Protests across Brazil put more pressure on Dilma Rousseff

IBSA

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Protests across Brazil put more pressure on Dilma Rousseff

Helicopters belonging to the media fly over Paulista Avenue where people are protesting against Brazil's President Dilma Rousseff, as part of nationwide demonstrations calling for her impeachment, in Sao Paulo on Sunday.

As she heads into a tough week for her attempt to survive impeachment proceedings in Congress.

Mammoth demonstrations across Brazil are putting even more pressure on embattled President Dilma Rousseff as she heads into a tough week for her attempt to survive impeachment proceedings in Congress.

According to police estimates, a total of 3 million people took to the streets in 200 cities on Sunday calling on the President to resign amid widespread anger over corruption investigations and the worst recession in years.

Panel sometime this week

Sometime this week, Lower House Speaker Eduardo Cunha, a Rousseff foe, is expected to form a commission to begin impeachment proceedings over allegations of fiscal mismanagement.

He doesn’t have any say on the panel’s membership, but on Saturday members of his centrist PMDB party pledged to be more independent from Ms. Rousseff’s administration.

She won’t resign, own party pressures her

Ms. Rousseff, who has said she won’t resign, is also under pressure from members of her own Workers’ Party, whose leaders want her mentor and predecessor as president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, to intervene by taking a Cabinet post and bringing in others of his choice.

Yet Mr. Silva is awaiting a decision by a Sao Paulo judge on whether he will be detained on corruption charges.

Sprawling probe glares

Sunday’s protests add to the already-difficult position of Ms. Rousseff, who in addition to the impeachment effort is faced with a sprawling investigation by federal prosecutors into corruption at state-run oil giant Petrobras that has moved closer to her inner circle in recent weeks.

In a statement after Sunday’s protests, Ms. Rousseff said: “The peaceful character of this Sunday’s demonstrations shows the maturity of a country that knows how to coexist with different opinions and knows how to secure respect to its laws and institutions.”

Sao Paulo sees mega protest

The biggest demonstration took place in Brazil’s economic capital, Sao Paulo, a bastion of simmering dissatisfaction with Ms. Rousseff and the Workers’ Party.

The respected Datafolha polling agency estimated about 5,00,000 people took part in the demonstration, while police estimated turnout at nearly three times that number.

One million join the protest

About 1 million people joined the anti-Rousseff demonstration in Rio de Janeiro, organisers estimated.

Analysts said the strong turnout could lead to the unravelling of her fragile governing coalition.

“There is a situation of ungovernability,” said Francisco Fonseca, a political science professor at Pontifical Catholic University in Sao Paulo. “The President has few cards.”

http://www.thehindu.com/news/intern...pressure-on-dilma-rousseff/article8351583.ece
 

Panjab47

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American show of force, as Brazil & Argentina coming together as they are means end of american hegemony.

 

IBSA

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The USA's plan to unstabilize regions that it dont hold and potential threats now has arrived in Brazil as a new Spring.

Its goal is to ban Former President Lula da Silva to run a new election in 2018 suing him by corruption allegations. Current 'Presidentess' Dilma Roussef cant run to a new election, since it is her second term. If Lula da Silva is banned, the Workers Party (PT) will have no strong name to lead a new government, so it will likely to lose the election, opening the road to a coming back government of Brazilian Social Democracy Party (PSDB)
 

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Brazil government regroups after huge protests




RIO DE JANEIRO: A day after massive demonstrations urging the ouster of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, her chief of staff on Monday acknowledged popular discontent with the country's political class, but said the flagging economy was the main reason behind the protests' high turnout.


Jacques Wagner's comments, made in a news conference that followed a meeting early Monday between Rousseff and her closest advisers, were among the government's first official attempt to explain what top newspapers here have described as the largest political demonstration in Brazilian history.

An estimated 3 million people are thought to have taken part in more than 100 protests nationwide, meaning Sunday's anti-Rousseff demonstrations were larger than mass protests in 1984 demanding direct presidential elections amid the country's military dictatorship, according to the respected Folha de S. Paulo daily.

Analysts agree that Sunday's protests represent a strong demonstration of dissatisfaction that only complicates Rousseff's already difficult position. She's fighting impeachment proceedings in Congress amid the worst recession in decades and a sprawling corruption investigation closing in on key figures in her Workers' Party.

"The fact is that Sunday can be seen as a watershed moment, which frightens the government (and) pressures Congress," Folha said in an editorial on Monday. "Surprised by the strong turnout on Sunday, the government has been put on alert that it needs to act quickly" to avoid Rousseff's impeachment.

Lower house Speaker Eduardo Cunha, a Rousseff foe, is expected to form a commission to begin impeachment proceedings sometime this week.

Wagner said the government was interpreting the Sunday's high turnout as a sign "the people are sick and tired of the political class." While he added that "everything contributed" to pushing people onto the streets, "the main thing is people's lives, meaning the economy." "If everything is great, citizens aren't even looking," he is quoted as saying by Globo television network's G1 Internet portal.

