John Bartlett. The Guardian. November 12, 2019
In the dappled shade of Santiago’s Parque Almagro, hundreds of Chileans sat immersed in conversation, reflecting on the past, present and future of their country.
As strikes and protests continue across the country, tens of thousands of people have attended spontaneous town hall meetings to seek a way out of more than a month of sometimes violent political unrest.
“These past weeks have been physically and emotionally exhausting,” said Florencia Olivares, 27. “We have been protesting every day, choked by teargas and not knowing how this might end, but seeing people come together to discuss a better future gives me hope.”
As President Sebastián Piñera wavers between attempts at conciliation and promises of further crackdowns, many Chileans have given up waiting for the government to offer solutions – and are instead taking it upon themselves to address the causes of the crisis.
Self-organised events, known as cabildos, have been held the length of the country – and even hosted as far afield as the UK, Australia and Canada.
At the recent gathering in Parque Almagro, the hum of conversations lulled only for a volley of whistles and jeers directed at a passing police van, caked in paint and peppered with indentations from earlier clashes.
According to organisers, this event was held to keep environmental matters on the agenda after the cancellation of the COP25 climate change summit which had been due to take place in Santiago. (It will now be held in Madrid.)
The global climate summit and the Apec convention – which was due to be held this week – were both cancelled as the government struggled to contain social unrest that has claimed more than 20 lives, according to the latest figures from Chile’s human rights institute.
A total of 5,696 people have been detained in the disturbances and 2,009 hospitalised – more than half of whom were injured by firearms. The institute is also compiling 283 legal cases relating to allegations of homicide, torture and sexual violence levelled against the police and military.
But as the violence continues, more than 15,000 people have attended 450 cabildos across Chile, according to Unidad Social, a national alliance of 115 unions and other civil society groups which has been providing guidelines for the cabildos and recording the results.
Almost every social group, profession and academic discipline has organised cabildos targeting specific areas of reform. An event organised by Colo-Colo, one of Chile’s biggest football clubs, attracted 1,500 people to their Monumental stadium in the capital.
“Anyone can arrange a cabildo – irrespective of their politics, religion or social group,” says Camilo Mansilla, who is part of Unidad Social’s organisational committee.
“The legacy of the [Pinochet] dictatorship and subsequent governments was to create a political class that has not been able to respond to our demands, so we are organising ourselves to regain sovereignty over our communities and territory.”
The meetings’ conclusions are non-binding, but a team from Unidad Social is sifting through proposals from each cabildo – and so far, the most common demand is for a constitutional assembly to draft a new constitution.
Chile’s current constitution was devised by dictator Augusto Pinochet’s trusted advisers and ratified by a questionable 1980 referendum.
Although it has been reformed several times, it still places heavy emphasis on private property but makes no mention of environmental protection – nor does it enshrine the right to water or housing – making it a symbolic target for protesters seeking to address the neoliberal model at its core.
A recent poll showed that 78% of those surveyed were in favour of a new constitution, while politicians from across the spectrum have come out in support of reform, which would require two-thirds of both the congress and senate.
However, the government has said it plans to reform the constitution through congress rather than convening a constitutional assembly – as the opposition and civil society had been demanding.
Many protesters say civil society needs to participate directly.
“We need to replace the constitution and the people want to play an active role – but we just can’t do that without a constitutional assembly,” said Olivares. “If we want to see real change, it’s now or never.”
Thursday, November 14, 2019
Chile enters 26th day of protest with strike, huge marches
Patricia Luna. AP. November 12, 2019
SANTIAGO, Chile — Protests against social inequality continued for a 26th day with huge demonstrations across Chile and a national strike that brought much of the country to a standstill Tuesday, while the value of the national currency fell to a record low.
Thousands of people marched peacefully in Santiago, congregating in the central meeting place of Plaza Italia waving the flags of Chile and the Mapuche indigenous group, with whistles and music rising in the air. After nightfall, the demonstrators lighted up the gathering with cellphone screens and green laser light.
But groups of hooded protesters in the capital also fought with police, who responded with water cannons and tear gas. A church in the Lastarria tourist district was ransacked and set on fire Tuesday night, and there were reports of looting at restaurants and shops.
