Brazil

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Hidden History: The US “War On Corruption” In Brasil

The story of how an overlooked Bush-era Foreign Policy edict led to Brazil's Coup of 2016 and its consolidation in the conviction of Former President Lula

“US involvement in Lava Jato is not relevant” argued a Brazilian commentator recently, recognising its self-evidence. This is a familiar sight; the great taboo of empire is breaking the fourth wall, winking to camera, and acknowledging its existence.

Like its market forces alibi, US imperialism is considered elementary, as natural as the breeze, unnecessary background detail that we simply don’t need to question or talk about. This denial of empire is central to its persistence, and the accusation of “blaming the Yanqui for everything” is the dusty rhetorical device used by both US pundits and the comprador class across Latin America, to shut down any rational criticism of a status quo which has historically protected their privileges.

In recent years commentators have even tried to deny the extensively documented US role in Brazil’s Military Coup of 1964, or point to Dilma Rousseff’s own diplomatic remark that “we have enough coup plotters of our own”.

Despite public ignorance and its root in the media blindspot on this matter, US involvement in Brazil’s Anti-Corruption Operation Lava Jato, which has already resulted in $3bn payout to North American investors, is not some fringe theory, as some like to pretend – US Acting Attorney General Kenneth Blanco has publicly boasted about it himself:

“It is hard to imagine a better cooperative relationship in recent history than that of the United States Department of Justice and the Brazilian prosecutors. We have cooperated and substantially assisted one another on a number of public matters that have now been resolved, and are continuing to do so on a number of ongoing investigations.

The cooperation between the Department and Brazil has led to extraordinary results. In just the last year alone, for example, the Criminal Division’s Fraud Section and the Brazilian Lava Jato task force have cooperated and coordinated resolutions in four FCPA cases: Embraer, Rolls Royce, Braskem, and Odebrecht. Odebrecht is particularly noteworthy due to its breadth and scope.

Indeed, just this past week, the prosecutors in Brazil won a guilty verdict against former President Lula da Silva, who was charged with receiving bribes from the engineering firm OAS in return for his help in winning contracts with the state oil company Petrobras. It is cases like this that put Brazil at the forefront of countries that are working to fight corruption, both at home and abroad.”

With the fall of its allied Washington consensus governments to the so called pink tide at the turn of the century, US primacy in the region was genuinely threatened for the first time in generations. Many lauded this as Bush Jr’s failure, and the United States “losing” the region permanently, as if assuming there would or could be no response. In answer to these defeats, parallel to the War on Terror in the Middle East and War on Drugs already present in the region, a new front, a “War on Corruption” opened up across the continent, becoming part of official foreign policy in 2002, just prior to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva taking the Brazilian Presidency at his fourth attempt. Around the same time, a new rebranded hemispheric agency would replace notorious “exporter of torture” the School of Americas with expanded scope, and was tasked with bringing the continent to heel via its own police forces and militaries.



Then in Government, Cuban-born cold warrior and Office of Public Diplomacy propagandist Otto Reich, with characteristic hubris, took credit for encouraging the new focus on corruption in Latin America, describing it in military terms as a “target rich environment”. It was embraced in Washington as a new method to force political-economic realignment and “win back” the continent, especially having seen David Rockefeller’s baby the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) brought down by an alliance of Argentina’s Nestor Kirchner, Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, Bolivia’s Evo Morales and Brazil’s Lula at the Mar del Plata conference in 2005. This was an escalation, and the US Government was, according to cables, fearful that the regional trade bloc, Mercosur, and its parallel military institution, Unasur, would be consolidated.

Lava Jato’s inquisitor judge Sérgio Moro’s first recorded visit to the United States was in 1998, on an exchange programme with Harvard University, to study anti money laundering practices in Brazil’s domineering hemispheric neighbour. That year the US stood accused of multi-faceted interference in Brazil, to guarantee the re-election of its favoured candidate, the pro-market former dependency theorist, Fernando Henrique Cardoso. Currency crash, IMF bailout followed, and cut-price privatisations continued.

In 2004, following graduation from University of Paraná, Moro published the paper “Considerations of Mani Pulite”, his interpretative thesis on the 1990s Italian (with US-cooperation) anti-corruption probe which decimated Italy’s political order, in particular its centre-left, and paved the way for both political emergence of Silvio Berlusconi, the most corrupt leader in its history, and a wave of privatisations of its massive public sector nicknamed “the pillage of Italy“. Mani Pulite, in particular its use of the media to whip up public indignation in support of convictions, served as the prototype for Moro’s own operation Lava Jato, launched a decade after his paper. US officials’ open admission of involvement was all but ignored in Italy, as it has been in Brazil.

Also in 2004, the Mensalão scheme of cash for votes in Congress was being uncovered. It developed into a media scandal so great it almost gained traction enough to trigger the impeachment of then President Lula, despite originating under previous administrations. Lula was not charged, but it did result in prison for some of his closest party allies. A private spy agency, Kroll, which operates a revolving door with the CIA, was implicated in attempts to ensnare Lula when caught spying on communications of Government staff. In 2010 it was also exposed as a recruiter of Latin America based journalists to spy on behalf of Oil Giant Chevron, its client. It would, almost unbelievably, then go on to be given the contract for running the CPI (Parliamentary Inquiry) into state-controlled Oil company Petrobras, which would provide the seeds for Operation Lava Jato. Somewhat perversely, architect of Dilma Rousseff’s impeachment Eduardo Cunha (whose prosecution was delayed until after Rousseff was gone) would later suggest using Kroll to shut down Lava Jato before it reached the coup plotters themselves. The company was more recently in the news after being hired by Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein to smear his victims.

Following Lula’s re-election, in 2007 with the new US “War on Corruption” displacing clumsy attempts to spread its spurious War on Terror to Brazil, Moro would visit the US again, this time on an official State Department fellowship, the “International Visitor Leadership Program“, liasing with U.S. agencies and institutions responsible for combating money laundering.

Then, in 2009, Judge Moro appears in leaked State Department cables, speaking at a joint event with the US DOJ under the banner “Project Bridges” in Rio de Janeiro. Outlining an operation similar in configuration to the future Lava Jato – ostensibly set up to investigate illicit funding for terrorism – the event coordinators talked about creating a partnership between the Department of Justice and the Brazilian judiciary to investigate corruption. The cable talks about how task forces could be set up in cities such as Campo Grande or Curitiba, which they identify as having a strong fervour for action on corruption. Those cities are known for their conservatism and default opposition to then governing centre-left Worker’s Party. Curitba and Campo Grande are also amongst the most enduring power bases of de-facto heirs to the dictatorship Government, ARENA, now called “Democratas”, which despite a collapse in its vote between 2002 and 2014, is now in Temer’s Post-Coup coalition, and enjoying life in Government for the first time in almost 20 years.

Around the same time as the Rio de Janeiro conference in 2009, new Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gave an address to the Council of the Americas in New York, which now feels prescient. In her speech to the David Rockefeller-founded Wall Street lobby, a grinning Secretary Clinton promotes a theme that “the ballot box is not enough” in Latin America, and that “sustainable democracies do more than have elections”. While pointedly reaffirming her commitment to democratic “ideals”, she suggests a “independent, capable judiciary” and “vibrant civil society” are what is really needed in the region for its democracies to mature.



The speech is all the more remarkable coming off the back of US loss of influence in the hemisphere following electoral defeats of its favoured candidates, and that in the intervening decade since, the US Government has gone on to bet on the most powerful, unelected arm of government in Brazil – the Judiciary – which is predominantly white, male and conservative, and now nicknamed “The Dictatorship of the Toga”.

Clinton’s predecessor John D. Negroponte (Council of the Americas Chairman Emeritus), as outgoing Director of National Intelligence, identified “Democratisation in Latin America” as a primary threat to US National Security, alongside Chinese Military expansion and Iran’s Nuclear programme – on which Lula, along with Turkey’s Erdogan, later broke from UN security council’s shackles and negotiated a deal directly. Negroponte also lamented high oil prices as a gift to governments who do not support US interests. By this point, along with Mercosur, the worldwide multipolar bloc of China, Russia, India and Brazil, BRIC (later BRICS following addition of South Africa), was being consolidated as a direct challenge to US hegemony, in particular the continuing reliance on the US dollar. Brazil, along with Russia, Venezuela and Iran, would later, under Barack Obama’s administration, fall victim to Negroponte’s desired policy of encouraging low energy prices in order to throttle competitors’ Oil-dependent economies. US Presidents and their approach to public relations change, objectives do not. Between the mandated freeze of Lava Jato, those low energy prices, and change in law enabled by the removal of Dilma Rousseff, Petrobras, despite record production, lost its monopoly on Brazil’s massive offshore oil reserves which are being sold off for cents to foreign producers such as US Chevron & ExxonMobil, UK’s BP & Shell, and Norway’s Statoil, at an estimated loss of R$1 trillion – funds once earmarked by Dilma Rousseff for a revolution in public education & health investment, deemed Brazil’s “Passport to the future”.

