Escola de Defesa Sul-Americana: os militares se rendem aos companheiros?

Pode ser anti-imperialismo instintivo, nacionalismo exacerbado ou simples desejo de negócios ampliados e orçamentos idem. Pode ser também o Foro de São Paulo ampliando seu escopo, de maneira subliminar. Enfim, os militares já são grandinhos e devem saber o que fazem.

Parece que alguns transfugas terão dificuldades para legitimar relações com o Império ou se inserir em instituições militares norte-atlânticas.

Paulo Roberto de Almeida

Brasil apoia proposta de criação da Escola de Defesa Sul-Americana, diz Amorim

Nicholle Murmel
Ministério da Defesa, 10 de junho de 2013

O ministro da Defesa, Celso Amorim, afirmou que o Brasil apoia a criação da Escola de Defesa Sul-Americana. A proposta de constituição da Escola foi formalizada pelo Equador recentemente durante a reunião de vice-ministros de defesa, realizada em Lima, Peru, no âmbito do Conselho de Defesa Sul-Americano (CDS) da Unasul.

A manifestação favorável à ideia ocorreu após a reunião bilateral entre Amorim e a ministra da Defesa do Equador, María Fernanda Espinosa Garcés, em Quito, capital equatoriana. Na passagem pelo país, o ministro brasileiro também foi recebido pelo presidente Rafael Correa, em encontro no Palácio Presidencial. Em entrevista à imprensa após o encontro, os dois ministros explicaram que a Escola terá o objetivo de impulsionar a formulação de um pensamento estratégico regional de defesa.

A nova instituição deverá ter sede em Quito, onde funcionarão as áreas de coordenação e de administração. No entanto, como explicaram os ministros, a escola funcionará como uma rede, aproveitando as diversas iniciativas no campo militar existentes nos países do continente.

Como exemplo de iniciativas em rede, Amorim citou o Centro de Estudos Estratégicos (CEE/CDS), sediado em Buenos Aires, Argentina, e o Curso Avançado de Defesa Sul-Americano (CAD-SUL), que este ano será realizado, pelo segundo ano consecutivo, na Escola Superior de Guerra (ESG), no Rio de Janeiro.

“Todos esses cursos organizados por diferentes instituições podem fazer parte de uma rede que deverá ter uma coordenação para evitar duplicações e perda de recursos”, disse Amorim, acrescentando que a Escola respeitará sempre a pluralidade e diversidade de ideias.

Segundo a ministra da Defesa equatoriana, embora tenha recebido a chancela dos integrantes do CDS, a proposta de criação da Escola terá ainda que ser confirmada na próxima reunião de ministros da Defesa sul-americanos, marcada para novembro deste ano, também em Lima.

Para Maria Espinosa Garcés, a Escola deverá aproveitar, de maneira coordenada, a riqueza de ofertas das nações sul-americanas, potencializando as capacidades e especialidades que cada país tem em matéria de defesa. “O caminho futuro é construir um pensamento, por mais diverso que ele seja, que nos identifique, que gere uma identidade sul-americana”, afirmou Garcés. “O essencial é que seja uma escola que se concentre em problemas que são nossos, e não condicionada por problemas que não são nossos”, acrescentou Amorim, que já havia defendido a criação da Escola em fóruns internacionais.

Cooperação bilateral

O ministro brasileiro foi a Quito a convite do governo do país. Durante a reunião bilateral, ocorrida na sede do Ministério da Defesa, representantes das duas delegações discutiram uma extensa pauta de assuntos que resultaram em decisões com o objetivo de aprofundar a cooperação em defesa entre as duas nações.

Entre os temas discutidos pelas delegações presentes ao encontro, figuraram o apoio brasileiro ao desenvolvimento da indústria de defesa equatoriana, a ampliação do auxílio às ações de desminagem no país, controle e defesa do espaço aéreo, e o treinamento de pilotos e técnicos da força aérea equatoriana que operam com os aviões Super Tucano.

Além desses assuntos, as delegações trataram de questões relativas ao fortalecimento da identidade sul-americana de defesa no marco do CDS/Unasul, e da contribuição brasileira à iniciativa equatoriana, ora em curso, de atualização de sua agenda política na área militar.

Os principais resultados do encontro foram objeto de um comunicado conjunto, divulgado à imprensa ao final da reunião (veja aqui a íntegra do documento). Amorim convidou os equatorianos a enviarem observadores militares à próxima edição da Operação Ágata, na fronteira do Brasil, que deverá ocorrer no segundo semestre deste ano. Ele também convidou a ministra Garcés para uma visita oficial ao Brasil em Agosto.

Para garantir a continuidade e o acompanhamento direto dos temas acordados, os dois ministros decidiram criar um grupo de trabalho e institucionalizar uma reunião anual dos respectivos estados-maiores conjuntos.

A delegação brasileira contou, entre outros, com o subchefe de Assuntos Estratégicos do Estado-Maior Conjunto das Forças Armadas (EMCFA), almirante Renato Rodrigues de Aguiar Freire, com o chefe da Comissão de Implementação do Sistema de Controle do Espaço Aérea da FAB, brigadeiro Carlos Aquino, além do chefe da Assessoria Internacional do Ministério da Defesa, conselheiro Ibrahim Neto.

Veja a íntegra do comunicado Conjunto (versão em espanhol)

Deu no New York Times: o papa no Brasil, em tempos de protestos

Pope, in an Angered Brazil, to Focus on Social Justice

By LARRY ROHTER

The New York Times, July 20, 2013

RIO DE JANEIRO — A month ago, hundreds of thousands of young people took to the streets of Brazil to protest corruption, wasteful government spending, bad schools and hospitals, police brutality, and other abuses of power. On Monday, Pope Francis, in his first venture abroad, will dive into the middle of that ferment when he begins a weeklong visit to the world’s largest Roman Catholic country.

“This is a crucial moment for the church, the nation, society and the people, heightened by the fact this is Francis’ first trip,” said Fernando Altemeyer Jr., a theologian and philosopher at the Pontifical Catholic University in São Paulo. “Brazil has changed and things are bubbling, but there is no clarity. Everything is new and unknown, in the country and the church, even for the bishops.”

