Itamaraty Repudiates Uruguayan Defense Minister’s Criticism of Brazilian Democracy

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The Brazilian ambassador to Uruguay expressed “astonishment”, “repudiation” and “perplexity” after recent remarks by Uruguayan Defense Minister José Bayardi, who called into question the impeachment of former President Dilma Rousseff, the election of Jair Bolsonaro and Brazil’s continued membership in Mercosur.

In a letter published on Monday by El Observador, sent last Friday to the Uruguayan Chancellery, Brazil’s ambassador Antonio José Ferreira Simões said that he received “with absolute perplexity” Bayardi’s statements “because they are frivolous and out of context”.

The comments were made by the Uruguayan minister when answering a question in which he was asked whether he considered Venezuela a dictatorship. A longtime leader of the ruling Frente Ampla party, in power since 2005, Bayardi took over the defense portfolio this year.

“If it were up to me, Brazil would swiftly be removed (from Mercosur) as well (as Venezuela), due to the significance of the last election (of President Jair Bolsonaro in 2018) and the removal of President Dilma Rousseff from office in 2016 – said Bayardi in a local program broadcast on state TV.

The discussion sparked by Bayardi has fanned the flames in an already unharmonious relationship between the governments of Bolsonaro and Tabaré Vázquez , successor to José Pepe Mujica.

In the letter, the Brazilian ambassador said that the comments “about Brazilian society are fraught with deep prejudice and show a blatant unfamiliarity with the reality in which 210 million Brazilians live, a society with great democratic vigor”.

For Ferreira Simões, Bayardi’s words are “incomprehensible” for a high political authority of a neighboring country, with which Brazil “maintains a great relationship of friendship and shares a border on which nearly one million people live”.

“We are more than just friendly countries, we are brothers and sisters. These remarks are even more astonishing because they were pronounced by the Minister of National Defense. (…) I was astonished and I repudiate the opinion expressed on the question of Mercosur, a process he also proved not to know,” concludes the letter.

The Uruguayan minister insisted on a comparison between Brazil’s stay in Mercosur and Venezuela’s removal from the bloc. Venezuela was suspended in 2017 due to the application of a clause requiring “democracy” for continued membership, approved in 1991 by the group’s four founding partners.

“I think (Venezuela) was pulled out (from Mercosur) at one point because there was strong pressure, very strong, from the governments of Brazil and Argentina that had changed, to pull out (Caracas), and that Uruguay withstood it as long as it could. It was wrong,” he said.

Before answering the question about Venezuela, Bayardi took a miniature copy of the country’s constitution out of his pocket.

“There (in Venezuela) is a government that is based on a constitution that the Venezuelans have chosen” said the minister, for whom the Nicolás Maduro regime is not a dictatorship.

“What is happening is an institutional framework of great tension,” he added in statements that differ from those made recently by former President Mujica, who classified Venezuela as a dictatorship.

Source: O Globo