The strike drew widespread participation across the country, generating a holiday atmosphere in many cities. Classes were canceled and some government offices scaled back their services. Some shop and restaurants also were looted.
The coastal city of Valparaíso ground to a halt, with government offices and public and private transport shut down. Protesters threw rocks at some shops in the morning, prompting many to remain closed, while hooded agitators erected barricades and looted. People hurled rocks at the Hotel O’Higgins, an iconic building in Viña del Mar, and ransacked one of the main grocery stores.
Large demonstrations also occurred to the south, in Concepción, where a government building was evacuated after a fire broke out. In Antofagasta, in the north, barricades impeded traffic, while in Punta Arenas, in the Patagonia region, hundreds of people took to the streets to express their anger.
Silvia Silva, a demonstrator in Santiago, called the strike “historic” and one that “will mark a before and after in our country” as Chileans continue to push for a new constitution drawn up with the direct input of citizens.
“No more abuse. Today we are saying enough, in the most peaceful way possible, to politicians and to those who are in charge of drafting laws in our country,” said Luis Casas, who was at her side.
Karla Rubilar, the government spokeswoman, said, “A strike is not the road forward.”
Chile is one of the wealthiest countries in Latin America, but it is also one of the most unequal, with a swath of basic services privatized.
A student protest over rising subway fares Oct. 18 has grown into a broad movement demanding reforms to education, health care and pensions. It has been a mostly peaceful movement, though there have been violent clashes between demonstrators and police. Twenty people have been killed and the National Institute of Human Rights in Chile has documented more than 2,000 injuries.
The government of President Sebastián Piñera has responded with a package of social improvements, and on Sunday announced a plan to overhaul the constitution that was enacted during the dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet. But Piñera’s proposals have not appeased protesters, who demand a bigger role in reformulating the country’s legal principles.
The demonstrations have had an economic cost, too. The National Chamber of Commerce Services and Tourism of Chile estimates up to 100,000 jobs could be lost.
On Tuesday, the Chilean currency continued its downward slide, hitting a record 800 pesos per U.S. dollar. Prior to the demonstrations, it had hovered around 700 to 720 pesos. It closed Tuesday at 781 pesos.
Treasury Minister Ignacio Briones said the depreciation “is a sign of the instability that we are experiencing.”
SANTIAGO, Chile — Protests against social inequality continued for a 26th day with huge demonstrations across Chile and a national strike that brought much of the country to a standstill Tuesday, while the value of the national currency fell to a record low.
Thousands of people marched peacefully in Santiago, congregating in the central meeting place of Plaza Italia waving the flags of Chile and the Mapuche indigenous group, with whistles and music rising in the air. After nightfall, the demonstrators lighted up the gathering with cellphone screens and green laser light.
But groups of hooded protesters in the capital also fought with police, who responded with water cannons and tear gas. A church in the Lastarria tourist district was ransacked and set on fire Tuesday night, and there were reports of looting at restaurants and shops.
The strike drew widespread participation across the country, generating a holiday atmosphere in many cities. Classes were canceled and some government offices scaled back their services. Some shop and restaurants also were looted.
The coastal city of Valparaíso ground to a halt, with government offices and public and private transport shut down. Protesters threw rocks at some shops in the morning, prompting many to remain closed, while hooded agitators erected barricades and looted. People hurled rocks at the Hotel O’Higgins, an iconic building in Viña del Mar, and ransacked one of the main grocery stores.
Large demonstrations also occurred to the south, in Concepción, where a government building was evacuated after a fire broke out. In Antofagasta, in the north, barricades impeded traffic, while in Punta Arenas, in the Patagonia region, hundreds of people took to the streets to express their anger.
Silvia Silva, a demonstrator in Santiago, called the strike “historic” and one that “will mark a before and after in our country” as Chileans continue to push for a new constitution drawn up with the direct input of citizens.
“No more abuse. Today we are saying enough, in the most peaceful way possible, to politicians and to those who are in charge of drafting laws in our country,” said Luis Casas, who was at her side.
Karla Rubilar, the government spokeswoman, said, “A strike is not the road forward.”
Chile is one of the wealthiest countries in Latin America, but it is also one of the most unequal, with a swath of basic services privatized.
