By João Marcelo
SAO PAULO – The president of Angola, João Manuel Lourenço, rejected receiving a Brazilian parliamentary delegation to defend the interests of the Universal Church in the country. The vice president of Brazil, Hamilton Mourão, met the Angolan leader in a bilateral meeting during the CPLP (Communities of Portuguese Language Countries) summit and asked Lourenço to accept a mission led by deputy Marcos Pereira, licensed bishop of the Universal Church. For Pedro Brites, professor of international relations at the Getúlio Vargas Foundation, this is a sign that Bolsonaro wants to please his parliamentary base. “This happens at a time when the government is under great internal pressure, with threats of impeachment and the CPI of COVID-19. With this, Bolsonaro needs to ensure stability in his parliamentary base, which is largely formed by the evangelical bench.”
The Universal Church of the Kingdom of God (IURD) has faced a crisis in Angola since 2019, when in November, the dissident group invaded the premises of the Universal Church’s headquarters in Luanda and clashed with church pastors. After the incident, the dissidents created the Commission for the Reform of Angolan Pastors (CRPA), which opposes the Brazilian wing of the IURD in Angola.
The following year the CRPA took control of several temples that belonged to the IURD and at the end of 2020 the National Institute for Religious Affairs (INAR), an Angolan government agency, appointed the CRPA as the legitimate representative of the Universal Church in Angola. During this year, several pastors and people linked to the Universal Church were deported from Angola in May. Angola’s Criminal Investigation Service accused four IURD leaders of money laundering and criminal association.
In an interview with the Dire agency, the professor of international relations at FGV (Fundação Getúlio Vargas), Pedro Brites told about the history of the IURD in African countries and about the growth of evangelicals in Brazil. “The IURD’s internationalization process began in the post-Cold War period, in the 1990s, in some countries such as Angola, South Africa, Guinea Bissau and Mozambique. In Portuguese-speaking countries this process was facilitated and Angola is a very important country in this process”. Brites draws a parallel with the Lula and Dilma governments, in which there was a closer relationship between Brazil and African countries and that, in addition to helping to establish and proliferate the Universal Church in countries like Angola, it also took several Brazilian companies to Africa.
At the same time that this was happening on the African continent, in Brazil there was a great growth of the evangelical population, not only linked to the Universal Church, and the IURD is now present throughout the national territory. “This population has become an important part of the Brazilian electorate and the politicians have begun to have the need to mobilize these bases of support, not only for disputes for positions in the executive, as for the presidency of the republic, but also for the legislature. So much so that we have a very expressive evangelical caucus in the Chamber of Deputies”, said Brites.
The professor adds that when we think about foreign policy, international variants are important, but domestic issues also have a very significant weight. “It seems to me that for the Bolsonaro government the African continent was never a priority for international and geopolitical relations. It seems to me that this attempt by the Brazilian government to interfere in the IURD issue in Angola aims much more at serving internal interests than with Angola itself.”.
Brites also says that there is also pressure from the IURD itself, which is a supporter of Bolsonaro, for the president to be more present on this issue. The professor points out that the Universal Church is a great ally of Bolsonaro and that an example of this was Bolsonaro’s explicit support for Marcelo Crivella’s candidacy for mayor of Rio de Janeiro in 2020 and now his appointment to the Brazilian embassy in South Africa. Crivella is pastor of the IURD and nephew of Edir Macedo, leader and founder of the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God. Crivella was nominated by Itamaraty, but has not yet been approved by the South African government or the Brazilian Senate.
Brites also explains that diplomatic harmony and stability between Brazil and Angola will depend a lot on how the Bolsonaro government will deal with this issue. For the professor, if Bolsonaro is reduced to these pressures already made, as a way of signaling support to his base, relations between the two countries will not be affected, but if the president continues the pressure, these relations may deteriorate.
BOLSONARO PREME SU ANGOLA PER COMPIACERE GLI EVANGELICI
Di João Marcelo
SAN PAOLO DEL BRASILER – Il presidente dell’Angola, João Manuel Lourenço, si è rifiutato di ricevere una delegazione parlamentare del Brasile che intendeva promuovere a Luanda gli interessi della Chiesa universale del regno di Dio (Igreja Universal do Reino de Deus, Iurd). Era stato il vicepresidente del Brasile, Hamilton Mourão, a chiedere al capo di Stato di accettare la missione guidata dal deputato Marcos Pereira, vescovo della Chiesa. L’occasione era stata un vertice della Comunità dei Paesi lusofoni, la Cplp.
Secondo Pedro Brites, professore di relazioni internazionali presso la Fondazione Getúlio Vargas, le pressioni esercitate dal Brasile sono un segno della volontà del presidente Jair Bolsonaro di compiacere la sua base parlamentare. “Il suo governo è sottoposto a una forte pressione interna con minacce di impeachment e l’emergenza Covid”. Secondo Brites, “la base parlamentare di Bolsonaro è formata ampiamente da evangelici”.
La Chiesa universale del regno di Dio sta affrontando una crisi in Angola dal 2019, quando c’è stato uno scontro con pastori dissidenti. A Luanda i dissidenti hanno creato una Commissione per la riforma dei pastori angolani, che si è opposta all’ala brasiliana della Iurd in Angola. L’anno successivo la Commissione ha preso il controllo di diversi luoghi di culto della Iurd. Nel 2020 è stata riconosciuta dall’Istituto nazionale degli affari religiosi, ente governativo di Luanda, come legittima rappresentante della Chiesa in Angola. Quest’anno, poi, alcuni pastori legati alla Iurd sono stati costretti a continua a leggere sul sito di riferimento