Patrícia Campos Mello
02.06.2014
Secret diplomatic cables, to which Folha has had access, have revealed that the Brazilian government tried to persuade the Bolivian senator Roger Pinto to renounce his asylum in Brazil, following pressure from the Bolivian President, Evo Morales.
Last August, Eduardo Saboia, a Brazilian diplomat in La Paz, smuggled Pinto out of the Brazilian embassy, and took him in a diplomatic vehicle to Corumbá, in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso do Sul.
Pinto had been trapped in the Brazilian embassy for 453 days. The incident sparked a diplomatic crisis between the two countries of such gravity that the Brazilian foreign minister, Antonio Patriota, was forced to resign.
In a statement to a Brazilian investigation of the incident, Patriota admitted that the Brazilian government had tried to persuade Pinto to renounce the asylum he had been granted. "It was an option, among the possibilities considered," he said.
Pinto sought asylum in the Brazilian embassy in La Paz on May 28, 2012, alleging that he was suffering political persecution. Brazil has never previously tried to persuade a refugee to renounce their legal status.
Asylum was granted. However, Bolivia refused to give Pinto safe conduct to leave the country, resulting in his extended stay in the Brazilian embassy. This caused a great increase in tension between the two countries.
In May 2013, a year after Pinto took refuge in the Brazilian embassy in La Paz, the Brazilian Foreign Ministry sent Elói Ritter to Bolivia with a letter for the then ambassador, Marcel Biato.
The letter asked Pinto to renounce his refugee status by sending a letter to President DIlma Rousseff, and offered to provide a plane for him to a third country.
Pinto rejected the proposal. Saboia told the government's investigation that Pinto said he "would rather cut his wrists than sign the agreement."
When asked by the investigation if the proposal had been analyzed by the government's legal team, Patriota said not, alleging that the proposal was "just an idea." He said that Uruguay was one of the options for Pinto's eventual destination, as was Venezuela.
This unorthodox solution came following a "telling off" from President Rousseff, according to Patriota.
On February 23, 2013, Rousseff met with the Bolivian President Evo Morales at the South America - Africa summit in Malabo, the capital of Equatorial Guinea. Morales told Rousseff to resolve the situation and imposed harsher conditions on Pinto's stay in the Brazilian embassy.
According to Morales, Pinto was receiving visitors and was "politically active" in the embassy.
In response, Rousseff told Patriota to remove Pinto from the embassy in La Paz, but without bringing him to Brazil. Shortly afterwards, Patriota restricted Pinto's visitors to family and his lawyer. After that, the attempt to get Pinto to renounce refugee status was made.
Patriota confirmed that Rousseff was responsible for granting Pinto asylum, acting on advice from the Foreign Ministry. However, Pinto's presence in the embassy caused increasing tension with the Bolivian government.
Brazil looked for a way of resolving the problem, but without removing Pinto's refugee status.
In a statement, the Foreign Ministry said that it would not comment "while the issue is still under investigation and the result has yet to be made public." Patriota, now Brazil's representative at the UN, would not return Folha's calls.
Luiz Alberto Figueiredo, Patriota's successor, last year said that the Brazilian government always sought "a negotiated solution, legally sound, so that the Senator could leave Bolivia and enter Brazil."
"To ask someone to renounce their asylum is to renounce the status and the prestige of the Foreign Ministry," said Ricardo Ferraço, president of the Senate Commission of Foreign Affairs (PMDB - Espírito Santo).
"It's one thing to show solidarity with the Bolivian people, but it's another to submit to the blackmail of Evo Morales," he said.
The investigation has dragged on for nine months. Saboia - currently on leave - risks being suspended from his post. Meanwhile, Biato, who was going to be given a job at the Brazilian embassy in Switzerland, has been blocked from taking his post.
Roger Pinto is still awaiting a decision on his request for asylum in Brazil.
fonte: Folha Internacional
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