A Brazilian career ambassador expressed her support for Lula’s reelection on her personal social media profile. The response came from the United States, in the form of mockery: that she be sent to Zimbabwe if Flávio Bolsonaro wins the elections. The author of the attack, published on X, was Eduardo Bolsonaro, who also ironized about the diplomat’s work on gender issues. The ambassador in question is Vanessa Dulce de Faria, High Representative for Gender of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MRE).
Brazil reaches the presidential runoff in the midst of a dispute that goes beyond the candidates. Lula seeks a fourth term, while Flávio Bolsonaro attempts to regain the strength of his family’s political movement after the 2022 defeat. The result of the first round, with Flávio nearly two million votes ahead of Lula, surprised a large part of the country and contradicted almost all polls. Now, with both candidates in a technical tie, the dispute has become vote by vote.
Foreign policy is one of the grounds on which the differences between both projects are clearest. Lula defends autonomous diplomacy, based on multilateralism and Latin American integration. Bolsonarism, for its part, bets on regaining alignment with Washington, even when that closeness may come into conflict with Brazilian interests.
Eduardo Bolsonaro, a former federal deputy who lost his mandate due to absences and was convicted by the Supreme Court for his maneuvers to involve US authorities in favor of his father, has been living in the United States since last year. From there, he defends a “cleansing” in Itamaraty and publicly attacks career diplomats, mentioning them by name.
In September, the target was Orlando Leite Ribeiro, former ambassador of Brazil in Madrid. Eduardo accused him of using the embassy to facilitate the transfer to Spain of Fábio Luís Lula da Silva, son of the president, under investigation in three cases in recent months for alleged crimes related to influence peddling. Itamaraty had to respond through an official statement: the assistance provided had been limited to offering basic information about local schools, routine guidance for Brazilians living abroad.
What is occurring cannot be reduced to a series of provocations on social media. According to information coming from the inner circle of Flávio Bolsonaro, his team is studying a reform inspired by the one promoted by Secretary of State Marco Rubio in the United States. The proposal would seek to reduce the weight of the diplomatic career, expand political appointments, and bring Brazilian foreign policy even closer to Washington.
Itamaraty is not an institution that should be ideologically reorganized every time the government changes. It is an institution of State, with more than a century of history, entry by public competitive examination, and specialized training at the Rio Branco Institute. Part of that tradition dates back to the Baron of Rio Branco, chancellor between 1902 and 1912, whose performance was decisive in defining Brazilian borders through negotiations and arbitrations.
Brazil already knows the consequences of turning diplomats into suspects because of their ideas or aspects of their personal lives. After the 1964 military coup, Itamaraty itself created a Summary Investigation Commission (CIS) to identify and remove officials considered opposed to the regime. Dozens of diplomats were dismissed or separated from the service. In 1969, another commission recommended the forced retirement of diplomats accused of homosexuality.
Raul José de Sá Barbosa, posted at the Embassy of Brazil in Jakarta, received the news of his forced retirement by telegram. Years later, he recalled what that decision meant for his life: “they truncated my career, they destroyed my life. My class at the Rio Branco Institute was made up of 15 people. All of them became ambassadors, except me.”
The case of José Pinheiro Jobim was even more serious. The diplomat was preparing a book on irregularities in the construction of the Itaipu Binational Hydroelectric Plant when he was found dead, in 1979. At that time, the case was registered as a suicide. In 2014, the National Truth Commission, created during the government of Dilma Rousseff, who was also persecuted by the dictatorship, recognized the regime’s responsibility for his detention, torture, and murder.
Persecution was not limited to Ministry officials either. Itamaraty housed the Center for Foreign Information (CIEX), the dictatorship’s intelligence service that monitored more than 17,000 Brazilians abroad. The same institution tasked with representing the country to the world was also used to monitor and persecute its own citizens. History demonstrates what happens when political loyalty weighs more than professional preparation and commitment to the State.
Whoever wins the elections will have legitimacy to define the priorities of Brazilian foreign policy. That is part of democracy. It is quite another thing to use the change of government to set aside diplomats because of their political positions or for not sharing the ideas of those who come to power. Brazil has already experienced the consequences of that practice, and its victims were not only the persecuted officials: the country lost as well.
Today the punishment is announced on X. Before, it arrived by telegram. The history of Itamaraty demonstrates that threats of political persecution should not be taken lightly.
Autor
Bachelor of Science and Humanities and undergraduate in International Relations and Economics from the Federal University of ABC (UFABC) and researcher at the Observatory of Foreign Policy and International Insertion of Brazil (OPEB).
