BRASILIA – Brazil’s government is facing rising criticism at home over its handling of the Honduran crisis as senior deputies accuse it of allowing the ousted president to use its embassy as a political platform.
Manuel Zelaya, who was toppled as Honduran president by a coup in June, has virtually taken over the Brazilian embassy with dozens of supporters and has given numerous interviews to foreign and domestic media.
His sudden return from exile a week ago triggered violent protests in the capital, Tegucigalpa, and placed Brazil at the centre of the Honduran power struggle and an international diplomatic crisis.
Government and opposition legislators in Brazil’s Congress have urged President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva to curtail Mr Zelaya’s political engagement in the embassy.
“Zelaya’s political activities are unacceptable. They weaken Brazil’s position and international image,” Eduardo Azeredo, head of the Senate foreign relations committee, said.
Brazil should formally grant Mr Zelaya political asylum, pull him out of the country and possibly bring him to Brazil, Mr Azeredo said. The country would then still be seen as defending a democratically elected leader without being directly involved in the dispute, he said.
Former president and current senate chief José Sarney, one of Mr Lula’s most important allies, also criticised the government’s position.
“There’s a certain exaggeration in transforming the embassy into a campaign headquarters. This excess is not good for Brazil or Manuel Zelaya,” said Mr Sarney, who said the embassy must abide by the rule of nonintervention in a country’s domestic affairs.
Honduras’s de facto government has given Brazil 10 days to grant Mr Zelaya asylum and take him out of the country or hand him over for prosecution, but Mr Lula says he will ignore the deadline.
Brazil’s major newspapers have run critical editorials and almost daily caricatures, mocking Mr Lula’s perceived leniency with Mr Zelaya. Conservatives are upset that Brazil may have been put into this bind by Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez, a fellow left-wing leader and supposed Lula ally.
Mr Chavez had been fiercely advocating Mr Zelaya’s return and is rumoured to have provided an airplane for the fellow left-winger.
A front-page caricature in Tuesday’s O Globo newspaper showed Mr Lula, Mr Chávez and Brazil’s foreign minister, Celso Amorim, singing Mr Zelaya a lullaby as he dozes under his signature cowboy hat. – (Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009)