Senate versus Itamaraty
A nasty impasse has developed between the Brazilian Senate and the MRE (Ministry of Foreign Relations) Itamaraty. As in other presidential systems, all ambassador appointments must be confirmed by the Upper House (Senate). Usually, in Brazil, it is quite rare that the Senate refuses to confirm these appointments. But in June 2014, the Senate CRE (Foreign Relations Committee) has indicated that it will not confirm any appointee to the Brazilian Embassy in Bolivia until the MRE honors the committee’s request to supply all the documents related to the August 2013 episode when the number two Brazilian diplomat in La Paz, Eduardo Saboia, decided to drive Bolivian Senator Roger Pinto Molina to Corumbá, MS – to extract him from his exile within the Brazilian Embassy, fearing his declining mental health – after 453 days of “confinement” at the Embassy.
Pinto had sought refuge in the Brazilian Embassy because of persecution and threats from the Evo Morales government and the MRE (Foreign Minister Antonio Patriota) had ordered “severe” treatment for Pinto within the embassy in an attempt to force him to leave a small cubicle room with no window, no walks outside to get some sun, no internet access, and no visitors. As a result, Patriota was sacked by Pres. Dilma Rousseff and then “kicked upstairs” to become Brazil’s ambassador to the UN, and the then Brazilian Ambassador at the UN became Foreign Minister.
This case is typical of the actions of the “PT commissar” for Brazil’s foreign relations with Latin America – Professor Marco Aurélio Garcia – who has been the Foreign Affairs advisor to Pres. Lula and Pres. Dilma since 2003. The “order” was not to offend “comrade” Evo Morales and keep Senator Roger Pinto Molina in “sub-human” confinement in the Brazilian Embassy in La Paz – in contrast to the “special confinement” dispensed to former Honduran President Manuel Zelaya when he sought refuge in the Brazilian Embassy in Tegucigalpa. This tactic was implemented in an attempt to force Senator Pinto Molina to abandon his refuge at the Embassy
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