Guido Nejamkis
03/07/2020 - 19:01
- Clarín.com
- World
"Family, project of God ", says the inscription of the cup that the Minister of Women, Family and Human Rights of Brazil holds with her hands and slowly sips a cold tea. It is the end of Friday afternoon and, although the Esplanade of the Ministries of Brasilia begins to empty, Damares Alves still has several commitments ahead.
Lawyer and pastor, founder of the Association of Evangelical Jurists of Brazil, Damares advised Jair Bolsonaro during part of the almost three decades in which the current president held a deputy bench. From that time comes his friendship with the president, for whom he feels devotion.
The minister received Clarín after leading with the president and the first lady, Michelle, the official celebration for International Women's Day, which she wore pink at the Planalto Palace, the headquarters of the Brazilian government.
That color helped make Damares a celebrity when, at the beginning of the Bolsonaro government, he announced that in the new era that began in Brazil, children would wear blue and pink girls. Recently he added another controversy by promoting sexual abstinence as a way to avoid teenage pregnancy .
These strident actions contributed to making it, according to a survey, the most popular government official among the least educated population, positioning her as a possible companion to the president's formula in an eventual attempt for reelection in 2022.
Would you like to be a vice president candidate?
No. I have another mission. Help the president to govern. I think I would not accept being a candidate. That is my position today. I was always an advisor in the backstage. I want to be by your side, help you, because you have extraordinary ideas. The president is a thinking machine, a genius.
What extraordinary ideas for example?
This ministry It is said that "the minister is popular." It's not me. The agenda is popular: family, children, women, the elderly, people with disabilities, Indians, gypsies, traditional peoples. It is a beautiful agenda. What father does not want to see a president protecting children?
What is it like to be Minister of Women of a president who is usually characterized as misogynist?
That is a big lie. How is a misogynist president going to give Brazil a ministry as big as that of Women? It is a ministry of protection of women. We have a very large number of government secretaries in Brazil. We have indigenous women, a deaf woman who is a high official. Brazil's public machinery is supported by this female force.
Is the rating unfair then?
Completely unfair! Our president is sometimes misunderstood. There are also people who understand it and pretend not to understand it because the word of order is to hit the president. I worked in Congress with him for 20 years. He was part of a group of advisors who had a true veneration for him in an environment with an overwhelming majority of men. His treatment with me made me fall in love with this incredible man.
Have you ever diverged from the president?
Sometimes. Let's see if I remember…
When did you defend torture, for example?
My president does not defend torture. So much so that in our ministry we do an extraordinary job of combating torture. Even one of the orders that the president gave me is that we have to build mechanisms in the states to combat torture. He defended the regime in which he believed by showing that he brought development. When he talks about the good things about the military regime, he is not saying, "I am in favor of torture." He is a president who recognizes when he is wrong and asks for forgiveness publicly.
You and many prominent evangelicals, based on biblical precepts, criticized the Federal Supreme Court (STF) when you equated homophobia with racism. Does that position exclude defending gay rights?
The bible says that homosexuality does not please the Lord. That law might want to shut us up as Christians. The reaction was for that, within the field of faith. Unfortunately, our STF advances on powers of Congress. The Bible questions homosexuality and adultery. Is that why I will not take care of adulterers? We want homosexuals to be protected in Brazil. We fight violence against homosexuals. The officials who are dedicated to the protection of the LGBT community are here. A director in that area is a transsexual university professor. He has an amazing head. Our ministry works to qualify transvestites for the labor market, to protect the LGBT population in prisons. What we are not going to do is promote some agendas. We are not going to sponsor gay marches.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, recently put Brazil among the 30 places that raise more concerns. How did you get that position?
They don't show, they don't give facts. They do not say what we are doing. Michelle herself (Bachelet) in April last year stirred saying there was a massacre in the indigenous Wajapi people. She could have called me, there's a minister here. I would have wondered what was happening. We are not crazy or irresponsible. She doesn't call, doesn't want to know what happened to the Wajapi Indians. An Indian was found dead on the river bank. Drowned. It seems he was drunk and drowned. The family found him and buried him. One was made a massacre. The government had to ask the family for authorization to exhume the body and prove it did not have a violent death. Where is the massacre? It makes me sad that (Bachelet) is speaking in a generic way. What is the source of information that says there is a violation of human rights? We take care of the Indians. It is misunderstood when it is said that we are having a setback policy.
Human Rights Watch and Amnesty strongly criticized the government's proposal to authorize mining exploitation in indigenous reserves ...
There is illegal mining. We have to fight it. My indigenous girls, because of illegal mining, are raped. Illegal mining entering villages violates women. Someone has to face that. Now, the decision will be from Congress. Do I have to condemn the Indian to continue being poor and miserable since he is sitting on wealth that can be legally exploited? Do you know what it is like to sit in a village with a child screaming in the pain of a belly and I am on diamonds?
The Argentine president announced the sending to Congress of a law to decriminalize abortion. Do you favor any anti-abortion movement that acts in Latin America or Mercosur?
I regret that the president of Argentina has done that. How nice it is not my president! I could invest more in protecting women and putting rapists in prisons. The women's agenda cannot be the subject of abortion. Sorry. I would like the entire continent to protect both lives. Abortion is violating the woman's body, it is something of the stone age. We are in 2020. Why didn't that president send a large family planning program to Congress? He's being very cheated and I'm sorry. We will wait for the common sense of the Congress of Argentina and pray for the children in the belly of the mothers in Argentina, and pray for the rulers to have common sense. Thank God, President Bolsonaro is a man who wants to protect both lives, those of women and children.