Brazil’s Ambassador Boycotts Event Honoring Marielle Franco in Paris

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The Brazilian Ambassador to France, Luis Fernando Serra, decided to cancel his attendance at an event in Paris with academics when he learned that there would be a tribute to City Councilor Marielle Franco, murdered in Rio in 2018.

The information is included in internal telegrams sent by the diplomat to the Itamaraty Foreign Office in Brasília. The messages are part of 17 documents that the chancellery was forced to provide, after the PSOL (Socialism and Liberty Party) officially requested the internal telegrams, instructions, and documents about potential directions from the Itamaraty to its posts abroad on what should be said regarding Marielle’s death.

On August 6th, 2019, the ambassador in Paris stated that the Conference of the Association of Brasilianists in Europe would be taking place. The event, according to the document, would involve 540 Brazilian professors and scholars living on the European continent.

“Invited to attend the Conference closing ceremony I was advised that the event would be held in a venue provided by the Paris City Hall, with the presence of Mayor Anne Hidalgo (Socialist Party),” he wrote.

“After the final lecture at the conference, the mayor will be given the floor to “pay tribute to Brazilian Marielle Franco“.

“At that time, the mayor will announce the location of a garden in the French capital that will be officially named after the late Brazilian city councilwoman,” he explained. “Given the circumstances, I have taken the initiative to cancel my attendance at this event.”

Brazil was not invited to the inauguration of the Paris square

On September 26th, a new telegram was allegedly sent from Paris to the chancellery in Brazil. In it, the ambassador reported on the inauguration of the square, which took place on September 22nd.

“The Embassy of Brazil was neither approached nor invited to the inauguration ceremony of the Marielle Franco Garden in the capital of France,” he explained.

This is not the first time that the Brazilian ambassador to Paris has been involved in issues related to the late city councilor. Earlier this year, French Senator Laurence Cohen, of the Communist Party and president of the France-Brazil interparliamentary friendship group, had sent a letter to the embassy in Paris. She inquired the government about the investigations concerning the councilor’s murder.

On February 3rd, the senator posted on her Twitter account an excerpt of the letter she received in response to her inquiries. Serra replied aggressively to the French legislator, stating that it was with “deep consternation” that he noted “that the murder of Celso Daniel and the attack on Bolsonaro’s life did not have the same repercussion in France as the murder of Marielle, which was even the subject of a mobilization by the National Parliament,” he pointed out.

Telegrams come to light at the request of deputies

In February, Brazilian deputies led by Fernanda Melchionna (PSOL) sent a letter to Chancellor Ernesto Araújo requesting details of the existence or otherwise of instructions that the government has passed to their posts abroad on how to deal with issues related to the assassination.

They also requested all documents, telegrams, and communications with guidelines issued by the Itamaraty on the subject.

On March 30th, Chancellor Ernesto Araújo replied to the PSOL’s request. But he did not clarify if there had been any specific direction nor did he provide the telegrams requested. In the text, the chancellery only stated that a reply to the senator had been prepared “based on reports on the progress of investigations”.

Unhappy with the Itamaraty reply, the PSOL party again filed a new request for information, alerting Araújo to the fact that “it is a crime of responsibility to refuse, or fail to reply within thirty days, and to provide false information, to written requests for information to ministers of state.”

Itamaraty monitors reports on Bolsonaro worldwide

Now, the documents have been delivered. There has also been a change in the confidentiality classification of documents. On July 6th, 2020, one of them changed from “reserved” to “ostensible”, which allows full access.

The chancellery’s internal documents also show that Itamaraty is monitoring the foreign media in detail, particularly when it comes to the alleged relationship of the Bolsonaro family with militias.

On March 14th, 2019, the Brazilian embassy in Stockholm notified the Itamaraty in Brasília that an article in the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter contains “serious innuendoes of the president’s links with criminal factions in Rio allegedly involved in the crime”. In the text, the diplomat calls it “an irresponsible and frivolous attack”.

Quotes on the Marielle case and militias

The newspaper had pointed out that the two police officers arrested in the investigation into Marielle “are part of a death squad – the so-called militias” and that “they may be associated with the President.” The text tells how one of them lived in the same condominium as the President and also mentions that “one of the President’s sons, Senator Flávio Bolsonaro, supports the Rio militias.”

“I intend to send a new letter of repudiation to the aforementioned periodical in which I will denounce the attacks made on the person of President Jair Bolsonaro,” the Brazilian ambassador, Nelson Antonio Tabajara de Oliveira, signs in the telegram.

Days later, the diplomat sent a new letter to Itamaraty to explain that his protest resulted in an amendment to the text. At the end of the article, the writing included an excerpt that reads:

“The relations around Bolsonaro referred to in this article are allegations of purported relationships and accusations regarding such connections.”

In Rome, the ambassador sent a letter to the newspaper

The ambassador celebrated and wrote to the diplomatic summit, stating that “however refractory the contact with the diplomatic corps may be to the local press, this amendment shows that careful observation of the published content [can] correct misrepresentations and false information.”

Something similar occurred months later in Italy. On February 13th, 2020, the Brazilian embassy in Rome reported to Itamaraty on an article in the newspaper La Repubblica, in which “defamatory reactions” are made to President Bolsonaro. In the telegram, the ambassador says that he had sent a letter to the newspaper’s editorial staff.

In the communication, he also repudiated the article and said that he supports the freedom of the press.

In recent months, similar incidents have been reported in Spain, France, and other countries, with ambassadors sending letters to newspapers to protest against articles about Bolsonaro.

Source: El País

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