Brazilian people rise up against a neoliberal coup

Photo of members of the Landless Workers Movement (MST) in Brasilia protesting against the impeachment of Rousseff. Photo:Reuters

I wrote this blog piece earlier in the week about the neoliberal coup that removed the democratically elected President of Brazil, Dilma Rousseff.

The coup was supported by the Brazilian corporate and business elite, and appears to have been supported by both the US government and US corporate interests and has installed Michel Temer (the right-wing vice president and U.S. informant) and members of the right wing neoliberal party that has lost every election since 2002.

The coup has led to a sharp outburst of resistance and protest by the Brazilian people. The new government threatened to criminalise and arrest protesters and demonstrators.

A selection of photos from the various protests is here.

Policemen ride their horses during a clash with demonstrators at a protest against the impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff, in Porto Alegre, Brazil, May 12, 2016. Photo:Reuters

There were protests at the Cannes Film Festival  where the cast and crew of the Brazilian film Aquarius staged an improvised protest on the red carpet to show support for President Dilma Rousseff, denouncing her suspension as a ‘coup d’état.’ 

The film's writer and Director Kleber Mendonca Filho and Sonia Braga the lead actress and other members of the cast and crew unveiled printed banners ahead of their film’s premiere.

The neoliberal coup in Brazil

The slow motion neoliberal coup in Brazil, which masquerades as impeachment of the President for corruption, took another turn this week with the ousting of President Dilma Roussef and her replacement by Vice-President Michel Temer and the right -wing Brazilian Democratic Movement Party or PMDB (in Brazil impeachment results in the appointment of a person from a different party to that of the elected President).

Roussef was dismissed over allegations of accounting manipulation that supposedly misrepresented the fiscal position of the government. The allegations will be heard by the Brazilian Senate, which itself is awash with corruption.

In reality, her dismissal was a right-wing neoliberal coup by a right-wing party and their powerful corporate and business backers to wrench the country from the hands of a moderate left government and condemn Brazil to a path of unrepentant neoliberalism. This, despite the same right wing party losing 4 elections in the last 14 years.

In 2002, Brazil threw off the shackles of a 22 year long military dictatorship supported by the UK and US Governments, by electing the left wing Workers Party led by Lula Da Silva. 'Lula' was President until 2012 when he had to stand down because Brazilian Presidents cannot be in power for more than 3 terms. His replacement was Dilma Roussef who lead the Workers Party to a fourth election victory in 2014.

While the Workers Party implemented many important reforms- the minimum wage was doubled and public and social services expanded, poverty was reduced by 55 percent, extreme poverty by 65 percent and inequality reduced significantly- Brazil remains one of the most unequal countries in the world.

Although Roussef's party was mired in corruption scandals, she was not accused of impropriety. The collapse in the oil price hit Brazil's economy hard and forced Roussef to make severe cuts which demoralised her supporters. As her popularity plummeted Brazil's right wing corporate and political elite saw the opportunity to strike.

Political corruption is endemic in Brazil

Brazilian politicians are notoriously corrupt. Nearly 3/5 of the Brazil's congress (318 members) is under investigation or face charges, including many who backed her impeachment. The Speaker of the House who led the impeachment process is accused of squirreling away $5 million in Swiss bank accounts.

As Glenn Greenwald points out, Temer is a deeply corrupt and unpopular politician stained by his own corruption scandals. He is accused of involvement in an illegal ethanol purchasing scheme and was found guilty of, and fined for election spending violations for which he faces a 8 year ban on running for office.

Many members of the Brazilian Democratic Movement Party have been involved in the most serious corruption scandal in Brazil’s history. Known as Operation Car Wash, the scandal involves hundreds of millions of dollars of money laundering and bribery surrounding the state-run Petrobras oil company.

A key agenda for impeaching Rousseff was to stop investigations of corruption against Congress members and media executives.

A neoliberal coup

The real purpose behind the coup was on display within days when Temer appointed a government made up of white male members of the BMDP, even though  they had lost 4 elections since 2002, including an election 18 months ago.

Seven of the ministers he appointed are under investigation for their alleged role in the Petrobras corruption scandal.

