Tag Archives: Dilma

“Dilma’s Mistake Was to Promote Class Conciliation”

06 Friday May 2016

Posted by in Current Affairs, INTERNATIONAL NEWS, Latin America, Left politics, Opinion

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Interview With João Pedro Stédile

The economist and leader of the Landless Workers’ Movement (MST) of Brazil, Joao Pedro Stédile, affirmed that left-wing forces won’t allow the Parliamentarian right to fulfill their wish to force Dilma Rousseff out of the presidency to reinstall neoliberalism in the country.Stédile was interviewed byLibreRed
, where this article was first published, and the English translation onThe Dawn
website.

LibreRed (LR): What will be the reaction of the Brazilian people and the MST in particular if Dilma Rousseff is destituted?

Thousands rallied in major cities across Brazil on May Day.

Thousands rallied in major cities across Brazil on May Day to support the embattled President Dilma Rousseff.

João Pedro Stédile (JPS): First of all, we’re confident that it’s possible to stop the coup in process now that it has reached the Senate. We believe that the government has a greater representation in the Senate than in the Chamber of Deputies [where the vote was in favor of the impeachment], the Senators themselves are older, more experienced in politics and know that a Parliamentary coup like the ones that took place in Honduras or Paraguay would lead Brazil to a deeper crisis.

But if this coup is consolidated in the Senate, we, as part of the movements that are organized in the Popular Brazil Front won’t hesitate in denying any kind of legitimacy to a Michel Temer–Eduardo Cunha government. It would be an illegitimate government completely stained by corruption. It’s now public that they gave out a lot of money to get the votes of the deputies. Besides denying their legitimacy, and not participating in any process, we will keep taking to the streets to exert pressure and lead people to become conscious of what will happen.

As for now, on April 29 – next Friday – there will be mobilizations in several cities and on May 1 we want there to be a massive protest action. For that, we almost certainly will coordinate with several union organizations – there are eight of them, and only one supports the coup. We are in discussions with the seven unions (that are with the people), the possibility of doing a general strike before the vote in the Senate. We want to point out to the businessmen that despite their money and their plan to impose the comeback of neoliberalism and the subordination of our economy to the interests of yankee companies, we the working-class are the ones that produce riches. And if we make a general stoppage, it will be a signal to them that says “you may want to increase your profits and your exploitation again, but those who produce the riches in this country in the industry and agriculture are we, and we won’t allow a coup that destroys democracy in our country.”

LR: Now the right is saying, in Brazil and in the rest of the continent and the world, that this is not a coup but the mere application of Constitutional laws.

JPS: Sure, that’s what they said in Honduras, as well as in Paraguay, and it’s a trap. In Brazilian law, there is a provision that says that if a President commits a crime of responsibility or corruption against the country, the Parliament can punish and expel him or her. But in fact President Dilma didn’t commit any crime at all, the accusation they used against her in the process they started in the Parliament has to do with a mechanism of public accounting that the Government uses to meet its social obligations in health, education, and seeked other funds that were in public banks or in the provision for other areas. But this is not a crime, it’s an artifice of any government, even Michel Temer did it himself when he was in the Presidency of the Republic, replacing the President, and in the states of Brazil there are 24 governors, several of them from the right, but also from the center, left and any other ideological convictions, that use that form of accounting.

Therefore, there is no crime, and if there were, then Temer would have to be ousted too, and that’s why we denounce that a single innocent person can’t be judged for an action that was made by two partners: President and Vice President. But the bottom of the issue is not removing the President or not, apart from being a true blow to democracy, the problem is that we are going through a serious economic crisis and the capitalists’ way to deal with that crisis and restore their profit rate is to return to the neoliberal model, that is, to take away workers’ rights, hand out our resources, such as oil, mining, water, and biodiversity to transnational companies and keep interest rates high – President Dilma was an obstacle to that.

Temer has already announced his government plan, which is completely neoliberal. That’s why the Brazilian people’s organizations say that Temer is to Brazil what Mauricio Macri is to Argentina, but the difference resides in that Macri earned the votes to become President and he didn’t. Not only that, but he’s so unpopular that in recent polls 80 per cent of the people said that they don’t want him, and that if he ran for President, he’d get only one per cent of the vote in Brazil. That’s the state of affairs: it’s a coup against democracy.

LR: How come President Dilma chose him as Vice President?

