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On October 3, twelve Republican members of the House of Representatives wrote to President Bush to express their alarm over recent remarks on nuclear policy by Brazilian Workers' Party leader Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, then the strong favourite in the country's presidential election and subsequently confirmed as the emphatic victor. The letter quoted Mr. da Silva - known popularly as Lula - as observing that the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, to which Brazil is a non-nuclear-weapon state party, "would make sense only if all the countries that already have nuclear weapons also gave them up". The quote continues: "If someone asks me to disarm and he comes at me with a cannon, what good does that do? ... [A]ll of us developing countries are left holding a slingshot while they have atomic bombs... Brazil will only be respected in the world when it turns into an economic, technological and military power." The remarks were reportedly made in September in an address to senior military officials in Rio de Janeiro.
The letter from the twelve Representatives - including Dan Burton, Chair of the House Government Reform Committee, and Benjamin Gilman, Chair of the House International Relations Committee - expressed "grave concern" about any weakening of Brazil's commitment to preventing the proliferation of nuclear weapons, an issue which they described as "one of the highest priorities for the United States, Latin America, and the entire United Nations."
Reports: Lawmakers worried about candidate's nuclear policy, Associated Press, October 4; Projected winner in Brazil's election hostile to US trade goals, Associated Press, October 5; Brazil's leader pledges to build nuclear arsenal - Lula da Silva revives Cold War fears in Washington, National Post, October 31.
© 2002 The Acronym Institute.