Although she's seen her approval ratings dip into the single digits, Rousseff has categorically ruled out resigning, saying last week it was objectionable to demand the resignation of an elected president without concrete evidence the leader had violated the constitution.

The government hopes that pro-government demonstrations scheduled for Friday will help shore up Rousseff's position.

Still, in a statement on Monday, the US-based Eurasia Group political and economic risk consulting firm put at 65 percent the probability that Rousseff will not serve out her term, which ends in 2018.

"We now think an impeachment vote will occur by May, and Rousseff will not survive it," the statement said.

The statement said Sunday's turnout was fanned by the "ballooning" Petrobras corruption probe and the "highly polarized environment" after the police action earlier this month that saw Rousseff's predecessor and mentor, former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, spirited to a Sao Paulo police station to answer questions in the Petrobras investigation.

Among other issues, federal investigators were trying to determine if Silva sold his influence in the current administration in exchange for speeches and donations to his nonprofit foundation Instituto Lula.

The more than 100-page transcript of Silva's questioning was released on Monday. In it, Silva denies having asked for money for his foundation from any of the construction companies ensnared in the Petrobras scandal but acknowledged that his aides may have made such requests. In the document, Silva also explicitly states his intention of running for office again in 2018.

Silva's legal woes grew last week when Sao Paulo state prosecutors filed charges and requested he be provisionally detained in a separate money laundering probe. A judge must sign off on the charges and the detention request, but it's unknown when she may rule.

The Workers' Party meanwhile is pressing for Silva to accept a cabinet post in Rousseff's government. Rousseff has said she would be "extremely proud" to have Silva, who supporters say could prove crucial to helping Rousseff remain afloat.

Critics suggest the offer is aimed at shielding the once-wildly popular former leader from imprisonment on any charges. Under Brazilian law, only the Supreme Court can authorize the investigation, imprisonment and trial of Cabinet members.

Silva has repeatedly insisted he has not committed any wrongdoing and suggests the probes are part of a political smear campaign.

Sunday's demonstrations, overwhelmingly comprised of the white, older middle-class people who have railed against Rousseff for years, may have weakened the government but they don't seem to have strengthened the opposition. The crowd in Sao Paulo, where the respected Datafolha polling agency estimated turnout at half a million people, booed opposition politician Aecio Neves, who narrowly lost to Rousseff in the 2014 presidential run-off.

No major incidents were reported in Sunday's protests. The government highlighted "the peaceful character" of the demonstrations in a statement late Sunday, saying they underscored "the maturity of a country that knows how to co-exist with different opinions and knows how to secure respect to its laws and institutions."

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/...-after-huge-protests/articleshow/51412148.cms
 

amoy

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Conspiracy theories of the USA trying to undermine Brazil, IMO don't carry water. Can't always shift the blame to external players, while Brazil's woes are intrinsic basically owing to over dependence on commodities. In addition to corruption charges, Brazil's economy slumps to 25-year low

Official figures showed Brazil’s GDP fell 3.8% in 2015, the steepest decline since 1990, when the country was battling hyperinflation. Last year finished on a gloomy note with fourth quarter GDP down 1.4% on the previous quarter against the backdrop of a deepening political corruption scandal.

The Brazilian economy is expected to shrink again by more than 3.0% this year, the worst consecutive annual plunges since records began in 1901. Four years ago, the economy was growing by more than 4.0% a year.

The gloomy news will raise pressure on President Dilma Rousseff, who is fighting efforts to impeach her over charges that she used money from state-run banks to plug holes in the budget.

More timely figures showed the private sector contracted at a record pace last month. The Brazil composite output index, published by data company Markit, dropped to its lowest since the survey began in 2007. The index, which tracks companies across the economy, dropped to 39 in February, marking the 12th month running below the 50-point mark that separates expansion from contraction.

Brazil’s economy had been hit hard by a collapse in commodity and oil prices in the past two years, said Mihir Kapadia, head of Sun Global Investments, an emerging markets wealth management company in London.

“The situation has been made worse by the high debt levels, especially in foreign currency – essentially in US dollars. Problems of governance, corruption and political issues have created a perfect storm for continued political instability,” Kapadia added.



 

ezsasa

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India, Brazil , China and Germany ....

Is there any upcoming country whose existing establishment is not facing a crisis (in one form or other) ?
 

