BRAZIL:
Foreign Policy Under Fire
Mario Osava
RIO DE JANEIRO, Apr 21 (IPS) - The crisis in Ecuador that ended in the
overthrow of President Lucio Gutiérrez has also served to further aggravate
the foreign policy challenges facing the administration of Brazilian
President Luiz Inácio Lula da Inacio, already the target of growing
criticism.
Gutiérrez, who was removed from office by the Ecuadorian Congress on
Wednesday, has been granted asylum in Brazil, after taking shelter in the
Brazilian embassy in Quito upon fleeing the presidential palace by
helicopter.
The Brazilian Foreign Ministry announced Thursday that the necessary
procedures were underway to fulfil the toppled president's request for
asylum, in compliance with tradition and international conventions.
In the meantime, protesters gathered outside the Brazilian Embassy in Quito,
in an attempt to prevent Gutiérrez from fleeing the country.
The political crisis in Ecuador, added to the instability faced to one
degree or another by Bolivia, Peru and Venezuela, not to mention the
decades-old civil war in Colombia, will undoubtedly affect the consolidation
of the South American Community of Nations, which has been given top
priority in Lula's foreign policy.
The obstacles facing this initiative were clearly reflected on Tuesday at a
meeting of South American foreign ministers in Brasilia, where it proved
impossible to wrap up the preparations for a summit to formalise the
creation of the Community, originally scheduled for August.
As a result, it seems clear the process is going to take longer than planned
by Brazil, the driving force behind this integration effort.
Brazil's foreign policy is currently besieged by other challenges as well,
including Argentina's opposition to this country's bid for a permanent seat
on the United Nations Security Council, and the announcement that President
Néstor Kirchner of Argentina, a Southern Common Market (Mercosur) member,
will not be attending the Arab-South American Summit taking place in
Brasilia May 10-11.
Yet the biggest blow so far to Brazil's foreign relations apparatus, headed
by Foreign Minister Celso Amorim, was dealt last week in the elections for a
new director-general of the World Trade Organisation (WTO).
The Brazilian candidate, Luiz Felipe de Seixas Correa, received the lowest
number of votes in the first round, which means he has now been eliminated
from the race for a position also being sought by Pascal Lamy of France,
Jaya Krishna Cuttaree of Mauritius and Carlos Pérez Castillo of Uruguay.
Amorim complained about a "lack of transparency" in the vote tally, since
the exact number of votes received by each candidate was not revealed, but
added that he accepted the results.
This defeat came as a shock to the Brazilian Foreign Ministry and many
observers. It indicates that Brazil did not receive all of the votes it
expected from Latin America, where it is striving to carve out a leadership
role.
Analysts say the vote revealed dissatisfaction with the Brazilian
government's international performance, despite the priority it has placed
on regional integration.
This does not bode well for Brazil's aspirations to U.N. Security Council
permanent membership, while threatening its role as a leader or major player
in a variety of political and trade negotiations, ranging from the forging
of closer ties between South America and Africa and the Arab world to the
Doha Round of negotiations in the WTO, initiated in November 2001.
Up until now, Brazil has enjoyed considerable influence in the WTO, which
makes the fact that this was the setting for such a crushing foreign
relations setback especially surprising. Lamy and Cuttaree are both
defenders of agricultural subsidies, which have always been the main target
of Brazil's battles in the WTO.
Given that Brazil's own candidate is now out of the running, its backing in
future rounds of voting should logically pass to Pérez de Castillo - whose
candidacy was upheld by the new leftist government that took office in
Uruguay on Mar. 1 - as a representative of Mercosur, who also has the
support of Argentina (Paraguay is the fourth full member of this bloc).
But backing the Uruguayan candidate will be a bitter pill to swallow for
Brazil, which put forward its own candidate, Seixas Correa, precisely as a
means of opposing Pérez Castillo, whom it accused of having presented a
proposal that "favoured the wealthy countries" in September 2003, as
chairman of the WTO General Council.
Pérez del Castillo's proposal, submitted to the WTO ministerial conference
in Cancún, Mexico, was rejected by the majority of developing countries,
with the end result being a breakdown in negotiations.
Nevertheless, refusing to support the Uruguayan candidate is not a viable
alternative either, since it would weaken Brazil's position as one of the
coordinators of the so-called Group of 20, an alliance of countries - of
which Uruguay is also a member - opposed to the agricultural subsidies
implemented by industrialised nations, to the detriment of the developing
world.
Lula has also come under increased fire recently from the Brazilian business
and export sector, which has long complained of his government's "Third
World" foreign policy, and has been especially critical of his efforts to
strengthen ties with Africa, where few countries hold much attraction as
potential markets.
On Lula's Apr. 10-14 tour of Cameroon, Ghana, Nigeria, Guinea-Bissau and
Senegal, the business delegation accompanying him included barely half a
dozen business leaders.
For his part, Development, Industry and Trade Minister Luiz Furlán
complained of the poor preparations for the tour, which he claimed made his
presence practically useless. In Nigeria, for example, he was not even able
to meet with his ministerial counterpart.
In the meantime, Marcos Jank, president of the Institute for Studies on
International Trade and Negotiations - which has close ties to the
agribusiness sector - lambasted Lula for wasting time and effort on
pursuits like these, while turning his back on truly relevant negotiations
for such initiatives as the hemispheric Free Trade Area of the Americas
(FTAA) and a trade accord between Mercosur and the European Union, which
represent markets "that count."
And if this were not enough to contend with, Brazil is also confronting
growing dissent within Mercosur, with particular friction in its bilateral
relations with Argentina.
Kirchner has indicated that he will not be participating in the Arab-South
American Summit in Brasilia, a decision interpreted as a further sign of his
discrepancies with Brazilian foreign policy.
The upcoming summit has also ruffled feathers in the United States, which
requested - and was denied - the opportunity to participate as an observer
in this meeting between leaders of South America and the Arab world.
The Brazilian Foreign Ministry quickly stressed that the summit is purely
economic in nature, aimed at increasing trade and investment between the two
regions and closing the distance between them.
But the summit will undeniably have a political dimension as well,
particularly given the participation of the Palestinian National Authority,
which has little to contribute in terms of business opportunities, but a
great deal with regard to political relations.
(END/2005)
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