JPS: That’s the sort of moves that we in the MST always criticized. In reality, Lula (in both of his terms) and Dilma always proposed a formula for class conciliation, like in Chile, so there were always seats reserved for sectors of the Brazilian bourgeoisie.

When Lula was President, that strategy worked well because his Vice President was a nationalist, serious and even honest businessman from the textile industry, whose business depended also on the internal market and therefore he was interested in having wealth distribution because that way he could sell more, but Mr. Temer is a lumpen bourgeoise. His only role is to defend the bourgeoisie, but he’s not actually a bourgeoise per se, and because of that, because he’s a lumpen, he betrayed the President. When the President publicly spoke to denounce that betrayal, the right started a process in the Supreme Federal Court to prevent her speech from being broadcast on the national network, to silence her speech against this man and the whole coup that was being schemed by more than a hundred corrupt Parliamentarians, who are themselves being investigated by the Supreme Federal Court. There’s no explanation as for why, to this day, the judicial power hasn’t had the courage to accelerate those processes, because most of the Parliamentarians that voted against Dilma could even go to jail for the millions they stole from public coffers, and in the form of kickbacks from companies.

LR: As an economist, could you explain how much the current economic crisis weighed in the current political crisis of Brazil?

JPS: The economic crisis is the reason why the class conciliation ceased to be possible, because when Lula was President, he designed a conciliation that was based on three pillars: firstly, to make the economy grow through industry (which he accomplished), secondly, to recover the role of the state of making productive investments such as education and health, to better the living conditions of the population and thirdly, to distribute income through an increase in the minimum wage. What happened? With the international crisis of capitalism the economy of Brazil, as a country on the periphery of capitalism, suffered greatly, and for three years the economy hasn’t grown.

Twenty years ago industry accounted for 50 per cent of our GDP and now, due to deindustrialization and competition from Chinese and U.S. companies, national industry accounts for only 9 per cent of the GDP, and there’s a deep economic crisis that can only be solved by recovering, again, the role of the state, controlling financial capital so that instead of accumulating wealth through speculation, the state can use that money to make productive investments in the industry and agriculture sectors, oriented toward the internal market. With that, the economy would grow again, and we’d have a new role for the workforce (because nowadays we have an unemployment rate of 10 per cent) and we could have social programs again.

The political crisis we’re going through is a consequence of the elites trying to get back the state and restore neoliberalism, but the working class isn’t going to accept that. It’s going to take years to get out of this, because the only way out of a crisis of this magnitude is through an agreement between social classes – not just parties – over a new model of the country, that can be hegemonic in most of society.

And now, at this moment, there’s no project being discussed in the country, not even within any of the classes – neither the bourgeoisie nor the petite bourgeoisie, nor the working class, have a clear project for the country. This is why we’re in this confusion and why the bourgeoisie is stupid enough – because they’re subordinated to the interests of imperialism – to think it’s enough to change the President of the Republic to magically solve the problems of the economy, but that’s not true. On the contrary, that would deepen the contradictions of inequality, deepen the institutional crisis and, hopefully, send the masses back to the streets so that they, with their political force, debate a new project for the country.

LR: Have some sectors of the working class, that have benefited by the social policies of Dilma and Lula, been co-opted by the right in Brazil?

JPS: It wouldn’t be fair to say they’ve been co-opted, because in that process of mobilization there was a sector of the petite bourgeoisie that went out on the streets to defend the coup. But they are the eight per cent of the population, and we, the left, went out on the streets and even in greater numbers, but we were all militants, organized sectors, the mediation between the masses and the leaders. The masses are still silent, still afraid. They haven’t mobilized yet but they were also not co-opted by the right.

But why is it so? At that point we have to be self-critical, because during the eight years that Lula governed, there was almost no work to elevate the level of political and cultural consciousness of those masses, who got better policies and better salaries but without a change in their views, and the government did nothing to change that. Unlike Venezuela, Ecuador and Bolivia, there was no effort to break with the monopolies in communications, therefore the TV station O Globo puts garbage in people’s heads every day and they remain perplexed while they watch the political game as if it was just another soap opera.

LR: Let’s conclude with a message from you to the people of Latin America. What would you like to say to them?

JPS: Times are hard but we mustn’t be discouraged or pessimistic, as the great thinkers of Latin America told us. We have to be pessimistic in our analysis but optimistic toward the future. It’s true that our continent, as everything else, is in crisis, but that’s not the fault of a leader, a government or a party.