Indx TechStyle

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Must be a topic of worry.
@IBSA Brazil has an advantage of stability over China and India.
Both China and India can undergo disintegration or civil war anytime shattering their all dreams but Brazil will last longer because of it's stability.
Matter, if true, should be taken seriously and solved rapidly. :)

By the way, must be taken lightly if really American propaganda.
Americans destabilized Soviets to disintegrate them and remain unchallenged.
They are trying to do same with China and now a days, they are not leaving even India to get every challenger out of their path.
But this strategy is useless against a stable nation like Brazil. :biggrin2:
 

IBSA

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Must be a topic of worry.
@IBSA Brazil has an advantage of stability over China and India.
Both China and India can undergo disintegration or civil war anytime shattering their all dreams but Brazil will last longer because of it's stability.
Matter, if true, should be taken seriously and solved rapidly. :)

By the way, must be taken lightly if really American propaganda.
Americans destabilized Soviets to disintegrate them and remain unchallenged.
They are trying to do same with China and now a days, they are not leaving even India to get every challenger out of their path.
But this strategy is useless against a stable nation like Brazil. :biggrin2:
Brazil dont have more this edge of stability. People are radicalizing and becoming more intolerant each day. Brazil also has its separatists movements. In a time of crisis they gain some strength. There were several cases of hostility and aggression between protesters in these last days.

I think Brazil is more vulnerable than India and China, since we dont have nuke bombs to keep our sovereignty.
 

IBSA

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Brazil Is Engulfed by Ruling Class Corruption — and a Dangerous Subversion of Democracy

Mar. 18 2016, 1:31 p.m.
THE MULTIPLE, REMARKABLE crises subsuming Brazil are now garneringsubstantial Western media attention. That’s understandable given that Brazil is the world’s fifth most populous country and eighth-largest economy; its second-largest city, Rio de Janeiro, is the host of this year’s Summer Olympics. But much of thisWestern media coverage mimics the propaganda coming from Brazil’s homogenized, oligarch-owned, anti-democracy media outlets and, as such, is misleading, inaccurate, and incomplete, particularly when coming from those with little familiarity with the country (there are numerous Brazil-based Western reporters doing outstanding work).

It is difficult to overstate the severity of Brazil’s multi-level distress. This short paragraph yesterday from the New York Times’s Brazil bureau chief, Simon Romero, conveys how dire it is:

Brazil is suffering its worst economic crisis in decades. An enormousgraft scheme has hobbled the national oil company. The Zikaepidemic is causing despair across the northeast. And just before the world heads to Brazil for the Summer Olympics, the government is fighting for survival, with almost every corner of the political system under the cloud of scandal.

Brazil’s extraordinary political upheaval shares some similarities with the Trump-led political chaos in the U.S.: a sui generis, out-of-controlcircus unleashing instability and some rather dark forces, with a positive ending almost impossible to imagine. The once-remote prospect of President Dilma Rousseff’s impeachment now seems likely.

But one significant difference with the U.S. is that Brazil’s turmoil is not confined to one politician. The opposite is true, as Romero notes: “almost every corner of the political system under the cloud of scandal.” That includes not only Rousseff’s moderately left-wing Workers Party, or PT — which is rife with serious corruption — but also the vast majority of the centrist and right-wing political and economic factions working to destroy PT, which are drowning in at least an equal amount of criminality. In other words, PT is indeed deeply corrupt and awash in criminal scandal, but so is virtually every political faction working to undermine it and vying to seize that party’s democratically obtained power.

In reporting on Brazil, Western media outlets have most prominently focused on the increasingly large street protests demanding the impeachment of Rousseff. They have typically depicted those protests in idealized, cartoon terms of adoration: as an inspiring, mass populist uprising against a corrupt regime. Last night, NBC News’s Chuck Todd re-tweeted the Eurasia Group’s Ian Bremmer describing anti-Dilma protests as “The People vs. the President” — a manufactured theme consistent with what is being peddled by Brazil’s anti-government media outlets such as Globo:


That narrative is, at best, a radical oversimplification of what is happening and, more often, crass propaganda designed to undermine a left-wing party long disliked by U.S. foreign policy elites. That depiction completely ignores the historical context of Brazil’s politics and, more importantly, several critical questions: Who is behind these protests, how representative are the protesters of the Brazilian population, and what is their actual agenda?

THE CURRENT VERSION of Brazilian democracy is very young. In 1964, the country’s democratically elected left-wing government was overthrown by a military coup. Both publicly and before Congress, U.S. officials vehemently denied any role, but — needless to say —documents and recordings subsequentlyemerged proving the U.S. directly supported and helped plot critical aspects of that coup.

The 21-year, right-wing, pro-U.S. military dictatorship that ensued was brutal and tyrannical, specializing in torture techniques used against dissidents that were taught to the dictatorship by the U.S. and U.K. A comprehensive 2014 Truth Commission report documented that both countries “trained Brazilian interrogators in torture techniques.” Among their victims was Rousseff, who was a pro-democracy, left-wing guerilla imprisoned and tortured by the military regime in the 1970s.

The coup itself and the dictatorship that followed were supported by Brazil’s oligarchs and their large media outlets, led by Globo, which — notably — depicted the 1964 coup as a noble defeat of a corrupt left-wing government (sound familiar?). The 1964 coup and dictatorship were also supported by the nation’s extravagantly rich (and overwhelmingly white) upper class and its small middle class. As democracy opponents often do, Brazil’s wealthy factions regarded dictatorship as protection against the impoverished masses comprised largely of non-whites. As The Guardian put it upon release of the Truth Commission report: “As was the case elsewhere in Latin America in the 1960s and 1970s, the elite and middle class aligned themselves with the military to stave off what they saw as a communist threat.”


