By ALEXANDRE ARAGÃO DE ALBUQUERQUE*
The essence of Lula's minister's speech was an open criticism of the foreign policy of the President's government: the Lula government must salute Israel and NATO
1.
The deplorable images of an event that took place in October 2017 in Miami (USA) are still vivid in our memory, in which former Brazilian army captain Jair Bolsonaro, in a gesture that spanned a broad ideological and media spectrum, saluted the American flag.
In May 2019, after being elected president of Brazil, he would once again make the same subservient gesture at a dinner hosted by the Brazil-United States Chamber of Commerce in Dallas. In addition to the gesture of submission to the Americans, Jair Bolsonaro changed his own political marketing slogan by proclaiming: “Brazil and the United States above all.”
In addition to being embarrassing, these gestures reflect not only the servile flattery of sectors of the Brazilian right to the Yankee empire, but the ideological alignment of Bolsonaro's deplorable foreign policy, revealing a high degree of vassalage, reinforcing old practices of surrender and total external dependence of Brazil on the USA.
Commenting on such shenanigans, President Lula, still imprisoned in the political prison to which he was subjected, due to the 2016 coup, at the Federal Police, in Curitiba, in an interview given to journalists Florestan Fernandes Junior (The country) and Monica Bergamo (Folha de S. Paul), on April 26, 2019, haughtily ruled:
“I have never seen a Brazilian president salute the American flag. I have never seen a Brazilian president say I love the United States. Does anyone think the United States will favor Brazil? Americans think of Americans as first, Americans as second, Americans as third. And Brazilian lackeys think that Americans will do something for us. We are the ones who have to do things for us. We need to get rid of our inferiority complex and raise our heads, because the solution to Brazil’s problems lies within Brazil.”
Let us remember that the plan by right-wing sectors to carry out a coup in Brazil on January 08, 2023 failed due to President Lula's immediate and precise response capacity, instructing the then Minister of Justice Flávio Dino not to decree the GLO (Guarantee of Law and Order) in the face of that planned riot, but to carry out an intervention in the security secretariat of the Federal District, coordinated by the executive secretary of the Ministry of Justice, Ricardo Capelli.
This act of political intelligence was able to unite Brazilian institutions, governors, judges, ministers, deputies, and senators around the President and his newly democratically elected government. However, it is important to understand that these right-wing sectors have not given up and continue to act on several fronts.
2.
A recent case occurred at an event held by the National Confederation of Industry (CNI) on October 8, in which a cooperation agreement was signed aimed at promoting and strengthening the Defense and Security Industrial Base (BIDS), with the presence of the Minister of Defense José Múcio Monteiro.
Múcio Monteiro began his political career in ARENA (Aliança Renovadora Nacional), the official party of the military dictatorship installed in Brazil with the 1964 Coup. He was elected vice-mayor of the municipality of Rio Formoso-PE (1975), but did not take office to become president of CELPE (Pernambuco Electricity Company). With the extinction of ARENA, he joined the PDS, a party that replaced the previous one, later migrating to the PFL, a faction that came after the end of the PDS. He also served in the PSDB (2001-2003) and the PTB (2003-2023), and is currently in the PRD.
At a recent event at the CNI, Múcio Monteiro expressed his ideological vision of the Brazilian political project with great ease. His speeches were precise and well-chosen. Due to limited editorial space, we will only analyze a passage of his speech here, and suggest that you read his entire message.
The essence of Lula's minister's speech was an open criticism of the foreign policy of the President's government. In Múcio Monteiro's view, the Lula government should salute Israel and NATO. Múcio Monteiro said: “The diplomatic issue interferes with Defense. There was a bidding process. The Jews, the people of Israel, won, but for reasons of war, Hamas, for ideological reasons we cannot approve [the contract].”
A fallacious and deplorable argument. After all, the winners of the competition were not the Jewish people, but the Zionist government of Benjamin Netanyahu. Furthermore, it is important to emphasize that the genocidal war perpetrated by Israeli Zionism is not against Hamas, but aims at the extermination of the Palestinian people. Now Benjamin Netanyahu has authorized massive attacks on another people, the Lebanese. But between the Palestinian genocide, the attacks on the Lebanese people and Israeli Zionism, Minister Múcio Monteiro hinted in his rhetoric that he has a preference for the Zionists.
Furthermore, it seemed to disregard that on February 19 of this year, Israel's Foreign Minister and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared President Lula persona non grata. This doesn't seem to have the slightest relevance to him. Why?
3.
Let us recall that during his trip to Ethiopia, participating in the opening of the 37th African Union Summit in the capital Addis Ababa on February 17, President Lula spoke to 54 representatives from countries on that continent. In the press conference after the event, the Brazilian President classified the death of civilians in Gaza as genocide, criticizing developed countries for reducing or cutting humanitarian aid to the region. Lula stated that what is happening in the Gaza Strip to the Palestinian people (and not to Hamas) has never happened before in history. It is not a war between soldiers and soldiers. It is a war between a highly trained Army against defenseless and innocent women and children.
But for Múcio Monteiro, this genocide seems to be something normal, which should not be taken into account in the Brazilian political decision-making process. For him, what is really important is to close the deal with Netanyahu's government and side with NATO. All empirical evidence is pure ideology.
According to the UN, in one year of genocide, the destruction in Gaza could be in the region of 90%, something never seen in history, far exceeding the European cities destroyed in six years of World War II. It is the first time in the history of wars and genocides that 2% of the population has been declared under famine. The displacement of more than 100% of a demographic attacked by an external aggressor is also unprecedented. (BdF, 90/09/10).
The decision on the purchase and sale of military equipment is essentially political. It is a matter of national sovereignty. It can never be reduced to the ideological fallacy of a mere technical and commercial issue. It always involves defining strategic allies, especially in an international context of building a multipolar world.
Múcio Monteiro deliberately publicly confronted the Brazilian head of state, since he is the one who defines the country's foreign policy. What is his intention with this statement? To ridicule President Lula?
*Alexandre Aragão de Albuquerque Master in Public Policy and Society from the State University of Ceará (UECE).
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