{"id":238697,"date":"2023-07-10T12:00:20","date_gmt":"2023-07-10T11:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=238697"},"modified":"2023-07-06T08:29:30","modified_gmt":"2023-07-06T07:29:30","slug":"the-not-so-discreet-u-s-campaign-to-pressure-brazils-foreign-policy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2023\/07\/the-not-so-discreet-u-s-campaign-to-pressure-brazils-foreign-policy\/","title":{"rendered":"The Not-So-Discreet U.S. Campaign to Pressure Brazil\u2019s Foreign Policy"},"content":{"rendered":"

5 Jul 2023 – <\/em>The respected London newspaper Financial Times<\/em> ran with the following headline last week: \u201cThe discreet U.S. campaign to defend Brazil\u2019s election.\u201d The report<\/a>, written by Michael Stott, Michael Pooler and Bryan Harris, deals with a \u201cpressure campaign\u201d carried out by U.S. officials throughout 2022, in order to prevent the thesis of fraud in the 2022 Brazilian elections from unfolding into a coup d\u2019\u00e9tat.<\/p>\n

Translated and published in Brazil by the Folha de S. Paulo<\/em> newspaper under the title \u201cU.S. campaigned to defend Brazil from a possible coup by Bolsonaro,\u201d the article in the Financial Times<\/em> quotes a series of sources in the U.S. government that agreed to talk about the movements carried out. Other than the statements of some of the sources, the report does not bring new facts, it only compiles them\u2014although in fact this campaign was not \u201cwidely reported,\u201d as the Financial Times<\/em> claims, the journey of Brazilian social movements to Washington before the elections was reported<\/a>, and the intricacies of some of these moves had already been revealed in Piau\u00ed Magazine<\/em><\/a> in April.<\/p>\n

What is more disturbing is that this article, about U.S. help to \u201csave democracy\u201d in Brazil, misrepresents and confuses the facts, incurs in lies, and in the end itself constitutes a piece of \u201cpressure campaigning\u201d\u2014in this case not against a coup d\u2019etat, but in favor of the U.S. government\u2019s interests in Brazilian foreign policy. Ironically, Bolsonaro\u2019s defense apparently considered using the publication of the report<\/a> as an argument to prevent the ineligibility of the former president, which is under discussion at the Electoral Supreme Court.<\/p>\n

The first misrepresentation of the report consists in pointing to Bolsonaro as the singular source of coup-mongering\u2014something that is in line with the trite interpretation of those who, here in Brazil, at the expense of seeking the just punishment of the former president, absolve in advance all of his coup entourage, especially the military, as well as his bases among the business community, particularly in agribusiness.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome generals were uncomfortable with Bolsonaro\u2019s attempts to politicize an institution which had tried to stay out of politics since returning power to civilians in 1985 and were worried about the risks of the military stepping outside the constitution,\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

the story says in one excerpt, which states shortly after:<\/p>\n

\u201cHamilton Mour\u00e3o, Bolsonaro\u2019s vice-president, was one of those.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Mour\u00e3o, the one who had threatened in the past with \u201csuccessive approaches\u201d; Mour\u00e3o, the one who defended the 1964 coup as a way to prevent \u201cthe homeland from being communized\u201d; Mour\u00e3o, the one who radically opposed the Truth Commission; Mour\u00e3o, the one who, on active duty, considered that Dilma Rousseff\u2019s government collaborated with \u201cincompetence, mismanagement and corruption\u201d; Mour\u00e3o, the one who paid homage to torturer Brilhante Ustra in the army barracks; Mour\u00e3o, the one who considered that the 2018 elections \u201cmight not take place\u201d if Lula was a candidate\u2014this was the Mour\u00e3o who, among some other generals, was \u201cworried\u201d about democracy in Brazil.<\/p>\n

The evidence on which the Financial Times<\/em> statement is based? \u201cA short sentence from the former vice-president in an elevator: [former U.S. ambassador to Brazil Thomas] Shannon recalls a visit by Mour\u00e3o to New York for a private lunch with investors last July, while tensions were running high. After batting away questions about the risks of a coup, repeating that he was confident Brazil\u2019s armed forces were committed to democracy, Mour\u00e3o entered a lift to leave and the former ambassador joined him. \u201cAs the door was closing, I said to him: \u2018You know your visit here is very important. You heard from people around the table regarding their concerns. And I share those concerns and, quite frankly, I\u2019m very worried. Mour\u00e3o turned to me and he said: \u2018I\u2019m very worried too.\u2019\u201d\u201d<\/p>\n

