Nunca antes na história deste país, uma organização criminosa tinha roubado tanto, e facilitado a vida de tantos outros gatunos.
Paulo Roberto de Almeida
Temas de relações internacionais, de política externa e de diplomacia brasileira, com ênfase em políticas econômicas, em viagens, livros e cultura em geral. Um quilombo de resistência intelectual em defesa da racionalidade, da inteligência e das liberdades democráticas.
Este blog trata basicamente de ideias, se possível inteligentes, para pessoas inteligentes. Ele também se ocupa de ideias aplicadas à política, em especial à política econômica. Ele constitui uma tentativa de manter um pensamento crítico e independente sobre livros, sobre questões culturais em geral, focando numa discussão bem informada sobre temas de relações internacionais e de política externa do Brasil. Para meus livros e ensaios ver o website: www.pralmeida.org. Para a maior parte de meus textos, ver minha página na plataforma Academia.edu, link: https://itamaraty.academia.edu/PauloRobertodeAlmeida.
Sessenta anos do Instituto Brasileiro de Relações Internacionais, por José Carlos Brandi Aleixo
Mundorama: 05 Dec 2014 04:00 AM PST
A comemoração dos sessenta anos do Instituto Brasileiro de Relações Internacionais – IBRI é oportunidade propícia para recordar alguns sucessos de sua auspiciosa história.
RIO DE JANEIRO
Em 27 de janeiro de 1954, na então capital federal, no Palácio do Itamaraty, sede do Ministério das Relações Exteriores do Brasil, foi fundado o Instituto Brasileiro de Relações Internacionais. Rezava seu Estatuto “uma associação cultural independente, sem fins lucrativos, mantida por contribuições de seus associados, doações de entidades privadas e subvenções dos poderes públicos. É seu objetivo promover e estimular o estudo imparcial dos problemas internacionais, especialmente dos que interessam à política exterior do Brasil”.
Na sua fundação e nos primeiros trinta e oito anos decorridos na cidade do Rio de Janeiro ocupa lugar de relevo o paraibano Cleantho de Paiva Leite (1921-1992). Nascido em João Pessoa, formou-se em Direito no Recife em 1945. Na “London School of Economics and Political Science” pesquisou o tema da “Administração Colonial”. De 1945 a 1951 integrou o Conselho de Tutela da ONU. De 1951 a 1954 participou da Assessoria Econômica do Presidente Getúlio Vargas.
Capítulo de singular transcendência na trajetória do IBRI foi o do lançamento, em março de 1958, da Revista Brasileira de Política Internacional (RBPI), sob a direção do paraibano Oswaldo Trigueiro. Ele havia sido Governador do seu Estado, Deputado Federal e Embaixador do Brasil na Indonésia.
No primeiro número do citado periódico constam: seis artigos, sendo o primeiro deles “Os direitos humanos como fundamento da ordem jurídica e política”, de Vicente Rao; Resenha de treze eventos de importância internacional; cinco documentos significativos; e nomes de sete publicações e de seus autores.
Entre os componentes do Conselho Curador (14), do Conselho Consultivo (21) e da Diretoria Executiva (1), havia ilustres acadêmicos, professores universitários, periodistas, juristas, historiadores, literatos, etc.
BRASÍLIA
Muitos fatores contribuíram para a transferência do IBRI do Rio de Janeiro para Brasília, cidade com clara vocação internacional.
Antes de sua inauguração em 21 de abril de 1960, ela foi visitada por Governantes de países como Cuba, Estados Unidos, Honduras, Indonésia, Itália, Japão, México, Paraguai, Portugal. A partir de 21 de abril de 1970 o governo brasileiro passou a receber embaixadores e outras autoridades estrangeiras só na nova capital. Em 1974 a Universidade de Brasília foi a primeira do país a realizar vestibular para o Curso de Relações Internacionais. Em 1976 ela criou o Departamento de Ciência Política e Relações Internacionais (REL). Coincidentemente, no mesmo ano, o Instituto Rio Branco, sob a operosa direção do Ministro Sérgio Bath, deslocou-se do Rio de Janeiro para Brasília. Os seus docentes não diplomatas permaneceram naquela urbe. Vários professores da UnB — entre os quais o autor destas linhas — assumiram disciplinas do Curso de Preparação para a Carreira Diplomática (CPCD). Concomitantemente diversos diplomatas brasileiros, com vocação também acadêmica, ingressaram no Professorado da UnB. Entre eles estavam Carlos Henrique Cardim, Celso Amorim, Paulo Roberto de Almeida e Samuel Guimarães.