A student protest over rising subway fares Oct. 18 has grown into a broad movement demanding reforms to education, health care and pensions. It has been a mostly peaceful movement, though there have been violent clashes between demonstrators and police. Twenty people have been killed and the National Institute of Human Rights in Chile has documented more than 2,000 injuries.
The government of President Sebastián Piñera has responded with a package of social improvements, and on Sunday announced a plan to overhaul the constitution that was enacted during the dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet. But Piñera’s proposals have not appeased protesters, who demand a bigger role in reformulating the country’s legal principles.
The demonstrations have had an economic cost, too. The National Chamber of Commerce Services and Tourism of Chile estimates up to 100,000 jobs could be lost.
On Tuesday, the Chilean currency continued its downward slide, hitting a record 800 pesos per U.S. dollar. Prior to the demonstrations, it had hovered around 700 to 720 pesos. It closed Tuesday at 781 pesos.
Treasury Minister Ignacio Briones said the depreciation “is a sign of the instability that we are experiencing.”
Chile workers unions strike in support of ongoing protests
Sandra Cuffe. Al Jazeera. November 12, 2019
Antofagasta, Chile - Workers across key sectors in Chile went on strike on Tuesday in support of ongoing protests against the country's political and economic model.
An alliance of dockworker, mining sector, construction, education, government employees and other union federations gave Chilean President Sebastian Pinera an ultimatum last week: either respond to demands in five days or deal with a nationwide work stoppage. Pinera did not respond.
The unions presented demands related to wages, pensions, and union organising. But their primary demand is the same collective call uniting protests across Chile: a new constitution, drafted by a constitutional assembly with broad involvement.
"We have never had a constitution with citizen participation before," said Pamela Pasache, a local leader of a Ministry of Education workers' union in Antofagasta, in northern Chile.
The government on Sunday announced its support for a new constitution, but the process would take place in congress, which is not what protesters have been demanding. On Tuesday, 14 opposition political parties from across the ideological spectrum rejected the government proposal and expressed support for a constitutional assembly.
"This is the moment for change. The citizenry is tired of the political class, of not being heard or valued," Pasache said.
After Tuesday's strike action was initially called by a handful of union federations, energy, petroleum and copper sector unions announced they would participate. Santiago airport workers, Valparaiso metro workers, agro-industry unions, and others also joined.
Protests, barricades and road blockades began before dawn Tuesday in many parts of the country. Mass demonstrations, marches, and blockades were ongoing up and down the 4,270km (2,653 miles) length of Chile by the afternoon.
"This is not about a union movement, or any one social movement," Eduardo Rojas, an Antofagasta dockworker union leader, told Al Jazeera.
"The people of Chile as a whole have taken to the streets to protest. That is why it is massive," he said at a plaza where thousands of people were protesting, with thousands more on the way.
Peso slides
The alliance of unions that initially called for Tuesday's strike have proposed 500,000 Chilean pesos ($635) for both the monthly minimum wage, which is currently 301,000 pesos ($386), and the minimum monthly pension payment. The proposals have widespread support among protesters.
Last week, Pinera announced a bill to guarantee a monthly minimum wage of 350,000 pesos ($444), but unions quickly pointed out the measure, aside from falling far short of demands, is, in fact, a government subsidy, not a true wage increase. The government would pay the difference to workers earning between 301,000 and 350,000 pesos.
Following the unrest, the government reduced its economic growth projections for this year. Its initial forecast of between 2.4 and 2.9 percent growth has dropped to between 1.8 and 2.2 percent, Chilean Minister of Finance Ignacio Briones announced on Twitter last week.
The Chilean peso on Tuesday dropped to an historic low of 800 pesos to the dollar before recovering slightly.
Briones reportedly warned of "grave consequences" for the economy and urged Chileans to help the country return to a sense of "normality".
Workers participating in the strike actions on Tuesday hail from some of the most powerful sectors of the Chilean economy: mining, manufactured goods, and agriculture. The country's economy relies heavily on natural resource and other exports, and therefore relies on port operations, noted Rojas, the union leader.
"This is our third work stoppage since protests began," he said.
"Ports are paralysed from Arica to Punta Arenas," he said. "Other ports that are not part of the Chilean Dockworkers Union have also joined in."