Temer showed his intention to serve the interests of his corporate and business backers. Without a mandate, Temer immediately announced a suite of neoliberal austerity measures, including sweeping cuts to government spending, reversing constitutional commitments to education and health spending, slashing pensions, cutting thousands of public sector jobs, freezing the minimum wage, gutting labour laws and weakening workers rights and privatisation of infrastructure, institutions and services.

Temer also announced his intention to appoint Goldman Sachs and IMF officials to run the economy.

Temer's appointments include  an agriculture minister who is an agribusiness billionaire known as the “soy king”, who is said to have destroyed more rain forest than any living person. The Minister of Justice is an open advocate of police repression.  In his previous role as Secretary of Public Security in São Paulo, he ordered the military police to invade a high school that had been occupied by students protesting against theft of funds allocated for school lunches. The Finance Minister is a former CEO of Bank of Boston and an advocate of extreme neoliberal economic policies.

US involvement in the coup

Once again, as in many other recent coups in Latin America, the hands of the US Government and US corporate and business interests are all over the Brazil coup.

The US President and Secretary of State were silent on the coup.

Wikileaks has recently exposed Temer's connections to the US Government. Wikileaks has  released declassified material showing that Temer was an embassy informant for US intelligence and military, raising serious questions about US Government and corporate involvement in the coup.

The damning evidence was provided in a series of tweets by the WikiLeaks Twitter account that linked Temer to diplomatic cables highlighting the information he provided to the U.S. military and National Security Council.

The USA has long opposed Roussef's independent-mindedness and participation in the BRICS trade grouping seeing it as a threat to US influence in the region. Edward Snowden's revelation that the NSA had been tapping her phone, led Roussef to deliver a blistering speech at the United Nations accusing the US of violating international law and violating “the principles that must guide the relations among…friendly nations".

Leftist governments in Brazil and Venezuela have long been targets of US destabilization efforts. Mark Weisbrot writes that the US has always supported coups against left wing governments in Latin America:

"...including — in just the 21st century — Paraguay in 2012, Haiti in 2011 and 2004, Honduras in 2009, and Venezuela in 2002. President Obama went to Argentina to lavish praise on the new right-wing, pro-U.S. government there, and the administration reversed its prior policy of blocking multilateral loans to Argentina. It could be a coincidence that the scandal at Petrobras followed a major NSA spying operation that targeted the company — or not. And within Brazil today, the opposition is dominated by politicians who favor Washington."

Democracy Now reported that in the lead up to the coup key Opposition leaders from the PMDP right wing party traveled to Washington to meet with and brief senior US officials.

There is also evidence that some of those involved in the coup have links to the US billionaires and influential political funders, the Koch Bros. The Free Brazil Movement, a far right group committed to neoliberal market solutions, is linked to groups financed by the Koch Bros.

Some groups actively involved in the coup also have direct links to corporations, big business and corporate elite in Brazil. The Chair of the group Students for Liberty has business interests connected to companies previous involved in the 1964 military coup and the organisation VemPra Rua (Come to the Streets) is funded by a foundation owned by Brazil's richest businessman.

As Glenn Greenwald writes, the Brazilian corporate media is a key player in what he calls a 'neoliberal coup', by drumming up and legitimizing corruption allegations and supporting impeachment, supposedly in the name of democracy and freedom and to protect against corruption. This is despite the new right-wing government being more corrupt that the one it replaced.

Reporters Without Borders wrote:

"In a barely veiled manner, the leading national media have urged the public to help bring down President Dilma Rousseff. The journalists working for these media groups are clearly subject to the influence of private and partisan interests, and these permanent conflicts of interests are clearly very detrimental to the quality of their reporting.”

Maria Luisa Mendonca, Director of Brazil Network for Social Justice and Human Rights noted the role of media outlets in calling for demonstrations against the Rousseff government and ignoring large demonstrations against the impeachment:

"A key player is Globo TV, which is known for supporting the military dictatorship that lasted more than 20 years in Brazil. Globo executives were recently mentioned in connection with the Panama Papers, and in the investigations against FIFA for illegal procedures in negotiating broadcast rights of soccer games. At the same time, large demonstrations against the impeachment and in defense of the democratic process that elected president Rousseff have been ignored by mainstream media."

