By Richard Mann, Contributing Reporter
RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – During an event of the Foreign Relations Commission of the House of Representatives, which he chairs, Eduardo Bolsonaro (PSL-SP) defended the possession of nuclear weapons and said that “political correctness” prevents him from speaking openly about the possibility of war with Venezuela.
The meeting, on the afternoon of Tuesday, was a reunion of the parliamentarian with students from the War College, an institution in which Army, Navy, and Aeronautical servicemen are trained.
“Nuclear bombs guarantee peace. If we had already completed nuclear submarines, which have much greater autonomy in the water; if we had a larger military force, perhaps we would be taken more seriously by Maduro, or feared by China or Russia.”
He stressed, however, that at present there is no debate in Congress on the subject. The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, signed by 189 countries, was endorsed by Brazil in the government of Fernando Henrique Cardoso in 1998.
Besides, Brazil is part of the Tlatelolco Treaty, signed by all Latin American and Caribbean countries in 1968, except for Cuba, which only ratified it in 2002.
“This is not an issue at the moment, and I do not even see a debate in this sense. We know that if Brazil intends to trample this convention, it will suffer a number of sanctions, it is a very complicated issue. But I believe we can resume the debate here.”
The parliamentarian also referred to India and Pakistan, among the few countries which have not signed the treaty, as positive examples.
“Pakistan and India, what is their relationship like? If only one of them had a nuclear bomb, their relationship would not be the same. I am an enthusiast of that idea. They are going to say I am aggressive or that I want to set the world on fire. But why does the whole world respect the United States?” he asked.
“They blew up the World Trade Center, what did the Americans do? They bypassed all vetoes and invaded Iraq.”