Capitalism is to blame – the capitalist way of organizing production and life in society is in crisis around the world and because we in Latin America are in the periphery of world capitalism, capitalists see our continent as a bigger opportunity to dominate natural resources, markets and the workforce. These are hard times because we have to confront the empire, but this brings contradictions.

It’s time to put more energy into bringing awareness and organizing people, because in the coming years we’ll see a new, rising, mass movement on our continent and in this movement there will be new liberation projects and new leaders, and we’ll surely see the dream of Chavez, Martí, and Che come to life again. A project that unifies the dreams of Latin America. We must have hope because we have to fight every day. Those who fight, always win. •

The intolerable

14 Thursday Apr 2016

Posted by in Current Affairs, INTERNATIONAL NEWS, Latin America, Opinion

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LaymertMG_2318

The intolerable

Faced with repeated attacks on democracy promoted by sectors that should watch over it – the judiciary and the MPF installments – in concert with conservative politicians and the media, Professor Laymert Garcia dos Santos asks: “We know that in Brazil there are not terrorists and we know who wins with the criminalization of the left. We know, therefore, who want destabilization. Therefore, in addition to the defense of an elected President and a former President hunted unjustly, is concerned the defense of democracy and sovereignty. Means: the construction of the future. Hence, the question: Let’s continue tolerating the intolerable? “.

The question was put on the text (below) written for theBrazilianObservatory and presented in the speech of the author (video at the end of the text) in the launching ceremony of the “Open Letter to the International Academic Community” (yesterday at the University of São Paulo), which also had the presence of Marilena Chaui, Marcio Sotelo Felippe, Alfredo Bosi, Ruy Fausto, Reginaldo Nasser and Heloisa Buarque de Almeida. Video with the intervention of these teachers will be published on this page. It will soon be available English version of the article below.

 

The Intolerable

Laymert Garcia dos Santos

Now that the government Temer died before he was born;

Now, we know that Lula process should not go back to Curitiba;

Now, the attorney Carlos Fernando dos Santos Lima, spokesman Lava Jato, admitted that “[…] governments that are being investigated, the PT governments, […]” are the ones who come to the case;

Now that patents were all irregularities and illegalities committed by the Task Force of Curitiba since 2006, so from the earliest beginnings of Lava Jet officially triggered in 2014.

Now, workers, social movements, students, intellectuals and artists gave body and voice to the cry of “There will not be hit”, adding ever more intensely complement “Go fight”;

Now, that was already clear to God and the world, both here and out there, that democracy is in danger and that the state of exception is setting and revoking the rule of law, such great are the recurring violations of the Constitution of 88;

Now, the growing consensus “Outside Cunha”;

Now that even major media outlets seem to land the blow, although having it promoted and defended tooth and nail – not for the sake of legality, of course, but constatarem their theoretical and practical impossibility;

Now, that was cracked the sacrosanct image of vigilante Sergio Moro, revealing the figure of the despotic will;

Maybe it’s time to ask, do not have peace and we can return to our affairs, but that setup will take the strategy of destabilization of Brazil, from the point we arrived.

You have to bury once and for all the idea that the process was initiated one day or has the effective goal to end corruption. For an ultra-selective fight against corruption, which leaves out a multitude of thieves to cry freely and with impunity “Stop thief!” Pointing to Lula, Dilma and the PT can not be minimally taken seriously.

And if the judiciary – particularly the dome of the Federal Public Ministry – as well as sectors of the Federal Police, are only apparently fighting corruption, what they are doing?

Several indications, actions, statements strongly suggest that it is destabilizing the country at any price. Price, by the way, at this point, it is very high if we take into account 1) the commitment of key branches of the productive sector, particularly energy, infrastructure and defense, with reverberations throughout the economy; 2) the creation of an immense social crisis, with its procession of unemployed and the threat of regression in the most vulnerable part of the population to subhuman levels we thought definitely overcome; 3) last, but not least, the demoralization of the institutions, starting with a bandit Parliament, political parties venal and grotesques, judges and prosecutors enxovalham laws in the name of spurious values.

Who cares such destabilization planned and rigorously enforced? Surely, Sergio Moro and his attorneys are only operators of a crime against homeland; nor the federal police are more than performers. Of course, the coup media, opposition parties, fascist movements continuously stimulated, FIESP, the OAB, useful innocent and the opportunists, including the government hosts are actors involved in disaster production, each segment operating at their way. And it can be considered that, because of their immobility and lack of initiative, the government itself Dilma and PT contributed involuntarily, until recently, with destabilization.

