a Lusophone country, it offered Brazil a project with little potential downside that also put it, at least in theory, on an equal footing with the US as a donor. -------------- -------------- From Views to Policy: Speak Softly and Carry a Carrot -------------- -------------- ¶7. (C) One of the most salient aspects of Brazil's democracy promotion activities under the Lula government is their focus on initiatives that can be funneled through diverse organizations that highlight what Professor Alcides Costa Vaz, Deputy Director of the International Relations Department of the University of Brasilia described to poloff as Brazil's distinct and independent global reach. President Lula, Foreign Minister Celso Amorim, and presidential foreign affairs advisor Marco Aurelio Garcia have all characterized Brazil's approach to such activities as falling somewhere between "non-intervention" and "non-indifference". Many of these initiatives are performed outside of region-specific frameworks, and are performed in conjunction with a diverse set of partners such as the Community of Portuguese Speaking Countries (CPLP) or through the IBSA (India-Brazil-South Africa) fund. ¶8. (U) Most of the initiatives, proudly cited by Lula as helping to build democratic institutions across the globe, include the distribution of generic medicines, anti-HIV/AIDS projects, training of health care workers, literacy programs, establishment of vocational training centers, in almost every Lusophone African country; debt forgiveness in Mozambique; election monitoring through the CPLP in Sao Tome and Principe and Guinea-Bissau; and providing logistics and human resources for peacekeeping missions in Angola, East Timor, and Haiti. -------------- Venezuela: A Long Way from Ushuaia BRASILIA 00000057 003 OF 004 -------------- ¶9. (C) A concern for many Brazilian analysts and legislators is whether the Lula administration would be willing to employ sticks instead of limiting itself to carrots if faced with the prospect of a Mercosul partner--namely, Venezuela--suffering from a crisis to its democratic system. In a meeting with poloff, Elir Cananea Silva, Legislative Consultant on International Law for the Brazilian Chamber of Deputies, noted one instance in which Brazil has in the past effectively used the tools of statecraft to promote democracy abroad, during the 1996 attempted coup in Paraguay against President Juan Carlos Wasmosy. At the time, Brazil acted in concert with Mercosul partners Argentina and Uruguay and jointly issued statements condemning actions against the democratic order in Paraguay. Subsequently, the Mercosul countries agreed on the Ushuaia Protocol of 1998, which institutionalized Mercosul's previously vague democracy clause and laid out specific actions the members would undertake in the case that that one suffered from a similar situation to Paraguay's. Among other things, the Protocol allows the member states to suspend the rights of another member or associate state (currently Chile and Bolivia) if its democratic institutions are under threat. ¶10. (C) The analysts and officials with whom poloff talked all agreed it was difficult to imagine a repeat of the Paraguayan case with regard to Venezuela, at least under the Lula administration. The decision to back entry of Venezuela into Mercosul is a political one taken in the interest of regional stability, in the hope that bringing President Chavez's government into a Brazil-dominated forum will help control Venezuela's destabilizing effect in the region. Therefore, despite the rising discontent evident in the Brazilian media and congress with some of Chavez' anti-democratic measures and over his frequent derogatory comments about the Brazilian Congress, Itamaraty and Lula continue to throw their full weight behind guaranteeing Venezuela's entry into Mercosul and are showing little concern, either in public or in private discussions, with the continuing erosion of democracy within that country. Publicly, President Lula and other senior officials deny such erosion is even occurring and occasionally go out of their way to burnish Chavez's democratic credentials to Brazilian media outlets. Prior to the December 2 referendum on amending the Venezuelan constitution, Lula vigorously defended Chavez, stating that he could be criticized for a lot of things, but not for a lack of democracy. -------------- Comment: -------------- ¶11. (C) Brazil's engagement in various democracy-promotion initiatives is not a strategic objective of Brazil's foreign policy. GOB participation in the various international democracy building organizations, its work through CPLP and IBSA, and its own development agenda is primarily driven by its strategic goal of projecting Brazil internationally as an independent global player, with support for democracy a secondary goal. Likewise the GoB bills many of its foreign policy priorities, such as in its defense of developing country's prerogatives on Doha or its desire to become a permanent member of the UNSC, as democracy-building initiatives, even when they are primarily driven by Brazil's larger objective of increasing its economic and political influence on the global stage When democracy-promotion features more explicitly as a goal behind Brazil,s international initiatives these tend towards the softer end of the policy spectrum, focusing on non-controversial development, education, and health projects. These projects constitute the underpinnings of their pro-democracy rhetoric and highlight Brazil's growing role as donor country in these primarily development-oriented areas. In addition to supporting Brazil's projection of its soft-power, they also serve to reduce pressure on the GoB to deal with the thorniest issues related to democracy promotion, such as pronouncing judgment with regard to particular countries on the level of press and religious freedom or dealing with BRASILIA 00000057 004 OF 004 corruption--which also risk highlighting Brazil's poor internal record in this last area. ¶12. (C) Comment, cont: As a result, the potential for us to engage with Brazil on concrete democracy-promotion initiatives (as opposed to development, health or education projects that have a positive, but indirect, effect on democratic institutions in a given country) will remain limited by the priority the GoB place on other goals. For example, being perceived as the junior partner to the US on a trilateral project could upset its goal of projecting its equal footing as a global power; defending democracy in Venezuela would hinder its strategic goals of maintaining regional stability and expanding and consolidating regional integration. It is therefore unlikely that Brazil will step up to the plate to promote democracy when and where its efforts could matter the most. Nonetheless, even if the GoB clearly has not formulated a coherent and consistent democracy promotion policy, both Lula and Amorim talk a good game by including democracy promotion among Brazil's most important foreign policy goals. This can serve as a basis for encouraging Brazilian officials to remain consistent with their own avowed goal by assisting burgeoning and threatened democracies in tangible ways, and by speaking out in favor of democracy where it does not yet exist. SOBEL