Brazilian activists prepared a “warm up” for President Jair Bolsonaro (PL) on the streets of Los Angeles (USA), the city that this week hosts the ninth Summit of the Americas. The Brazilian Chief Executive should participate in the event from this Thursday (9).
On Tuesday afternoon (7), a truck with three LED screens circulated through the streets of the city of California with messages such as “Fuera, Bolsonaro”, “Don’t trust Bolsonaro” (don’t trust Bolsonaro) and “Bolsonaro loves Trump” (Bolsonaro loves Trump). All were accompanied by images of the Brazilian president.
The action was promoted by an articulation of Brazilian and international organizations, which prefer to remain anonymous, citing security reasons for their members. The group says it fears reprisals and violence to which activists are subjected in Brazil.
The action is similar to one promoted in New York in September last year, on the occasion of the president’s trip to the UN General Assembly. It was in a confusion involving the vehicle that the Minister of Health, Marcelo Queiroga, showed the middle finger to protesters.
In a note released this Tuesday, the articulation of entities says that Bolsonaro takes to Los Angeles and to the Summit of the Americas his “bad environmental reputation and his contempt for democratic institutions”.
According to them, the intention of the intervention is to alert the Americans and President Joe Biden about the type of leader that will be honored with a bilateral meeting. “It is a mistake to trust any kind of commitment that he will make at this meeting”, says the text.
The Brazilian president only decided to travel to the US for the Summit of the Americas after receiving an emissary from Biden in Brasilia. In addition to stating that the Democrat would agree to meet with the Brazilian on the sidelines of the summit, former senator Christopher Dodd said that the US government does not intend to create constraints for the Brazilian leader during the event.
The activists’ message also echoes a letter that 71 Brazilian civil society organizations filed, also this Tuesday, at the White House. Among the NGOs are the Association of Brazilian Indigenous Peoples (Apib), the Arns Commission, Greenpeace Brazil and the Vladimir Herzog Institute.
The text describes Bolsonaro’s concern about instrumentalizing the meeting with Biden, in such a way that the Brazilian can “falsely claim that his government [de Biden] endorses your attacks [de Bolsonaro] democracy, free and fair elections, the environment, science, basic human rights and the Amazon”.
The letter also says that “if Brazilian democracy falls, Mr. [Biden]all your efforts to ‘Build a Sustainable, Resilient and Equitable Future’ at the Summit of the Americas will have been in vain” and that the continuation of Bolsonaro’s government would condemn the Amazon Rainforest and the peoples of the forest.
A protest against the Brazilian leader, organized by environmental activists, was scheduled for the morning of this Wednesday (8) in Los Angeles, in front of the city hall. The disappearance of journalist Dom Phillips and indigenist Bruno Pereira may serve to increase the pressure.
The ninth edition of the Summit of the Americas will officially open on Wednesday (8). It was designed by Washington to symbolize the return of US leadership in Latin American affairs, after the presidency of Donald Trump, during which regional issues took a back seat – at the last summit, in 2018, the Republican did not go to Lima. and became the first US leader to miss the meeting.
Held since 1994, the event is the continent’s largest international forum. The US hosts the event for the second time. Out of 34 countries, 8 decided not to send their heads of state and 3 were not invited, in a sign of the distance with Washington.
There are cases like that of Uruguayan Luis Lacalle Pou, who canceled his trip for having contracted Covid, but others used the American decision not to call the leaders of Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela, dictatorships considered pariahs by the US, as a way to make a statement.
That’s what the Bolivian Luis Arce and the Mexican Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador did. This must be the absence most felt, both because of the country’s economic weight in Latin America and its relevance to the issue of migration, one of the topics that the hosts want to discuss at the meeting.