The silence of the military is remarkable, even when important interests of defense, that affect them directly, are injured. But what does your non-leadership? If it is true that Lula was not kidnapped and taken by force to Curitiba because of discreet interference Aeronautical Police in Congonhas, there would be an indication that its role as guarantor of the established order follows intact?

It remains, then, the Judiciary dome. Excluding the known positions of Gilmar Mendes, who provide comments, it is disturbing to note that it is not known for sure which way the Supreme Court is going to move, with a view to issuing contradictory signals and the doubts raised as to predominant role of the court, if the Constitutional Court or Court of Appeal.

More serious still is the action and the words of Attorney General Rodrigo Janot.Tracking and mapping out the game unfold in different chess boards of the crisis, the journalist Luis Nassif realized clearly that the Federal Public Ministry was the “High Command” of the coup. The designation is extremely strong, but there are reasons for the use of the term. Among them, the unexplained visit Janot to the Department of Justice in Washington to lead the American authorities documents on Petrobras; his appetite to investigate Aécio Neves; his uncompromising defense of Moro and the Task Force Lava jet, despite the illegalities committed; his delay to report Cunha by the Supreme Court, giving this all the time for stirring up the House of Representatives against the Dilma government; and finally their permission for Live disclose illegal clips of President of talks with Lula, Minister Jacques Wagner with Rui Falcão and lawyers of the former president.

The mapping Nassif gives intelligibility to the destabilization and, above all, the role of the High Command. But over time, and the publication of posts, is the impression that the journalist was startled by his own discovery and went on to explain the conduct of Janot and prosecutors under the exclusive viewpoint of ” corporatism “. Thus, the Federal Public Ministry does not share the logic that moves the other scammers protagonists, as they would be more interested in the power struggle than in fighting corruption, obsession that the MPF supposedly wants to fulfill, “matter who gets hurt.”

We came back, so the crusade against corruption. But if it is selective and the entire Brazilian society is already paying a steep price for Lava jet makes sense to believe Janot? If we know who loses destabilization, would not ask who wins it? It is as if the logic of Lava Jato obey the strategy of absolute disqualification from Brazil on the global stage, under the BRICS, in the Mercosur and in the eyes of Brazilians; that is to say: to the country’s reduction strategy to a neocolonial condition. Destabilization seeks to impracticability of Brazil as a country. Moreover, the strategy does not seem to have been drawn here, in that it repeats and recovery methods, procedures and legal technologies, law enforcement and policies of the US state terrorism in their war against the countries “enemies”, especially those who hold sovereignty in terms of energy and, therefore, need to be “neutralized.” The strategy seeks to criminalize the government Dilma, Lula, the PT and all those who resist the implementation of neoliberal and neocolonial agenda equating them to “terrorists” that need to be eliminated from the political scene. The strategy follows the logic of land razed, preferably carried out by the indigenous themselves, without direct foreign intervention and without military interference. An undeclared war in the “gray area” where local vigilantes do the dirty work, handling the exception of state weapons and in line with the coup media, triggering informational pumps calculated impact on public opinion and on institutions.

Live and prosecutors Curitiba are the soldiers of destabilization. Janot and prosecutors in Brasilia are the High Command. They form the backbone of a political destruction device as a form of collective understanding. Trained in workshops and seminars by experts in “cooperation”, learned the new legal technologies, policies and police of “counter-terrorism”, imported and implemented the strategy of chaos. And we can not even claim that we were not warned: Snowden in 2013, had revealed the staples of the NSA against Dilma and against Petrobras; but we do not know if that espionage was found in the oil provided material for Lava jet. On the other hand Wikileaks informs that Live and prosecutors enthusiastically participated in, since in October 2009, a conference in Rio de Janeiro, which called for training to American Counter-Terrorism Coordination – multijuridicional training, practical, including demonstrations on how to preparing a witness to testify. In the words of the leaked document: “Future Training should focus on areas such as task force on financial crimes, which may prove the best way to fight terrorism in Brazil.”

We know that in Brazil there are not terrorists and we know who wins the criminalization of left. We know, therefore, who want destabilization. Therefore, in addition to the defense of an elected President and a former President hunted unjustly, is concerned the defense of democracy and sovereignty. Means: the construction of the future. Hence, the question: Let’s continue tolerating the intolerable?

(*) Laymert Garcia dos Santos is Titular Professor of the Department of Sociology at the University of Campinas – Unicamp