Jamil Chad Confidentiality and Itamaraty decisions in Telegrams will be questioned 11/16/2022 04h00

The secrecy imposed on Itamaraty’s internal communications may be reviewed from 2023. Members of the new government are seeking ways to achieve greater transparency within the State Department, both in the formulation of foreign policy and in understanding the decisions taken. taken in the last four years

Members of the elected government ensure that there will be no witch hunts or persecution as Bolsonarism practiced in the prime ministership. But the quest for greater transparency will be part of an effort to understand what decisions have been made in recent years and the country’s situation.

Sources within Itamaraty find that secrecy has been established for internal telegrams without justification, outside of the standards that the Chancery has practiced for years. There is also suspicion that a significant part of the decisions were not transmitted even by telegrams, with a parallel network created by allies of the Bolsonaro family, exchanging casual informal messages in telephone applications or at meetings.

Another fear is that with Bolsonaro’s defeat, an expedited process will be put in place to destroy any traces of information.

Chloroquine, vaccines and travel to Israel

Some posts should be among the priorities when opening a file. One of them is the Brazilian embassy in the US, run by a Bolsonarist and the nerve center of the relationship between Jair Bolsonaro and Donald Trump. For diplomats, the procurement and negotiation process for the purchase of chloroquine from the US by the Brazilian government is of particular interest.

Another focus should be on the flow of communication between the Brazilian embassy in New Delhi and Brasília, precisely because of the purchase of vaccines against covid-19.

Brazil’s UN mission in Geneva is also expected to undergo greater scrutiny. One of the goals is to find out what instructions Brasilia has given to Brazilian diplomats who are directly involved in the negotiations for the purchase of vaccines at WHO. As the UOL exclusively revealed, Bolsonaro’s government didn’t even attend the first meeting of the vaccine deal, claiming the report was “considering other alliances”.

A shift in Brazil’s position and commitment to the mechanism came only after strong pressure, even from the Senate.

The internal perception in the House, which diplomats refer to as Itamaraty, is that the Covid-19 CPI contributes significantly to understanding what foreign policy actions are during the pandemic. But even senators struggled with the imposed secrecy.

Privacy is not limited to covid-19 related issues. The trips of Deputy Eduardo Bolsonaro using the structure of Brazilian embassies in the world and especially in the Persian Gulf countries are also interesting.

In the midst of the epidemic, Ernesto Araújo’s trip to Israel with a delegation of Bolsonaro’s closest allies also raises questions.

At that time, PSOL deputies demanded that all diplomatic telegrams related to the trip be given. However, Itamaraty posted 28 Information Classification Terms, in which all documents point out how their contents are prevented from being disclosed.

Some are kept secret until 2026 and some until 2036. Itamaraty even placed black stripes to prevent anyone from knowing why the telegrams were classified as confidential. What is still noteworthy is that in one of the telegrams kept secret for 15 years, Itamaraty’s decision was taken just one month after the documents were published.

Also in 2020, the State Department classified telegrams containing instructions to UN (United Nations) diplomats on issues related to abortion, gender equality and sexual education as “reserved”.

It has also been determined by the initiative of the Prime Ministry that the documents sent with instructions on these issues can only be applied after 2025.

The column specifically revealed in July how the government has been working behind the scenes at the UN to weaken and overturn resolutions on women’s rights issues. Brazil’s stance has found support only in countries with little history of rights for the female population, such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt. Faced with Itamaraty’s position at the UN, Brazilian parliamentarians made a request to the Chancellery for the government to explain its position.

However, from the data obtained by the column, some access restrictions were established at the request of the parliamentarians.