Nobel Peace Prize winner calls Rousseff's impeachment coup

President Dilma Rousseff was backed today (Apr. 28)  by Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, the Argentinian Nobel Prize laureate for peace, who argued against the impeachment proceedings under deliberation in the Senate.

“It's very clear that what's being mounted here is a concealed coup d'état, which we call a bloodless coup,” Esquivel said, after a meeting with Rousseff at the Planalto presidential palace.

He likened the case against Rousseff to what happened in Honduras and Paraguay when Presidents Manuel Zelaya and Fernando Lugo were ousted from office, in 2009 and 2012 respectively. “Now, the same method—i.e., without the Armed Forces—is being employed in Brazil. It's the same method; it's not different from the coup d'état in these countries. Countries that wish to change things through social policies are the target of this politics, which attempts to interrupt the democratic process.”

Sympathy

The Novel Prize laureate said he came to express his “sympathies and support so that Brazil constitutional process is not interrupted, as this would be harmful not just to the Brazilian people, but also to the whole of Latin America.” “It would be a serious setback for the continent. I'm a survivor from the days of the [military] dictatorship [in Argentina]. To strengthen democratic institutions cost us a great deal. And here they're under attack,” Esquivel stated.

According to the Argentinian, a possible Michel Temer administration could be questioned in the Mercosur and the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR), which may not recognize an administration formed by a “coup d'état.”

Translated by Fabrício Ferreira/ Amarílis Anchieta

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