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DE RUEHSO #1234/01 3381230
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
O 041230Z DEC 06
FM AMCONSUL SAO PAULO
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 6111
INFO RHEHNSC/NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL WASHDC IMMEDIATE
RUEHBR/AMEMBASSY BRASILIA PRIORITY 7199
RUEHRI/AMCONSUL RIO DE JANEIRO PRIORITY 7626
RUCPDOC/USDOC WASHDC 2637

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