As publicly available cables cease in mid-2010 we do not know what level of collusion there was between Moro and the United States Government in the intervening years prior to Lava Jato’s official inception in early 2014, but his endorsement or presence at think tanks featuring current and ex-USG personnel such as CFR, Wilson Center, AEI, AS/COA (Council of the Americas), and NATO adjunct Atlantic Council – which launched its own Latin America wing in 2013 – are at the least an indicator of continued collaboration, as is the level of unanimously positive international media coverage, unprecedented for any foreign judge, lawyer or legal operation (an often excruciating parade of grey men in suits which would otherwise generate no outside interest). Those organisations come complete with their own patronage networks of journalists, scholars, thought leaders and promoted commentariat.



Although she was never officially implicated beyond innuendo, Moro’s selective and accelerated pursuit of figures from her Workers Party supplied the essential media pretext for elected President Dilma Rousseff’s impeachment, only for her to be replaced by her actually proven corrupt PMDB vice, former US informant Michel Temer. We can see in leaked 2011 emails from “Shadow CIA”, Stratfor, that the wider intelligence community were already betting that Temer would take office during Rousseff’s first term, and become the “bulldog” they needed to push through their Wall Street-prescribed reforms – against the will of the Brazilian electorate. This desired outcome was finally delivered in 2016, with tacit support from the Obama Administration in the form of Clinton’s replacement Secretary of State John Kerry and 2009-13 US Ambassador to Brazil Tom Shannon, who by then had returned to State Dept Bureau of Hemispheric affairs, having taken a demotion for his tenure in Brazil. Shannon was replaced in Brazil by Liliana Ayalde, who is now at Southcom overseeing the rollout of US Military presence across the continent, having been earlier implicated in Paraguay’s 2012 Coup while serving as Ambassador there. Obama’s VP Joe Biden recently boasted of manipulating Ukraine’s Judiciary by blackmailing the Government into firing their Prosecutor General in late March 2016, a few weeks before the Congressional vote on Dilma Rousseff’s impeachment – now revealed to have had votes secured via bribes to congresspeople.

Even before the impeachment was officially concluded, accelerated privatisations, decimation of workers rights and overhaul of the pension system, all demanded by Wall Street, were hastily set in motion by the interim Government. Temer himself admitted in a speech to the Council of the Americas that the real reason for Dilma Rousseff’s removal was her refusal to implement the capital-friendly “Bridge to the future” policy platform, which brought with it a 20 year constitutionally protected freeze on investment health & education, tying the hands of any near-future social democratic government. Science and Technology funding was also slashed. In 2017, with Rousseff gone, Attorney General Janot addressed the economic elite at Davos, and eulogised Operation Lava Jato, which he described as “Pro-Market” – a clear political/ideological position that both its protagonists and ardent supporters insisted it did not have.

Whether by accident or design, Moro has helped change the course of Brazil’s political history already. His continued pursuit of former President Lula – the single politican popular enough to reverse it – on a flimsy charge without material evidence, which has been admonished by Brazilian legal scholars and the international legal community alike, now threatens democracy further, with the clear 2018 front-runner facing a decade in jail, with a dangerous precedent set.

Whatever theoretical long-term advantages Lava Jato was supposed to bring, with Temer’s Brazil institutionally and morally adrift, Government decision making processes are increasingly captured with the unholy trinity of bribery, blackmail and violence.

Now imagine if you will that Moro was a Prosecutor-Judge (if such thing existed) from the United States and his training, fellowship and collaboration was with Russia. US media, and the that of the Anglosphere at large, would go into meltdown. It would gift Democratic pundits far more clear examples of collusion and interference than anything so far produced out of the red mist called “Russiagate”.

The emergence of more evidence is inevitable, but it can already be established on the basis of what is available that despite denial and obfuscation, Sérgio Moro has, in collaboration with various wings of the US Government and its expanded apparatus, aided the removal of an elected President, convicted a former President, and future candidate – all of the same party – and with that significantly contributed to a change in Brazil’s political direction, away from social democratic, mildly redistributive developmentalism, and towards discreet re-colonisation as authoritarian client state or neoliberal viceroyalty. This comes combined with a new US Military presence on Brazilian territory which was simply unthinkable just a few years ago.

While transnationals scramble for its riches, delivered to them by an entreguista elite whom in his seminal ‘Open Veins of Latin America‘ Eduardo Galeano christened the “commission-agent bourgeoisie”, ordinary Brazilians go about their daily business unaware that they are now akin to a population on the losing side of a kinetic war. Post-coup recipient of military honours, Moro, is planning a move to the United States once the Lava Jato investigation is concluded.

What on earth would Rachel Maddow and the rest make of all that.

http://www.brasilwire.com/dont-call-it-brazilgate/

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Neoliberal Vampires: Rio Carnaval Politicizes
CULTURE DEMOCRACY RIO DE JANEIRO SOCIAL INCLUSION
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By Gabriel Deslandes.

Rio de Janeiro Carnaval parade groups, called Samba Schools, are preparing social and political criticism for the 2018 carnaval, with parades that will denounce politicians, social problems and recent political scandals. Of the 13 most important Samba Schools, 4 will focus on protests during their parades in the Rio Samba stadium, the Sambadromo.

With the theme, “My God! My God! Is slavery extinct?”, Paraiso de Tuiuti will remember the 130 years since slavery was abolished (in 1888) through criticism of the recently approved labor law reforms, which, according to the group, represents a modern form of servitude. The final parade section will present the costume of the “Warrior of the CLT”. The CLT is the nickname for the Brazilian labor card, a right to all citizens which was created after the first labor rights legislation in Brazil was consolidated in 1940. Many of these rights were eradicated with the Coup government’s recent labor reforms. “Already overloaded with various tasks, the worker tries to protect himself from the bosses exploitation. In his defense, he uses his labor card, which is transformed into a shield in our parade,” says Tuiuti’s costume designer Jackson Vasconcelos.

In another parade section, the paraders wear an inflatable duck around their waists referring to the giant inflatable duck which became a symbol of the conservative protests in favor of Dilma Rousseff’s impeachment in 2016. The costume also includes a large hand, suggesting that the protesters were being manipulated. “The figure is a criticism of the manipulation that took place when the poor protested in favor of maintaining the historic system of social exploitation. In otherwords, they are puppets of a dominant class which dictates the rules,” says Vasconcelos. In Tuiuti’s last float, there will be a man dressed as a vampire representing president Michel Temer.



Estação Primeira da Mangueira, one of the oldest and most traditional samba schools in Rio, is parading with the theme, “With or without money, I’ll play”, as a direct provocation to Mayor Marcelo Crivella, who cut public funding to carnaval by 50% this year. Crivella announced the cuts alleging fiscal austerity, but many of his critics see religious motives behind it, since he is also a bishop of the prosperity-focused Universal Kingdom of God church, which uses biblical dogma to classify carnaval as a “diabolical party” associated with “idolatry”, “witchcraft” and “libidinous acts”.

Mangueira has created a parade celebrating the cultural manifestations of the street which depend on little or no financial support. For the designer of the parade, Leandro Viera, the theme also criticizes the samba schools, which have begun to invest in more and more expensive and luxurious parades, distancing themselves from their neighborhood roots. “For a long time, there has been a feeling that Carnaval has been watered down to transform itself exclusively in entertainment, and with this it has withdrawn from the population. By looking at the mayor’s position, we found a way to satirize carnaval itself. This theme was developed to embrace the sambista. The mayor is trying to implement a conservative agenda in the cosmopolitan city of Rio de Janeiro.”