Francis has endorsed the protests in general terms, and, according to European news reports, will do so again more emphatically and specifically this week. Church officials here declined to confirm those reports, but they said that two Brazilian cardinals, Cláudio Hummes and Raymundo Damasceno Assis, have been working closely with the Vatican to assure that Francis’ declarations on social justice here will convey sympathy both for the protest demands and those involved in the movement.

“The pope will certainly have words about the issues the young people have raised, their dissatisfaction or searches but also their great desire to participate in change,” Cardinal Odilo Pedro Scherer, the archbishop of São Paulo, said last week. “They can expect from Pope Francis words that will orient and aid them.”

The trip, whose nominal purpose is to have the pope meet with and speak to participants at the World Youth Day, a conference of Catholic youth here, was originally planned for Benedict XVI, Francis’ predecessor. Initially there was speculation that the new pope might cancel because of the scandals he is confronting at the Vatican. But the Argentine-born Francis seems to see a visit here as a way to direct attention on the gospel of social justice that he has said he wants to make the focus of his papacy.

“If he is to do what he wants to do, he needs to keep media attention focused on what he is doing and saying,” said John Thavis, author of “The Vatican Diaries” and a former Rome bureau chief for the Catholic News Service. “This puts him back in the world spotlight, and I suspect we are going to hear a lot not just about the Brazilian situation, but the world situation, the divide between the rich and poor and the church’s social teaching.”

Previous papal visits, by Pope John Paul II and Benedict, were marked by doctrinal disputes and veiled verbal skirmishes between advocates of the theology of liberation, which mixes the gospel and political activism on behalf of the poor and persecuted, and the Vatican hierarchy, which sees the movement as tainted by Marxism. As archbishop of Buenos Aires, Francis never showed much sympathy for liberation theology, but since he assumed the papacy, signs abound that a truce is now in effect, at least temporarily.

“These are different times, times that are not as obstinate or intransigent,” said the Rev. José Oscar Beozzo, a historian of the Catholic church in Latin America and a supporter of liberation theology. “The era of military dictatorships, of the pope wagging a finger at a priest in Nicaragua, those are over. We live now in times that permit one to see things with less ideological distortion.”

Barely a month after becoming pope, Francis took a symbolically important step that liberation theologians here and elsewhere in Latin America interpreted as a peace offering. The beatification of Bishop Óscar Romero, a Salvadoran who was killed by a right-wing death squad in 1980 and is considered a martyr by many disciples of liberation theology, had been frozen since 2005, the year Benedict assumed the papacy, but Francis almost immediately ordered it reopened.

Liberation theologians often critical of Vatican policies have responded in kind, led by Leonardo Boff, a former Franciscan priest who in 1985 was ordered not to write or speak publicly for a year because of his positions by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, headed at the time by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the future Benedict. Now an emeritus professor of the philosophy of religion at the state university here in Rio, Mr. Boff just last week published a laudatory biography of the pope.

“It doesn’t matter that Pope Francis doesn’t use the expression ‘theology of liberation,’ ” Mr. Boff said recently. “What is important is that he speak and act on behalf of the liberation of the poor, the oppressed and those who have suffered injustice. And that is what he has done, with indubitable clarity.”

One of the principal complaints of the protests that have swept Brazil is excessive official spending in the face of pressing social needs, mainly the billions being spent on sporting events — but the $52 million the government is contributing to the youth conference and papal visit has also been sucked into the fray. Cardinal Scherer defended the expenditure, which accounts for about a third of the visit’s total cost, as good for Brazil.

“This money is being spent in Brazil, and as such it is welcome,” he said at a news conference in São Paulo. “These are not expenses paid to someone who is going to leave with the money. It’s generating taxes, jobs and so on. It is, without a doubt, an injection of blood in the economy.”

At Francis’ request, the original itinerary prepared for Benedict has been expanded to include a visit to Aparecida, site of Brazil’s biggest shrine to the Virgin Mary. It was also there, during a visit by Benedict in 2007, that Francis, then Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, scored a personal triumph by presiding over the writing of an important policy document that was presented to the pope on behalf of the Latin American Episcopal Conference.

The document emphasized social justice and evangelization, an issue that remains critical to the Brazilian church, even more than in the rest of Latin America. When John Paul made the first visit by a pope to Brazil, in 1980, nearly 90 percent of the population considered itself Catholic; by the 2010 census, that had fallen to under two-thirds, with the number of Brazilians calling themselves Protestants rising to 22 percent from 6 percent during the same period.

The situation here in Rio underscores the growing challenge to the Catholic church. According to census data, the growth of evangelical Protestantism, secularism and African-Brazilian faiths like candomblé has been so pronounced that Catholics no longer constitute a majority of the population in Rio de Janeiro State.

“No one in the Catholic leadership is going to say there is competition with the evangelicals, but that’s clearly a motivation for this event,” said Clemir Fernandes, a researcher at the Institute for the Study of Religion here. “The evangelicals have a lot of TV and radio exposure in Brazil, but a pope’s visit gets a lot of positive media coverage. That’s good for the church and, by strengthening belief among those already belonging to the faith, can perhaps help stem the erosion.”

A frase da semana: Helen Thomas (1920-2013)

“What the hell do they think we are — puppets?

They’re supposed to stay out of our business. They are our public servants. We pay them.”

Helen Thomas, jornalista decana na cobertura da Casa Branca (desde 1961), falecida em 19/07/2013, ao reclamar que nem o presidente Nixon tentou controlar a imprensa da maneira como o presidente Obama vinha tentando fazer.

Martin Wolf: austerity failed! Ah bom: o desperdicio e a gastanca seriam a solucao?

O jornalista do Financial Times pode até ter razão quanto à situação atual da Grécia, de Portugal, Espanha e Itália, mas isso não quer dizer que a gastança social-democrática seria a solução milagre para todo mundo. Ou ele pretende que a Alemanha pague sozinha a irresponsabilidade dos dirigentes desses países no endividamento excessivo?

Quem acha isso pretende que os outros sempre paguem pelos seus próprios erros...

Paulo Roberto de Almeida

How Austerity Has Failed

Martin Wolf

The New York Review of Books, Jully 11. 2013

Lionel Bonaventure/AFP/Getty Images

British Prime Minister David Cameron and European Commission President José Manuel Barroso, Brussels, May 2012

Austerity has failed. It turned a nascent recovery into stagnation. That imposes huge and unnecessary costs, not just in the short run, but also in the long term: the costs of investments unmade, of businesses not started, of skills atrophied, and of hopes destroyed.