Response to the coup
Street protests against the coup erupted across Brazil immediately and a group of over 800 international academics and intellectuals calling itself “Humanity Against the Coup in Brazil” released a statement  condemning the coup.

The new  government threatened  to criminalise and arrest protesters and demonstrators.

Leaders of other Latin America countries condemned the coup.

In this piece Lawrence Reichard writes on the response of some everyday Brazilians in the neighborhood where he lives in Rio.

Here in Australia there has been virtually no serious reporting of the Brazil, coup. The only reporting Australians get about Brazil focuses on Australia's preparation for the Rio Olympics.

In The Nation, Dave Zirin writes that the Brazil coup is yet another reason to protest the Rio Olympic Games. Zirin has written previously about the ways that the Brazilian corporate and political elite are exploiting the Rio Olympic Games for private economic gain and political power. Zirin has argued that the Rio Olympics cemented the coup.

There are growing calls for a boycott of the Rio Olympic Games in protest against the coup.

Chile Admits Pablo Neruda May Have Been Killed by Pinochet Regime

"It is necessary to judge these hands stained

by the dead he killed with his terror;
the dead from under the beaten earth
are rising up like seeds of sorrow"
Pablo Neruda (Portrait of The Man)

For the first time the Chilean Government has acknowledged that Nobel prize winning poet Pablo Neruda may have been murdered by the regime of Augusto Pinochet during the US-backed military coup that led to Pinochet seizing power in September 1973.

 

A report in the online publication Common Dreams notes: 

 

Chile's Interior Ministry made the statement in response to a ministry document published in May and obtained by the Spanish newspaper El País. "It's clearly possible and highly probable that a third party" was responsible for Neruda's death, the document said, adding that he was either injected with or orally administered a foreign substance hours before his death.

 

Neruda died just 12 days after the 11 September 1973 military coup, in which Pinochet seized power and overthrew and murdered Salvador Allende, the democratically elected President of Chile. Neruda was a political ally and supporter of Allende. Around 3,000 people were killed during  the brutal 17-year-long Pinochet dictatorship.
 

It was long thought that Neruda died of prostate cancer, but claims by family members and his former driver led to suspicion that the Pinochet regime poisoned Neruda to avoid the possibility that he would become a voice of protest and dissidence overseas.
 

Neruda's driver claimed that while Neruda was making final preparations for exile in Mexico, doctors injected the poet with a substance, after which his health rapidly deteriorated.

 

In 2013 Chilean investigators exhumed Neruda's body for examination. 

 

The initial testing failed to turn up signs Neruda was poisoned, but the judge investigating the case ordered further tests  for substances that were not previously included in the examination. In January 2015, the Head of the Chilean Government's human rights departments said:

 

"There is initial evidence that he was poisoned and in that sense the signs point to the intervention of specific agents ... that could constitute a crime against humanity."

 

Sunday's poem: Claribel Alegria

 

My footsteps are leading
toward quiet solitude
toward the star-silence
that has no more questions.
     Claribel Alegria

Nocturnal Visits
by Claribel Alegria

I think of our anonymous boys
of our burnt-out heroes
the amputated
the cripples
those who lost both legs
both eyes
the stammering teen-agers.
At night I listen to their phantoms
shouting in my ear
shaking me out of lethargy
issuing me commands
I think of their tattered lives
of their feverish hands
reaching out to seize ours.
It's not that they're begging
they're demanding
they've earned the right to order us
to break up our sleep
to come awake
to shake off once and for all
this lassitude.
(Translated by D. J. Flakoll)

The Return
Claribel Alegria

How will the return be?
My parents won’t be there
I won’t climb the volcano
with them
to gather orchids.
The jasmine won’t be there
nor the araucaria.
Nor will there be a fortress
in front of my house
nor children
flaunting their misery
nor mud shanties
with tin roofs.
I have never seen
my mother’s tomb
my childhood
next to her
my first seedbed
of memories
my rainbow arch
glowing
dimming
sinking roots
soaring
peopling me with birds.
They were times of peace
those distant times
of somnolence
and peace.
Now is a time of war
of steps leading upward
of love that seeds dreams
and shakes one.
Return obsesses me
Faces fly by
through the open fissure.
Once more there’ll be peace
but of a different kind.
The rainbow glimmers
tugs at me
forcefully
not that inert peace
of shrouded eyes
it will be a rebellious
contagious peace
a peace that opens furrows
and aims at the stars.
The rainbow shatters
the sky splits open
rolls up like a scroll
of shadows
inviting us to enter
and be dazzled.
Come, love, let’s return
to the future. 
Translation by Darwin J. Flakoll. 
 