Boycott on the table
The International Dockworkers Council warned an international solidarity boycott is on the table. Representing more than 125,000 dockworkers on five continents, the council expressed concern in a statement last week about police violence against Chilean protesters and dockworkers, in particular.
"Should the repression against the dockworker family intensify, we will initiate an international boycott of cargo from ships coming from the Republic of Chile," the council said.
At least 23 people were killed during the first three weeks of the crisis, including five by military and police forces. Thousands of protesters have been detained and wounded, including more than 180 with severe eye injuries from rubber and metal projectiles shot by police.
Many groups on Tuesday demanded an immediate halt to repression along with a systemic transformation.
Chile needs radical change, and people are demanding popular participation in a constitutional assembly to create a new constitutional framework to enact that change, said Alejandro Garcia, a leader of the Antofagasta local of AnfuCultura, a Ministry of Culture workers union.
"Clearly, people do not agree with the measures the government has announced," he told Al Jazeera.
"This is a call for permanent pressure," he said. "We must not relinquish the streets."
By Tuesday afternoon, a union-led march to Antofagasta's Sotomayor plaza, renamed Plaza of the Revolution by protesters, was peppered with union, Chilean, LGBT pride, and indigenous Mapuche and Aymara flags. Hours-long marches were on their way from northern and southern areas of the Antofagasta region, and Rojas expected the crowd in the plaza to double in size by nightfall.
"This is going to multiply," he said. "We want to demonstrate that unity is strength."
Antofagasta, Chile - Workers across key sectors in Chile went on strike on Tuesday in support of ongoing protests against the country's political and economic model.
An alliance of dockworker, mining sector, construction, education, government employees and other union federations gave Chilean President Sebastian Pinera an ultimatum last week: either respond to demands in five days or deal with a nationwide work stoppage. Pinera did not respond.
The unions presented demands related to wages, pensions, and union organising. But their primary demand is the same collective call uniting protests across Chile: a new constitution, drafted by a constitutional assembly with broad involvement.
"We have never had a constitution with citizen participation before," said Pamela Pasache, a local leader of a Ministry of Education workers' union in Antofagasta, in northern Chile.
The government on Sunday announced its support for a new constitution, but the process would take place in congress, which is not what protesters have been demanding. On Tuesday, 14 opposition political parties from across the ideological spectrum rejected the government proposal and expressed support for a constitutional assembly.
"This is the moment for change. The citizenry is tired of the political class, of not being heard or valued," Pasache said.
After Tuesday's strike action was initially called by a handful of union federations, energy, petroleum and copper sector unions announced they would participate. Santiago airport workers, Valparaiso metro workers, agro-industry unions, and others also joined.
Protests, barricades and road blockades began before dawn Tuesday in many parts of the country. Mass demonstrations, marches, and blockades were ongoing up and down the 4,270km (2,653 miles) length of Chile by the afternoon.
"This is not about a union movement, or any one social movement," Eduardo Rojas, an Antofagasta dockworker union leader, told Al Jazeera.
"The people of Chile as a whole have taken to the streets to protest. That is why it is massive," he said at a plaza where thousands of people were protesting, with thousands more on the way.
Peso slides
The alliance of unions that initially called for Tuesday's strike have proposed 500,000 Chilean pesos ($635) for both the monthly minimum wage, which is currently 301,000 pesos ($386), and the minimum monthly pension payment. The proposals have widespread support among protesters.
Last week, Pinera announced a bill to guarantee a monthly minimum wage of 350,000 pesos ($444), but unions quickly pointed out the measure, aside from falling far short of demands, is, in fact, a government subsidy, not a true wage increase. The government would pay the difference to workers earning between 301,000 and 350,000 pesos.
Following the unrest, the government reduced its economic growth projections for this year. Its initial forecast of between 2.4 and 2.9 percent growth has dropped to between 1.8 and 2.2 percent, Chilean Minister of Finance Ignacio Briones announced on Twitter last week.
The Chilean peso on Tuesday dropped to an historic low of 800 pesos to the dollar before recovering slightly.
Briones reportedly warned of "grave consequences" for the economy and urged Chileans to help the country return to a sense of "normality".