What is being done here in the UK and also in much of the eurozone is worse than a crime, it is a blunder. If policymakers listened to the arguments put forward by our opponents, the picture, already dark, would become still darker.

How Austerity Aborted Recovery

Austerity came to Europe in the first half of 2010, with the Greek crisis, the coalition government in the UK, and above all, in June of that year, the Toronto summit of the group of twenty leading countries. This meeting prematurely reversed the successful stimulus launched at the previous summits and declared, roundly, that “advanced economies have committed to fiscal plans that will at least halve deficits by 2013.”

This was clearly an attempt at austerity, which I define as a reduction in the structural, or cyclically adjusted, fiscal balance—i.e., the budget deficit or surplus that would exist after adjustments are made for the ups and downs of the business cycle. It was an attempt prematurely and unwisely made. The cuts in these structural deficits, a mix of tax increases and government spending cuts between 2010 and 2013, will be around 11.8 percent of potential GDP in Greece, 6.1 percent in Portugal, 3.5 percent in Spain, and 3.4 percent in Italy. One might argue that these countries have had little choice. But the UK did, yet its cut in the structural deficit over these three years will be 4.3 percent of GDP.

What was the consequence? In a word, “dire.”

In 2010, as a result of heroic interventions by the monetary and fiscal authorities, many countries hit by the crisis enjoyed surprisingly good recoveries from the “great recession” of 2008–2009. This then stopped (see figure 1). The International Monetary Fund now thinks, perhaps optimistically, that the British economy will expand by 1.8 percent between 2010 and 2013. But it expanded by 1.8 percent between 2009 and 2010 alone. The economy has now stagnated for almost three years. Even if the IMF is right about a recovery this year, it will be 2015 before the economy reaches the size it was before the crisis began.

The picture in the eurozone is worse: its economy expanded by 2 percent between 2009 and 2010. It is now forecast to expand by a mere 0.4 percent between 2010 and 2013. Austerity has put the crisis-hit countries through a wringer, with huge and ongoing recessions. Rates of unemployment are more than a quarter of the labor force in Greece and Spain (see figure 2).

When the economies of many neighboring countries contract simultaneously, the impact is far worse since one country’s reduced spending on imports is another country’s reduced export demand. This is why the concerted decision to retrench was a huge mistake. It aborted the recovery, undermining confidence in our economy and causing long-term damage.

Why Fiscal Policy

Why is strong fiscal support needed after a financial crisis? The answer for the crisis of recent years is that, with the credit system damaged and asset prices falling, short-term interest rates quickly fell to the lower boundary—that is, they were cut to nearly zero. Today, the highest interest rate offered by any of the four most important central banks is half a percent. Used in conjunction with monetary policy, aggressive and well-designed fiscal stimulus is the most effective response to the huge decrease in spending by individuals as they try to save money in order to pay down debt. This desire for higher savings is the salient characteristic of the post–financial crisis economy, which now characterizes the US, Europe, and Japan. Together these three still make up more than 50 percent of the world economy.

Of course, some think that neither monetary nor fiscal policy should be used. Instead, they argue, we should “liquidate labor, liquidate stocks, liquidate the farmers, liquidate real estate.” In other words, sell everything until they reach a rock-bottom price at which point, supposedly, the economy will readjust and spending and investing will resume. That, according to Herbert Hoover, was the advice he received from Andrew Mellon, the Treasury secretary, as America plunged into the Great Depression. Mellon thought government should do nothing. This advice manages to be both stupid and wicked. Stupid, because following it would almost certainly lead to a depression across the advanced world. Wicked, because of the misery that would follow.

Austerity in the Eurozone

Some will insist that the eurozone countries had no alternative: they had to retrench

This is true in the sense that members have limited sovereignty, wed as they are to a single currency, and had to adapt to the dysfunctional eurozone policy regime. Yet it did not have to be this way.

1. The creditor countries, particularly Germany, could have recognized that they were enjoying incredibly low interest rates on their own public debt partly because of the crises in the vulnerable countries. They could have shared some of this windfall they enjoyed with those under pressure.

2. The needed adjustment could have been made far more symmetrical, with strong action in creditor countries to expand demand.

3. The European Central Bank could have offered two years earlier the kind of open-ended support for debt of hard-pressed countries that it made available in the summer of 2012.

4. The funds made available to cushion the crisis could have been substantially larger.

5. The emphasis could then have been more on structural reforms, such as easing labor regulations and union protections that restrain hiring and firing and raise labor costs, and less on fiscal retrenchment in the form of reduced spending. Reduced labor costs could have made these nations’ export industries more competitive and encouraged domestic hiring.

It is possible to admit all this and yet argue that without deep slumps, the necessary pressure for adjustment in labor costs that is inherent in the adoption of a single currency (which is a modern version of the gold-standard-type mechanism that once ruled the advanced nations and helped bring on the Great Depression) would not have existed.

This, too, is in general not true.

1. In Greece, Ireland, Portugal, and Spain, at least, the private sector was in such a deep crisis that additional downward pressure as a result of rapid fiscal retrenchment simply added insult—and more unemployment—to deep injury.

2. In Italy, the pressure from years of semi-stagnation, with many more to come, would probably have been sufficient to restructure the labor markets, to bring about lower labor costs, provided structural reforms of the labor market were carried out, measures allowing companies to reduce their workforces and adjust wages more easily.

In short, the scale of the austerity was unnecessary and ill-timed. This is now widely admitted.

Austerity in the UK

The UK certainly did have alternatives—a host of them. It could have chosen from a wide range of different fiscal policies. The government could, for example, have:

1. Increased public investment, rather than halving it (initially decided by Labour), when it enjoyed zero real interest rates on long-term borrowing.

2. It could have cut taxes.

3. It could have slowed the pace of reduction in current spending.

It could, in brief, have preserved more freedom to respond to the exceptional circumstances it confronted.

Why did the government not do so?

1. It believed, and was advised to believe, that monetary policy alone could do the job. But monetary policy is hard to calibrate when interest rates are already so low (at or close to zero) and potentially damaging particularly in the form of asset bubbles. Fiscal policy is not only more direct, but it can also be more easily calibrated and, when the time comes, more easily reversed.