These severe class and race divisions in Brazil remain the dominant dynamic. As the BBC put it in 2014 based on multiple studies: “Brazil has one of the highest levels of income inequality in the world.” The Americas Quarterly editor-in-chief, Brian Winter, reporting on the protests, wrote this week: “The gap between rich and poor remains the central fact of Brazilian life — and these protests are no different.” If you want to understand anything about the current political crisis in Brazil, it’s crucial to understand what Winter means by that.

DILMA’S PARTY, PT, was formed in 1980 as a classic Latin American left-wing socialist party. To improve its national appeal, it moderated its socialist dogma and gradually became a party more akin to Europe’s social democrats. There are nowpopular parties to its left; indeed, Dilma, voluntarily or otherwise, hasadvocated austerity measures to cure economic ills and assuage foreign markets, and just this week enacted a draconian “anti-terrorism” law. Still, PT resides on the center-left wing of Brazil’s spectrum and its supporters are overwhelmingly Brazil’s poor and racial minorities. In power, PT has ushered in a series of economic and social reforms that have provided substantial government benefits and opportunities, which have lifted millions of Brazilians out of poverty.

PT has held the presidency for 14 years: since 2002. Its popularity has been the byproduct of Dilma’s wildly charismatic predecessor, Luíz Inácio Lula da Silva (universally referred to as Lula). Lula’s ascendency was a potent symbol of the empowerment of Brazil’s poor under democracy: a laborer and union leader from a very poor family who dropped out of school in the second grade, did not read until the age of 10, and was imprisoned by the dictatorship for union activities. He has long been mocked by Brazilian elites in starkly classist tones for his working-class accent and manner of speaking.






Lula and Dilma campaign together in the 2010 election.




Photo: Eraldo Peres/AP

After three unsuccessful runs for the presidency, Lula proved to be an unstoppable political force. Elected in 2002 and re-elected in 2006, he left office with such high approval ratings that he was able to ensure the election of his previously unknown hand-picked successor, Dilma, who was then re-elected in 2014. It has long been assumed that Lula — who vocally opposes austerity measures — intends to run again for president in 2018 after completion of Dilma’s second term, and anti-PT forces are petrified that he’d again beat them at the ballot box.


Though the nation’s oligarchical class has successfully used the center-right PSDB as a counterweight, it has been largely impotent in defeating PT in four consecutive presidential elections. Voting is compulsory, and the nation’s poor citizens have ensured PT’s victories.

Corruption among Brazil’s political class — including the top levels of the PT — is real and substantial. But Brazil’s plutocrats, their media, and the upper and middle classes are glaringly exploiting this corruption scandal to achieve what they have failed for years to accomplish democratically: the removal of PT from power.

Contrary to Chuck Todd’s and Ian Bremmer’s romanticized, misinformed (at best) depiction of these protests as being carried out by “The People,” they are, in fact, incited by the country’s intensely concentrated, homogenized, and powerful corporate media outlets, and are composed (not exclusively but overwhelmingly) of the nation’s wealthier, white citizens who have long harbored animosity toward PT and anything that smacks of anti-poverty programs.

Brazil’s corporate media outlets are acting as de facto protest organizers and PR arms of opposition parties. The Twitter feeds of some of Globo’s most influential (and very rich) on-air reporters contain non-stop anti-PT agitation. When a recording of a telephone conversation between Dilma and Lula was leaked this week, Globo’s highly influential nightly news program, Jornal Nacional, had its anchors flamboyantly re-enact the dialogue in such a melodramatic and provocatively gossipy fashion that it literally resembled a soap opera far more than a news report, prompting widespread ridicule. For months, Brazil’s top four newsmagazines have devoted cover after cover to inflammatory attacks on Dilma and Lula, usually featuring ominous photos of one or the other and always with a strikingly unified narrative.

To provide some perspective for how central the large corporate media has been in inciting these protests: Recall the key role Fox News played inpromoting and encouraging attendance at the early Tea Party protests. Now imagine what those protests would have been if it had not been just Fox, but also ABC, NBC, CBS, Time magazine, the New York Times, and theHuffington Post also supporting and inciting the Tea Party rallies. That is what has been happening in Brazil: The largest outlets are owned and controlled by a tiny number of plutocratic families, virtually all of whom are vehement, class-based opponents of PT and whose media outlets have unified to fuel these protests.

In sum, the business interests owned and represented by those media outlets are almost uniformly pro-impeachment and were linked to the military dictatorship. As Stephanie Nolen, the Rio-based reporter for Canada’s Globe and Mail, noted: “It is clear that most of the country’s institutions are lined up against the president.”