The story acknowledges that despite the pressure campaign by U.S. officials, and despite the fact that one senior official had \u201cthe sense that the people around Bolsonaro were urging him to do the right thing,\u201d \u201cdanger had not passed.\u201d In this excerpt, journalists not only incur misrepresentation, but lies: \u201cOn January 8, thousands of Bolsonaro supporters staged an insurrection in Bras\u00edlia, storming congress, the supreme court and the presidential palace demanding military intervention.<\/p>\n

\u201cBrazil\u2019s military did intervene within hours\u2014but to quash the protests.<\/em>\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The military did not intervene on January 8, except in front of the Brasilia headquarters\u2014not to repress the protests (which the Army\u2019s Presidential Guard Battalion should have done and did not<\/a>), but to provide shelter<\/a> for the coup plotters\u2014as the Armed Forces had been doing since November<\/a>\u2014and to prevent them from being arrested by the Federal District Police troops.<\/p>\n

Why does the Financial Times<\/em>, in the week when the issue of coups in Brazil has returned to discussion due to Veja Magazine\u2019s revelations about army Lieutenant-Colonel and Bolsonaro advisor Mauro Cid\u2019s plans and conversations<\/a> with other members of the military regarding a coup, carry such a thunderous headline for a story that reveals nothing new, that misrepresents the recent history of the country and that, in at least one case, lies?<\/p>\n

The answer does not require conspiracy theories; it is at the end of the article itself: \u201cFor the Biden administration, relations with Brazil have improved but there has still been friction with the new government. Lula showed little public recognition of the U.S. campaign to protect the election. […] In April he took a big delegation to China for a three-day, two-city tour. On that trip, Lula rejected U.S. sanctions on Huawei, the Chinese tech company, lashed out at the west\u2019s military support for Ukraine and endorsed Beijing\u2019s drive for alternatives to the U.S. dollar. […] \u2018People here understand that there are going to be political differences,\u2019 says Shannon. \u2018But there\u2019s a tone of anger and resentment underlying all of this which really caught people by surprise\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009It\u2019s as if he doesn\u2019t know or doesn\u2019t want to acknowledge what we did.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

In short, the newspaper\u2019s noisy story, based on statements by U.S. officials and republished in Brazil\u2019s domestic media, consists of a charge by the U.S. government that Lula\u2019s government should take more account of its moves last year in defense of the elections when thinking about its foreign policy. But doesn\u2019t the one who trades in \u201cdemocracy advocacy,\u201d for which he expects a reward, reveal, precisely, his essentially anti-democratic nature?<\/p>\n

Machiavelli has been exhaustively remembered these days, in the context of the Wagner Group mutiny in Russia, for his classic lessons on the use of mercenaries. It is also worth recalling the Florentine\u2019s words about certain types of \u201callies\u201d: \u201cThese arms may be useful and good in themselves, but for him who calls them in they are always disadvantageous; for losing, one is undone, and winning, one is their captive.\u201d<\/p>\n

________________________________________________<\/p>\n

Pedro Marin<\/em> is the editor-in-chief and founder of<\/em> Revista Opera<\/a>. He is the author of \u2018<\/em>Golpe \u00c9 Guerra\u2014Teses para Enterrar 2016, on the Impeachment of Brazil\u2019s President Dilma Rousseff,\u2019 and coauthor of \u2018<\/em>Carta no Coturno\u2014A Volta do Partido Fardado no Brasil,\u2019 on the role of the military in Brazilian politics.<\/em><\/p>\n

This article was produced by <\/em>Globetrotter<\/a> in partnership with <\/em>Revista Opera<\/a><\/em>. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Machiavelli has been exhaustively remembered these days, in the context of the Wagner Group mutiny in Russia, for his classic lessons on the use of mercenaries. It is also worth recalling the Florentine\u2019s words about certain types of \u201callies\u201d: \u201cThese arms may be useful and good in themselves, but for him who calls them in they are always disadvantageous; for losing, one is undone, and winning, one is their captive.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":238698,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[867,1003,547,239,550,392,1126,1050,541,2137,70],"class_list":["post-238697","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latin-america-and-the-caribbean","tag-anglo-america","tag-brasil","tag-brazil","tag-brics","tag-corruption","tag-elections","tag-hegemony","tag-imperialism","tag-latin-america-caribbean","tag-south-america","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238697","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=238697"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238697\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":238699,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238697\/revisions\/238699"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/238698"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=238697"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=238697"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=238697"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}