The Mangueira parade will commemorate carnaval street blocos, samba jam sessions, bars, Afro-Brazilian altars and food offerings, the GLBT parade and dancers who wear costumes that criticize the political class. In other words, as Leandro Vieira says, “everything that Mayor Crivella doesn’t like”. One parade float will feature an image of the patron saint of Brazil, the black Virgin Mary, Our Lady of Aparecida, whose image was kicked over on an evangelical TV program during the 1990s by a pastor associated with Mayor Crivella. Another float will feature a bare-breasted statue of pioneer Brazilian drag queen Laura de Vison (1939-2007). The school also promises to feature a giant statue of a cellulite-ridden ass with a tattoo on it that says, “Crivella”.

Beija Flor will extend its protest to Brazil as a whole, making a parallel between the horror novel “Frankenstein” by Mary Shelley, which will celebrate its 200th anniversary since first publication in 2018, and the political moment in the country. With the theme “A monster is someone who doesn’t know how to love: the children abandoned by the nation which birthed them”, it denounces things like corruption, social inequality, unemployment, environmental destruction, religious intolerance, and homophobia.

Beija Flor will tell the story of Dr. Frankenstein’s monster, a being created in a laboratory with pieces other people, crudely sewn together, who was not recognized as human due to his abnormal appearance and rejected by his own creator. The headquarters of Petrobras, a company targeted in the lava jato investigation and Maracana stadium, which received overpriced reforms, will be represented on floats developed by choreographer Marcelo Misailidis and designer Cid Carvalho. The theme song is already one of the most popular of the season, with verses such as, “Beloved homeland, where are you going? You children can’t take it anymore!” and “Greed wears a suit and tie, where hopes die”.

In Portela, another historic school, the experienced designer Rosa Magalhães, who has one the most titles of anyone currently in activity in Rio, created the theme, “Suddenly, from here to there, from there to here” about a group of Dutch Jews, exiled by the inquisition after Portugal conquered the northeastern state of Pernambuco from Holland during the 17th Century, who immigrated to the United States and helped found New Amsterdam, which later transformed into New York. The parade will feature Mohamed Ali Kenawy, a Syrian refugee who suffered xenophobic attacks when he started peddling on the streets of Rio in August 2017.

Portela’s parade will honor immigrant workers and protest against xenophobia and ethnic and religious intolerance. It will reference the European refugee crisis and controversies involving US president Donald Trump’s persecution of immigrants. Portela’s official program for the 2018 carnaval states that, “starting from this adventure, Portela will deliver a humanitarian message against discrimination, religious persecution and all sorts of attacks against the diversity of peoples”.

With all of this engagement in the heart of Brazil’s largest cultural spectacle the 2018 Rio de Janeiro Carnaval parade, which will happen on February 11 and 12, looks to be the most politicized in decades.



http://www.brasilwire.com/as-evangelica ... liticizes/

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Police analysis: Odebrecht uses false evidence against Lula


The accusations against Lula are based on a supposed property obtained as a coima from the OAS construction company to favor million-dollar contracts with Petrobras. | Photo: Reuters

Published 15 February 2018 (13 hours 40 minutes ago)

The police expertise showed that some bank statements have assembly or insertion marks, as well as inconsistencies in the dates of the transactions and in the signatures.
A police analysis requested by the defense of former President of Brazil Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva affirmed that Odebrecht lied when presenting false documents to the justice of that South American nation during Operation Lava Jato , reported the local media Brasil 247 .

"Some bank statements have assembly or insertion marks, in addition to inconsistencies in the dates of the transactions and in the signatures," revealed the specialist who analyzed the documentation annexed by the Federal Public Ministry in the accusation against the founder of the Partido de the Workers (PT).

The documents analyzed are part of Lava Jato's action investigating the use of an apartment next to Lula's in São Bernardo do Campo. For the indictment, Odebrecht paid for the acquisition of the property.

The expert who analyzed the role of the contractor is the same one who witnessed the formal validity of the receipts presented by the defense as proof that the former president paid the rent for the apartment.

The accusations against Lula are based on a supposed property obtained as a coima from the OAS construction company to favor million-dollar contracts with Petrobras. It is a beach apartment located in São Paulo.

However, this property is not in the name of Lula but of the construction company that bought the apartment from the Bancoop cooperative when it was declared bankrupt.

https://www.telesurtv.net/news/brasil-o ... -0056.html

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Etchegoyen: Brasil’s Strongest Man?

In February 2017, ousted President Dilma Rousseff warned of a second, more radical and more repressive phase of the Coup d’état which removed her from office – akin to the “Institutional Acts” in the years following the Military Coup of 1964. Sérgio Westphalen Etchegoyen, who has been called the architect of the Federal Military Intervention in Rio de Janeiro, personally oversaw security arrangements at the Planalto palace during Rousseff’s suspension, at some points denying her access to transport or visitors. In June 2017, Temer Government officials inadvertently revealed the identity of Duayne Norman, head of the CIA in Brasilia, through a meeting scheduled with Etchegoyen which was accidentally made public.

In February 2018, Brasil’s most conservative Congress since the 64-85 dictatorship voted to approve Michel Temer’s decree for by 340 votos a 72, as head of the Armed Forces, General Vilas Boas, urged that the Military should be allowed to do as it will during the intervention without “risk” of a new “Truth Commission”, such as that which investigated kidnapping, murder, rape and torture under the US-supported dictatorship, including that of Dilma Rousseff herself. Here, we present a translation of veteran journalist Bob Fernandes, who in his regular commentary for Gazeta TV talked about the family history of Etchegoyen, now one of the most powerful in Brasil, and his role in its current situation.

By Bob Fernandes.

General Sérgio Etchegoyen is the President’s Cabinet Chief of Institutional Security, the GSI, and through the Brazilian Intelligence Agency (Agencia Brasileira da Intellegencia/ABIN) is director of the Brazilian Intelligence System, (Sistema Brasileira da Intellegencia/SISBIN). SISBIN has its tentacles in 37 institutions, including the armed forces, the federal police, the military police, the government’s legal team, etc.

Etchegoyen is more than Temer’s strong man. Temer is a weak president and Etchegoyen comes from a century long family tradition in the Army. Army Chief of Staff in the Temer reserves, Etchegoyen is the architect of military intervention in Rio de Janeiro. Power does not allow a vacuum.

Etchegoyen’s grandfather, Lieutenant Alcides, was one of the men who tried to prevent Washington Luiz from assuming the presidency in 1926.

In August, 1954, Alcides signed the manifesto calling for Getulio Vargas’ resignation. Alcides was the father of Leo Etchegoyen: general and father of current minister Sergio Etchegoyen.

Leo Etchegoyen worked to bring down president Joao Goulart in the 1964 coup. He was secretary of security in Rio Grande de Sul state in 1965. A few years later he was an advisor to Dictator Garrastazu Medici. In 2014, Sérgio Etchegoven, called the Truth Commission “pathetic and frivolous”, in the name of family and in defence of his father’s memory. The Commission found Leo Etchegoyen responsible for human rights violations during the dictatorship.

Governor Pezão, testifying under investigation, inherited Rio de Janeiro from Sérgio Cabral, the former governor who is now condemned to 87 years in jail. The voices and the spokesmen knew who Cabral was and what he was doing. They remained silent to not interfere with the billion dollar business negotiations of the World Cup and Olympics.

47% of the Rio de Janeiro electorate abstained or annulled their votes in the last mayoral election. They refused to vote for either the evangelical bishop-mayor Crivella or Marcelo Freixo. This says a lot about so many of the involved parties.

Now, a government surrounded by innumerable corruption accusations creates a military intervention to… fight organized crime. One more scam with the veneer of legality. An Interventionist General, troops and tanks sent into communities which lack, precisely, the presence of the state and its services.

We will call this Institutional Act II. Institutional Act I was the work of Eduardo Cunha, who was arrested and imprisoned only after finishing his dirty work of the impeachment.

Nothing surprises me any more. In the Folha de Sao Paulo, Daniela Lima says that Judge Moro will be nominated as Man of the Year in New York. 7 Banks are sponsoring the awards ceremony and tables at the event cost $26,000. One of the table has been bought by Petrobras. The same Petrobras that is under investigation by Judge Moro in Operation Lava Jato.

http://www.brasilwire.com/etchegoyen-br ... ngest-man/

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Union Victory: during General Strike, Congress suspends pension reform vote

On Monday, February 19th, as millions of Brazilians participated in a General Strike against the coup government’s proposed retirement reform amendment, Congress announced that it will delay voting on the measure until December. To the Central Única dos Trabalhadores (CUT/Unified Workers Central), Latin America’s largest labor union federation and largest strike actor, this is a clear sign that Temer was unable to rally enough votes to pass the amendment. For the past year the CUT, along with its social movement and labor union federation partners in the Frente Brasil Popular and Povo Sem Medo coalitions, has treated blocking the proposed retirement reform as its number one policy priority. In addition to a series of general strikes that started with the largest in Brazil’s history, on April 28, 2017, the unions spent the last year sponsoring community debates on the reform proposal in city councils, churches and neighborhood associations across the country. They also worked with the alternative press to show the dangers of the proposed reforms and worked locally across the country to pressure elected officials against supporting the amendment. These tactics appear to have worked as, fearing defeat, Temer’s coalition continually pushed back voting on the amendment over the past year, finally announcing yesterday that the vote will not take place until after the presidential elections in December.

Although the government’s official excuse for delaying voting on the amendment is the state of martial law that was declared in Rio de Janeiro (which, according to the constitution, impedes any constitutional amendment votes) voting has been pushed back repeatedly, most recently in December, 2017, as Temer’s governing coalition has been unable to guarantee the 308 votes needed to pass the amendment in Congress. Last Friday, February 16, CUT leadership accused the Temer administration of declaring martial law in Rio de Janeiro, in part, to cover up its failure in rallying enough votes to pass the amendment.

Regarding the victory in blocking the coup government’s Washington Consensus-style pension reforms, CUT national President Vagner Freitas says, “We have to celebrate, but it is a momentary celebration. For people like us who are at war, we have to remain permanently mobilized for the fight.”

According the Freitas, the suspension of all constitutional amendment proposals until after the elections, including the retirement reforms, is a defeat for the coup government and a victory for the working class, which has kept the pressure up through protests, strikes, social media actions and pressure on congressmen. “We removed the jewel from the crown, which is the pension reform that the Coup’s financiers demanded”.

Under the banner of “I want to retire”, millions of people participated in yesterday’s general strike. Highlights include:

Dozens of major highways and roads closed off with burning tires, including avenida Interlagos in São Paulo, closed by striking chemical factory workers, and highway 101 in Rio de Janeiro.

Workers in the automotive, chemical, pharmaceutical, governmental, petrochemical, transportation and banking industries in dozens of cities across the country refused to show up for work.

Street protests took place in cities across the country.

There were protests in Airports in São Paulo, Brasilia and Porto Alegre.

Together with members of the MST, union workers held federal pension ministries in Goiania, Porto Alegre, Curitiba, Passo Fundo, Cuiabá, Campo Grande and Criciúma (PR), where the pension ministry workers held a work stoppage in solidarity with the protesters.

http://www.brasilwire.com/union-victory ... form-vote/

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Rio isn’t Brasil’s most dangerous city, so why the military occupation?

When I first moved to Rio de Janeiro in 1991 tens of thousands of homeless families lived in cardboard boxes in Copacabana and locals would take a taxi to travel as little as one block to avoid being robbed by gangs of glue sniffing street children, many of whom would go on to be assassinated by the military police. There were an average of 3 armed car robberies per day and a kidnapping crisis was underway. I got in the middle of gunfire on my second day in town, in Copacabana at 2 in the afternoon. Another night, the city bus I was in lurched to a halt in the middle of the tunnel between Rio Sul and Princessa Isabel avenue as cars in front and behind us exchanged machine gun fire. Later, I was kidnapped by corrupt military police officers, pulled out of my taxi during a blitz, driven around the city for hours as, under the threat of getting a “blood test”, I negotiated the bribe for my release from $1000 down to $300. There was a violence crisis going on.

I lived in a favela in São Luis, Maranhão from 2000-2005. It had nothing to do with a hipster sense of “slumming it”, but was the result of rational choice. The favela was within walking distance of my job downtown and at the time Maranhão was tied with Santa Catarina as Brasil’s safest state. Everyone knew their neighbors and we would sit out on our front stoops every night drinking beer and shooting the breeze. While there were a few drug points in the neighborhood, they only sold marijuana and the local drug kingpin was someone known and respected in the community. I moved to São Paulo in late 2005 and, during a series of return visits, I watched São Luis go down the toilet. A drug gang from Pernambuco moved into the old neighborhood and started selling crack. Soon, it was no longer safe to walk down the street after sundown and neighbors stopped sitting on their front stoops at night. A police station was attacked with machine gun fire and gangs were burning city buses. The São Paulo trafficking faction, the PCC, was moving in. It got so dangerous that the city bus system stopped running at night. Today, Sao Luis is the second most violent city with a population over 1 million in Brasil. It is a place that is suffering from a violence crisis and its case is exemplary of the crisis that has been underway in Northern and Northeastern cities for the past decade. Fortaleza, one of the most popular tourist destinations in the country, is now the most violent big city in Brasil, with a homicide rate of 75/100,000. Other tourist destinations such as Natal, Macaio and Porto Seguro are currently suffering from murder rates that dwarf those in Rio de Janeiro. You wouldn’t know this from reading commercial news publications like the Guardian. 6 of the last 12 articles about Rio de Janeiro in the Guardian have been about violence, culminating with Dom Phillips recent piece that overplays the violence issue and downplays the significance of the military occupation – the first time the military has taken over a state government security apparatus since the dictatorship.



I lived in Rio de Janeiro for 8 years, first as a development professional managing social projects in places like Maré and City of God favelas and then as a local television producer specialized in filming in favelas. One highlight of this period was working as assistant producer of the three part BBC documentary Welcome to Rio, which involved 8 months of filming in places like Maré, Jardin Gramacho, Rio das Pedras, Lins, Rocinha, Juramento and Providencia. During this time I met and spoke with many people connected to the organized crime underworld. These combined experiences have given me enough knowledge to say a few things about violence in Rio de Janeiro.

Despite media violence sensationalism written by journalists who don’t want to take the time or are not paid enough to fly up to the crisis areas in the North and Northeast, Rio de Janeiro does not rank in the top 100 most violent cities in Brasil. Although it’s homicide rate has recently creeped up towards 40/100,000, the state government regularly manipulates its crime statistics, as Alan Lima, Ben Anderson and I showed in the Vice/HBO documentary, The Pacification of Rio, in 2014. The Rio de Janeiro state government classifies violent deaths a few different ways. There is legitimate self defense, usually used to describe the hundreds of annual police killings, even those conducted execution style by shots to the back of the head at close range; there are homicides; and, importantly for the purpose of understanding the current artificially constructed violence crisis, there are the “violent deaths of undetermined cause”, a number which has fluctuated dramatically in recent years. In 2009, a year in which Rio de Janeiro had a homicide rate of 33/100,000, there were 3615 violent deaths of undetermined causes. By 2015, the most recent year that this statistic has been made available, the number dropped to 941. Whereas not all of these deaths are necessarily homicides, IPEA has stated that a significant number of them appear to be mistakenly categorized. Another area of flexibility in government statistic gathering is the case of disappearances. Thousands of them are registered every year in Rio and the number of police investigations fluctuates, in a scenario in which the police, drug gangs and militias are regularly discovered hiding bodies. To an outside observer the Rio de Janeiro state government appears to adjust the murder rate to suit its political purposes, lowering it, for example, in the lead up to the World Cup to calm tourists and increasing it to justify the recent military occupation. Unfortunately, reporters for international publications such as the Guardian never seem to scratch below the surface, frequently repeating whatever government numbers they see on the conservative Globo TV network without critical analysis, quoting Brasilian neoliberal editorialists like Miriam Leitão as if they were objective reporters. This in turn leads to articles like a recent one in which a Guardian journalist goes soft on the first military take over of a state security apparatus since the dictatorship.

Whereas violence remains a serious issue in Rio de Janeiro, nothing about the structure of the problem – large swathes of the city controlled by organized crime groups who have infiltrated and corrupted the police, military and local governments – has changed over the past 30 years. Rio is currently a lot safer than it was during the Fernando Henrique Cardoso presidency, when the state wide homicide rate surpassed 60/100,000. If Rio’s situation is business as usual, why has the Army taken over the state’s security apparatus now? There are a few theories under debate at the moment in Brasil, and I will summarize and analyze them here with the understanding that this is a complex issue with multiple causes.

