Gaspari calls Dilma the mother of kleptocrats.

247 Columnist Elio Gaspari criticized the US$900 million debt forgiveness granted by President Dilma Rousseff to African countries. Read the article published in Folha:

Dilma, the mother of kleptocrats

The doctor forgave US$900 million in debts owed by African thieves using money from the Brazilian widow.

With the prodigality of an empress, Dr. Dilma announced in Addis Ababa that she had forgiven the debts of 12 African countries to Brazil. Amounting to US$900 million. Congo-Brazzaville will be freed from a debt of US$352 million.

Anyone reading the word "forgiveness" associated with an African country might think of an altruistic gesture, benefiting children like Denis, who was born in poverty.  Oyo province, in a country plagued by conflict during which four presidents were deposed and one assassinated, has a child enrollment rate that declined from 79% in 1991 to 44% in 2005. In Congo-Brazzaville, 70% of the population lives on less than US$1 a day.

Legend. Denis Sassou Nguesso was born in the poor province of Oyo, but he made it big in life. He was a military man, a socialist, and a statist. He was in power from 1979 to 1992, returned in 1997, and remains there as a billionaire autocrat focused on privatization. He owns 16 properties in Paris, has extremely wealthy children, and his country is among the most corrupt in the world.

In theory, the pardon granted by the judge is intended to leverage Brazilian business interests. All the defaulted debts involved loans from official banks granted precisely with this argument. The Planalto Palace's promiscuous relationships with public banks, exporters, and construction companies have a history of failures. The flirtation with Saddam Hussein cost Mendes Júnior its footing and Petrobras the Majnoon oil field. In 2010, the chief of Equatorial Guinea, visited by Lula during his rule, was negotiating the purchase of a 2.000-square-meter triplex apartment on Avenida Vieira Souto. Something like US$10 million. The size of Alagoas, this Guinea has the highest per capita income in Africa and one of the worst development indexes in the world.

Reporter José Casado drew attention to a coincidence: In 2007, when Dr. Dilma was Chief of Staff, the government announced the forgiveness of a debt of US$932 million. If the Addis Ababa announcement was true, in six years the Widow died by US$1,8 billion. If it was just marketing, only a fool would believe it.

Brazil has become a major supplier of goods and services to African countries, and Petrobras has good business dealings in the region. Brazilian construction companies have projects in Angola and Libya. There, they had a headache when a revolt overthrew and killed Muammar Gaddafi, a "friend, brother, and leader," according to Lula. Supported by businessmen, his son exhibited a dozen gruesome paintings in São Paulo. In Luanda, business is booming, and the daughter of President José Eduardo dos Santos is now the richest woman in Africa, with a fortune of US$2 billion. She is 39 years old, and he has been in power for 33 years.

If Brazil doesn't do business with the local chiefs, the Chinese will, just as the Americans and Europeans did. Gaddafi's contributions to English and American universities, as well as to the campaign of French President Nicolas Sarkozy, are proof of this. However, little by little, the international community (except for China) is trying to establish a standard of morality in business dealings with corrupt dictatorial regimes.

The doctor says that "engagement with Africa has a strategic meaning." If only it did. What we have here is opportunism, of the same kind that linked Brazil to Portuguese colonialism or to the delusions of Saddam Hussein and his Libyan "brother."