Brazil's foreign minister helps Bolivian politician flee, then resigns

After 450 days holed up in the Brazilian embassy in La Paz, the Bolivian opposition politician Roger Pinto left the country with the help of unauthorized Brazilian diplomatic action.

|
Ueslei Marcelino/Reuters
Bolivian opposition politician Roger Pinto waves from the front door of his Brazilian lawyer Fernando Tiburcio Pena's house, in Brasilia August 26, 2013.

• A version of this post ran on the author's blog, bloggingsbyboz.com. The views expressed are the author's own.

Just over one year ago I wrote about the case of Roger Pinto, the Bolivian opposition politician accused of corruption by the government. Pinto had taken refuge in the Brazilian embassy in La Paz, received asylum from the Brazilian government, but was denied safe passage by President Evo Morales. The case had odd parallels to the Julian Assange case, the founder of Wikileaks who remains in the Ecuador embassy in London, having received asylum from President Correa while wanted for questioning in a sexual assault investigation in Sweden.

After 450 days, Brazilian diplomats used a diplomatic vehicle to help Pinto escape, claiming that his physical and mental health was at risk. President Rousseff apparently did not authorize this action. As a result, Foreign Minister Antonio Patriota has resigned and been replaced by Brazil's UN Ambassador, Luiz Alberto Figueiredo. Patriota will switch places with Figueiredo and go to the UN.

While the Morales administration would have certainly preferred Pinto arrested, having him out of the Brazilian embassy is one less headache for all of UNASUR. Having Pinto stuck in asylum limbo in Bolivia was a hassle for everyone and an embarrassment for a region trying to have a unified position on other international issues, such as the current diplomatic disputes over Assange and Snowden.

It's a mild embarrassment for Patriota, but his resignation gives Brazil an easy way to turn the page on the issue with Bolivia before the controversy even has a chance to heat up. He took one for the team and being Brazil's UN ambassador is not a minor position by any means.

– James Bosworth is a freelance writer and consultant who runs Bloggings by Boz.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Brazil's foreign minister helps Bolivian politician flee, then resigns
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Americas/Latin-America-Monitor/2013/0827/Brazil-s-foreign-minister-helps-Bolivian-politician-flee-then-resigns
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe