Lula’s Diplomatic Embarrassment in Honduras

Posted by Juan Carlos Hidalgo

One of the big losers from yesterday’s successful election in Honduras has

 been Brazil’s president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who demonstrated that
 
under his presidency, Brazil is not ready to play a positive leadership role in

 the hemisphere.

Not only did Lula seem to be complicit in smuggling deposed Honduran

 president Manuel Zelaya into the Brazilian Embassy in Tegucigalpa—an

 irresponsible move that risked the possibility of major confrontations and

 bloodshed in that country—but he stubbornly refuses to recognize

 yesterday’s election as legitimate.

Lula’s grandstanding has nothing to do with a supposed commitment to

democracy, of course. After all he continues to lavish praise on the Castro

 brothers’ dictatorship in Cuba, has said that Hugo Chávez is the best

 president Venezuela has had “in one hundred years” and was one of the

first world leaders in congratulating Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s blatant rigged

 election in Iran. Indeed, the same week he announced his refusal to

 recognize the elections in Honduras, he gave Ahmadinejad a warm

 welcoming in Brasilia.

Some had hoped that due to its size and recent assertiveness in world

 affairs, Brazil could play a constructive role in Latin American affairs. It’s

 quite clear that this won’t happen under Lula’s watch.

Instead, Lula continues to be much more responsible on domestic matters—

supporting market democracy in Brazil—and reckless in foreign affairs. Or,

as Cuban writer Carlos Alberto Montaner says, a sort of Dr. Jekyll y Mr. Hyde.