Brazil’s
president claims DiCaprio paid for Amazon fires
Jair
Bolsonaro falsely accuses actor of funding deliberate destruction of rainforest
Tom
Phillips Latin America correspondent
Fri 29 Nov
2019 19.59 GMTLast modified on Fri 29 Nov 2019 21.26 GMT
Brazil’s
president has falsely accused the actor and environmentalist Leonardo DiCaprio
of bankrolling the deliberate incineration of the Amazon rainforest.
Jair
Bolsonaro – a populist nationalist who has vowed to drive environmental NGOs
from Brazil – made the claim on Friday, reportedly telling supporters: “This
Leonardo DiCaprio’s a cool guy, isn’t he? Giving money for the Amazon to be
torched.”
The
spurious accusation – for which Brazil’s president offered no proof – came 24
hours after Bolsonaro made a similarly unsubstantiated claim in a Facebook live
broadcast.
“Leonardo
DiCaprio, dammit, you’re collaborating with the burning of the Amazon,”
Bolsonaro declared, accusing the actor of being part of an international
“campaign against Brazil”.
Bolsonaro’s
unsubstantiated allegations relate to the controversial arrest on Tuesday of
four volunteer firefighters whom local police accused – also apparently without
evidence – of setting fire to the forest in order to boost fundraising efforts
for an international NGO.
The
firefighters were released on Thursday amid widespread public outrage at their
treatment and questions over the police investigation.
On Thursday
Bolsonaro’s politician son Eduardo claimed on Twitter that DiCaprio had donated
$300,000 (£230,000) to “the NGO that set fire to the Amazon” and accused the
conservation group WWF of paying the NGO about £13,000 for photographs of the
burning forest.
WWF’s
Brazil office rejected those claims. “WWF Brazil rejects the attacks on its
partners and the lies involving its name, including a series of lie-based
social media attacks such as the purchase of photographs linked to a donation
from the actor Leonardo DiCaprio,” it said in a statement.
In August –
as huge fires swept through the Amazon region sparking an international crisis
– DiCaprio pledged $5m to help protect Brazil’s rainforests.
Bolsonaro,
who took office in January, has repeatedly expressed animosity towards
environmental campaigners, NGOs and foreign leaders who have spoken out in
defence of the Amazon and criticised his stance on the environment.
During a
visit to the region in 2018 Bolsonaro told the Guardian: “This cowardly
business of international NGOs like WWF and so many others from England
sticking their noses into Brazil is going to end! This tomfoolery stops right
here!”
Bolsonaro’s
attack on the Hollywood actor sparked ridicule and anger among opposition
politicians and activists.
“How
desperate,” tweeted Randolfe Rodrigues, a senator from the Amazon state of
Amapá. “Our negligent and incompetent president – responsible for an
environmental dismantling unprecedented in our country – wants to blame
DiCaprio but won’t blame his own administration which is incapable of taking a
single step without destroying something.”
Ivan
Valente, an opposition congressman, tweeted: “Bolsonaro’s delirium knows no
bounds. Accusing Leonardo DiCaprio of paying for the Amazon to be ‘torched’ is
pathetic. But their deliberate lies are also revealing.”
One
Brazilian created a webpage to attribute blame for the South American country’s
various ills to a cast of Hollywood stars.
In it Tom
Hanks was blamed for Brazil’s high taxes, Penélope Cruz for unemployment,
Daniel Radcliffe for impunity, Johnny Depp for deforestation and Kate Winslet
for its education crisis.
Harrison
Ford found himself charged with responsibility for Brazil’s Kafkaesque
bureaucracy while the government debt was the fault of Adam Sandler.
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