2. The government believed that its fiscal plans gave it credibility and so would deliver lower long-term interest rates. But what determines long-term interest rates for a sovereign country with a floating exchange rate is the expected future short-term interest rates. These rates are determined by the state of the economy, not that of the public finances. In the emergency budget of June 2010, the cumulative net borrowing of the public sector between 2011 and 2015–2016 had been forecast to be £322 billion; in the June 2013 budget, this borrowing is forecast at £539.4 billion, that is, 68 percent more. Has this failure destroyed confidence and so raised long-term interest rates on government bonds? No.

3. It believed that high government deficits would crowd out private spending—that is, the need of the government to borrow would leave less room for private borrowing. But after a huge financial crisis, there is no such crowding out because private firms are reluctant to invest, and consumers are reluctant to spend, in a weak economic environment.

4. It argued that the UK had too much debt. But the UK government started the crisis with close to its lowest net public debt relative to gross domestic product in three hundred years. It still has a debt ratio much lower than its long-term historical average (which is about 110 percent of GDP).

5. The government argued that the UK could not afford additional debt. But that, of course, depends on the cost of debt. When debt is as cheap as it is today, the UK can hardly afford not to borrow. It is impossible to believe that the country cannot find public investments—the cautious IMF itself urges more spending on infrastructure—that will generate positive real returns. Indeed, with real interest rates negative, borrowing is close to a “free lunch.”

6. The government now believes that the UK has very little excess capacity. But even the most pessimistic analysts believe it has some. Of course, the right policy would address both demand and supply, together. But I, for one, cannot accept that the UK is fated to produce 16 percent less than its pre-crisis trend of growth suggested. Yes, some of that output was exaggerated. There is no reason to believe so much was.

Assessment of Austerity

We, on this side of the argument, are certainly not stating that premature austerity is the only reason for weak economies: the financial crisis, the subsequent end of the era of easy credit, and the adverse shocks are crucial. But austerity has made it far more difficult than it needed to be to deal with these shocks.

The right approach to a crisis of this kind is to use everything: policies that strengthen the banking system; policies that increase private sector incentives to invest; expansionary monetary policies; and, last but not least, the government’s capacity to borrow and spend.

Failing to do this, in the UK, or failing to make this possible, in the eurozone, has helped cause a lamentably weak recovery that is very likely to leave long-lasting scars. It was a huge mistake. It is not too late to change course.

Bolivia parte em guerra contra a Alianca do Pacifico, por enquantoverbal...

Bolivia acusó a la Alianza del Pacífico de militarizar la región

Clarín (Argentina), 19/07/2013, AFP Y EFE

En una sorpresiva y agresiva postura con sus vecinos, el gobierno de Bolivia acusó a la Alianza del Pacífico –grupo comercial que conforman Chile, Colombia, México y Perú– de tener objetivos políticos y militares en la región. Incluso sostuvo que el territorio colombiano será la “cabeza de playa” para la incursión en Latinoamérica de la Organización del Tratado del Atlántico Norte (OTAN).

El funcionario que enarboló esta denuncia es el influyente ministro de la Presidencia, Juan Ramón Quintana. Y lo hizo en un acto público que encabezó el presidente Evo Morales. “Es importante recordar que la estrategia de la Alianza del Pacífico no es solamente una estrategia de tipo comercial, es una estrategia política y militar. Su constitución nuevamente pretende reinstalar el Consenso de Washington y el ALCA”. La primera es la política económica liberal que orientó Estados Unidos en los países en desarrollo, mientras que la segunda se trata del Area de Libre Comercio apadrinada por Norteamérica y que fracasó ante la oposición de varios países sudamericanos.

Según Quintana, el objetivo económico de la Alianza del Pacífico es “construir este gran proyecto de libre mercado para la región”, para luego “convertir a las fuerzas armadas en gendarmes del modelo económico y del nuevo modelo político”. Así, señaló, se busca contrarrestar la Alianza Bolivariana de los Pueblos de Nuestra América (ALBA).

“La firma del acuerdo entre Colombia y la OTAN es para que la OTAN tenga su cabeza de playa en América Latina y El Caribe. Hoy sabemos y está cada vez más claro que la OTAN se ha convertido en la gran maquinaria de destrucción de países, de civilizaciones, de pueblos enteros para quedarse con sus recursos naturales”, sostuvo el ministro boliviano.

La OTAN y Colombia firmaron en junio un acuerdo de intercambio de información y seguridad, que es el primer memorandum de esta naturaleza que el organismo rubrica con un país latinoamericano. De acuerdo al funcionario boliviano, “no es casual” que Colombia firmara ese acuerdo porque recibe una millonaria asistencia en defensa por parte de EE.UU. También aseguró que en ese país sudamericano existen “siete bases militares” estadounidenses.

La posición de Quintana ratifica la manifestada el mes pasado por el presidente Morales, quien dijo haber instruido a su Gabinete de ministros evaluar los alcances del acuerdo conformado por la Alianza del Pacífico. Sucede que el compromiso entre esos países, logrado en 2012, implica un rico y creciente mercado comercial en la región que está opacando al Mercosur.

Chile, Colombia, México y Perú constituyen un mercado de aproximadamente 210 millones de habitantes, con un crecimiento económico promedio del 5% el año pasado, por encima de la media regional.

Brasil: una vision lusitana, imperial - Sergio Abreu (ex-chanceleruruguaio)

"Paraguay debe encarar una negociación firme a favor del derecho y la estabilidad"

Por Adrián Cattivelli

Ultima Hora (Paraguai), 19/07/2013 

El ex canciller del Uruguay durante el gobierno del doctor Luis Alberto Lacalle Herrera (1990-1995) y actual senador Sergio Abreu se refiere, en una entrevista con Última Hora, a los caminos que el Paraguay debería explorar para encontrar una salida a la crisis institucional que supuso su suspensión del Mercosur, que será levantada el próximo 15 de agosto, con la asunción del mando del presidente electo Horacio Cartes. La solución debe ser “negociada”, pero sobre la base de que el Paraguay asuma la Presidencia del Mercosur, se retire la República Bolivariana de Venezuela y se aguarde el pronunciamiento del Parlamento paraguayo sobre este sensible tema, opina el legislador.

–¿Qué opinión le merece a usted el levantamiento de la suspensión?

–Eso es realmente un acto de cinismo político y de reiteración de lo que es la violación del derecho internacional, porque se ha avanzado en este esquema de ingreso de Venezuela por la ventana. No tiene la suspensión de un Estado una suspensión en su condición de Estado miembro y en las exigencias que se autoimpusieron los estados en que, para ingresar al Mercosur, se necesita la aprobación parlamentaria de todos.

–Es difícil imaginar que Argentina o Brasil asuman actos que, aunque sea tácitamente, impliquen un reconocimiento de que se equivocaron.

–No lo van a hacer porque tienen un espíritu totalitario. Hay un espíritu de hemiplejia moral, se condena y se persigue a quien no es amigo y se le justifica todo al que es amigo.

–¿Qué consejo le daría al presidente electo para superar la actual coyuntura?

–Yo no estoy en condiciones de dar consejos, pero sí de emitir alguna opinión. Yo he dicho muchas veces que el Paraguay tiene que defenderse con mucha fuerza por la violación del derecho internacional que sufrió. Lo tiene que hacer de forma inteligente, lo tiene que hacer con toda la apertura y participación de sus embajadas en todo el mundo, con una presencia más activa y profesional y más fuerte en las Naciones Unidas, en la OEA... Librar un combate serio, fundado y pacífico, pero no genuflexo, a favor del derecho y de la estabilidad de la seguridad jurídica. Hay que impulsar una cantidad de negociaciones previas a la eventual aceptación de Venezuela, negociaciones que le den al Paraguay el máximo de seguridad para esto. Lo importante es entender que Venezuela no es miembro del Mercosur. No está legitimado en función de las disposiciones internacionales. Tampoco puede ser presidente del Mercosur quien para nosotros no ingresó.

–¿Cuáles considera usted que son los caminos válidos para encarar la situación?

–Yo no estoy en el pellejo paraguayo, no lo conozco, pero sí acá saben cómo es el tema. Hay tres opciones: aceptar (la situación) tal como está y volver –que eso afecta enormemente la dignidad del país–; la segunda es volver después de que se negocian algunos aspectos sobre el tema de Venezuela, sobre su Presidencia (del Mercosur), su compromiso de acceso a los mercados, incluso negociar en la vuelta la posibilidad de tener apertura de mercado con terceros países sin verse afectados por la Decisión 32, que es la que los obliga a actuar en bloque; y la tercera opción es decir: “Me voy del Mercosur”. Ahora, esa es una solución muy fácil en la teoría. La conectividad del Paraguay es muy importante. Yo no perdería los principios ni las líneas de lo que he pensado y de lo que pienso sobre el tema del Paraguay y del atropello del que ha sido objeto, pero hay que buscarle, en todo caso, una línea que sea una concesión sobre todo del Brasil. Para mí el principal obstáculo es sobre todo el Brasil.

–Usted, entonces, se inclinaría por la segunda opción, la de la negociación.

–Por la negociación con la firmeza necesaria y además en cumplimiento de los tratados, porque si no, no va. Y eso yo diría que es el gran capital que tiene el Paraguay, en materia de convocatoria de una conferencia diplomática.

–¿Cree usted que esa vía contaría con la “comprensión” del Brasil?

–Brasil es un país que tiene una visión lusitana imperial, sobre todo que es la de imponer. Brasil va a tener que hacer una concesión: Maduro se va a tener que ir de la Presidencia; pero, claro, la gran discusión es si nosotros reconocemos que fue formalmente electo, si eso está previsto en el estatuto. Pero, pongámosle que resiste y que se arme un nuevo sistema.

–La cuestión presenta varias aristas, entonces...

–Creo que hay que buscar la parte jurídica, la parte política y la parte comercial, pero sobre todo con el criterio de que estos países que están al lado no son confiables, en especial por sus políticas proteccionistas, por su visión de la región. Por eso hay que tener mucho cuidado, hay que plantear la autonomía, pero tampoco puede ser un elemento que irrite mucho más a los socios. Hay que evitar eso. Por esa razón es preciso encarar esta tarea con mucha fuerza, con mucha profesionalidad, que desde luego la hay, y, por sobre todas las cosas, no dejarse llevar de un lado para otro.

Mercosur: to be or not to be: drama hamletiano no Paraguai (sobrandopara o Brasil)

Fuertes críticas al Mercosur y al Brasil en panel debate

ABC Color (Paraguai), 19/07/2013 

Los escenarios políticos, económicos y jurídicos que se plantearán si Paraguay decide abandonar o no el bloque, se analizó en la conferencia: “Mercosur: to be or not to be?”, organizada por la Cámara de Comercio Paraguayo-Americana. Uno de los panelistas, el excanciller uruguayo Sergio Abreu, dijo que el cinismo, prepotencia y vulnerabilidad jurídica llevan al bloque rumbo al abismo.

La conferencia se llevó a cabo ayer en el hotel Sheraton de Asunción y contó con la presencia de empresarios, políticos, académicos y exdiplomáticos, entre otros. Uno de los participantes del panel, el excanciller nacional José Antonio Moreno Ruffinelli señaló que el retorno al Mercosur debe realizarse solo a condición de que se respete el estado de derecho, el derecho internacional y no que “lo político esté por encima de lo jurídico”. Indicó que mientras tanto nuestro país debe esperar y fortalecer las relaciones bilaterales.

“La dignidad no se negocia. El pragmatismo no es agachar la cabeza. Es una indignidad inadmisible. Lo que pedimos es que rija el estado de derecho. Solo el derecho salvará el Mercosur”, manifestó Moreno Ruffinelli.

En la ocasión, en medio de humoradas y risas entre los participantes, los organizadores de la conferencia exhibieron el video donde el expresidente Fernando Lugo aceptó públicamente someterse al juicio político del Congreso, que finalmente lo destituyó el 22 de junio del 2012.