Com o falecimento do benemérito Cleantho de Paiva Leite, em 7 de outubro de 1992, sua viúva Maria Cecília e remanescentes do IBRI aprovaram a ideia de sua instalação em Brasília. Em 27 de janeiro de 1993 os membros do IBRI, reunidos no Rio de Janeiro, aprovaram, por unanimidade, a outorga de “todos os poderes necessários ao Embaixador Sérgio Guarishi Bath [novamente Diretor do Instituto Rio Branco] para reconstituir a composição desses dois órgãos [Conselhos Curador e Consultivo], designar o novo Diretor do IBRI e o novo Diretor de sua Revista e adotar todas as providências necessárias ou convenientes para a continuidade institucional do IBRI e a manutenção financeira e editorial de sua revista”.
Em 6 de julho de 1993, reunido no Instituto Rio Branco, o “Grupo de amigos de Cleantho” fundou o IBRI de Brasília e elegeu: Professor José Carlos Brandi Aleixo, Diretor Geral; Professor Alcides Costa Vaz, Secretário Executivo; Professora Luciara Silveira de Aragão e Frota, Primeira Tesoureira; Ministro Adolf Libert Westphalen, Segundo Tesoureiro; Embaixador Sérgio Bath, Conselheiro Paulo Roberto de Almeida e Professor José Flávio Sombra Saraiva, membros do Conselho Fiscal; Professor Amado Luiz Cervo, Editor da Revista Brasileira de Política Internacional.
Para o êxito do IBRI, em geral, e de sua Revista Brasileira de Política Internacional, muito contribuiu a atitude favorável da Universidade de Brasília e, particularmente, do Departamento de Ciência Política e Relações Internacionais e do Departamento de História. Entre os que prestaram grande serviço ao IBRI, cabe mencionar, a título de exemplos, os nomes do funcionário Vanderlei Valverde e da então aluna Jennifer Cristino. CNPq e CAPES proporcionaram valioso apoio.
O previdente fundador Cleantho deixou na Tesouraria saldo importante para as naturais despesas do encerramento do IBRI no Rio de Janeiro e do seu começo em Brasília.
Pode-se afirmar que o IBRI tem sido fiel ao seu objetivo inicial de “estimular o estudo imparcial dos problemas internacionais, especialmente dos que interessam à política exterior do Brasil”. Sua RBPI, decana dos periódicos nacionais congêneres, altamente conceituada, permanece sendo editada por professores da Universidade de Brasília.
José Carlos Brandi Aleixo é Professor Emérito da Universidade de Brasília e Presidente de Honra do Instituto Brasileiro de Relações Internacionais – IBRI (brandialeixo@gmail.com).
By THE EDITORIAL BOARDthe New York Times,
It is hard to imagine that this was a state of the nation address President Vladimir Putin relished making.
His country is in bad shape — sanctions and low oil prices have thrown the ruble into a tailspin, the economy is headed for recession, he had to abandon the South Stream gas pipeline and, just hours before he was to speak, Islamist rebels mounted an attack in Chechnya. So, analysts wondered, would he stay with the hard line or inject a dose of realism?
Both, it turned out. Speaking to a loyal Russian elite in a gilded Kremlin hall on Thursday, Mr. Putin served up yet another hyperaggressive rant about the purportedly relentless efforts of the perfidious West, orchestrated by Washington, to dismantle, undermine, isolate, humiliate, contain and otherwise destroy Russia.
Far from giving any hint of a readiness to scale back the tensions over Ukraine, Mr. Putin actually equated Crimea’s importance for Russia to the Temple Mount’s importance for Jews.
