Rousseff’s fury over Bolivian fugitive incident
Rousseff’s fury over Bolivian fugitive incident
Ambassador prompts presidential ire by comparing senator’s confinement to dictatorship prisons
Juan Arias Rio de Janeiro 28 AGO 2013 - 16:55 CET
Brazil President Dilma Rousseff is facing the need for a foreign policy overhaul after Brazilian diplomats in La Paz secretly helped a Bolivian senator escape to Brazil, drawing the ire of Bolivian authorities and criticism from the national media.
After dismissing Foreign Minister Antonio Patriota over the incident, even though he allegedly knew nothing of the affair, Rousseff broke her silence on Tuesday to criticize her ambassador to La Paz, Eduardo Saboia, who had Senator Roger Pinto Molina driven across the border in an official car in the middle of the night. Before that, Pinto Molina had been living inside the Brazilian Embassy for 15 months.
Bolivia considers Pinto Molina a criminal who faces 14 trials for a variety of offenses, including causing losses worth 1.7 million dollars to the state when he was a government official. The Brazilian opposition has long supported Pinto Molina, claiming he is the victim of an attack by the Bolivian government for publicly linking high-ranking officials with the drug trade.
Dilma Rousseff was especially irritated to hear Ambassador Saboia compare the senator’s situation at the embassy with that endured by prisoners during Brazil’s dictatorship (1964-1985). Saboia stated that it made him feel like one of the jailers of the regime.
“The first thing that a democratic, civilized state does is protect its allies,” said a visibly angry Rousseff at a press conference on Tuesday. “We are not in a state of exception. I was there at Doi-Codi (the prison run by the military dictatorship, where Rousseff herself was held between 1970 and 1972) and I know very well what it was like. Doi-Codi is as distant from the Brazilian Embassy in La Paz as heaven is from hell.”
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Brazil admits infringing on Bolivian sovereignty in aiding senator's escape
English.news.cn 2013-08-29 07:43:04
BRASILIA, Aug. 28 (Xinhua) -- A top Brazilian official said on Wednesday that his country's role in helping a Bolivian senator escape justice infringed on its neighbor's sovereignty and caused "a great problem."
"You can't abet someone's departure from a country by damaging its sovereignty," said Gilberto Carvalho, minister of the general secretariat of the presidency. "You have the right to pressure, negotiate, discuss, but not to do that. The Brazilian government is really bothered" by the incident.
Bolivian senator Roger Pinto Molina, who had been holed up at Brazil's embassy in La Paz for 15 months in an attempt to seek asylum, was spirited out of the country over the weekend by Brazil 's charge d'affaires, Eduardo Saboia, who admitted to acting alone in planning and undertaking the getaway.
Bolivia has asked Brazil to hand over the fugitive senator. The incident led to the resignation of Brazilian Foreign Minister Antonio Patriota.
The right-wing senator, who was convicted of defrauding the state of 1.7 million U.S. dollars and other corruption charges, first sought asylum at the Brazilian embassy on May 28, 2012, claiming he was a victim of political persecution by the leftist government. Brazil granted him asylum late last year.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/world/2013-08/29/c_132671914.htm