Put simply, this is a campaign to subvert Brazil’s democratic outcomes by monied factions that have long hated the results of democratic elections, deceitfully marching under an anti-corruption banner: quite similar to the 1964 coup. Indeed, much of the Brazilian right longs for restoration of the military dictatorship, and factions at these “anti-corruption” protests have been openly calling for the end of democracy.

None of this is a defense of PT. Both because of genuine widespread corruption in that party and national economic woes, Dilma and PT areintensely unpopular among all classes and groups, even including the party’s working-class base. But the street protests — as undeniably large and energized as they have been — are driven by those who are traditionally hostile to PT. The number of people participating in these protests — while in the millions — is dwarfed by the number (54 million) who voted to re-elect Dilma less than two years ago. In a democracy, governments are chosen by voting, not by displays of street opposition — particularly where, as in Brazil, the protests are drawn from a relatively narrow societal segment.

As Winter reported: “Last Sunday, when more than 1 million people took to the streets, polls indicated that once again the crowd was significantly richer, whiter, and more educated than Brazilians at large.” Nolen similarly reported: “The half-dozen large anti-corruption demonstrations in the past year have been dominated by white and upper-middle-class protesters, who tend to be supporters of the opposition Brazilian Social Democratic Party (PSDB), and to have little love for Ms. Rousseff’s left-leaning Workers’ Party.”




Last weekend, when massive anti-Dilma protests emerged in most Brazilian cities, a photograph of one of the families participating went viral, a symbol of what these protests actually are. It showed a rich, white couple decked out in anti-Dilma symbols and walking with their pure-breed dog, trailed by their black “weekend nanny” — wearing the all-white uniform many rich Brazilians require their domestic servants to wear — pushing a stroller with their two children.


As Nolen noted, the photo became the emblem for the true, highly ideological essence of these protests: “Brazilians, who are deft and fast with memes, reposted the picture with a thousand snarky captions, such as ‘Speed it up, there, Maria [the generic ‘maid name’], we have to get out to protest against this government that made us pay you minimum wage.’”

TO BELIEVE THAT the influential figures agitating for Dilma’s impeachment are motivated by an authentic anti-corruption crusade requires extreme naïveté or willful ignorance. To begin with, the factions that would be empowered by Dilma’s impeachment are at least as implicated by corruption scandals as she is: in most cases, more so.

Five of the members of the impeachment commission are themselves being criminally investigated as part of the corruption scandal. That includes Paulo Maluf, who faces an Interpol warrant for his arrest and has not been able to leave the country for years; he has been sentenced in France to three years in prison for money laundering. Of the 65 members of House impeachment committee, 36 currently face pending legal proceedings.

In the lower house of Congress, the leader of the impeachment movement, the evangelical extremist Eduardo Cunha, was found to have maintainedmultiple secret Swiss bank accounts, where he stored millions of dollars that prosecutors believe were received as bribes. He is the target of multiple active criminal investigations.

Meanwhile, Senator Aécio Neves, the leader of the Brazilian opposition who Dilma narrowly defeated in the 2014 election, has himself been implicated at least five separate times in the corruption scandal. One of the prosecutors’ newest star witnesses just accused him of accepting bribes. That witness also implicated the country’s vice president, Michel Temer, of the opposition party PMDB, who would replace Dilma if she were impeached.

Then there’s the recent behavior of the chief judge who has been overseeing the corruption investigation and has become a folk hero for his commendably aggressive investigations of some of the country’s richest and most powerful figures. That judge, Sergio Moro, this week effectively leaked to the media a tape-recorded, extremely vague conversation between Dilma and Lula, which Globo and other anti-PT forces immediately depicted as incriminating. Moro disclosed the recording of the conversation within hours of its taking place.

But the recorded conversation was released by Judge Moro with no due process and, worse, with clearly political, not judicial, purposes: Namely, he was furious that his investigation of Lula would be terminated by his appointment to Dilma’s cabinet (high officials can be investigated only by the Supreme Court). His leak sought to embarrass Dilma and Lula and trigger street protests, and thus provoked criticisms, even among his previous fans, that he was now abusing his power by becoming a political actor. Worse, the recording itself seems to have been illegally obtained since it was made after the expiration of Judge Moro’s warrant. The head of Rio de Janeiro’s bar association, Felipe Santa Cruz, calledMoro’s actions a “nauseating embarrassment.”

All of this raises the very clear danger that the criminal investigation and impeachment process are not a legal exercise to punish criminal leaders, but rather an anti-democratic political weapon wielded by political opponents to remove a democratically elected president. That danger was even more starkly highlighted yesterday when it was revealed that a judge who issued an order blocking Lula’s cabinet appointment by Dilma had days earlier posted to his Facebook page numerous selfies of him marching in the anti-government protest over the weekend. As Winter wrote, “Convincing the public that the Brazilian judiciary is ‘at war’ with the Workers’ Party will be an easier task than it was two weeks ago.”

There is no question that PT is rife with corruption. There are serious questions surrounding Lula that deserve an impartial and fair investigation. And impeachment is a legitimate process in a democracy provided that the targeted official is actually guilty of serious crimes and the law is scrupulously followed in how the impeachment is effectuated.

But the picture currently emerging in Brazil surrounding impeachment and these street protests is far more complicated, and far more ethically ambiguous, than has frequently been depicted. The effort to remove Dilma and her party from power now resembles a nakedly anti-democratic power struggle more than a legally sound process or genuine anti-corruption movement. Worse, it’s being incited, engineered, and fueled by the very factions who are themselves knee-deep in corruption scandals, and who represent the interests of the richest and most powerful societal segments long angry at their inability to defeat PT democratically.

In other words, it all seems historically familiar, particular for Latin America, where democratically elected left-wing governments have been repeatedly removed by non-democratic, extra-legal means. In many ways, PT and Dilma are not sympathetic victims. Large segments of the population are genuinely angry at them for plainly legitimate reasons. But their sins do not justify the sins of their long-standing political enemies, and most certainly do not render subversion of Brazilian democracy something to cheer.

https://theintercept.com/2016/03/18...tion-and-a-dangerous-subversion-of-democracy/
 

IBSA

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ON LULA “ALMOST BEING ARRESTED”



Brazil's former president, Luís Inácio da Silva, better known as Lula, is under siege. So is his Workers' Party (better known by the Portuguese acronym PT) and the current president, Dilma Rousseff, Lula's successor who comes from the same party. Let us present the facts, draw the connections between them, and, with some luck, interpret the meaning behind all of this.

Here are the facts:

On Friday, March 3rd at 6:00 a.m., Lula was briefly detained by the Brazilian Federal Police who also raided his home and his foundation, the Lula Institute. The former president was neither arrested nor charged, but a coercive warrant was issued (which is, according to some experts, in effect a sort of brief, preventive detention) and he was taken into custody to testify, albeit not handcuffed. It should be noted that Lula is still very popular in Brazil despite Brazilian society’s increasing polarization.

Strangely enough, Lula was then taken to the federal police station at Sao Paulo's Congonhas international airport, where he was questioned for approximately three hours and then released. While Lula testified, many people took to the streets to demonstrate, both those against and for Lula and his party. The raid, as it turns out, was requested by the federal Public Prosecutor's Office. The prosecutors did not, however, request Lula's coercive warrant - theirs was just a request for the issuance of a summons to testify. Nevertheless, Judge Sérgio Moro ordered Lula's coercive detention (his reasoning being “in order to prevent public demonstrations and turmoil”). This had, of course, the opposite effect. Lula's “arrest” was widely reported in real time.

Supreme Court Justice Marco Aurélio Mello has since publicly questioned Judge Moro's decision to conduct such a coercive operation, as have several law experts who have pointed to “basic mistakes” in the ruling.

The coercive warrant that Lula endured was part of the larger investigation known as Operação Lava Jato (Operation Car Wash or Operation Speed Wash), a probe by the Federal Police. This operation has been carried out since 2014 and covers allegations of corruption involving businessmen and politicians connected to Petrobras, Brazil's state-controlled oil company. Judge Moro has become a sort of national celebrity for his tough stance on corruption (he is in charge of prosecuting crimes identified by the investigation).
In short, Lula is being investigated for having allegedly “peddled influence,” i.e., there is suspicion that he used his influence to help construction companies obtain contracts in allied countries.

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court is preparing to judge the legality of Congress’ procedures for voting on the impeachment of current president Dilma Rousseff (from Lula's PT party).

The Sao Paulo State Public Prosecutor's Office has just requested the actual arrest of Lula, which might happen any time now unless his lawyers manage to have it dismissed.

Now let us review some additional facts with added links and context:

The above-mentioned federal judge, Moro, participated in the United States Department of State International Visitor Leadership Program back in 2007.

The accusations against Lula have their origin in a plea bargain statement by the arrested senator turned federal police informer Delcídio Amaral. In his statement, Amaral also accused Senator Aecio Neves (defeated presidential candidate) and other members of congress of corruption. Mr. Neves, an opposition leader, is one of the most vocal critics of Lula and PT. In his turn, he was, if we may remind the reader, linked to a scandal involving a helicopter full with nearly half a ton of cocaine “pasta base” in 2013 - see: http://www.talkingdrugs.org/445kg-of-cocaine-pasta-base-found-in-brazilian-senators-helicopter.

  • No charges have been filed against Senator Neves so far, hence the fact that some have denounced the police and prosecution operations as being tinged with anti-PT bias.
The accusations against Lula have a certain vagueness to them. Lula supposedly took “subtle bribes,” i.e., executives from the engineering firms Odebrecht and OAS might have extended some favors to him. No one is claiming that he took cash from those construction companies, but one of them is alleged to have renovated the former president’s country home and beach-front penthouse triplex. Lula, however, claims that these properties do not belong to him. The media has eagerly covered the whole affair, especially the country house scandal, pictures, full coverage, and site details of which have been aired constantly.

