Mercosur leaders strongly condemn US espionage and Morales incident

Criado em 15/07/13 13h38 e atualizado em 16/07/13 13h59
Por Monica Yanakiew Edição:s Fonte:Agência Brasil

Montevideo – At its 45th summit on Friday, July 12, Mercosur members emitted joint declarations strongly criticizing the United States for its communications surveillance programs and convoked the ambassadors of Portugal, Italy, Spain and France for explanations of the Morales incident.

The surveillance programs became public when a former National Security Agency contractor, Edward Snowden, released secret documents showing that telephone and email communications around the world, including Latin America, were being monitored by US intelligence agencies.

Snowden is presently holed up at a Moscow airport trying to get asylum somewhere so American authorities cannot get their hands on him. Bolivia is considered a possible haven for the NSA whistleblower. So, when the president of Bolivia, Evo Morales, flew home from a previously scheduled meeting in Moscow last week, there was speculation that Snowden might be a passenger on the presidential plane. He wasn’t, but four European countries denied the presidential plane passage.

President Dilma Rousseff summed up the problem: “Even if Snowden were on the plane, this should not have happened. It violates international treaties.” Convoking ambassadors is a diplomatic way to express discontent. The ambassadors will be asked to explain what happened and apologize.

As for the Snowden revelations, Dilma and the other Mercosur leaders strongly condemned the spying scheme and announced plans to go to the United Nations for new rules on national sovereignty and citizen privacy. “We need to discuss security,” Dilma declared. “I personally have fought tooth and nail in favor of social media as an expression of liberty and democracy. But the government cannot use [the security issue] to become a Big Brother and monitor everything, see everything and inhibit people.”

Dilma went on to say that the need to monitor people’s lives in order to combat crime and terrorism was not compatible with democracy. At the same time, the Mercosur leaders emphasized their right to concede asylum. This position was a response to pressure by the US on countries that have offered political shelter to Snowden – Bolivia, Venezuela and Nicaragua.

Although united on the foreign relations front, Mercosur was unable to resolve a domestic problem: a year ago, Paraguay was suspended after removing its president, Fernando Lugo, in a lightning swift impeachment. Since then, there have been elections and the president elect, Horacio Cartes, is to take office on August 15. All the Mercosur presidents promised to be present at the Cartes inauguration. However, the president of Venezuela, Nicolas Madura, took office in Montevideo as the pro tempore president of Mercosur and that displeased Paraguay because they accuse Venezuela of interfering in the Lugo impeachment process.

Editors: Aécio Amado / Nira Foster
Translators: Fabrício Ferreira / Allen Bennett