Por su parte, el excanciller del Uruguay y actual senador por el Partido Blanco, Sergio Abreu, lanzó fuertes críticas al Brasil y en especial a Marco Aurelio García, asesor internacional de la presidenta Dilma Rousseff. Dijo que el funcionario brasileño “es el gran entremetido de América Latina”. Afirmó que García interpreta las constituciones de los países de la región. “La hipocresía brasileña, su esquizofrenia, delirio de intervenir en los asuntos de otros estados, como la llegada de los cancilleres de la Unasur al Paraguay. El Mercosur se cayó de Maduro”, sostuvo Abreu. El político uruguayo aseveró que al Paraguay se le va respetar porque, si no hay seguridad jurídica, el proceso de integración “no camina”.

“Se debe volver al principio de igualdad ante la ley. La coherencia de respetar el derecho de todos, pero sobre todo de los más débiles. El país chico no tiene que callarse. Ahora vemos que nadie se anima a enterrar el bloque, están buscando el taxidermista para embalsamarlo”, cuestionó.

Brasil-Argentina: rusgas comerciais, desentendimentos presidenciais(Noticias Argentinas)

Tensión Argentina-Brasil: El mal momento de Dilma y Cristina en Montevideo

Urgente 24 (Uruguai), com agencia Noticias Argentinas, 19/07/2013

Si bien oficialmente se atribuyó a "problemas de agenda" y a que habían hablado "todo lo que tenían que hablar", un semanario uruguayo cuenta el motivo por el que se canceló la reunión bilateral entre ambas presidentes, en la que iban a hablar de diversos temas. Qué pasó. El antecedente.

CIUDAD DE BUENOS AIRES (Urgente24). Si bien oficialmente se atribuyó a "problemas de agenda", la suspensión de la reunión bilateral que se iba a realizar la semana pasada entre la presidente Cristina Fernández y su par de Brasil, DilmaRousseff, en el marco de una cumbre del Mercosur, en Uruguay,  obedecería a más que un simple tema de horarios.

Dilma y Cristina iban a conversar a solas a "agenda abierta". Pero el canciller Héctor Timerman aseguró que ambas mandatarias habían "hablado de todo lo que tenían que hablar" durante el plenario del Mercosur y que por retrasos de la cumbre se posponía el encuentro.

Sin embargo hay otra versión. Según recoge este jueves la agencia Noticias Argentinas, ambas presidentes tuvieron un fuerte cruce por las nuevas condiciones para las trabas importaciones que propuso Rousseff.

NA reproduce información del semanario uruguayo Búsqueda que asegura que tras ese "duro" cruce en Montevideola reunión que había sido programada fue "desactivada".

"Según el medio, Rousseff presentó en la reunión una propuesta para que las medidas administrativas que aplica la Argentina a las importaciones no fueran impuestas a los países del Mercosur, pero la retiró luegodel rechazo de Cristina Kirchner, quien respondió que "no piensa modificar su política"", consigna NA.

De acuerdo a Búsqueda, según la agencia, el presidente uruguayo José Mujica tuvo que intervenir para "apaciguar la situación".

"Después de ese encuentro quedó desactivada la reunión bilateral que tenían previsto sostener ambas presidentas. Incluso, se había preparado todo para que Dilma estuviera presente en la inauguración de Tecnópolis", señala NA a partir de la información de la revista uruguaya.

No es el primer cruce fuerte entre las poderosas mandatarias por el tema comercial. En mayo, el diario Valor, de Brasil, dio cuenta de un reunión "durísima debido a los desacuerdos en materia de comercio e inversiones".

Según el autor de aquel artículo, si bien después del encuentro "ambas se esforzaron en mostrar sonrisas y cordialidad", la reunión "dejó sin resolver cuestiones relevantes para Brasil, como la eliminación de las barreras informales en la aduana, y para la Argentina, ya que solicita un crédito del Banco Nacional de Desarrollo Económico y Social (Bndes) para obras de infraestructura, como un ferrocarril y dos represas hidroeléctricas".

Ambas jefas de Estado volverán a verse las caras en el marco de la visita que sostendrá el Papa Francisco a Brasil por la jornada Mundial de la Juventud.

A espia que veio do frio: Christine Granville, alias Willing (book review)

Through Enemy Lines‘The Spy Who Loved,’ by Clare Mullen

By BEN MACINTYRE

THE SPY WHO LOVED

The Secrets and Lives of Christine Granville

By Clare Mulley

Illustrated. 426 pp. St. Martin’s Press. $26.99

The New York Times Review of Books, July 19, 2013

Christine Granville was one of the bravest, toughest and strangest secret agents of World War II. Her feats of derring-do included acting as a courier in Nazi-occupied Europe, parachuting into France in support of the Allied invasion and rescuing three of her comrades from certain execution. She was said to be Winston Churchill’s favorite spy — a considerable accolade given how much Britain’s wartime prime minister liked spies. She may have been the model for Vesper Lynd, the female agent in Ian Fleming’s first James Bond novel, “Casino Royale.” She won medals for bravery from both Britain and France. Men found her irresistible, and she did very little to resist them.

Keystone/Getty Images 

Christine Granville, circa 1950.

Yet this woman, so ripe for Hollywood hagiography, is almost unknown today. Her obscurity is the consequence of her gender (spy history is notoriously sexist), her nationality (she was Polish, and Communist Poland did not encourage praise of British spies) and above all her character. She was a complex and mysterious individual. She survived the war only to be murdered by an obsessed former lover in the lobby of a London hotel. As Clare Mulley reveals in her admirable and overdue biography, “The Spy Who Loved,” Granville was not a straightforward personality, and all the more fascinating for that.

Born Maria Krystyna Janina Skarbek, the daughter of a feckless Polish aristocrat and a wealthy Jewish heiress, she enjoyed a comfortable, uneventful and spoiled upbringing. Indeed, her main achievement before the war was to be a runner-up in the 1930 Miss Poland beauty contest. War changed her utterly.

She was in South Africa, the wife of a Polish diplomat, when the Germans invaded Poland in September 1939. She immediately headed for London, presented herself to the British secret service and offered to ski over the Carpathian Mountains into Poland in order to take British propaganda into Nazi-occupied Warsaw. “She is absolutely fearless,” a secret service report noted, a “flaming Polish patriot, . . . expert skier and great adventuress.”

She was duly recruited into Section D, which would evolve into the fabled Special Operations Executive (S.O.E.), the sabotage, subversion and espionage unit established by Churchill to operate behind enemy lines and “set Europe ablaze.” She adopted the name Christine Granville, received a British passport and shaved several years off her real age on official forms — self-reinvention was part of her makeup, as it is of many spies. The British gave her the code name “Willing,” an apt reflection of her attitude toward sex as well as her readiness to embrace extreme peril.