The Brazilian political scene is corrupt to the core, and Lula is by no means a saint. To a Brazilian onlooker, however, his alleged misdeeds have somewhat of an air of plain pettiness about them, although this might get lost in translation. International audiences may have read of Lula's “farm” in Atibaia, which is not the most luxurious neighborhood in Sao Paulo state by any terms. Such a “farm” (it is actually more of a small property holding) does not reflect the juicy opulence that one would expect from a corrupt former president of a Latin American country. The Brazilian press has at least properly described the property as a “sítio” (or “country house”). While it is a comfortable place for sure which reflects some upper middle class affluence, we are not dealing with any typical corrupt South American politician’s plantation (usually a vast latifundium) complete with racing horses, mansions, gardens, valuable paintings, and so on. The house was in fact in somewhat bad shape with a nearly crumbling ceiling. The immediate controversy, however, centers around the fact that it was allegedly renovated “free of charge” by a construction firm with ties to Lula in exchange, it has been claimed, for favors and lobbying on Lula’s part. According to public records, the property is owned by a businessman, Jonas Suassuna (bear in mind the complicated Brazilian system of informal sponsorships and collusions, a cultural practice which is deeply imbedded in the social fabric for the purpose of avoiding Brazil’s infamous bureaucracy).

The federal police’s working hypothesis is that Mr. Suassuna is a sort of straw-man, whereas the former president is the de facto owner of the house. The evidence for this is that Lula and his family regularly visited the “farm,” on the property of which a “boat” bearing his and his wife’s names (Lula and Marisa) has been found. We are not, mind you, talking about a yacht or fancy sailboat. It is more of an old fishing boat (see photos below). Another toy on the property is a pond featuring a couple of children’s paddle boat swans (pictures below). Much of the hysteria has been fumed by the press, which has vehemently pursued and denounced the whole affair. Although difficult to convey to the international reader, these “pedalinho” and “sítio” (the Brazilian Portuguese words for swan boats and the cottage) sound somewhat comical in the context of this “big corruption scandal.” One could say that they even sound like a turn-off.




Sao Paulo prosecutors (Sao Paulo being a traditionally anti-PT state) are now seeking the arrest of Lula on “money laundering” charges, or so the press has announced as if these charges are real news. The preventive arrest request is a hard fact, but the corruption charges are old news, similar to the scandal mentioned above concerning the triplex apartment. What the prosecutors have technically termed “money laundering” refers to allegedly hiding the ownership of the beachfront apartment which is still under investigation. Even Luiz Carlos Bresser-Pereira, one of the founders of the PSDB party, Lula and PT”s main rival, has voiced his opinion that such a warrant is “abusive” and “nonsensical.” Mr. Bresser-Pereira, who is an economist and political scientist, has also written that Lula is not a corrupt politician and that the prosecutors are biased. He has even called for the Supreme Court to intervene in the Lava Jato Operation “to prevent further abuses.”

  • The aforementioned Judge Moro has authorized the American FBI to carry out investigations in Brazil alongside the Brazilian Federal Police.
Data from the American espionage agency, the NSA, that has been leaked to Wikileaks shows that this agency has been spying on the Brazilian oil company Petrobras since 2013. See http://g1.globo.com/fantastico/noti...-united-states-spied-brazilian-oil-giant.html

The Brazilian opposition politician Jose Serra, the defeated presidential candidate of 2010, has been exposed for secretly promising to sell the rights to Brazil's newest petroleum discoveries (“pre-salt fields”) to the American company Chevron in the case of his election. Although Brazilian laws have made Petrobras the chief operating firm, Senator Serra promised Chevron that he would change that. After current president Dilma’s election, Mr. Serra struggled to change the law back in the Senate. On February 24, 2016, the Brazilian Senate finally approved a bill that accomplished just that. Meanwhile, Dilma Rousseff’s administration, under attack and forced to make several compromises, plans to open the pre-salt oil fields for foreign bidding this year. This is not the first time that Rousseff has betrayed her leftist-nationalist platform. In the end, however, as we shall see further on, this is all about Petrobras and Brazilian oil.

http://katehon.com/article/lula-almost-being-arrested
 

IBSA

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Roussef is the enemy of America, sin
Rousseff is from Bulgar origin, so Slavic, Eastern European, akin of Russians, that communists pigs..... And she has a personal past as a guerrilla that fought the pro-Western military rule during the Cold War. This isn't the favorite profile for a politician leader in USA's world view.

Even more, Rousseff governs a BRICS country, and a country that has found huge oil reserves recently.

these are her 'mistakes'.
 

Indx TechStyle

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Brazil dont have more this edge of stability. People are radicalizing and becoming more intolerant each day. Brazil also has its separatists movements. In a time of crisis they gain some strength. There were several cases of hostility and aggression between protesters in these last days.

I think Brazil is more vulnerable than India and China, since we dont have nuke bombs to keep our sovereignty.
I guess Brazil has military problem, they need to develop weapons.
Yet in world happiness report, Brazil ranks 18th, in the league of many rich and developed nations.

