SPECIAL HONDURAS: Brazil looks to recover continental role
Brazilian foreign policy adopted yesterday a bold stance in accepting in the Brazilian Embassy in Honduras, the ousted president of that country, Manuel Zelaya, overthrown in a coup on June 28, promoted by the Supreme Court and the Hondurean Parliament. Although this posture was criticised by many political analysts, it is an important movement of the Lula government to try to recover the lost role in Latin America.
Since 2003, the year of the first term of President Lula, Brazil loses ground for two reasons:
1) Lula’s first term in Brazil was very complicated in domestic politics, due to successive corruption scandals involving members of his administration.
2) The dubious attitude of the Brazilian government to seek consensus in a region marked by political radicalization since the arrival of Hugo Chávez to power in Venezuela.
The sum of these two events boosted the traditional left-led by Chavez, finding followers in Bolivia (Evo Morales) and Ecuador (Rafael Correa).
Willing to change this scenario, Brazil took advantage of the favorable international situation to help Zelaya and adopt a position of major role in Latin American politics.
This movement could go either way. Brazilian diplomacy could provoke a dialogue between Manuel Zelaya and Roberto Micheletti. In this case, it would be a victory of the Brazilian diplomacy and a consolidated role of regional mediator. In a more negative scenario, the Brazilian diplomacy could host violent maneuvers provoked by Zelaya’s sympathisers, leading to further division and breakdown in the country. In this case, Brazil would suffer a major setback.
It is not a bad decision to allow Zelaya to be protected at the Brazilian embassy. Nevertheless, it is a very wrong movement to allow him to instigate the population from within the building of the Brazilian representation. In this case, if a violent clash starts due to Zelaya’s words from the balcony of the Brazilian embassy, the international community will consider Brazil less as a mediator in this episode and more as a collaborator of Zelaya.
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