Accounting
Claribel Alegria

In the sixty-eight years
I have lived
there are a few electrical instants:
the happiness of my feet
skipping puddles
six hours in Macchu Pichu
the ten minutes necessary
to lose my virginity
the buzzing of the telephone
while awaiting the death of my mother
the hoarse voice
announcing the death
of Monsignor Romero
fifteen minutes in Delft
the first wail of my daughter
I don't know how many years
dreaming of my people's liberation
certain immortal deaths
the eyes of that starving child
your eyes bathing me with love
one forget-me-not afternoon
and in this sultry hour
the urge to mould myself
into a verse
a shout a fleck
of foam.
(Translated by D.J. Flakoll)

Claribel Alegría  is a Nicaraguan poet, essayist, novelist, and journalist and a major voice in Central American literature.
 
Alegria was born in Nicarauga in 1924, the year US marines occupied the country. Her father opposed the US intervention and his life was in danger, so the family were forced into political exile to El Salvador the following year. As a young child she saw from her window peasants with their thumbs tied behind their backs being herded onto the army base, and later heard the shots.  
 
She left El Salvador  in 1943 and attended college in the United States and lived in Mexico, Spain, and various South American countries and never returned.
 
In more than 40 books of poetry, testimony, fiction and non-fiction Alegría has spoken for justice and liberty.
 
Alegria sees the poet (and writer) as having a responsibility to provide a voice for the voiceless-those who don't have a voice or those who have lost or are denied voice in social economic and political struggles. In this context, poetry can be a weapon against repression, oppression, exploitation, and injustice
 
Poems and articles about Claribel Alegri are here, here, here and here.

Angel Cuadra: imprisoned for 14 years for writing poetry

In Brief

Angel Cuadra

 

The common man I might have been

reproaches me now,

blaming me for his ostracism

his solitary shadow

his silent exile,

 

I put my common man and the other man together.

I took the latter's hand and moved away,

as if to honour my brilliant friend,

my wished-for double,

my important, chosen self.

And the common man I told

to shut the door behind him,

to be quiet behind the panes,

or rather, to give up his place in the window

and, if, possible, to wipe away his image with a cloth.

 

Time passed in its hurried way,

planetary time that is,

or simply,

the time spent on the road.

 

I have retraced my footsteps now-

with my own other self-

not sure if I am proud or sad.

It has rained on my face,

many nights have fallen.

Above the dust only one cold star

that seems like dust itself, like the mute dust

I brought back with me.

And I find my common man still there, where I left him,

the one I denied, the unimportant man I might have been;

and in his eyes of exile I can see

a stupor of sand and time and emptiness.

I look then at the other, the important man,

the one I chose to be.

I put my common man and the other man together...

and find they are one and the same.

17 March 1978
translation by Katherine Rodriguez Nieto

Angel Cuadra was born in Havana in 1931 and started composing poetry aged eight. 

 

After graduating in Law from the University of Havana in 1956, he joined various anti-Batista organizations. He was a supporter and associate of  Fidel Castro and after the 1959 Cuban revolution was a spokesman for the Cuban government. His poems were published in national newspapers and a collection of poems was printed.

 

However, Cuadra  became disillusioned with Castro’s Cuba and in April 1967 he was arrested and charged with being an ‘enemy of and spreading propaganda about the People’s Government'.

 

Cuadra was sentenced to death but was spared the death penalty due to the ‘lack of proof’ of his guilt. The sentence was commuted  to fifteen years hard labour. Released in 1976, he was forbidden to write poems. Cuadra was re-arrested in 1977 after smuggling poetry out of Cuba and sent back to prison to serve out his original sentence as punishment. 

