Brazil president to skip Amazon summit on doctor’s orders

SAO PAULO: Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro will skip a regional summit on fires that have devastated swaths of the Amazon because doctors want him to get ready for surgery scheduled for next week, a spokesman said on Monday.

The far-right president has been widely criticised over his support for Amazon deforestation and a delayed reaction to wildfires that have hit the rain forest.

Bolsonaro has to go on a liquid diet starting Friday, the same day as the summit in Colombia, and this makes the trip unfeasible, said spokesman Otavio Rego Barros.

Brazil is considering sending a substitute or even asking that the meeting be postponed, said the spokesman.

Bolsonaro is due to undergo surgery on Sunday to correct an incisional hernia, his fourth operation since he was stabbed nearly a year ago during the presidential campaign.

Doctors said Bolsonaro would need 10 days’ rest following the operation, which would be performed in Sao Paulo.

Earlier Monday, the president vowed to defend his controversial Amazon policy at this month’s UN General Assembly even if he had to do so “in a wheelchair.”

“I will appear before the UN even in a wheelchair, on a stretcher. I will appear because I want to talk about the Amazon,” Bolsonaro told reporters outside his official residence in Brasilia.

Bolsonaro told reporters in Brasilia that he wanted to speak “with patriotism” about the Amazon, a region he said was ignored by previous administrations.

“I will not accept alms from any country in the world under the pretext of preserving the Amazon when it is being divided into lots and sold,” the far-right president said.

UN Secretary-general António Guterres last week suggested holding a meeting to address the fires that have engulfed part of Brazil’s rainforest.

Brazil traditionally makes the first speech at the General Assembly meeting, set for Sept.24.