Workers participating in the strike actions on Tuesday hail from some of the most powerful sectors of the Chilean economy: mining, manufactured goods, and agriculture. The country's economy relies heavily on natural resource and other exports, and therefore relies on port operations, noted Rojas, the union leader.
"This is our third work stoppage since protests began," he said.
"Ports are paralysed from Arica to Punta Arenas," he said. "Other ports that are not part of the Chilean Dockworkers Union have also joined in."
Boycott on the table
The International Dockworkers Council warned an international solidarity boycott is on the table. Representing more than 125,000 dockworkers on five continents, the council expressed concern in a statement last week about police violence against Chilean protesters and dockworkers, in particular.
"Should the repression against the dockworker family intensify, we will initiate an international boycott of cargo from ships coming from the Republic of Chile," the council said.
At least 23 people were killed during the first three weeks of the crisis, including five by military and police forces. Thousands of protesters have been detained and wounded, including more than 180 with severe eye injuries from rubber and metal projectiles shot by police.
Many groups on Tuesday demanded an immediate halt to repression along with a systemic transformation.
Chile needs radical change, and people are demanding popular participation in a constitutional assembly to create a new constitutional framework to enact that change, said Alejandro Garcia, a leader of the Antofagasta local of AnfuCultura, a Ministry of Culture workers union.
"Clearly, people do not agree with the measures the government has announced," he told Al Jazeera.
"This is a call for permanent pressure," he said. "We must not relinquish the streets."
By Tuesday afternoon, a union-led march to Antofagasta's Sotomayor plaza, renamed Plaza of the Revolution by protesters, was peppered with union, Chilean, LGBT pride, and indigenous Mapuche and Aymara flags. Hours-long marches were on their way from northern and southern areas of the Antofagasta region, and Rojas expected the crowd in the plaza to double in size by nightfall.
"This is going to multiply," he said. "We want to demonstrate that unity is strength."
Lula’s Free, and He’s Promising to Fight
Michael Fox. The Nation. November 12, 2019
Curitiba, Brazil—Lula’s freedom was never a foregone conclusion—even after Brazil’s Supreme Court decided last Thursday that it was unconstitutional to jail defendants before they had exhausted their appeals. This included former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and roughly another 5,000 people in detention around the country. Legally, they should have been freed, but justice, particularly in Brazil, doesn’t just happen.
After the Supreme Court decision, leaders of the Landless Workers Movement and Lula’s Workers Party called for supporters to descend on the southern Brazilian city of Curitiba. People poured into the Santa Candida residential neighborhood surrounding the prison and joined a community of Lula supporters who had been protesting there for 19 months.
In front of the jail, rows of cameras on tripods were pointed at the entrance, waiting. Lula’s lawyers visited him in the morning, and announced that they had asked a local Curitiba court to release him immediately.
Spontaneous cheers and “Free Lula” chants erupted every few minutes from a crowd that would grow to more than 20,000 people, according to organizers. People in red shirts walked in half-euphoria, half-daze, still disbelieving that Lula might really be free within a few hours.
“We could not be happier,” Pauliana Silva Gonçalves told me, her fist raised before the prison walls. She wore a black shirt with a white image of Lula’s face. She wiped away tears under thick sunglasses. “Our voices are filled with the freedom of our companion Lula da Silva. We’ve been here for 580 days, resisting.”
Lula had been incarcerated since April 7, 2018. The charge was corruption: accepting a beachside apartment from a company seeking government contracts. But the evidence was weak. Lula maintained his innocence, and so did his supporters.
Gonçalves arrived the day after he was imprisoned with others from the Brazilian state of Espirito Santo, more than 800 miles away. She had been here ever since. The night the helicopter arrived carrying Lula to his cell, his supporters launched an around-the-clock vigil just outside the federal police prison. Hundreds arrived and pitched their tents on the sides of the streets of the middle-class neighborhood. Gonçalves was one of them.
“We will only leave Curitiba when Lula is freed,” said Lindbergh Farias, then a Workers Party senator, on April 8. They kept their promise. The vigil would become ground zero for left organizing around the country.
