MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency
Controversy in Brazil over the release of ‘sensitive’ documents from imperial past
Members of the Brazilian government have expressed concern about the possible release of secret documents dating back to 1864/70 Paraguay war, the taking over of the state of Acre from Bolivia in 1903, current military exercises along the Brazilian border, nuclear research, among other issues. Read full article
Comments
Disclaimer & comment rulesVery wise to be VERY careful of these documents.
Jun 20th, 2011 - 11:32 am - Link - Report abuse 0People so inclined can have very long 'racial memories' if it suites the politics of the moment.
SEE we are not the only ones who have SECRATES and some secrets are best never revealed, but as history tells us, the whole world did things it wasn’t pleased about, and the world is about to find brazils naughty past,
Jun 20th, 2011 - 02:47 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Interesting for us, bad news for brazil ??
Please tell me briton, what is it that the world is about to find about Brazil? Some details on a war that's finished 130 years - a war that, even conceding that it provoked an exaggerated reaction from Brazil, had been initiated by the Paraguayans?
Jun 20th, 2011 - 06:09 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Nothing that Brazil's done can be compared to the UK's past as an empire and present as the US's mad poodle.
The comment by “3Forgetit87” is important, because it reveals a dubious premise:
Jun 20th, 2011 - 06:53 pm - Link - Report abuse 0“...a war that, even conceding that it provoked an exaggerated reaction from Brazil, had been initiated by the Paraguayans?”
The war began when Brazil invaded Uruguay and installed a puppet government. Paraguay then expected Argentina to help throw the Brazilians out of Uruguay, because Buenos Aires had been Brazil's main rival in Uruguay for decades. Paraguayan troops entered Argentina expecting to join with an Argentina army, not fight Argentina. The diplomat sent by the Paraguayans was locked up incommunicado in Buenos Aires and no message on what was really happening ever got back to Paraguay until too late (remember what communications were here in 1864!). -
In fact, it appears that the leader of Argentina had made a deal with Brazil because he wanted to consolidate control of rebellious provinces that are today part of Argentina but in those days did not accept the supremacy of Buenos Aires. It is also possible that after Uruguay was finished Paraguay would be next on the menu for one or both of the giants. The instinct of politicians to be imperialistic is not restricted to Europe - people with an unnatural hunger for more power are those who most consistently rise in politics.
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President Kirchner has vaguely admitted to learning the above information, and officially apologized to Paraguay; in fact, documents purporting to reveal this chain of events (presaging Wikileaks) were published in London during the war.
Today, no Paraguayan dreams of taking revenge on Brazil or Argentina. The individuals who did wrong have been dead for a century or more. However, knowing more of the truth will be enlightening for us today - it will help us to understand how often popular beliefs about how one country or the other became large and powerful are the fruit of propaganda, not truth, and that we must be more alert to watch for that in our own time.
Reveal the truth, whatever it is.
(4) MiguelQuemaduras
Jun 20th, 2011 - 07:25 pm - Link - Report abuse 0You say:
”However, knowing more of the truth will be enlightening for us today - it will help us to understand how often popular beliefs about how one country or the other became large and powerful are the fruit of propaganda, not truth, and that we must be more alert to watch for that in our own time. Reveal the truth, whatever it is.”
I say:
Seems that an intelligent poster has joined MercoPress……..
A pleasure to read your info about an angle of our shared history that is absolute obscure for us ”Curepas”.
Why do you always bring up the British, when something else is mentioned, do you have something to hide,
Jun 20th, 2011 - 07:53 pm - Link - Report abuse 0The guilty are always trying to stop the innocent making a comment,
Are you guilty,,,,,,,
It was a reply to the article, and if there are any secrets to come out,, they will come out,
It has sod all to do with Britain or the usa,
it’s about brazils past, and the people are interested,
As news is news, and gossip is gossip .
Just a thought .
@MiguelQuemaduras
Jun 20th, 2011 - 08:09 pm - Link - Report abuse 0It seems it is not only the populations of bigger nations tha are subjected to state propaganda. For I at least learned in school that behind the hostility against Solano López was the British Empire's desire to suppress his admirable economic nationalism and the developmentalist policies in that had been inaugurated by López's predecessor and that he continued and deepened.
You, on other hand, don't seem to know that, his virtues aside, López also presented a threat to countries nearby as he planned to expand Paraguay's boders at the expense of Brazil and Argentina (and even Bolivia). He intended to create a new Paraguay, a Gran Paraguay, which would no longer be a landlocked nation. It's ridiculous to believe that Paraguay would have sent troops to Argentina without the latter's consent if López's intentions were not aggressive. And to explain away Paraguay's aggression by adducing Brazilian interference in Uruguay.
I have been taught about Duque de Caxia's brutality in Paraguay. You, on the other hand, completely ignore López's expansionim. No wonder that even today Paraguayans suffer from victim complexand deeply resent events from more thana centur ago.
I asked Mercopress to erase the above post because it's unreadable. Then I wrote a corrected post. Instead they removed the corrected one. Holy inefficiency!
Jun 20th, 2011 - 10:48 pm - Link - Report abuse 0@MiguelQuemaduras, this is what I mean:
Don't presume that, by attributing the war to Paraguayan aggression, I'm under some state propaganda. Currently Brazilian textbooks take quite an independent, non-nationalistic, view on that war. For example, in school classes I've been taught that López had quite some qualities as a statesman, that the British Empire intended to suppress his government because of its economic nationalism and that it apparently influenced BR and Argentina to assume a hostile stance towards López. And neither do textbooks ignore Duque de Caxia's brutal occupation of Paraguay.
But on the other hand, PY education seems to ignore that, his virtues aside, López harbored expansionist hopes that made him a threat to neighboring countries, specially to BR, ARG and Bolívia. He planned to create a new PY, a Gran PY, which would no longer be a landlocked nation. Finding an exit to the sea was the main reason he waged war on BR. Just ask yourself why PY, by any means a small nation, had the largest and most well-prepared military force of the region at the beginning of the war: something that guaranteed for PY a temporary advantage over BR? As for BR, that it had no hostile intentions towards Paraguay is indicated by the fact that it had a small army (considering the total population) made up of mostly miserable, unprepared combatants. The BR army had to be reformed in the course of the war against PY.
Moreover, it's quite naive of you to believe that, by sending troops to ARG without the latter's consent, PY had no hostile intentions. That just doesn't happen. And neither is ARG's refusal to allow Paraguay to pass by the country - an understandable refusal by a sovereign nation - a legitimate excuse to invade it, plunder its goods and wage war against it as López did.
now im not up much on brazilion secrets,
Jun 20th, 2011 - 10:55 pm - Link - Report abuse 0but you never know what the real truth is,
remember [jack the ripper] and still today, the london archives wont let the whole truth out,
i still think they are hiding things,
but their you go, just a thought .
How much Paraguayan land is today controlled by Argentina & Brazil?
Jun 21st, 2011 - 09:35 am - Link - Report abuse 0Have the Paraguayans accepted this?
Probably not
Jun 21st, 2011 - 03:16 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Commenting for this story is now closed.
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