Sao Paulo
The message that Human Rights Watch (HRW) sent to the Brazilian government in a letter published this Tuesday (29) is harsh. In the text addressed to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT), the NGO explains that its management should strive to “undo a false foreign policy” that proposes “double standards on human rights.”
The contradiction in this case is between Lula 3’s human rights advocacy rhetoric and some of the positions he took in the first months of his term, says Juanita Goebertus, director of the NGO for the Americas Sheet.
She was in Brasília this week to present the document to a number of authorities and says that since the departure of former President Jair Bolsonaro (PL) and Lula’s coming to power, many things have changed for the better, such as the reduction in distribution of information misrepresentation and an end to attacks on electoral and judicial institutions.
However, he adds: “Lula should not only condemn violations of the right, but also of the left.” As examples of these unequal patterns, she cites the president’s relativization of the concept of democracy when asked about Venezuela and his government’s silence on state violence Cuba, a dictatorship with which Brazil recently resumed diplomatic relations.
“We saw these inconsistencies clearly during the Bolsonaro administration, which was very clear in its condemnation of human rights violations in Venezuela, Cuba and even Nicaragua, but was completely silent in El Salvador, for example,” he says. “We expect much more from Lula’s foreign policy.”
HRW’s criticism goes beyond the question of right and left and extends to other geopolitical alignments in which PT management has invested. One example is funding within the Brics states, a group of emerging economies that includes Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. The bloc last week announced its biggest expansion since its founding in 2009, with the addition of six other countries. Four of them are authoritarian regimes: Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Iran.
Goerbertus says she is concerned that the expansion could lead to the forum, a historic defender of a new multipolar international order, becoming another organization run by Beijing and Moscow and that Brasília will consequently lose relevance on the international stage will become their mere ally.
In this context, the NGO calls on the Brazilian government to “take clear measures” to put an end to the socalled inconsistencies in its diplomacy. Especially if the country wants to secure a place on the next leadership of the UN Human Rights Council, whose election is scheduled for October and to which it plans to apply.
“If elected, Brazil will be in a privileged position to use its seat to influence other countries to make concrete human rights commitments,” the HRW letter said, citing both BRICS members as examples the country’s “Latin American neighbors”.
In fact, the region appears to have entered a spiral of crisis since Goebertus took over as director of the Americas at HRW late last year. During this period, the Nicaraguan regime continued to crack down on civil society by expelling citizens and closing universities; One of his presidential candidates was assassinated in Ecuador. and the Guatemalan judiciary, which critics say has been hijacked by the political system, suspended four candidates from the presidential race while their opponents were besieged and journalists persecuted.
Diplomacy could be an important tool to reverse the situation. This, for example, was HRW’s hope for Venezuela, whose diplomatic reopening was partly brokered by Brazil under Lula. However, Goebertus notes that no concrete action resulted from this movement, neither in terms of protecting human rights nor in implementing measures that could guarantee free and fair elections next year. On the contrary, progress in ensuring the opposition’s presence in the elections has declined in recent months.
“Where does Brazil stand in this discussion?” asks the activist, arguing that if the Lula government has a channel of communication with the Nicolás Maduro regime, it should use that channel to tackle the elections. “The choice of diplomacy is legitimate. But if you choose to do so, you should be able to use that contact to achieve a breakthrough.”
The activist gives another example of how the Brazilian government could abandon the contradictions described by HRW between its foreign policy and the defense of human rights. If Lula insists that both Volodymir Zelensky and Vladimir Putin bear responsibility for the Ukraine war, then the Brazilian government should act to stop the production and export of cluster bombs.
The explosives used by both warring nations violate international law as they are indiscriminately aimed at civilians. But Brazil not only did not comment on the United States’ decision to send bombs of this type to Ukraine in July, but it continues to produce them and refuses to become part of a treaty signed by more than a hundred countries that commits to ban production. Sale and use of weapons and cluster munitions.
In 2016, the same HRW published a document denouncing that bombs of the Brazilian company Avibras in Yemen had caused the deaths of two civilians and injured six, including a child.
XRAY | JUANITA GOEBERTUS, 39
As a Colombian lawyer and politician, she has been the Americas director of the NGO Human Rights Watch since August 2022. A former congresswoman and former negotiator of Colombia’s peace agreement with the FARC, she is a graduate of the University of the Andes. His areas of expertise are peace, security, the transition from dictatorships to democracies and peace processes.