Fulminating at the West and blaming it for all of Russia’s woes has kept Mr. Putin’s ratings high through the Ukraine crisis and has deflected any of the immediate blame for Russia’s growing problems onto “enemies,” so it was not surprising that Mr. Putin would stay with it.
But he could not escape the growing concern among many Russians about where their economy is headed. The ruble has plummeted; oil is trading far below the levels on which Russia’s budget was drawn up; and the government has acknowledged that the country is headed for a recession. The anxiety is palpable in Russian streets.
Mr. Putin’s response was a combination of bravado and carrots. The current tensions, he said, should help Russia overhaul its economy to become more self-sufficient. He promised to make doing business easier for small and middle-sized companies, and announced a four-year freeze on the tax rate. And he vowed not to ask questions of oligarchs who bring back any of the billions that have been fleeing abroad.
Some of these measures are reasonable and could be helpful, but the question is whether they will be enough for Mr. Putin to ride out the storm.
A majority of Russians were willing to surrender some freedom as long as they enjoyed prosperity, and to cheer Mr. Putin on as long as he seemed to be restoring Russian self-respect and power. But as prices increase and recession sets in, the bluster will become increasingly hollow.
Mr. Putin’s choice then will be to become even more belligerent and ruthless, at home and abroad — or to recognize that the solution is to stop lying about the West, and to start trying to resolve the Ukraine crisis and fix the real problems of Russia’s economy.
Nearly 70 years ago, with fresh memories of the disastrous trade wars of the 1930s, leaders of the United States and 22 other countries launched the GATT, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. The GATT was charged with slashing tariffs and dismantling other protectionist barriers to global economic growth. And the Geneva-based international organization delivered. By 1995, when the GATT morphed into the World Trade Organization, a series of successful multilateral trade-liberalizing negotiations had slashed average global tariffs, which had been in the 40 percent range in the 1940s, to about 5 percent. Even though many protectionist schemes remained, the WTO seemed poised to continue the good work. But in the last two decades, the WTO has descended into dysfunction, lurching from one bitter fight to another.
A deeply concerned WTO Director-General Roberto Azevedo has bluntly warned the WTO’s 160 member countries that the GATT/WTO system has been “living on borrowed time.” He’s spot-on. I’ve been watching the GATT and its successor global trade rules-making institution for nearly four decades — witnessing the gradual destruction of the world’s most successful experiment in peaceful international economic cooperation. Although the most recent crisis that sparked Azevedo’s warnings was averted on Nov. 27, at least for now, the tensions that have weakened the WTO will remain for the foreseeable future.
The root of the problem is that too many countries either no longer believe that multilateral trade liberalization is beneficial for them, or that they lack, for varying reasons, the political will to lead. Too many shortsighted political leaders, forgetting their history, are back in the business of creating trade blocs. They are more interested in defending their own protectionist trade schemes to fret much about what they have been doing to the WTO-supervised multilateral trading rules. And without a shared core belief that the non-discriminatory global rules work for all, the WTO cannot deliver.
In Washington, D.C., President Barack Obama has never given high priority to the WTO. Neither have Republican or Democratic leaders in Congress. While individual European WTO members like the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Sweden still believe in the organization’s rationale, the 28-member EU makes the notion of “European leadership” an oxymoron. Tokyo’s main goal in any trade negotiation is to preserve Japan’s stratospheric 500-plus percent rice tariffs. The Chinese now run the world’s second-largest economy, but they aren’t leading either. In parts of Africa and Latin America, leaders tend to see multilateral trade liberalization as a plot for economic domination perpetuated by their rich former colonial masters. Average African tariff barriers still hover in the 12 to 20 percent range. And when it turns to former colonies that enjoy playing the spoiler, India leads the pack.
In May, India’s new prime minister, Narendra Modi, cast a gimlet eye on the only successful multilateral trade-liberalization deal the WTO had concluded in nearly 20 years of trying. Last December, when WTO members convened in Bali, India’s government (then controlled by the leftish Congress Party that Modi’s right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party trounced in this spring’s elections) signed a deal that was widely cheered. For good reason: The so-called Bali Package was guesstimated to give the global economy a trillion-dollar boost. The WTO’s richer countries pledged to provide developing countries with billions of “trade facilitation” dollars to modernize clogged ports, fix terrible roads, and streamline corrupt customs procedures. But Modi balked.
