Brazil Reiterates, We Are Not a Colony, and Rejects G7 ‘Offer’

Aug. 27, 2019 (EIRNS)—The Brazilian government was not amused by the $20 million fund “for Amazon reforestation” which French President Emmanuel Macron got from the G7. In announcing the fund, Macron reiterated the fraudulent premise that “the Amazon forest is a subject for the whole planet” because it is “the lung of the planet,” and we cannot allow you to “destroy everything.”

“We refuse [the aid] because we see interference.... The G7 help was decided without Brazil,” the country’s Ambassador to France Fernando Serra told French television network BFM TV this morning. President Jair Bolsonaro’s chief of staff Onyx Lorenzoni told Globo news, “maybe those resources are more relevant to reforest Europe.... Macron cannot even avoid a predictable fire in a church that is part of the world’s heritage, and he wants to give us lessons for our country?”

The Brazilian Foreign Ministry issued a statement on the “supposed” new initiative related to the Amazon, listing the various already-existing such multilateral climate funds announced in recent years under the Paris Accords and UN, very little of which have ever gone beyond commitments on paper.

President Bolsonaro tweeted last night again that Brazil rejects such plans “to save the Amazon, as though we were a colony or no-man’s-land.” He reported that he had spoken with Colombian President Ivan Duque, about “the necessity of a joint plan, between the majority of the countries which make up the Amazon, to guarantee our sovereignty and natural wealth”—the right approach, but sabotaged by the Bolsonaro government’s ideological commitment to regime change in Venezuela, as made clear with his reference to the “majority.”

Under pressure from governors of some of the Amazon states to provide more assistance, Bolsonaro then said this morning that the G7 aid could be discussed, but only if Macron retracted statements questioning Brazil’s sovereignty over the Amazon and his statement that Bolsonaro is a “liar.”

Amazon forest “expert” and leading climate-change believer Daniel Nepstad complained to Forbes contributor Michael Shellenberger who wrote yesterday, that “Macron’s tweet [on the Amazon] had the same impact on Bolsonaro’s base as Hillary calling Trump’s base deplorable,” threatening efforts to sell “sustainability.”