Deployed to Hungary, Granville spent the first part of her war ferrying messages and people in and out of Poland. She crossed the mountains between Hungary and Poland no fewer than six times, bringing out Polish resisters and soldiers who would go on to fight for the Allied cause. She was usually accompanied by Andrzej Kowerski, a one-legged Polish patriot who would become her most enduring (and long-suffering) lover.

The stories of her exceptional sang-froid come thick and fast: skiing past the corpses of refugees frozen to death in the mountains, bribing guards, dodging bullets from a Luftwaffe plane on an open hillside and escaping from the Gestapo by biting her own tongue, spitting blood, and thus convincing her captors that she was ill with tuberculosis.

According to one account, she could even charm her way around animals: when a “vicious Alsatian dog, trained to bite and break necks,” found her hiding under a bush with some partisans, she placed her arm around it, and “it lay down beside her, ignoring its handler’s whistles.” Such tales, as Mulley observes, are “the stuff of legend,” and she is too good a historian to take them entirely at face value. Granville was an expert at her own mythologizing, telling her stories of pacifying enemy dogs “right and left, to whoever was willing to listen.”

Along the way, she picked up lovers at astonishing speed, and dropped them just as fast. Sometimes, they took rejection badly. One hilarious British intelligence report describes how Granville’s “attractiveness appeared to be causing some difficulty in Budapest.” One spurned lover had gone to her flat and threatened to shoot himself “in his genital organs.” He missed, and shot himself in the foot.

Granville was “politically naïve”: “An opportunist, keen on action, who fell in with whichever personal contact would give her an assignment to work for the freedom of her country.” Her patriotism was whole-souled, ferocious and probably the only uncomplicated thing about her.

In 1944, she was parachuted into southern France to aid Francis Cammaerts, the celebrated (and married) S.O.E. agent who became, inevitably, her lover. She carried vital messages and matériel between resistance groups; she addressed Polish conscripts in the German Army, urging them to change sides; she carried a razor-sharp commando knife and a cyanide tablet sewn into the hem of her skirt.

Her crowning achievement was to spring Cammaerts and two other captured agents from the Gestapo jail where they were awaiting execution. She bribed her way into the prison, claiming to be General Montgomery’s niece, and informed the French collaborator in command that if the executions went ahead, he would face swift and lethal reprisal from the advancing Allies. The Frenchman saw the force of this argument, and escaped along with his prisoners.

Granville’s postwar life was as grim and bleak as her war had been vivid and exhilarating. Dismissed from S.O.E., she was, like so many other exiled Poles, unable to return to a homeland now under Communist rule. She found work as a telephone operator, a sales assistant and finally a stewardess on a shipping line. Britain’s failure to support a woman who had risked her life so many times was shameful, but in truth Granville was fickle, demanding and virtually unemployable, at least in the way she wanted to be employed. She did not want to be a typist, a wife or a mother; she wanted to be a spy.

Mulley — the author of “The Woman Who Saved the Children: A Biography of Eglantyne Jebb, Founder of Save the Children” — makes excellent use of newly released archive material, the voluminous secondary sources and interviews with former colleagues, friends and lovers. But there is an unavoidable gap at the heart of this book, and that is the missing voice of Christine Granville herself. Only 11 of her letters seem to have survived. She never wrote an account of her exploits or described her own feelings. On the rare occasions that we do hear her voice, it is in fractured English that comes as a jolt: “Tell them that I am honest and clean Polish girl. . . . I like to jump out of a plane even every day.”

Granville’s story is told, inevitably, through the eyes of others, principally men, who tended to project onto her the fantasy of what they wanted to see. Of no man is this truer than the one who killed her: Dennis Muldowney, an unstable and infatuated ship’s steward unable to cope with Granville’s rejection after a brief affair. Muldowney stalked her, and then stabbed her in the heart in June 1952. He was condemned to death, and went to the gallows proclaiming he was “still very much in love” with the unsung heroine he had killed.

Ben Macintyre is the author of “Double Cross: The True Story of the D-Day Spies.”

Ainda o caso dos avioes violados pela Bolivia (que alguns pretendiammanter secreto)

Pois é, depois de tanta conversa desonesta e mistificadora sobre o caso dos sapatos descalços num aeroporto do Império, por puro acaso ficamos sabendo do caso (que era para ficar secreto, mas sempre tem um traidor), bem mais grave, dos aviões violados, revistados, farejados, num aeroporto aliado, bolivariano. Que coisa hem?

Alguém devia engolir sapatos depois dessa...

Resta relembrar Noel Rosa: "Onde está a honestidade? Onde está a honestidade?"

Apenas trocando, em homenagem à ativa e altiva: Onde está a soberania? Onde está a soberania?

Paulo Roberto de Almeida

 Reclamo desprestigiado

Por Harold Olmos

Los Tiempos (Bolívia), 19/07/2013

Las relaciones de Bolivia con Brasil han sido con frecuencia difíciles en los años del Gobierno actual. Deberían haber sido idílicas. Brasil es el  mayor comprador de gas natural de Bolivia, suficiente para procurar un empeño sostenido por elevarlas al mejor nivel. No ha sido así

El Gobierno se hizo el desentendido con la creencia de que esquivando los problemas se los resolvía. Después comprobó  que el mundo real no funciona de esa manera y que nada se logra con querer esconder la realidad que, tarde o temprano, aparecerá.

Ante la evidencia de  la declaración del Ministerio de Defensa de Brasil,  no le quedó otra opción sino reconocer que sí hubo aviones brasileños que Bolivia inspeccionó, al menos uno de ellos sin el consentimiento del vecino país. Hoy, el resultado es que la exigencia boliviana de satisfacciones y explicaciones por el incidente que tuvo por escenario los cielos de cuatro países europeos está desprestigiada. Con todos los elementos que ya son públicos, habría que preguntarse  qué harían las autoridades nacionales si mañana se realizara la reunión (disminuida) de Unasur que se solidarizó con Bolivia y condenó al grupo de países europeos con profusas alusiones a Estados Unidos por una supuesta o presumida responsabilidad principal en todo el incidente. ¿Habría el mismo resultado?

