Everything is in a cone of shadow. Between the inevitable secrecy to protect the people involved and the concealment calculated to avoid a new short circuit between Javier Milei and Luiz Inacio Lula Da Silva. They are two presidents who get along badly but who in recent months have sought to ensure that the personal does not contaminate the bilateral relationship. The Argentine sent humanitarian assistance to victims of the terrible flood in the south of the country. And the Brazilian helped with management in extremis to avoid an energy collapse in Argentina. These are gestures that, in any case, are dwarfed by the dilemma that arises when faced with the request for asylum of those convicted of the takeover of Brasilia in January 2023, when the third PT government had just taken office.
Milei will face the dilemma of whether his government accepts the asylum request and antagonizes Lula or rejects it and ends up displeasing Jair Bolsonaro, one of his most valued international allies. In fact, the son of the former president, Eduardo Bolsonaro, was in Argentina invited by a libertarian representative demanding that protection be provided to those who he considers were unjustly convicted.
Defining this issue poses a challenge to them at a time when both ignore each other. In fact, in Italy, at the G7 meeting, They did not speak or take photos together.. They were the only ones.
Beyond the personal and ideological rivalry, the request for asylum and the possibility that the Brazilian Justice will request the extradition of the Bolsonaro supporters who were convicted adds another point of tension. As Infobae revealed this week, the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Itamaraty, responded that last Friday, June 7, its Embassy in Buenos Aires “sent to the Argentine Foreign Ministry a letter from the Supreme Court requesting verification that 143 fugitives from “Brazilian justice is located in Argentine territory.”
The Brazilian press had revealed days ago that nearly fifty people convicted of the January 2023 protest broke their electronic ankle bracelets and escaped to several countries in the Southern Cone, but above all to Argentina. Of all of them, one media outlet identified seven as having entered Argentina to formally request political asylum. According to the media UOL, it is Ângelo Sotero, musician, 59 years old; Gilberto Ackermann, insurance broker, 50 years old; Raquel de Souza Lopez, 51 years old; Luis Fernandes Venâncio, businessman, 50 years old, São Paulo; Alethea Verusca Soares, 49 years old; Rosana Maciel Gomes, 50 years old; and Daniel Lusiano Bressan, 37 years old.
Official sources consulted by Infobae Regarding how asylum requests were being processed, they avoided giving information and argued that the entire process of requesting asylum or refuge includes a protocol in which confidentiality and secrecy prevail so as not to jeopardize the process. Everything is concentrated in the National Commission for Refugees (CONARE), an independent body that is part of the former Ministry of the Interior, but where the Foreign Ministry plays a key role.
“CONARE has not yet been issued,” was the response that this media received when consulting on the subject and they added that “we will follow the legal procedure established by the Argentine refugee law in respect of the rights of each applicant, while we wait for the Brazilian authorities all possible information on individual cases to adopt a decision on refugee requests in the shortest possible time.”
On the official website, the National Commission explains that “a refugee is someone who is outside their country of origin due to well-founded fears of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership in a certain social group or political opinions and is unable or unwilling, due to such fears, to avail himself of the protection of such country; or who has fled from it because his life, safety or freedom were threatened by generalized violence, foreign aggression, internal conflicts, massive violation of human rights or other circumstances that have seriously disturbed public order.
Of the seven mentioned as alleged asylum seekers, Luis Fernandes Venâncio spoke publicly in Plaza Mayo along with another young man, who is not on the list and who is also claiming protection from the Milei government. His name is Marco Simon Oliveira and he also participated in the interview: “We are not certain that we will be declared innocent even if we are. We feel that we cannot prove our innocence, that is why it was necessary to request asylum here.”, he assured.
They are two of a long list of applicants. Brazilian journalist María Laura Assis, who is connected to that group of asylum seekers, spoke with Infobae and although he acknowledged that all the procedures are kept confidential, he does not rule out that CONARE may have granted provisional asylum until all the investigations are completed.
“They are people convicted of state terrorism, even though there was no terrorist act in Brazil. There is not even evidence that these people participated in those episodes. There is no individualization of the cases and they are not even allowing any defense appeal to be presented. They directly decreed that they committed terrorist acts and that they wanted to carry out a coup d’état,” Assis stated.
Specifically, the Brazilian Federal Police is after these fugitives because they were convicted by the Justice of their country for the crimes of “violent abolition of the democratic rule of law, coup d’état, qualified damage, criminal association, incitement to crime, destruction and deterioration or disablement of specially protected property.”
Bolsonaro’s vice president, Hamilton Mourao, who is now a senator, requested asylum for those involved on his social network account X last Tuesday, June 11. “The departure of those convicted and investigated for the acts of January 8 to Argentina It only shows that these people no longer trust the Brazilian Justice, which has denied them the basic rights of due process and has imposed disproportionate sentences in relation to the crimes supposedly committed,” he wrote and added: “The international capture, so desired by the current government, clearly shows the authoritarian and persecutory bias of the left in power. May Milei and the National Commission for Refugees (CONARE) grant them fair political asylum.”
With all this panorama, Milei will face the dilemma of Argentina granting asylum and fighting with Lula or rejecting it and making enemies with Bolsonaro. She may argue that all decisions are made by CONARE, an independent body.
