Days after Secretary of State John Kerry met with Brazilian Foreign Minister Jose Serra, he’s been hearing charges that the US is granting legitimacy to a rightwing coup regime.
The face-to-face occurred last Friday, ahead of the opening ceremony for the 2016 Olympic Games hosted in Rio De Janeiro, amid instability in Brazilian politics.
Serra is an appointee of interim President Michel Temer, who took the reins of the country in May following the impeachment of the democratically-elected head of state, Dilma Rousseff. The former president had been indicted on questionable corruption charges that had been levied by her political opponents.
On Monday, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) issued a statement calling on the US to condemn Brazil’s interim government. Although he did not reference Kerry in his words, Sanders did question the legitimacy of Serra’ appointment.
“After suspending Brazil’s first female president on dubious grounds, without a mandate to govern, the new interim government abolished the ministry of women, racial equality and human rights,” Sanders wrote. “They immediately replaced a diverse and representative administration with a cabinet made up entirely of white men.”
“The United States cannot sit silently while the democratic institutions of one of our most important allies are undermined,” he added. Sanders said that the ouster of Rousseff was “not a legal trial but rather a political one.”
The Brazilian congress, which approved of Rousseff’s impeachment, is replete with charges of wrongdoing. Nearly two-thirds of its 594 members are themselves subjects of corruption investigations. Interim President Temer is himself facing a corruption probe, and three ministers he appointed since assuming power have been forced to resign over allegations of graft.
Speaking to Al Jazeera, Brazil’s former President Fernando Henrique Cardoso called Rouseff’s impeachment “a crime against the constitution.”
Last month, 43 Democrats in the US House wrote a letter to Kerry expressing concern over the “circumstances surrounding the impeachment process.” They urged the Secretary to “exercise the utmost caution in your dealings with Brazil’s interim authorities.” The lawmakers have not received a response to their letter.
Mark Wesibrot, the co-director of the Washington-based Center for Economic and Policy Research, said on Tuesday that Kerry gave a “raised middle finger” to congressional concerns.
“By meeting with Serra, Kerry is helping to legitimize what many people in Brazil and throughout the world consider a right-wing coup d’état,” Weisbrot wrote.
The White House has not taken a formal position on the legitimacy of Rousseff’s impeachment, stating only that President Obama “does continue to have confidence in the durability of Brazil’s democratic institutions to withstand the political turmoil there.”
