Jair Bolsonaro, President of Brazil: a serial denarius lands at the UN | In New York, he will seek to project himself as a rock star of the global extreme right.

From Brasilia

Jair Bolsonaro has confirmed that he will travel to the United States where he will deliver the 76th inaugural address on Tuesday. United Nations Annual Assembly. Will land in New York in his dual role as president of the most populous and richest country in Latin America and a benchmark for the far right.

On the text that he will read in plenary session of the UN Crystal Palace, written by soldiers and diplomats, Bolsonaro did not anticipate that it could contain a few lines on the Amazon and indigenous peoples (He calls them “Indians” with a pejorative accent) without giving more details to avoid “the press distorting them”.

At the same time, he reinforced his negationist discourse before embarking for New York (the city where he is hated) by announcing that he will not be vaccinated against the coronavirus because he considers himself endowed with “antibodies sufficient ”to cope with the disease. and questioned the effectiveness of Coronavac antidotes made in China, a country which has been named as the suspected creator of Covid-19. Last Thursday almost at the same time as the president was criticizing the coronavac vaccine in Brasilia a man threw an explosive device at the Chinese consulate in Rio de Janeiro.

For the moment, it is not excluded that Bolsonaro takes advantage of his stay in New York to project himself definitively as a kind of rockstar of the extreme world right, a scepter left vacant by an ally until today. Donald trump, since leaving the White House last January.

Negative image

“The image of the President of the Republic is terrible, the fact that he does not accept to be vaccinated even to go to the UN Assembly is something that has no equivalent at the international level . We’re going to have the most money. Even President Trump didn’t do something like that, because Trump was vaccinated, ”the diplomat explains. Paulo Sergio Pinheiro from Geneva, Switzerland, in an interview via zoom with 12.

“I believe that everything Bolsonaro has been doing throughout September, such as the acts with the intentional coup of September 7, has been seen and read by a good chunk of the presidents and diplomats who will be in office. Assembly. There has never been an attempt to since the end of the dictatorship, Brazil has acquired international prestige, presidents since Jose sarney , followed by Fernando Collor de Mello, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Dilma Rousseff they were regarded with respect. The reverse is happening with Bolsonaro, he’s a repudiated character, I think it will be seen in the next few days in New York.

Pinheiro knows the humor of diplomacy thanks to the experience gained over decades at the UN where he was entrusted with important missions, such as those he carried out in Syria and Myanmar, among others. He is currently a member of the humanitarian organization Arns Commission, from São Paulo, and in 2012 he was a member of Truth Commission Created by President Dilma Rousseff.

“In newspapers in Europe and in the most important of the world, negative news about Bolsonaro is published every day, he is considered an enemy of human rights, of the Amazon, of the indigenous peoples. Brazil people are surprised by his demand for torture and dictatorship, his homophobia,“said the diplomat.

Ungrateful person

For not having been vaccinated against the coronavirus, Bolsonaro could be barred from participating in one of the events that will take place in hotels and restaurants in New York including the mayor, Bill de Blasio, of the Democratic Party, decreed the compulsory nature of the vaccination certificate.

The head of the United Nations General Assembly, Abdullah Shahid, defended New York City Hall standards and communicated to member countries that delegations will have to meet them. However, the UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, He clarified that Bolsonaro and the other presidents will not have to present proof of vaccination nor to carry out any type of health control since the property of the organization is an international territory, regardless of the municipal and national regulations most visited by Bolsonaro since taking office. In general, his trips are to Washington and Miami, where he is generally better received than in New York.

In May 2019, the former army captain was forced to suspend his schedule in New York, to receive an award, after Mayor De Blasio declared him “persona no grata” Due to the destruction of the Amazon, environmental groups and the LGBT movement have promised protests against the visitor.

Break the isolation

Paulo Sergio Pinheiro argues that Bolsonaro could adopt a more moderate speech before the Assembly in order to ease his international isolation, as he did last April when he made promises “without any credibility” during the Climate change summit summoned by the president Joe biden, of the Democratic Party, with which he maintains distant relations.

Biden showed by gestures how much he despises his South American colleague: At the April summit, he withdrew from the virtual conference for a few minutes, precisely as Bolsonaro was speaking, and last week he did not invite the Brazilian to the Forum of Large Economies. on energy and climate change, in which the presidents participated Alberto Fernandez and the mexican Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

The expert in international relations Maria Victoria Mosque of Benevides, of the University of San Pablo, declared, in dialogue with this newspaper, that the diplomats who participate in the elaboration of the speech seek velvet the message on the Amazon and the indigenous communities, sensitive issues for the international community and priority on the agenda of Biden, the climate representative, John Kerry, and the national security adviser, John sullivan, told Brazilian officials of the White House’s concern about the increase in fires in the forest.

On the other hand, the soldiers, who also participate in the writing of the speech, would be irreducible. They defend a firm position on the Amazon and do not recognize the cultural diversity and ancestral identities of the communities of origin that they want to assimilate into Western culture and economy.

“The military have always viewed indigenous peoples with suspicion, which they repressed during the dictatorship, and they are unwilling to recognize a plurinational state in Brazil, ”said Benevides, who is also a member of the Arns Commission, the organization that denounced Bolsonaro before the International Criminal Court for inciting the genocide of indigenous peoples and the devastation of the Amazon.