 

Cuadra was released in 1982 and went into exile in Miami where he continues to write poetry and is an international jurist concerned with political prisoners.

 

In 1988 he received an award from the government of Spain for his poetry and in 1990 received special recognition for his poetry from President Vaclav Havel of Czechoslovakia. 

Sunday's Poem: Otto Rene Castillo

'But it’s beautiful to love the world
with eyes
that have not yet
been born.
And splendid
to know yourself victorious
when all around you
it’s all still so cold,
so dark.'
Rene Castillo
from Before the Scales Tomorrow

Apolitical Intellectuals

One day
the apolitical
intellectuals
of my country
will be interrogated
by the humblest
of our people.

They will be asked
what they did
when their country was slowly
dying out
like a sweet fire
small and alone.

No one will ask them
about their dress,
their long siestas
after lunch,
no one will want to know
about their futile struggles
against 'nothingness'
or about their ontological
way
to make money.                                             
No, they won’t be questioned
on Greek mythology,
or about the self-disgust they felt
when someone deep inside them
begins to die
the coward’s death.
They’ll be asked nothing
about their absurd
justifications,
born in the shadow
of the total lie.

On that day
the humble people will come,
those who had no place
in the books and poems
of the apolitical intellectuals,

but who daily delivered
their bread and milk,
their tortillas and eggs,
those who mended their clothes
those who drove their cars,
who cared for their dogs and gardens
and worked for them,
and they’ll ask:
“What did you do when the poor
suffered, when tendernes
and life
burned out of them?”

Apolitical intellectuals
of my sweet country,
you will not be able to answer.

A vulture of silence
will eat your gut.
Your own misery
will pick at your soul.
And you will be mute in your shame.

Satisfaction

The most beautiful thing
for those who have fought a whole life
is to come to the end and say;
we believed in people and life,
and life and the people
never let us down.
Only in this way do men become men,
women become women,
fighting day and night
for people and for life.
And when these lives come to an end
the people open their deepest rivers
and they enter those waters forever.
And so they become, distant fires, living,
creating the heart of example
The most beautiful thing
for those who have fought a whole life
is to come to the end and say;
we believed in people and life,
and life and the people
never let us down.

Otto Rene Castillo (1934-1967) was known as the revolutionary poet of America.

 

He was a Guatemalan revolutionary, guerilla fighter, and a poet. Castillo was first forced into exile when just 17 years of age and was tortured and imprisoned many times in Guatemala. He studied at the University of Guatemala, and the University of Leipzig in Germany.  

Following the 1954 CIA-sponsored coup that overthrew the democratically elected government of Guatemala, Castillo was forced into exile over his political activities and went to El Salvador, where he met other writers who helped him publish his early poetry.

 

He won the Central American Poetry Prize in 1955. He returned to Guatemala in 1958 and started law school, but was expelled again.  After some years in Germany he returned to Guatemala in 1964 and worked as  a student organiser and in theatre until the US backed dictatorship  arrested, imprisoned and exiled him again. He slipped back into Guatemala the same year and joined guerrillas operating in the mountains. In 1967 Castillo  was captured by the Guatemalan army, and along with his comrades and some local campesinos, was brutally tortured and burned alive. He was just 33 years of age.

 

Articles about Castillo and his poetry are here and here.

Eduardo Galeano: Reading for the First of July

Today's excerpt is from Eduardo Galeano's remarkable book  Children of the Days  which comprises a story from history for each day of the year.

Speaking about the book Galeano noted:

“History never really says goodbye. History says, see you later.”

Today's story is for the First of July.

1 July

One Terrorist Fewer

In the year 2008, the government of the United States decided to erase Nelson Mandela's name from its list of dangerous terrorists.

The most revered African in the world had featured on that sinister roll for sixty years

Remembering Eduardo Galeano 1940-2015

'To publish Eduardo Galeano is to publish the enemy: the enemy of lies, indifference, above all of forgetfulness. Thanks to him, our crimes will be remembered. His tenderness is devastating, his truthfulness furious'
John Berger

'In this world of ours, a world of powerful centers and subjugated outposts, there is no wealth that must not be held in some suspicion'
Eduardo Galeano

Like Danny Ostel -whose excellent tribute to Eduardo Galeano is here- I am also heavy in heart following the recent death of Eduardo Galeano in Montevideo, Uruguay.

