Two Brazilian ministers caught in WikiLeaks web

Nov 30, 2010, 21:38 GMT

Brasilia - One of two Brazilian ministers caught in the WikiLeaks web of stolen US diplomatic cables denied Tuesday that he ever said his colleague 'hates the United States.'

Brazilian Defence Minister Nelson Jobim was the subject of a January 2008 cable written by the then-US ambassador to Brazil, Clifford Sobel.

In the cable, one of 250,000 US documents purloined by the WikiLeaks internet hacker organization and posted on the internet, Jobim is quoted as saying that a deputy foreign minister at the time 'hates the United States' and was 'actively looking to create problems in the relationship' between Brazil and the United States.

That former deputy minister, Samuel Pinheiro Guimaraes, is now strategic affairs minister in the cabinet of Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

The massive release of documents has given insight into internal communications within the diplomatic world, and reflects much of the gossipy type of information that gets exchanged.

On Tuesday, Jobim called his ministerial colleague Pinheiro Guimaraes and denied the quotes. He stressed that any references he may have made to Pinheiro Guimaraes were respectful, according to a defence ministry statement.

He called his colleague 'a nationalist, a man who deeply loves Brazil.'

'If the ambassador said that Samuel does not like the United States, that is the ambassador's interpretation. I did not say that. Samuel is my friend,' Jobim said.

The documents describe Jobim, who is set to remain on the job from January under incoming Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff, as 'perhaps among the most trusted leaders in Brazil.'

The leaked US documents also posed trouble for Jobim abroad. The documents indicated he had told Sobel in 2009 that Bolivian President Evo Morales suffered a 'serious sinus tumour,' but Bolivian officials have denied it.

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