RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – In its relations between Germany and Brazil, the German government is allegedly disregarding human rights violations in the South American country in order not to jeopardize the European Union-Mercosur trade agreement.
Meanwhile, it is noticeably restrained in its criticism of the right-wing extremist President Jair Bolsonaro. This is clear from the German government’s October 2nd reply to a “minor query” by the left-wing parliamentary group.
Several deputies of the left-wing party Die Linke had inquired the government about its knowledge of human rights violations in general and also by the Bolsonaro government since the start of the coronavirus crisis. They also asked how the federal government assessed its health policy and what steps it had taken to advocate for the indigenous and the economically vulnerable populations that are particularly threatened by the pandemic.
The German government said it had “no knowledge” of impunity for human rights violations during the coronavirus crisis. This assessment may seem surprising given the reports of violations and unpunished attacks on indigenous peoples by loggers or on the black and poor population by security forces.
For instance, the police continued their operations in the favelas during the coronavirus period, despite being banned by the Supreme Federal Court (STF) due to the pandemic. As a result, the number of victims of deadly police violence in the Rio de Janeiro favelas in April increased by 43 percent over the preceding year. Of these, 80 percent were black, as reported by Deutsche Welle in early June.
Moreover, it was only in early September that the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Toxic Substances and Human Rights, Baskut Tuncak, recommended that the UN Council should initiate an independent, international “investigation into the current human rights situation in Brazil, with particular focus on the environment, public health, workers’ rights, and human rights activists.” According to the UN report, the Bolsonaro government is not fulfilling its duty in protecting indigenous peoples and environmentalists and is sacrificing lives in the coronavirus pandemic.
The German Foreign Ministry seems to have accepted this report with indifference. As a result, the spokesperson for human rights policy of the left-wing parliamentary group, Michel Brandt, complained that the German government was “indifferent to the human rights situation in Brazil”.
Only the illegal deforestation in the Amazon region is regarded by Berlin “with great concern”, as the government’s reaction suggests. It is in “close and continuous political dialogue” with the relevant Ministries and officials.
However, Berlin is not critical of the Bolsonaro government’s health policy. It is widely known that Brazil’s head of state continues to downplay the virus, refuses to implement measures to fight the pandemic, and undermines state and municipal government regulations such as contact restrictions. Critics accuse him of having been instrumental in the infection of over five million Brazilians and the death of more than 150,000 people as a result of the virus.
Recently, a study found an association between high community transmission rates and high levels of approval for Bolsonaro. His supporters tend to follow the President’s rhetoric and deliberately violate locally enforced coronavirus regulations. The study even referred to the “Bolsonaro effect”.
Regardless, the German government considers that “during the Covid-19 crisis, the Brazilian government took measures to better establish and adequately equip the public health system in order to fight the pandemic.”
The German government’s trivialization of the Brazilian situation is, according to the left-wing activist, quite calculated: “Rather than fighting human rights violations by the Bolsonaro government and clearly identifying the considerable social and health impacts of the coronavirus on the Brazilian population, the German government prefers to focus on economic interests,” said Brandt.
In his view, when it comes to protecting the interests of the German automotive, chemical, and meat industries, it places environmental and human rights issues in second place. The government is just as “concerned” about deforestation as it is about the growing rejection of the EU-Mercosur agreement by its European partners.
When the coronavirus pandemic raged with particular severity in Latin America in June, Foreign Minister Heiko Maas urged his 26 Latin American and Caribbean counterparts to strengthen economic relations and implement the EU-Mercosur agreement swiftly. Given the economic crisis triggered by the coronavirus, this trade agreement in particular was “a very important factor” for overcoming it, said Maas.
The German Government’s reaction showed that it was reticent in criticizing human rights violations as soon as vital economic interests were concerned. “Of course Maas cannot publicly admit that it is all about protecting export markets.”
Instead, he prefers to justify his acquiescent approach with the pretext of a necessary dialogue, said Helin Evrim Sommer, spokesperson for the left-wing development policy group. During Maas’s state visit in April 2019, the issue of human rights protection only marginally emerged in the joint final statement, unlike what had been announced in the run-up to the visit, Sommer criticized.