On Wednesday (13), the minister of Foreign Relations, Celso Amorim, repeated that Brazil will not formalize its support to the candidacy of the Brazilian Marcio Barbosa to the position of general director of the United Nations for Education, Science and Culture (Unesco).

Barbosa is the current number two at Unesco, but the minister guaranteed that Brazil is committed to the candidacy of the Egyptian Hosni Farouk. Farouk, supported by the Arab and African countries, is accused of disseminating anti-Semitic information on his webpage. The minister attributed the Brazilian support to the Egyptian to the fact that Arab countries have never elected a general-director for that body.

Amorim affirmed that Brazil has currently only two international requests of that kind: electing the minister of the Supreme Court Hellen Gracie for the appeal body of the World Trade Organization (WTO), and the candidacy of Rio de Janeiro to siege the 2016 Olympic Games.

Sudan
During that public hearing, Celso Amorim was asked by the deputies about the Brazilian position regarding the arrest order issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) against the Sudan president, Omar Hassan Ahmad al-Bashir. Amorim affirmed that, despite the commercial interests of Brazil, if al-Bashir enters Brazil, he will be arrested.

He said that, as soon as ICC took the decision on Sudan’s president, he contacted representatives of the Arab-League; so that the countries “able to influence Sudan” act to avoid the expelling of international NGOs from that country (13 organizations had been expelled by al-Bashir so far). That measure had a positive effect, according to the NGOs themselves, which actuate in humanitarian assistance in Sudan. “Convincing the countries of that region is more effective than simply condemning them, which is typical to countries having a colonialist past, and that condemnation does not have any impact on that region”, declared Amorim.

The arrest order against Sudan’s president was issued on March 4th, and includes several accusations, such as war crimes and crimes against humanity, due to the conflicts in Darfur. The United Nations (UN) estimates that that conflict in the African country has resulted in the death of more than 200,000 people and in 2,000,000 refugees.

Crisis
During the hearing, the minister affirmed that the diversifying of commercial partners of Brazil is “fundamental” to give it better conditions to face the global financial crisis. He quoted reports published in the international media, which place Brazil among the countries currently in the best economic conditions, and stressed that that resulted from the fact that Brazil has focused its trade in regions such as Africa, Middle East, Asia and Europe. “Countries, such as Mexico, are deeply suffering, since 90% of their exports are aimed at the United States [the focus of the crisis]”, said the minister. “Brazil suffers a little less, since its agenda is more diversified; the United States, which consumed 25% of our exports, registered less than 14% last year”, he added.

Report - Rodrigo Bittar
Editing - Patricia Roedel/RX
Translation - Positive Idiomas Ltda