RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – On Thursday, June 10, the Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro, scornfully commented on a statement made by the Argentine president, Alberto Fernández, and included the Venezuelan head of state, Nicolas Maduro, saying there are vaccines for them.
“The president of the Argentine people said that they came from Europe, and we came from the jungle,” Bolsonaro quoted a statement that Fernández made this Wednesday in Buenos Aires.
“I remember when (Hugo) Chávez died and Maduro took over, that he said he talked to little birds in which he had incarnated the figure of Chávez. I believe that for Maduro and Fernández, there is no vaccine”, the Brazilian President laughingly declared to a small group of followers at the gates of his official residence in Brasilia.
More seriously, he added that “as they are recording and this is going out”, he wanted to comment that he exchanged messages this very Thursday “with former president (Mauricio) Macri”, whose failed re-election bid he supported directly and personally in 2019.
“We have no problem between us or with the Argentine people. Rivalry with Argentina only in soccer,” said the leader of the Brazilian far-right.
The controversy was unleashed by Fernández this Wednesday, when in a public act, he mistakenly attributed to Mexican writer Octavio Paz a phrase about the respective origin of Argentines and Brazilians.
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“Octavio Paz once wrote that the Mexicans came out of the Indians, the Brazilians came out of the jungle, but we Argentines came from the boats,” said Fernández when he mistakenly paraphrased the Mexican writer in words that coincide more with a song by Argentine musician Litto Nebbia.
That statement generated a wave of criticism in Argentina, Mexico and Brazil, and Fernández apologized through his profile on the Twitter network.
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“It was stated more than once that ‘we Argentines descended from ships’. In the first half of the 20th Century, we received more than 5 million immigrants who coexisted with our native peoples. We are proud of our diversity”, he wrote, trying to explain his phrase.
However, Fernandez added: “I did not mean to offend anyone, anyway, whoever felt offended or made invisible, my apologies”.