On July 31, the strong-willed Indian leader took trade facilitation hostage, refusing to sign the necessary legal protocol to implement it. India’s veto — unprecedented in GATT/WTO history — brought the WTO into what Director-General Azevedo called a state of “paralysis.” The good news is that after months of bitter wrangling, Modi released his veto, declaring victory.
Some victory. Essentially, India “won” the right to continue to increase the amount of subsidies that New Delhi has been lavishing upon its farmers into an indefinite future, without fears of being held legally accountable in the WTO. India’s “food security” program — paying globally uncompetitive farmers above-market prices to stockpile grains that are later doled out to the urban poor — has been widely criticized. Perhaps half the grain rots, or is sold on the black market. Meanwhile, Indian exports of surplus rice have distorted global markets for years. Undeterred by criticisms that the purpose of WTO trade negotiations is to reduce protectionism, not enhance it, Modi nevertheless claimed the high moral ground: asserting that Mother India is only fighting for the rights of the world’s poor.
The hypocrisy extends beyond agriculture. Modi has hiked tariffs on imports of high-tech equipment from other developing countries like the Philippines, Vietnam, and China. Meanwhile, India’s main goal in the WTO’s long-stalled Doha Round of broader trade liberalizing negotiations — which the Bali deal was intended to revive — is the “flexibility” to raise all industrial tariffs even more, whenever New Delhi finds enhanced protectionism politically attractive.
As it turns out, that’s basically what many African leaders also want from the WTO: the right to raise tariffs and advance their own industrial policies — while the rich countries dismantle theirs. It’s called necessary “policy space.” South Africa’s president, Jacob Zuma, has hardly bothered to disguise his suspicions that the WTO’s Bali deal was tilted in favor of the rich “North.” And some officials in Uganda, Tanzania, and Kenya also complained that trade facilitation meant opening their borders to import competition from giant multinational corporations.
On April 27, after meeting behind closed doors, a handful of African diplomats — nobody has publicly claimed credit — persuaded the African Union to “instruct” African WTO ambassadors in Geneva to try to delay the Bali deal’s implementation. As the AU, based in Addis Ababa, hadn’t even participated in the Bali negotiations, the power play ran into intense criticism from furious Americans, Europeans, and a long list of others. The Africans subsequently backed down, but the poisonous distrust that has paralyzed the WTO’s negotiations was back.
That distrust memorably first surfaced in late November 1999, when WTO ministers convened in Seattle, hoping to launch a new round of multilateral trade-liberalizing talks. The Battle of Seattle is best remembered for the vociferous band of anti-globalist protestors (colorfully dressed as sea turtles or ninjas) who trashed that city’s streets. Less noticed were the secret smiles from key African trade officials inside the barricaded convention center who were happy that the talks failed.
In 2001, it seemed trade liberalization was on the move again when the WTO’s Doha Round was launched. But then in September 2003, there was open cheering from African officials when WTO meetings in Cancun again collapsed in acrimony. The meetings in the Mexican resort had been intended to breathe life into the Doha Round, but instead threw those negotiations into intensive care, where they still remain. (The trade-facilitation deal that was reached in Bali last December was split off from the broader Doha negotiations, the idea being to harvest the easier parts to generate momentum to complete the Doha Round.)
Just a few hours after the Cancun debacle, I ran into a Kenyan diplomat named Mukhisa Kituyi in an Argentine-style steakhouse. It was a memorable September evening in the famous Mexican resort. Kituyi and his colleagues were celebrating that afternoon’s failure of the WTO meetings, washing down copious quantities of red meat with red wine. “We killed it,” one of the Kenyan officials boasted, referring to that afternoon’s negotiating failure.