On May 1, 2018, Brazilian unions held the country’s first united Workers Day rally in decades in Curitiba. Thousands came. They returned for major actions every few months: New Year’s, the anniversary of Lula’s imprisonment, Lula’s 500th day in jail.
Those at the vigil—sometimes dozens, sometimes hundreds—continued to demand Lula’s freedom, day after day. They rallied. They sang. They held workshops, trainings, and endless other activities. They were physically attacked. They were threatened with eviction. In the early days, many camped. Others found places to stay. They created lives there, met spouses. One couple had a little girl. And still they cheered good morning, afternoon, and evening to Lula, every day. The former president said he could hear them from his cell. He said it gave him strength.
The fight to free Lula became the key mobilizing issue of the Brazilian left. Free Lula committees sprung up across the country. They held their own local rallies and events. On Lula’s birthday, October 27, his supporters celebrated with events and all-day concerts in more than 80 cities. Leading international figures visited him in jail, including Noam Chomsky, who called Lula “the world’s most prominent political prisoner.”
Lula was no average leader in Brazil. He was the country’s charismatic working-class hero, who for many has near mythic status. As a metalworker in the late 1970s and early 1980s, he led massive union strikes that would mark the beginning of the end of the military dictatorship. He founded the Workers Party, and was finally elected president in 2002. During his two terms, he lifted millions of out poverty, and left office at the end of 2010 with an approval rate nearing 90 percent.
Neither he, nor his Workers Party, were perfect. They were criticized for losing touch with their base, embracing big agricultural companies, and pushing development at the cost of local communities. There were scandals; there was a recession; and there was corruption, though it was across the political spectrum. The media and the political opposition blamed it on the Workers Party. And they impeached Lula’s successor, Dilma Rousseff, in 2016, under politically motivated charges of manipulating the budget, the cover for the congressional coup.
The incoming government of Michel Temer rolled back social programs, sold off state infrastructure, froze public spending for 20 years, and embroiled itself in an even bigger web of scandal—kick-backs, graft, and extortion.
Lula was seen as the answer. The man who could set the country back on track. Even from behind bars, he led all of polls heading into the 2018 elections. But then he was blocked from competing.
Now, he was free. At just after 5:30 pm on Friday, Lula stepped from the building in a gray shirt and a black suit coat, flanked by his top Workers Party allies.
The crowd exploded. Shouts. Tears. Rolling chants of “Lula!” or “Free Lula!” echoed off the surrounding buildings.
He walked out the gates and into a sea of people. They squeezed and rushed. Lula pushed forward, half walking, half carried by an ocean of supporters, arms raised above their heads, cell phones filming the momentous occasion.
This would mark an end and a beginning, potentially shifting the country’s political dynamics.
Lula’s freedom is certainly a boost for the Brazilian left, which has been facing an ongoing attack from the government of Jair Bolsonaro. Lula has the ability to speak like no one else to Brazil’s poor and working class.
Bolsonaro has the most to lose from Lula’s release, and he called an emergency meeting to discuss it with military officials the following day. Meanwhile, publicly Brazil’s Trump-like president remained uncharacteristically silent about Lula for almost two days. When Bolsonaro finally did comment, he—also uncharacteristically—called for restraint.
Some analysts, however, believe Lula’s freedom could also be a blessing in disguise for the far-right president, helping to unite the government camp by giving them a vocal and prominent enemy.
Bolsonaro’s government has been plagued by infighting among the disparate groups in its coalition: the military, the evangelicals, the devotees of Bolsonaro’s far-right philosophical guru Olavo de Carvalho. According to reports, Bolsonaro’s relationship with the military, which holds dozens of top posts, is at its most strained since he came to power. And infighting in Bolsonaro’s own Social Liberal Party reached a crescendo last month, when Bolsonaro expressed disgust over numerous impasses over control of the party and its finances. Today Bolsonaro announced he would quit his party and form a new one.
Despite the Supreme Court ruling permitting his release, Lula still has numerous charges and accusations against him. His lawyers are now working to clear his name, based, in part, on revelations by The Intercept Brasil, which show clear bias against Lula and the left by former judge Sergio Moro—now Bolsonaro’s justice minister—and the country’s anti-corruption task force, which schemed in private WhatsApp messages about how to keep the Workers Party from returning to power.