Galeano who was 74, died of complications from lung cancer.

Obituaries are here from the Guardian, The Nation, Jacobin and New York Times.

I am currently reading Galeano's most recent book  Children of the Days in which Galeano details a world where power and wealth are increasingly concentrated in the hands of a few, weaving in examples from the 15th century to the present day. 

The book contains a story from history for each day of the year.

Speaking about the book Galeano noted:

“History never really says goodbye. History says, see you later.”

Here is an extract from the book- a story for 15 January

T H E SHOE

In 1919 Rosa Luxembourg, the revolutionary, was murdered
in Berlin.
Her killers bludgeoned her with rifle blows and tossed her
into the waters of a canal.
Along the way, she lost a shoe.
Some hand picked it up, that shoe dropped in the mud.
Rosa longed for a world where justice would not be sacrificed
in the name of freedom, nor freedom sacrificed in the name of
justice.
Every day, some hand picks up that banner.
Dropped in the mud, like the shoe.

Poet or people smuggler?: Demetria Martinez and 'Nativity: For Two Salvadoran Women 1986-1987'

Mother, Father,  

there's no passing the cup,

I'm going to be a troublemaker

 when I grow up.

Demetria Martinez from a poem titled Troublemaker

The political activist, poet and author Demetria Martinez wrote a poem that the US Government tried to use to convict her on people smuggling charges.

In 1987, Martinez accompanied a Lutheran Minister who assisted two Salvadoran women cross the US Border, as part of the Sanctuary Movement, a movement that began in the US in the 1980's to provide safe-haven for Central American refugees fleeing civil conflict that was supported, funded and fueled by the US Government.

Although she was active in the Sanctuary Movement at the time, Martinez made the journey as a journalist, to write a story on the Movement and the Salvadoran women seeking sanctuary in the US.

Martinez wrote her poem Nativity: For Two Salvadoran Women 1986-1987 as a protest against the criminalization of immigrants

 A year later, Martinez was indicted by the US Government on charges of a conspiracy to smuggle people across the border, a charge with a 25 year prison sentence and millions of dollars in fines.

The US Government attempted to use her poem Nativity: For Two Salvadoran Women 1986-1987 as evidence against her in court. Martinez was eventually acquitted of the charges.

Martinez was born in Alberque of Mexican heritage and now lives in New Mexico where she is an author of novels and poetry, and remains an activist on immigrant rights and a journalist.

Nativity for Two Salvadoran Women 1986-1987
by Demetria Martinez

Your eyes, large as Canada, welcome
this stranger.
We meet in a Juárez train station

where you sat for hours,

your offspring blooming in you

like cactus fruit,

dresses stained where breasts leak,

panties in purses tagged

"Hecho en El Salvador,"

your belts like equators,

mark north from south,

borders I cannot cross,

for I am an American reporter,

pen and notebook, the tools

of my tribe, distance us,

though in any other era I might

press a stethoscope to your wounds,

hear the symphony of the unborn,

finger forth infants to light,

wipe afterbirth, cut cords. 

It is impossible to raise a child

in that country.

Sisters, I am no saint.Just a woman

who happens to be a reporter,

a reporter who happens
to be a woman,

squat in forest, 

peeingon pine needles,

watching you vomit morning sickness,

a sickness infinite as the war in El Salvador,

a sickness my pen and notebook will not ease,

tell me, ¿Por qué están aquí?

How did you cross over?

In my country we sing of a baby in a manger,

finance death squads,

how to write of this shame,

of the children you chose to save?

It is impossible to raise a child

in that country.

A North American reporter,

I smile, you tell me you are due

in December, we nod,

knowing what women know.

I shut my notebook,

watch your car rock

through the Gila,

a canoe hanging over the windshield

like the beak of an eagle,

babies turning in your wombs,

summoned to Belén to be born.

Demetria Martínez