Kituyi is now secretary-general of UNCTAD, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development. While he declines to comment, it appears the Kenyan official remains a trade skeptic. Kituyi invited President Rafael Correa of Ecuador to deliver on Oct. 4 a rousing Special 50th Anniversaryspeech at UNCTAD’s Geneva headquarters, just a few blocks from the WTO’s offices along the Rue de Lausanne. Correa railed against “an immoral and unjust” world economic order. In a world “dominated by transnational capital and the hegemonic countries,” the Ecuadorian leader declared, the poor countries should protect themselves by forming regional trade accords. “The world of the future is a world of blocs,” he declared. Led by an approving Kituyi, the UNCTAD audience applauded.
This is not a trivial matter. In recent years, WTO members have cut more than 300 trade-distorting preferential trade deals with various favored trading partners. They all violate the fundamental GATT/WTO principle that member countries should not discriminate against each other. Perhaps half of global trade is diverted through these discriminatory “free trade” routes.
The top U.S. trade priorities are forming two regional trading blocs, one with Europe and the second with some Asian countries. China is excluded. Meanwhile, the Chinese are advancing their own regional trade bloc that would exclude the Americans. Many Africans are looking to their own side deals with each other.
Preventing the re-emergence of discriminatory trade blocs is exactly why the GATT was created in 1947. It’s a history lesson that present world leaders would be well advised to reflect upon.
BAY ISMOYO/AFP/Getty Images
Augusto Ribeiro de Mendonça Neto, o executivo da Toyo Setal que afirmou que parte da propina paga ao PT foi registrada como doação legal, fez outras revelações que chegam a assumir certo tom jocoso, mas que dão conta do grau de delinquência a que chegaram as relações da Petrobras com empreiteiras e partidos políticos.
Três homens, disse ele, passavam para recolher a propina em dinheiro vivo. Atendiam pelas alcunhas de “Tigrão”, “Melancia” e “Eucalipto”. A Polícia Federal tem tentado chegar a esses senhores, mas, até agora, não conseguiu.
“Tigrão”, segundo o executivo, é “moreno, 1,70 m a 1,80 m de altura, meio gordinho e com idade aproximada de 40 anos.” Júlio Camargo, o segundo diretor da Toyo Setal que fez delação premiada, descreveu os dois outros deste modo: “Um deles era mulato, forte, 1,85 m, idade aproximada de 55 anos, e outro era de estatura baixa, bem branco, idade aproximada de 60 anos”.
Pronto! Suponho que o segundo fosse o “Melancia”, e o outro, o “Eucalipto”. Nessa zoologia criminosa, é evidente, falta identificar os ratos, as raposas, as baratas, as hienas; não faltam ratos, raposas, cães ladravazes e baratas.
Como é mesmo aquele trecho de uma música dos Titãs, do tempo ainda em que certo partido pregava a ética na política?
Bichos!
Saiam dos lixos
Baratas!
Me deixem ver suas patas
Ratos!
Entrem nos sapatos
Do cidadão civilizado
O clube
Mendonça Neto também sintetizou as regras do chamado “Clube das Empreiteiras”, que operaria em parceria com a quadrilha instalada na Petrobras e os políticos que lhe davam suporte, segundo informa a Folha:
– Reuniões eram convocadas por mensagens de celular ou por telefone. A frequência variava conforme as oportunidades de negócio oferecidas pela Petrobras.
– Quem participava das reuniões não tinha a entrada registrada e recebia um crachá já na portaria.
– Cada empresa atribuía um grau de interesse, de 1 a 3, às obras que seriam licitadas pela estatal.
– Em caso de conflito e coincidência de prioridades, as empresas interessadas resolviam entre si quem ficaria com a obra. Se a disputa persistisse, o caso era arbitrado pelo “clube”, que redistribuía contratos para acomodar interesses.
– A empresa ou consórcio escolhido para “vencer” a licitação tinha de informar previamente sua proposta de valor.
– As empresas do “clube” que participariam da licitação para simular uma concorrência poderiam contestar o valor, caso achassem exagerado.
Isso é que é organização!
A ser tudo verdade, precisamos chamar Francis Ford Coppola, Robert De Niro e Al Pacino para filmar a versão nativa de “O Poderoso Chefão”. Só não vai dar para contar com Marlon Brando! Que pena!