Lula chose a side: covering up crimes against humanity – 07/04/2023 – Demétrio Magnoli

Discreetly, Celso Amorim visited Moscow and spoke with Putin at his famous endless table. The alleged purpose of the mission was to probe paths to peace. The real purpose was to cancel the Brazilian signature on the Rome Statute, the founding treaty of the International Criminal Court (ICC). Lula chose a side: covering up crimes against humanity.

In diplomacy, timing is almost everything. Bolsonaro sat at Putin’s ceremonial table on February 16, 2022, a week before the start of the invasion of Ukraine. The visit provoked nausea among Brazilians who value the principle of respect for the territorial integrity of nations and contributed to the international isolation of the far-right coup leader’s government.

Bolsonaro was not sure that Russia would launch its war of conquest, but the circumstances indicated high odds. The last straw was the declaration of “solidarity” with Russia. Lula, however, does worse, even without using the same word. Amorim went to the Kremlin, representing Lula, just three weeks after the ICC’s arrest warrant was issued. The act is worth a thousand speeches.

Brazil is among the 123 States parties to the Rome Statute, which assumed the duty to collaborate with the court’s decisions. The arrest order stems from the accusation of a crime against humanity: the mass deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia. The ICC also issued an arrest warrant against Maria Lvova-Belova, the direct agent of the deportations, who “adopted” (ie kidnapped) a teenager from the occupied city of Mariupol.

Russia does not participate in the treaty and it is unlikely that Putin will be arrested while he is in power. However, the ICC gesture goes beyond symbolism: Putin’s world has shrunk, as the tyrant risks imprisonment if he sets foot in any of the member States. Lula’s message, revealed during Amorim’s visit, is that the Brazilian government despises the ICC: if Putin cannot come to Brazil, Brazil will go to Putin.

Amorim’s mission to Moscow coincided with that of an official delegation of PT leaders, who participated in an event promoted by United Russia, the Putinist party, and met with authorities from the Russian Foreign Ministry. Bolsonaro admired the nationalist and ultraconservative Putin, who curses against “Western moral degeneration”. The PT admires the leader of imperial Russia who presents himself as a geopolitical enemy of the West.

The two visits set the stage for a third, on the other hand. Sergei Lavrov, Russian Foreign Minister, arrives in Brasília on April 17. Lavrov will first be received in Türkiye. The difference is that the Turkish government mediates the food export agreement between Ukraine and Russia, while the Brazilian government offers its solidarity with the dictator incriminated by the ICC. If Putin cannot come to Brazil, his holographic image is invited.

“Brazil does not want to have any participation in the conflict, even indirect”, declared Lula, justifying his veto on the export of tank ammunition to Germany, which would transfer the howitzers to Ukraine. The government’s strange “neutrality” encompasses opposition to sanctions against the aggressor nation and military aid to the invaded nation. But the Moscow missions represent the crossing of a crucial border: Brazil decided to have “participation in the conflict”, rescuing Putin from the diplomatic cage built by the ICC.

Frenchman Emmanuel Macron went to China to persuade Xi Jinping to seek a just peace based on Ukraine’s territorial integrity. Lula prefers to invoke the word “peace” to align Brazil with Russia and give Putin a cold shoulder. The Brazilian president’s allies and admirers remain silent. What would they say if Bolsonaro was responsible for Brazil’s complicity with the author of crimes against humanity?

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