Brazil is like a stable Europe in front of much powerful but unstable, Soviet Union like countries China and India.
So, Brazil gonna be successful in long run. :)
 

spikey360

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Rousseff is from Bulgar origin, so Slavic, Eastern European, akin of Russians, that communists pigs..... And she has a personal past as a guerrilla that fought the pro-Western military rule during the Cold War. This isn't the favorite profile for a politician leader in USA's world view.

Even more, Rousseff governs a BRICS country, and a country that has found huge oil reserves recently.

these are her 'mistakes'.
However, it would be very difficult for Brazil to save herself from the American onslaught. First, America itself is a stone's throw away. Next, American satellite states in South America would make life very difficult for Brazil. Furthermore, Brazil doesn't have defensive capabilities like India, Russia & China. These three countries, even if they have a desire to help, are a hemisphere away from Brazil.
Does Brazil have any plans to go nuclear?
 

spikey360

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I guess Brazil has military problem, they need to develop weapons.
Yet in world happiness report, Brazil ranks 18th, in the league of many rich and developed nations.

Brazil is like a stable Europe in front of much powerful but unstable, Soviet Union like countries China and India.
So, Brazil gonna be successful in long run. :)
My friend, you underestimate weapons too much. In times of peace, it is not too difficult to be happy.
But in times of war, would "world happiness report" keep you happy or Kalashnikovs, T90s and Su30s?
 

spikey360

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I don't think either Lula or Rouseff is completely unblemished. But that doesn't warrant a coup. No country deserves a coup. A coup is simply an old methodology from an old world.

All these sins of Zionist America will not go unpunished. One day the world would arrive on American shores, not with holiday hats or briefcases, but with Kalashnikovs and Tanks. That, would be the day of Judgement.
 

Razor

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I don't think either Lula or Rouseff is completely unblemished. But that doesn't warrant a coup. No country deserves a coup. A coup is simply an old methodology from an old world.

All these sins of Zionist America will not go unpunished. One day the world would arrive on American shores, not with holiday hats or briefcases, but with Kalashnikovs and Tanks. That, would be the day of Judgement.
During the cold war they did prepare for that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortress_North_America

The way to destroy America is from within.
There are large minorities in amerika, like blacks and hispanics and they are only going to get larger esp. hispanics.
Right now, in schools less than 50% of students are white. This is a picture of things to come.
These population targets, economic downturn, vastness of america and flyover country inbetween etc should be used. :D
 
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Razor

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I hope the Brazilians can get through this. I like Brazilians.

Probably the amerikans are at work here fuelling the fires in brazil.

@IBSA I don't have much knowledge of stuff in S.Amerika but when did these tensions begin.
Would I be right in saying it began with reference to the 2014 world cup or much before that?
 

Nuvneet Kundu

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I guess Brazil has military problem, they need to develop weapons.
Yet in world happiness report, Brazil ranks 18th, in the league of many rich and developed nations.

Brazil is like a stable Europe in front of much powerful but unstable, Soviet Union like countries China and India.
So, Brazil gonna be successful in long run. :)
I can understand the hypothesis that India and China face massive internal challenge but what is your 'Brazil is inherently stable' theory based on? There might be relative homogeneity as far as ethnic and religious factors go but a nation's strength is beyond the goodwill that the citizens have for each other. A classic counter-example to your theory is Pakistan itself. In a strategic dialogue held in the US about the future of Pakistan (thy keep having many of these), someone asked, "Pakistan has so many ethnicities, various languages, various sects of the same religion, a lot of rich-poor gap, tribal-urban divide, insurgencies, external enemies, but still it stays together" to which the guest explained that there is a lot of social cohesion. There's also a good book on the phenomenon.

The Pakistan Paradox: Instability and Resilience

 

Nuvneet Kundu

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I hope the Brazilians can get through this. I like Brazilians.

Probably the amerikans are at work here fuelling the fires in brazil.

@IBSA I don't have much knowledge of stuff in S.Amerika but when did these tensions begin.
Would I be right in saying it began with reference to the 2014 world cup or much before that?
It began when Russia'n oil giants started uniting Venezuela, Brazil and Argentina in some sort of united grouping based on oil (just like OIC but without pisslam), the US saw red and decided to teach these nations a lesson. The US even had a conflagration with Argentina last year over loan defaults.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...ure-New-York-investors-owed-900m-country.html

This is pure economic warfare, nothing else.

The CIA is trying to use all the cards it has to mess with these nations. These protests are not spontaneous, they bought the media, planted news of a corrupt PM in the media, demonized her, then NGOs started gathering people for a systematic coup. All of this has been happening since 5 years, what we see today is just the culmination of US efforts. If Brazil survives this treacherous attack, it will go on to strengthen BRICS and hurt American interests in the larger sense. This is important for all parties involved, US, Brazil, BRICS grouping and every individual nation withing that grouping.
 
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