Overturning Moro’s conviction looks far more plausible now than earlier in the year, before the release of the Intercept Brasil leaks. Already, the Supreme Court has annulled a number of Moro’s decisions, in a major blow to the highly politicized Car Wash operation.
For Bolsonaro’s far-right supporters, this is a sign of the Supreme Court’s complicity in impunity and its willingness to turn the country back to the dark days of lawlessness. They have often called for the court to be impeached or removed. They railed against the court’s 6-5 decision, which allowed for Lula’s release, as an unconscionable act of impunity. The hashtag #STFVergoniaNacional (#SupremeCourtNationalShame) was trending on Twitter. At a right-wing rally in Curitiba, the day after Lula’s release, protesters threw tomatoes at blown up pictures of the six Supreme Court justices who voted for the decision that would release Lula.
For Bolsonaro’s base, Lula is the head of a cabal, the epitome of Brazil’s corrupt and criminal political system, which has run Brazil into the ground. For his supporters, he is a hero who has once again returned to bring them hope and lift them out of despair.
Now, Lula says, “I’m back.”
The day after his release, he led a huge rally outside the ABC Metalworkers union, where he got his start, in Sao Bernardo do Campo, São Paulo. Speaking to a sea of red-clad supporters, Lula told the crowd, “Biologically speaking, I’m 74 years old, but I have the energy of a 30-year-old.”
He attacked Bolsonaro for pushing privatization, cutting pensions and social programs, and for his alleged ties to the paramilitaries accused of killing the black LGBT Rio de Janeiro city council member Marielle Franco, last year. He announced that the left would take back the presidency in 2022 and confirmed that he would be touring the country.
“I want to build this country with the same happiness that we built it when we governed this country,” Lula told supporters. “The only thing I’m certain of is that I have more courage to fight than before I left.”
Curitiba, Brazil—Lula’s freedom was never a foregone conclusion—even after Brazil’s Supreme Court decided last Thursday that it was unconstitutional to jail defendants before they had exhausted their appeals. This included former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and roughly another 5,000 people in detention around the country. Legally, they should have been freed, but justice, particularly in Brazil, doesn’t just happen.
After the Supreme Court decision, leaders of the Landless Workers Movement and Lula’s Workers Party called for supporters to descend on the southern Brazilian city of Curitiba. People poured into the Santa Candida residential neighborhood surrounding the prison and joined a community of Lula supporters who had been protesting there for 19 months.
In front of the jail, rows of cameras on tripods were pointed at the entrance, waiting. Lula’s lawyers visited him in the morning, and announced that they had asked a local Curitiba court to release him immediately.
Spontaneous cheers and “Free Lula” chants erupted every few minutes from a crowd that would grow to more than 20,000 people, according to organizers. People in red shirts walked in half-euphoria, half-daze, still disbelieving that Lula might really be free within a few hours.
“We could not be happier,” Pauliana Silva Gonçalves told me, her fist raised before the prison walls. She wore a black shirt with a white image of Lula’s face. She wiped away tears under thick sunglasses. “Our voices are filled with the freedom of our companion Lula da Silva. We’ve been here for 580 days, resisting.”
Lula had been incarcerated since April 7, 2018. The charge was corruption: accepting a beachside apartment from a company seeking government contracts. But the evidence was weak. Lula maintained his innocence, and so did his supporters.
Gonçalves arrived the day after he was imprisoned with others from the Brazilian state of Espirito Santo, more than 800 miles away. She had been here ever since. The night the helicopter arrived carrying Lula to his cell, his supporters launched an around-the-clock vigil just outside the federal police prison. Hundreds arrived and pitched their tents on the sides of the streets of the middle-class neighborhood. Gonçalves was one of them.
“We will only leave Curitiba when Lula is freed,” said Lindbergh Farias, then a Workers Party senator, on April 8. They kept their promise. The vigil would become ground zero for left organizing around the country.
On May 1, 2018, Brazilian unions held the country’s first united Workers Day rally in decades in Curitiba. Thousands came. They returned for major actions every few months: New Year’s, the anniversary of Lula’s imprisonment, Lula’s 500th day in jail.