1) To eradicate drug gangs

Anyone with any familiarity of the history of drug trafficking in Rio de Janeiro knows that this idea is ridiculous. Rio’s largest drug trafficking organization, the Comando Vermelho, was founded in 1979, and grew exponentially during the final 6 years of the Military Dictatorship. Not only was the Military unable to stop Rio’s largest drug gang when it ran the nation’s security, for the last 35 years it has been the primary supplier of their automatic weapons and hand grenades. This is an indisputable fact. All you have to do run a basic YouTube search to find home-made videos of Rio drug traffickers showing off their Brazilian military arsenal, like this amateur funk video, with 183,000 views, about the Amigos dos Amigos trafficking gang’s 50 caliber anti-aircraft machine gun in Mineira favela.

I worked on the production of an international television program in 2016, serving as interpreter for Ronaldo Carneiro, the former director of kidnapping operations of the Terceiro Comando gang, as he told the story of one of his biggest kidnappings. I watched as a frustrated director tried to get Ronaldo’s story to fit their pre-prepared script outline. He kept prodding him to say, “In the 1990s, Rio was a land of the haves and the have nots. I was a have not.” To the director’s frustration, Carneiro kept saying, “I was a have”. Contrary to what the production crew had hoped to depict, he wasn’t from a favela. He grew up in middle class family and went to private schools and his first contact with the Terceiro Comando was as a Captain in the Army Special Forces, selling them machine guns. This is hardly a unique story. When the local papers announced that the largest gun supplier to the drug trafficking gangs was arrested last year, nobody was surprised to discover that he was an army sergeant.

Although the current occupation represents the first time the Military has come in to take over security at the state-wide level it has periodically occupied different favelas in Rio for decades. There is not one case of this where the drug trafficking gangs were ever eliminated. I witnessed the relationship between the Brazilian army and Rio’s drug traffickers first hand in 2015. For over a year, 2750 military and national security forces occupied the Complexo da Maré, a group of favelas off the highway in from the international airport with a population over 100,000. I was there doing research and stopped to have a few beers at the end of the day in one of the many fantastic bars in Parque da União. As the sun went down, the troops left and the drug traffickers came out with their machine guns and set up their dealing tables on the streets. “This happens every night”, I was told.

If the Brazilian military was unable or unwilling to stop the Comando Vermelho while it was running the entire country, if it hasn’t been able to stop a 30 year constant flow of military weapons reaching the hands of the drug traffickers, and if it has never succeeded in removing a drug gang from a favela during all of its years of periodic favela occupations, why would anyone in their right minds assume that it’s been called in to stop the drug trafficking gangs?

2) To save the Temer government’s embarrassment at not being able to pass neoliberal retirement reforms

It is illegal to pass a constitutional amendment while any Brazilian state is under martial law. On Monday, in the midst of a nationwide General Strike against retirement reform, Congress announced that it will delay vote on the amendment until December. Blocking Temer’s proposed, unnecessary deep austerity cuts to the retirement system has been the primary objective of the 8 million members of the Central Unica de Trabalhadores labor union federation (Unified Workers’ Central/CUT) and its union and social movement allies in the Frente Brasil Popular coalition since last April. For the past year, they’ve been holding debates in neighborhood associations, churches and city councils across the country on what these reforms, which spare the retirement systems biggest abusers in the judiciary, military and government, would mean to the average worker. They’ve put pressure on local congressmen and, repeatedly over the past year, Temer has had to delay voting out of fear he didn’t have the 380 votes necessary to pass the amendment. Was it an accident that Temer ordered the military occupation 3 days before the General Strike? On February 16, CUT leadership issued a statement accusing Temer of staging the military occupation to hide his failure at passing pension reform and his recent corruption accusations.

3) The 2016 Coup is moving to stage 2, and Rio is a pilot project for a return to Military Rule

In February 2017, ousted President Dilma Rousseff warned of a second, more radical and more repressive phase of the Coup d’état which removed her from office – akin to the “Institutional Acts” in the years following the Military Coup of 1964.

When Michel Temer was instated as acting president, before the illegal impeachment proceedings against Dilma Rouseff went up to vote in Congress, he issued a decree reinstating the President’s Institutional Security Cabinet (Gabinete de Segurança Institucional da Presidência da República/GSI), which had been eradicated by Dilma Rousseff. The GSI has the task of providing support to the president on military and intelligence matters. Temer didn’t merely reinstate the agency, however, he gave it power over ABIN, the civil intelligence agency, and 36 other governmental agencies including the federal police and put 3rd generation Army General Sérgio Etchegoyen in charge. Etchegoyen is the architect of the Rio de Janeiro military occupation, which is already seizing property and committing human rights violations in Rio de Janeiro, most notably through blanket search warrants that cover all residents in designated poor neighborhoods, and stopping and frisking children as young as 6 at gunpoint. The occupation is scheduled to continue until December. The fact that the 1964 military dictatorship started with an army occupation of Rio de Janeiro is not lost on many Brazilians, who are worried that this represents the first stage in a return to military rule.

How could the government really solve the violence problem in cities like Rio de Janeiro?

The violence that plagues Brazilian cities is a direct result of the US government’s war on drugs policing strategy, which was adapted by the Brazilian government during the 1980s. The war on drugs is just as much of a failure in Brasil as it is in the United States, with an even higher death toll. Since it began, hundreds of thousands of people have been murdered in the cities of Rio and Sao Paulo alone, and, during the last decade, the problem has exacerbated in the North and Northeast, now home to Brasil’s most violent cities. Just as the mafia was weakened in the US when it ended prohibition, Mexican drug cartels are currently coming on hard financial times due to several US state’s legalization of marijuana. Neighboring Uruguay has also seen a significant drop in organized crime since it legalized Marijuana. Brasil partially decriminalized possession of small quantities of marijuana in 2006, but in poor neighborhoods, the police continue to treat recreational users as criminals. Why doesn’t Brasil simply decriminalize recreational drug use or at least respect the existing law regarding possession of marijuana? My theory is that the illegal drug industry is putting billions of dollars a year into the hands and campaigns of the traditional political clans. Was it an accident that a helicopter with 450 kilos of cocaine in it was apprehended on one of Aecio Neves’ top campaign financier’s ranch? Was it an accident that 20 kilos of cocaine was apprehended on Aloysio Nunes’ farm in 2009?

It may seem redundant to casual onlookers to see the Brazilian Military take over Rio’s security apparatus, because it has controlled its largest and most violent police force all along. The Brazilian military police are a holdover from the dictatorship and military police men are not legally accountable to the Brazilian rule of law, responding instead to military courts of their peers in a process where officers are rarely prosecuted. Most poor and working class people I’ve interacted with over the years feel that they are a large part of the violence problem in Brasil. Over the years Rio’s military police have been apprehended taking millions of dollars in bribes from drug traffickers, selling them guns, helping one drug faction fight against another, forming paramilitary militias that control entire neighborhoods on Rio’s west side, killing children, committing rapes, robbing ATM machines, cars and truck cargo, summarily executing thousands of primarily black youth, running death squads and infiltrating peaceful protest groups to incite violence. Since the fall of the dictatorship, criminologists have recommended that the Federal Government end the military police by merging it with the civil police and subordinating all police officers to the rule of law. During the Lula and Dilma governments, the PT party tried to do this 3 times, most recently through a bill introduced to the Senate by Lindbergh Farias. Each time legislation was introduced to the house or senate, the PT’s own conservative coalition partners killed the measure.

The purpose of this article is not to belittle the problems faced by the people of Rio de Janeiro or downplay the violence issue there. For the last 35 years city residents have suffered from living in a city not under full control of its own government, where huge swathes of territory have their own laws and draconian punishments and the police are as bad as the criminals. It should have been treated as an emergency when it started, back in the 1980s, but the paramilitary militias and drug trafficking gangs are now so ingrained in the power structure, that it is highly doubtful the current occupation will solve the problem. The military is already responsible for Rio’s security, through its military police force, which has caused tens of thousands of deaths while continually failing to stop violence in Rio over the past 35 years. What will change with more military on the streets?

