The Hindu : India, Brazil to back each other for permanent Security Council seats

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Jan 28, 2004

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India, Brazil to back each other for permanent Security Council seats

By Amit Baruah

NEW DELHI, JAN. 27. India and Brazil have agreed to support each other's bid to enter the United Nations Security Council as permanent members, the Brazilian President, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, said tonight.

Addressing a press conference at the Brazilian Embassy, Mr. Lula said: "We are demanding that India, Brazil and South Africa be represented on the U.N. Security Council as permanent members.

We are fighting for the democratisation of the United Nations. We want to strengthen multilateral agencies. We want them to be more independent, more representative," he said, when asked what India, Brazil and South Africa, who have joined together as the G-3, could do to counter unilateralist tendencies in world politics.

"Important countries have to have seats [in the Security Council]," he said. Pointing to his role as a trade unionist before becoming his country's President, Mr. Lula said: "No one that you speak with will respect you if you are submissive."

Referring to world trade negotiations, Mr. Lula said the United States and the European Union continued to maintain their subsidies. Pointing to the need for India, Brazil and South Africa to build their unity, he said the countries could create a force capable of making the U.S. and E.U. understand that "dependence" was a thing of the past.

In his opening remarks, the Brazilian President said that growing relations with India would lead to the two countries reaping dividends. Both countries were large with several similarities — including the scale of social problems faced.

India and Brazil had great scope to work with each other in the fields of science and technology, education, health and trade. The Brazilian Foreign Minister, Celso Amorim, will visit New Delhi again for a meeting of the India-Brazil-South Africa dialogue forum in March, during which India and Brazil will sign bilateral agreements.

"I am returning to Brazil convinced that we have consolidated an exceptional partnership," he said. Mr. Lula, who travels to Agra and Mumbai on Wednesday, before leaving for home, exhorted Brazilian businesspersons to be active in pursuing trade links with India.

"A globalised world will not allow countries to sit back and wait for business opportunities," he said. Arguing that the economies of both Brazil and India would benefit, Mr. Lula conceded that the two countries had taken a "long time" to discover each other. "We will not miss this chance — neither Brazil nor India," he said.

"My impression is that India and Brazil have matured at the right moment," Mr. Lula said, pointing out that India had gained access to the markets of Mercosur in South America; a huge market of 220 million through the preferential trade agreement signed between the two entities while Mercosur would benefit from India's markets.

Asked if Brazil had "given in" on the Free Trade Area of the Americas being promoted by the U.S., Mr. Lula said Brazil would have to defend its own interests. "The issue is not whether we are against or in favour of the FTAA. We have to see what it contains..."

Brazil, he said, had entered into serious discussions on the issue. Trade, he said, had to be totally free. "We have to ensure that our goods are not the victims of subsidies like in the case of agriculture..."

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