São Paulo – The Brazilian Foreign minister, Antonio Patriota, visited Cairo, the Egyptian capital, last weekend. He met with the Egyptian Foreign Minister, Nabil El-Araby, and with the secretary general of the League of Arab States, Amr Moussa. Apart from discussing the transitions of the government of Egypt and the current situation in the Middle East, Patriota called for Arab country support to the candidacy of former minister José Graziano to the post of director general of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).
According to a spokesperson for the Brazilian Foreign Office (Itamaraty), minister Tovar Nunes, support to the Brazilian candidate, however, is not yet guaranteed, as Graziano is running against an Arab, the Iraqi Abdul Latif Rashid. Apart from them, also running are former Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos, the Austrian Franz Fischler and the Indonesian Indroyono Soesilo. The FAO has been run by the Senegalese Jacques Diouf since 1994, and he is going to leave the post in 2012. The election should take place in July.
“Ever since the government of former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Brazil has been fighting for the eradication of hunger. And someone like Graziano, responsible for development of the Zero Hunger, would grant the FAO great experience as to how to fight hunger and poverty. A country like Brazil, not engaged in military interventions, which does not contribute to the distorting of the global food trade by placing subsidies, like the Europeans, who have developed agriculture, like ours, would grant a contribution to a more inclusive world, without poverty,” said Nunes.
An agronomist and professor, Graziano was the extraordinary minister for Food Safety and Hunger Alleviation early into the term in office of former president Lula and was one of the thinkers of the Zero Hunger program for income transfer.
The Brazilian candidacy to the FAO was not the only theme of Patriota’s visit. The transfer of power in Egypt was also included in the talks. The Foreign Minister believes that the Arab country is heading to democratic elections after the resignation of former president Hosni Mubarak, in February. Egypt has legislative elections scheduled for September and presidential elections scheduled for November. Egypt, according to Tovar, is a strategic partner of Brazil. Apart from being the most populous Arab country (with 81 million inhabitants), it hosts the League of Arab States, which congregates 22 states.
“Brazil is Arab, as it houses many representatives of the Arab community. We went to Egypt to support the transition process. We made contact so that Brazil may cooperate more with Egypt,” said the spokesperson for the Itamaraty. The government of Brazil evaluates that the conflicts in Egypt on Sunday (8) have no relation to the government’s transition process. A fight between Muslims and Coptic Christians ended with 12 dead and 223 injured. The conflicts and protests in Libya and Syria were also discussed at the meeting.
*Translated by Mark Ament