Nada es tan dañino en las relaciones entre Estados y entre personas que la sospecha de una  mentira o de verdades incompletas admitidas a regañadientes. Bolivia se quejaba de lo que antes había hecho ella misma y nadie se lo había reprochado públicamente. En ese marco, el reclamo lucía como una actitud con olor a hipocresía. En tesis, Brasil tuvo la poco agradable tarea de decir al Gobierno: Ustedes inspeccionaron tres aviones de la Fuerza Aérea Brasileña, pero en aras de  las buenas relaciones colocamos paños fríos sobre la cadena de incidentes. Ahora  nos toca decir basta.

Brasil fue uno de los cuatro países que no tuvieron a sus presidentes en la reunión de Unasur. Perú Colombia y Chile encontraron razones para ausentarse de la cita convocada con prisa con el eco de la protesta boliviana por el trato humillante dispensado a su máximo representante. Pero para el Gobierno no fueron suficientes los pedidos de disculpas, y sus exigencias crecieron hasta abarcar una  investigación que traiga la afiliación completa de todos los involucrados. Era aparente que se apuntaba a Estados Unidos con propósitos que no están claros. Algunos países pueden haberse preguntado: ¿A dónde se quiere llegar?

Las relaciones de Bolivia con Brasil han sido con frecuencia difíciles en los años del Gobierno actual. Deberían haber sido idílicas. Brasil es el  mayor comprador de gas natural de Bolivia, suficiente para procurar un empeño sostenido por elevarlas al mejor nivel. No ha sido así.

En una reunión de Mercosur en Paraguay, en la que estaba presente Bolivia como país observador, hubo  un encuentro tenso entre los presidentes Morales y Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. En la narración que hizo ante el congreso brasileño el entonces canciller y actual Ministro de la Defensa, Celso Amorím, el brasileño le reprochó al boliviano haber ejecutado la nacionalización de los campos que operaba Petrobrás con el despliegue militar que ocurrió. “Eso no se hace con un país amigo”, le dijo airadamente Lula a Evo. Para Lula resultaba más  incomprensible el hecho de que la  medida hubiese venido de un Gobierno con el que sentía cierta afinidad. Del relato que hizo Amorím, se deduce que el ahora fallecido presidente Hugo Chávez  (testimoniaba el encuentro) intervino para ayudar al acosado presidente boliviano.Brasil absorbió el golpe, pues tampoco podía asumir una actitud que critica a las grandes potencias por su comportamiento con naciones menores. Pero los planes que tenía para elevar las relaciones comerciales con Bolivia fueron archivados, entre ellos plantas petroquímicas y termoeléctricas en base al gas natural. Es también plausible suponer que las autoridades vecinas optaron por mantener las inversiones de Petrobrás sólo en un nivel suficiente para garantizar el contrato de suministros que acaba en 2019.

El autor es periodista

O caso bizarro dos 100.000 reais do deputado que passeavam soltos por ai...

Então ficamos assim: o deputado, aliás primeiro deputado, faz um empréstimo de R$ 100.000 no banco e manda retirar em espécie. É um direito seu, como alega, mas certamente uma das decisões mais estúpidas que ele possa ter tomado.

Depois manda um assessor passear com o dinheiro de carro, certamente para arejar o dinheiro, já que as notas estavam se sentindo mal, coitadas, precisando se refrescar.

Por uma dessas coincidencias extraordinárias, um gatuno telepático, desses que tem instinto de cães farejadores, sentiu que as notas o chamavam, fresquinhas, mas desejosas de dar mais um passeio.

Finalmente, o deputado é obrigado a confessar sua burrice numa delegacia. Espera-se que a sempre amiga Receita Federal se interesse também pelo caso.

Paulo Roberto de Almeida

Câmara dos Deputados

Alves diz que R$ 100 mil roubados eram dele e que assunto é “privado”

Presidente da Câmara afirma que valor roubado de um de seus assessores seria usado para pagar parcela de apartamento comprado de outro deputado

Alves disse que dinheiro roubado é "assunto privado" (Ueslei Marcelino/Reuters)

O presidente da Câmara Federal, Henrique Eduardo Alves (PMDB-RN), disse que os 100 000 reais em espécie roubados de um de seus assessores em junho seriam usados para pagar a parcela de um apartamento comprado pelo deputado em Natal.

A declaração foi feita em entrevista ao jornal Folha de S.Paulo. Além, de confirmar que o dinheiro era seu, Alves disse que ele tinha como origem um empréstimo no Banco do Brasil. "É um assunto privado, particular, um dinheiro que era meu, tenho como provar. Fiz um empréstimo de 100 000 reais. Dinheiro meu, que estava sendo conduzido", disse Alves.

Ao ser perguntado por que não realizou uma transferência bancária, em vez de mandar seu assessor buscar o dinheiro em espécie, Alves disse que tinha “direito” de fazer isso. "É um direito que é meu. É um pouco de invasão de privacidade”, respondeu o deputado. 

Segundo a Folha de S.Paulo, o apartamento comprado pelo presidente pertencia ao conterrâneo e também deputado João Maia (PR-RN). A transação total chegou a 1 milhão de reais – de acordo com Maia, Alves pagou 500 000 reais à vista e ficou de pagar a diferença em parcelas.

Roubo – O roubo aos 100 000 reais ocorreu na tarde de 13 de junho, mas só foi revelado no início de julho.  Segundo a Polícia Civil do Distrito Federal, o assessor Wellington Ferreira da Costa teve seu carro fechado por outro automóvel em uma via da Asa Norte, na região central de Brasília. Do outro carro, desceram dois homens armados, que se identificaram como policiais civis e pegaram a mala com o dinheiro, além de objetos pessoais de Costa. 

Ainda segundo a Folha de S.Paulo, o inquérito instaurado na Polícia Civil sobre o caso corre em segredo, e o boletim de ocorrência e os depoimentos não podem ser consultados na Delegacia de Repressão de Roubos e Furtos da Polícia Civil do Distrito Federal. O jornal afirma ainda que não é habitual casos de roubo correrem em sigilo e que o delegado responsável recebeu ordens expressas para não falar sobre o caso. 

Leia também: Câmara paga R$ 28 mil por jantar de confraternização do PMDB