Just as the impeachment of Dilma Rousseff was subsequently proven to be an illegal measure, initiated by a criminal who is now in jail and pushed through with the help of bribes, I have no doubt that the real motives behind Michel Temer’s move to turn Rio de Janeiro’s security apparatus over to the military will come to the surface soon. I sincerely hope that this doesn’t represent the first step towards a return to military rule. As journalists cheer-lead for the Brazilian military, keep in mind that there are serious human rights violations underway.

http://www.brasilwire.com/rio-isnt-bras ... ccupation/

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Campaign leader: Militarization seeks to resurrect Temer's image

Published 23 February 2018 (10 hours 54 minutes ago)

Miguel Angel Ferrer
The campaign manager of the de facto government, Elsinho Mouco, acknowledged that the militarization in the city of Rio de Janeiro seeks to leverage the re-election of Temer.
The head of campaigns and marketing of the de facto government of Michel Temer , Elsinho Mouco, acknowledged that the militarization of the city of Rio de Janeiro was a measure taken to "resuscitate the image of Temer and leverage his candidacy for re-election."

This was said by the member of the Workers Party (PT), Humberto Costa, who criticized the opportunism of the measure and treated the issue as an advertising move.


Source: AP
Costa declared that Temer's attempt to use the Armed Forces to recover before public opinion, a fact admitted by Mouco, showed that the de facto president "besides being a bad ruler, incompetent and without seriousness, shows strong features of insanity".

"Mr. Mouco says that Temer will prosper and get re-elected president of Brazil, who has an advisor so he does not need to have any enemy because to put on Temer's head that he can be the chief executive by voting in the ballot box is a joke "Costa said.

The leader of the PT said he felt sad because the de facto government uses the goodwill and the belief of the population of Rio to make a marketing electoral move that only diminishes the credibility of the Executive.

Costa urged Temer to desist from the idea of ​​running for president and focus on holding Brazil until October.

https://www.telesurtv.net/news/jefe-de- ... -0010.html

Google Translator

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Minister of Education tries to censor University course on 2016 Coup

In a move adding to growing concerns about the state of Brazilian democracy and freedom of expression, Michel Temer’s Minister of Education, Mendonça Filho (DEM), has instructed the Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office (MPF), the Federal Attorney General’s Office (AGU), the Federal Comptroller’s Office (CGU) and the Brazilian Court of Audit (TCU) to investigate the new course “the 2016 Coup and the Future of Democracy in Brazil” at the University of Brasília (UnB).

This follows the raid on University of Minas Gerais (UFMG) in December, and other actions seen as part of a wider campaign of intimidation against academia since the coup.

The UnB course was created by Professor Luis Felipe Miguel, who says that the objective is to study the democratic rupture that culminated in the overthrow of President Dilma Rousseff, the agenda of social setbacks and restrictions on freedom by the Temer government, and to analyze the possibilities of reestablishing the the rule of law and political democracy in the country.

The announcement of the new module sparked the fury and craving for censorship in government circles as well as the traditional conservative press.Mendonça promised to investigate alleged irregularities and identify possible culprits, dismissing the course as an tool of Dilma Rousseff’s PT (Workers Party).

Asked by journalists, UnB’s management said university departments have “autonomy to propose and approve content,” stressed its “commitment to freedom of expression and opinion,” and reaffirmed that universities are democratic spaces “par excellence” for the free debate of ideas.

On Facebook, Professor Miguel, who also holds a PhD in Social Sciences from the State University of Campinas (Unicamp), commented on the threat of censorship, the “false controversy” and the “fuss” created by the press. “The module I am offering is aligned with clear values, in favour of freedom, democracy and social justice, without giving up scientific rigor or adhering to any kind of dogmatism,” said the professor.

Teachers and scholars also reacted to the threats of curtailing academic freedom and university autonomy.The professor of Public Policy Management at the University of São Paulo (USP) Pablo Ortellado called the move to investigate the course dangerous and declared that “if this government were serious”, the statements and actions of Mendonça Filho would justify the dismissal of the Minister.

“The Ministry of Education can not and should not deal with the content of university courses at the risk of giving the State the power to censure or suspend critical public policy investigations or scientific investigations that run counter to government guidelines.It is not good for democracy, nor for science” said the USP professor.

Renan Quinalha, a lawyer and professor of law at the Federal University of São Paulo (UNIFESP), said that the authoritarian reaction of the government puts academic freedom at risk and “only attests that it was really a coup”. He also suggested that teachers offer courses on the 2016 coup in all universities.

Coup-ousted President Dilma Rousseff herself posted a message of support for the professor on social media, and compared the censorship to that which happened following the 1964 Coup, and “coup within a coup” AI-5 (Institutional Act 5) in 1968.

“I express my solidarity with Professor Luis Felipe Miguel of UnB, in the face of the arbitrary and retrograde censorship made by the Minister of Education to his course “The coup of 2016 and the future of democracy”. Preventing of calling facts and events by their name is a typical reaction in regimes of exception. During the dictatorship, it was forbidden to say that there were political prisoners in Brasil, although they filled the country’s prisons. During the impeachment, without any crime of responsibility, they tried in every way to block the denunciation of a new type of coup that was wounding Brazilian democracy. To now censor a discipline in UnB that characterises the process inaugurated by the impeachment in 2016 as a coup, makes clear the deepening of arbitrariness and censorship, terrible aggression against university autonomy, academic culture, the free circulation of ideas, and democracy itself. An abuse typical of states of exception, the greatest enemies of culture and education. “

Translated excerpts from CartaCapital

http://www.brasilwire.com/minister-of-e ... 2016-coup/

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March 2, 2018
Brazil's Military Takeover in Rio Sparks Authoritarian Fears

Deeply unpopular Brazilian President Michel Temer issued a decree to put the military in charge of security in Rio de Janeiro instead of police, dubiously claiming the purpose is to crack down on crime. But many Brazilians worry that it's the first stage in a return to military rule, explains journalist Brian Mier



