The Brazilian Center for International Relations (Cebri) has just published “Memories” by Ambassador Marcos Azambuja (1935-2025). There are 368 pages of lengthy interviews with Gelson Fonseca Jr., Monica Hirst and Alexandra de Mello e Silva.
It is a lesson in diplomacy and public service, according to the voice of a diplomat, former secretary general of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, ambassador to Buenos Aires and Paris. When diplomats talk about memories, they talk more about themselves. Azambuja talks more about his ideas and those of others. He does this with a certain deembargatorization (word he used).
Azambuja was a great storyteller, funny, irreverent and even spicy. In interviews, he makes few concessions to lightness. Speaking of Lula, he said:
“I think that one day Lula, as if he were a king of France, should be numbered: Lula 1st, Lula 2nd, Lula 3rd, Lula 4th. The Lula who came to power is Lula 5th or Lula VI.”
Speaking of General João Baptista Figueiredo:
“The end of the Figueiredo government is one of the most melancholy moments in Brazilian history. This physically deteriorated man, surrounded by people who manipulate him in a certain way. It’s a diminished Brazil.”
His irreverence prevented him from being defined as a front diplomat. His memories reveal the thinker of this funny character.
Stranger to the fashions of the House, he sees Brazil in his own way:
“I will try to summarize everything I have thought about foreign policy. I believe that Brazil has enough power to participate in the world’s exclusive design games, but it does not have the capacity to resist these trends. In other words, I do not believe that Brazil has enough power to create an obstacle to everything that is going to be born. What it does have is the capacity to influence certain aspects of what is being born. Therefore, it is not to from the outside, joining a chorus that will be harmless, but from the inside, influencing in a positive way.
In 1982, the government of Ronald Reagan wanted to invade Suriname.
Brazil condemned the idea, offered to calm the local dictator and warned:
“Brazil doesn’t like troops on its border.”
Talking about the fun he had at the embassy in Paris, he killed it:
“In France, almost all Brazilians leave expressly to do nothing.”
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