SHARMINI PERIES: It's The Real News Network. I'm Sharmini Peries coming to you from Baltimore. The State of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil is currently under what amounts to a military occupation. In mid-February, President Michel Temer issued a decree to put the military in charge of security instead of police. The express purpose of the military security operation is to fight a rise in crime levels in Rio. However, there is a lot of speculation as to why Temer, who is at 3.4% favorability in the country, took these measures now considering that previous military involvement in fighting crime in Brazil has been a dismal failure. Joining me now to analyze these developments is Brian Mier. Brian is the editor of the website Brasil Wire, and he's also editor of the book Voices of the Brazilian Left. Thanks for joining me, Brian.
BRIAN MIER: Thank you, Sharmini.
SHARMINI PERIES: Brian, you recently wrote about the military's security operation in Rio. You expressed skepticism about the official explanation for the military's involvement there. Indeed, the military itself has been accused of committing atrocities and extrajudicial executions during these operations, so why do you think that crime-fighting is not the believable explanation for the military's intervention in Rio?
BRIAN MIER: Well, first of all, because in all of the city-level or neighborhood-level operations by the military since the organized crime problem really kicked off in Brazil in 1980s, none of them have ever stopped a drug trafficking gang from operating inside of a favela in Rio de Janeiro, none. In fact, during the military occupation of Mare Favela at the time of the Olympics, I was in there doing research, and I saw that every night the military would just leave and the drug dealers would come out with their machine guns and set up their tables and start selling drugs on the street as if there was an agreement between the sides.
We know that the military, for the past 30 years, has been one of the primary supplier of weapons to the organized crime gangs in Rio de Janeiro. You can go and look at YouTube videos and see gangs making their own music videos bragging about their military hand grenades and anti-aircraft guns and things like that. So it seems like there's been a long history of almost ... not like collaboration officially but there's some levels of infiltration between organized crime and the military. So the idea that they're going to come in now, after all of these failed attempts in the last 30 years, and solve the drug trafficking problem is frankly ludicrous. That's why there's people speculating that there are other reasons for it.
SHARMINI PERIES: Now, some people attribute the military's presence in Rio to Temer's governance problems, for example, his inability to push through the pension reform. What is the connection here?
BRIAN MIER: Okay. Well, when Temer illegally took office after the coup in 2016, he announced his two main objectives were labor reform and pension reform. Now, he managed to push through draconian labor reform measures, which basically put workers' rights back by around 80 years unfortunately. But for the last year, the unions have been organizing, pressuring congressmen, meeting with people in churches and neighborhood associations across the country talking about the dangers of these reforms for the average working-class Brazilian citizen, which would push retirement up as high as 72, 73 years for some people while sparing the most egregious abusers of the system, which are the judiciary and the government and the military.
There's a clause in the Constitution that says when any state is under martial law, you can't pass a constitutional amendment. This means that it's impossible for them to push through the amendment. What the CUT Labor Union Federation said the day of the military occupation is that Temer did this for two reasons. One, to hide a corruption scandal he's involved in in Santos from the media, and the second was to have an out, to not be pressured to have to pass this constitutional amendment until after the 2018 elections because he simply doesn't have enough votes to pass it through Congress at this point. The fact that they announced that they weren't going to try to pass the amendment until after the October 2018 elections, during the day of a massive nationwide general strike, seems to show that maybe the labor unions have a point with this.
However, there are other people saying that "No, this is actually the first step towards a return to a military dictatorship in Brazil." Some of the things that General Braga Netto, who's in charge of the operation, have said to the media, and some of the things that he's done, has gotten a lot of people worried. First of all, he announced that this time around, when the military comes in, they don't want to have to worry about having a Truth Commission afterwards. The Truth Commission was set up by Dilma Rousseff when she was president to investigate allegations of torture and summary executions against political activists and labor union members during the military dictatorship. So the General's already kind of suggested that they're planning on doing human rights abuses.
Secondly, he announced that they're treating Rio as a kind of pilot project for the rest of Brazil. [inaudible 00:06:18] there was a press conference the other day, in which all of the journalists invited were required to submit their questions in writing before the conference so that they could be approved or rejected by the military. This is an identical practice to what they did during dictatorship times, and this has some people worried. It's not lost on a lot of Brazilians, that when the original military dictatorship in 1964 took place, it started with a military occupation of Rio de Janeiro.
SHARMINI PERIES: Brian, give us a history lesson here. Please give us more context to the military dictatorship and its history in Brazil.
BRIAN MIER: Okay. In 1964, it was the height of the Cold War. There was a center-left president who was talking about doing things such as agrarian reform, which is a historic problem in Brazil where the land is concentrated in the hands of a small number of families and there are millions of peasants on the land. He was trying to push through agrarian reform. He rose the minimum wage. He was doing these kind of social democratic measures that are common in Europe, for example. But this was considered too left-wing in the Cold War period, so the United States Government supported Brazil to enact a military dictatorship. They took over in 1964 and ruled until 1985.
SHARMINI PERIES: All right, Brian. Now, one of the things you mention in the article that you wrote is that the intervention is related to the broader military involvement in Brazilian society, especially in the context of the impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff in mid-2016. This type of militarization of Brazilian society is a serious concern, not only among the left but in the general public. Are those discussions reemerging now?
BRIAN MIER: Yeah. It is a concern. For people who are old enough to remember the military dictatorship, a lot of people are very concerned. Unfortunately, just as you see in the rise of the far right in Europe right now and in the United States, there's this kind of fabricated nostalgia for a past that never existed, which has a lot of young people mistakenly pining for the days of the military dictatorship because they believe these memes they see on the internet and they believe the xenophobic rhetoric from people like Jair Bolsonaro, who's a former army captain from the dictatorship days who's running for president on an anti-gay, anti-black, and anti-immigrant platform.
So you see the same kinds of confusions that you have in Europe with respect to misinformation spread by the far right. But that being said, a lot of people are very worried right now and even sectors of the middle class who have supported the group are backpedaling now and wondering what's going on.
SHARMINI PERIES: Brian, one example of this is that federal police raided the offices of Dr. Rafael Valim. Tell us about Dr. Valim and why would the police raid his offices?
BRIAN MIER: Okay. Rafael Valim is one of Brazil's most prominent legal scholars and author of over 20 books. He's also a very vocal critic of what he calls "lawfare tactics" being employed by the Public Prosecutor's Office, the Lava Jato prosecution team led by Sergio Moro, in targeting PT party politicians, especially President Lula in what seems to be an attempt at prevent him from running for president later on this year.
Now, a couple days after Lula lost his appeal process last month, Valim sponsored a seminar in Sao Paulo about lawfare, which had prominent speakers like UN Human Rights Commission Lawyer Geoffrey Robertson and some of the top legal scholars in Brazil. The fact that Sergio Moro ordered his offices to be raided a couple days later is a clear sign, in my mind, that he's using legal harassment techniques against his critics. And this is something that we see increasing across Brazil right now. A couple weeks ago, the Federal Minister of Education tried to prevent Brazilian National University from offering a course about the 2016 coup. There's other cases of people who've been critical of the government being harassed legally and by the police. This leads a lot of people, including former president Dilma Rousseff, to say that Brazil is currently operating in a state of exception where the rule of law's no longer valid, and the events in Rio de Janeiro seem to point to this as well.
SHARMINI PERIES: All right. Finally, Brian, give us a sense of where PT is at at this moment while the candidacy of Lula in terms of running in the next election is becoming more and more unlikely or likely?
BRIAN MIER: Well, look it. PT is still saying that Lula's going to run. Lula's still saying he's going to run, and he's still leading the polls far ahead of any close competitors. The next competitor back is Jair Bolsonaro. If he's not allowed to run, they're thinking about maybe Fernando Haddad. There's another candidate named Jacques Wagner who they were thinking of running in Lula's place. His house was just raided by Sergio Moro's federal police. So it looks like the US-backed Lava Jato investigation team is just trying to arrest anybody they can or harass anybody they can from the PT party at this moment in an attempt to manipulate the upcoming elections.
SHARMINI PERIES: All right, Brian. We'll leave it there for now. It seems like there's a lot more to discuss as far as Brazil is concerned and these military incursions into ordinary lives. I thank you so much for joining us, and we hope to have you back very soon.
BRIAN MIER: Thanks a lot, Sharmini.

http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?opt ... 4I.twitter

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Brazilians take the fight for its Democracy & Sovereignty to AS/COA HQ in New York

On the morning March 2, 2018, a small but determined group of protesters braved the New York rain, sleet and snow to demonstrate outside the Park Avenue headquarters of Americas Society / Council of the Americas (AS/COA).

Inside, an event was being held featuring guest speakers from across the region about what AS/COA, publisher of Americas Quarterly magazine, has championed as an “Anti-Corruption Movement” in Latin America. In these previous articles Brasil Wire has exposed the US roots of this “War on Corruption” which date back to 2002, the shadowy history of AS/COA itself, and its role in manipulating political narratives on Latin America in the interests of its corporate paymasters – particularly in the promotion of Brazilian Anti-Corruption Operation, Lava Jato, which has already helped topple a democratically elected president and with that, splintered and demoralised the country’s centre-left. Amongst the speakers were former Brazilian Attorney General Rodrigo Janot, who in 2017 told assembled billionaires at Davos World Economic Forum that Lava Jato was “Pro-Market” – a clear political position it was not supposed to have. The main guest at the New York event was Lava Jato’s leader, the prosecutor judge Sergio Moro, who has close and well documented connections with both the State Department and US Think Tanks.

The demonstrators reflect a large body of opinion in Brazil which considers the operation both politically motivated and working in the interests of foreign capital.

Other demonstrators posed as AS/COA employees and handed out welcome envelopes to those arriving, containing background information on Lava Jato, the David Rockefeller-founded organisation hosting him, and suggested questions that both Janot and Moro could be scrutinised with during Q&A.

Meanwhile AS/COA’s self-image as a benign organisation whose concern is the welfare of Latin Americans is under more open scrutiny now than at any point since its formation in the 1960s as “Business Group for Latin America”. An early version of Business Group was set up by Rockefeller on the instruction of John F. Kennedy, in order to influence Brazil’s 1962 election, and then went on to form and fund organisations working to destabilise President João Goulart, leading directly to the April 1 1964 Military Coup.

Its involvement in the Chilean Coup of 1973 is even more well documented, yet somehow AS/COA is a blindspot for mainstream journalists, some of whom regularly contribute to its magazine Americas Quarterly. AQ’s editor is former Reuters Brazil head Brian Winter, who left the country in 2015 following a scandal where he was considered to have been censoring US-backed PSDB party’s involvement in the Petrobras bribery scheme which pre-dated Lula’s presidency. That scheme was the basis of Operation Lava Jato, which Winter now enthusiastically champions, in complete disregard of its negative effects on the economy, stability, and sovereignty of the country.

Sergio Moro is rumoured to be leaving Brasil for the United States once Operation Lava Jato is concluded.

Following the protest, a lecture event organised by another group, BRADO-NYC, was held that evening called ‘The struggle for Democracy in Latin America‘ which dealt with similar topics. Brasil Wire spoke to one of the Defend Democracy in Brazil organisers, Nadia Comani.

What do you know about the role of the US Government and Wall Street in the disruption of Brazilian democracy?

The role has been known for decades, from support to the military in the 1960s, against the João Goulart government, to support to economists in the 1980s, and in the past decade, being the backbone of the education of many Brazilian judges, who are now practicing different tactics learned in the US of intervening indirectly, such as in the impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff – making the illegal proceeding appear legal and to maintain a sense of normalcy of the institutions, while the Institutions themselves are crumbling through defunding, privatisations and destitution of rights and social services to the most needed.

The consolidation of the Left in Brazil and the BRICS presented a big threat to the North American hegemony. The desire to dismount this shift of power is the motor behind this time’s intervention by the US Department of State and Department of Justice. We live in a very fluid time, so all this influence is often happening in the vein of the transferring of information, or creating the stage so that the American companies, from Wall Street to Healthcare, can slowly start to acquire assets in the Brazilian territories, thus weakening our own market, and threatening Brazilian autonomy and democracy. This is such a vast subject, with so many ramifications… The examples in the democratic period Brazil lived from 1988-2016 range from the privatisations started by Fernando Henrique Cardoso to the recent moves to defund public programs such as SUS (Brazilian’s Universal Healthcare system) and Housing (Minha Casa Minha Vida), which affects negatively millions of people.

Because our committee Defend Democracy in Brazil is a diverse group acting together, we observe different aspects of this Coup to the Brazilian Democracy. For example, one of our members who is a nurse observed specifically that United Healthcare, one of the biggest companies in this field, opened an office in Brasilia just after the coup and the company is advising Temer’s Minister of Health.

In speaking simply about the current event we protested, the American companies, US government agencies, and even academic institutions that sponsor lectures and meetings with Judges like Sérgio Moro, and other members of the judiciary like Dallagnol and now former Attorney General Rodrigo Janot, are trying to make it appear normal that, for example, a Judge can lecture on an ONGOING investigation and Operation that is particularly targeting the political forces that the US wants to see very far from public offices, in particular, the PT (Workers Party).

That’s only a glimpse on why we protest a private think tank like the Americas Society, as well as academic institutions such as Columbia University, the New School for Social Research, and the Wilson Center at George Washington University.

What do you think about Americas Society / Council of the Americas?

The Americas Society for years has been instrumental in the dismounting of Public Institutions in the name of corporations and in the interest of further privatization and the selling of assets to private US corporations all over Latin America. As activists in New York from different professions, we have noticed the minute role they have in promoting events with Latin American figures such as private investors, scholars, politicians, public officials, and now judges (!), who serve this purpose, against their own countries’ interest most of the time, and towards a political and economic agenda that embraces US neoliberal thinking.

They also promote art exhibitions that present a limited, targeted view on the role of art in Latin American societies. Their members are big capital companies who have interest in Brazil. Brazil is a very complex country and AS/COA is a kind of organization that attempts to do the intellectual and political networking work for their members.

AS has influence and power with some of the biggest investors in Latin America, and as such, it has also sponsored the investors event when Temer was in the US for the first time after he took office illegitimately, in September 2016, while in New York for the UN General Assembly opening.

The difference between PT’s governments of Lula and Rousseff and the neoliberal government currently in power in Brazil is that Temer also serves their members interests: a Head of State’s event with private investors sponsored by Americas Society is far beyond the role that a think tank should have in a country’s sovereignty. AS/COA should simply stay out of Federal business in Latin American countries.

Do you think Sergio Moro and Rodrigo Janot have acted in Brazil’s own interests?

No. Not at all in the interest of Brazilian people.

As we stated in the letter that we distributed to participants of the event, the real effects of Operation Car Wash (Lava Jato) are now clearly seen: and they are devastating. More than 24.5 million people slipped under the poverty line since the legitimate President Rousseff was ousted, as part of this Operation; the current military intervention in Rio de Janeiro is targeting the poorer, black population, for no reason whatsoever; and Lula, the front runner Brazilian presidential candidate in the 2018 elections has been convicted by Judge Sérgio Moro in one of the worst politically motivated trials to be recorded in judicial history, making use of Lawfare, and without any evidence against the defendant. These are to mention just a few, pivotal, consequences of the fake crusade called Lava Jato.

Both Moro and Janot, as a great majority of the judiciary, have acted in the interest of a few: their own, the actual government of Brazil led by Michel Temer and the minority white neoliberal elite that it represents, and in the interest of the U.S. capital. The absurd here is that they are supposed to be fighting corruption but in fact, Moro practices Lawfare, and Janot for years as Attorney-general practiced what we call “Selective justice”. For some time, they have deceived the people, but a lot more people now sees the truth, and that the Lava Jato stands for a very particular agenda of advancing what results in cuts of social programs, violations of Human Rights, and social injustice.

What happened during your demonstration at AS/COA?

We knew ahead of time that it would not be able to get inside the event “Battle Agains Corruption in Latin America; next steps”– the registration was restricted to members of AS and press only. We would do a protest outside, as Defend Democracy in Brazil always does, and we did it in what was the public part of the sidewalk of Park Avenue, with a lot of rain and snow, but even that already called a lot of the attention of the participants arriving. Many were executives and did not expect it, some stopped, read the signs. We also could be heard on the second floor with sayings that “Car wash is a fraud”, “Moro sells sentences”, “Moro’s housing benefits is 5 times minimum wage” (and for the record, he owns his house, so he does not need this benefit- a total scandal for someone who says he fights corruption). This caused discomfort to the organisers, but we were not disrupting the law, they could only send their security guard outside.

But we wanted to also bring some real questioning about this so-called “battle against corruption” inside the event. We had to be creative. We have members who are artists, and so we created a performance in which our own activists dressed up in suits would distribute materials to conference participants, as to give out information about the real role of Lava Jato and Americas Society in this setting, but in a way unlikely to be refused. So these could not be flyers.

We distributed envelopes that had such information, but we also took the opportunity to include questions that could in themselves instigate curiosity and doubt in the participants, and show a side of Lava Jato that wasn’t being presented to them. Our member-artist described it like John Cage’s “Chance Operations”, which she called “Truth operation” [laughs]. With a hope that someone would open the envelope, read the content, and ask one single question of the 10 questions we distributed.

We learned through the press reports and the webcast, that at least 3 questions were asked! Two examples: one question was to Moro about his Housing benefit, and he refused to answer. The other about damaging the Brazilian Economy through Lava Jato’s consequences, he deferred it to the benefits for businesses in the country, mentioning Watergate, and clearly showing his bias and conflicts with his position as a Federal Judge – serving economic and political agendas, instead of what should be his impartial job description.

So we consider that the demonstration was very successful. The attendees and the organizers did not expect it. We feel that we succeeded enormously in bringing awareness to this one more fake propaganda of the Lava Jato Operation, and the repercussion in both the independent media and the corporate media was immediate, even before Moro had finished his presentation. Any bit of awareness that we can bring towards the fact that the Lava Jato is connected with the whole political, economical, legislative and media Coup that was enacted against our democracy is a gain to our movement and efforts. We hope that a larger number of people starts to see the fallacy of the Lava Jato and start to fight against the selling of Brazilian interests and to reinstate our democracy.

Main photo: Sergio Moro and AS/COA’s Brian Winter at the March 2 event.
DEFEND DEMOCRACY IN BRAZIL/ NEW YORK is a committee composed of Brazilian citizens from all regions of Brazil, and American friends and supporters, residing in New York City. Formed in February 2016 by artists, scholars, representatives of human rights movements, women’s groups, political parties, activists of environmental movements, and sectors of health services, among many others.

Our aim is to support initiatives that defend the real rule of law and democracy in Brazil, uniting the Brazilian community and supporters to our cause in New York, and to articulate the international media outlets.

We have led more than 40 protests, flash mobs, performances, media advocacy works, meetings, networking events. We currently have more than 13000 followers on FB, and try to always post bilingually. In April 2017 we organised an event to join Dilma Rousseff in her tour to American Universities to denounce what had happened. Our event was a partnership with the Murphy Institute for Labor Studies and Workers Education of the City University of New York, and the only one with union leaders, members of the Brazilian and American community outside the university, with political allies, community leaders and journalists.

http://www.brasilwire.com/protesters-ta ... -new-york/