Those at the vigil—sometimes dozens, sometimes hundreds—continued to demand Lula’s freedom, day after day. They rallied. They sang. They held workshops, trainings, and endless other activities. They were physically attacked. They were threatened with eviction. In the early days, many camped. Others found places to stay. They created lives there, met spouses. One couple had a little girl. And still they cheered good morning, afternoon, and evening to Lula, every day. The former president said he could hear them from his cell. He said it gave him strength.
The fight to free Lula became the key mobilizing issue of the Brazilian left. Free Lula committees sprung up across the country. They held their own local rallies and events. On Lula’s birthday, October 27, his supporters celebrated with events and all-day concerts in more than 80 cities. Leading international figures visited him in jail, including Noam Chomsky, who called Lula “the world’s most prominent political prisoner.”
Lula was no average leader in Brazil. He was the country’s charismatic working-class hero, who for many has near mythic status. As a metalworker in the late 1970s and early 1980s, he led massive union strikes that would mark the beginning of the end of the military dictatorship. He founded the Workers Party, and was finally elected president in 2002. During his two terms, he lifted millions of out poverty, and left office at the end of 2010 with an approval rate nearing 90 percent.
Neither he, nor his Workers Party, were perfect. They were criticized for losing touch with their base, embracing big agricultural companies, and pushing development at the cost of local communities. There were scandals; there was a recession; and there was corruption, though it was across the political spectrum. The media and the political opposition blamed it on the Workers Party. And they impeached Lula’s successor, Dilma Rousseff, in 2016, under politically motivated charges of manipulating the budget, the cover for the congressional coup.
The incoming government of Michel Temer rolled back social programs, sold off state infrastructure, froze public spending for 20 years, and embroiled itself in an even bigger web of scandal—kick-backs, graft, and extortion.
Lula was seen as the answer. The man who could set the country back on track. Even from behind bars, he led all of polls heading into the 2018 elections. But then he was blocked from competing.
Now, he was free. At just after 5:30 pm on Friday, Lula stepped from the building in a gray shirt and a black suit coat, flanked by his top Workers Party allies.
The crowd exploded. Shouts. Tears. Rolling chants of “Lula!” or “Free Lula!” echoed off the surrounding buildings.
He walked out the gates and into a sea of people. They squeezed and rushed. Lula pushed forward, half walking, half carried by an ocean of supporters, arms raised above their heads, cell phones filming the momentous occasion.
This would mark an end and a beginning, potentially shifting the country’s political dynamics.
Lula’s freedom is certainly a boost for the Brazilian left, which has been facing an ongoing attack from the government of Jair Bolsonaro. Lula has the ability to speak like no one else to Brazil’s poor and working class.
Bolsonaro has the most to lose from Lula’s release, and he called an emergency meeting to discuss it with military officials the following day. Meanwhile, publicly Brazil’s Trump-like president remained uncharacteristically silent about Lula for almost two days. When Bolsonaro finally did comment, he—also uncharacteristically—called for restraint.
Some analysts, however, believe Lula’s freedom could also be a blessing in disguise for the far-right president, helping to unite the government camp by giving them a vocal and prominent enemy.
Bolsonaro’s government has been plagued by infighting among the disparate groups in its coalition: the military, the evangelicals, the devotees of Bolsonaro’s far-right philosophical guru Olavo de Carvalho. According to reports, Bolsonaro’s relationship with the military, which holds dozens of top posts, is at its most strained since he came to power. And infighting in Bolsonaro’s own Social Liberal Party reached a crescendo last month, when Bolsonaro expressed disgust over numerous impasses over control of the party and its finances. Today Bolsonaro announced he would quit his party and form a new one.
Despite the Supreme Court ruling permitting his release, Lula still has numerous charges and accusations against him. His lawyers are now working to clear his name, based, in part, on revelations by The Intercept Brasil, which show clear bias against Lula and the left by former judge Sergio Moro—now Bolsonaro’s justice minister—and the country’s anti-corruption task force, which schemed in private WhatsApp messages about how to keep the Workers Party from returning to power.
Overturning Moro’s conviction looks far more plausible now than earlier in the year, before the release of the Intercept Brasil leaks. Already, the Supreme Court has annulled a number of Moro’s decisions, in a major blow to the highly politicized Car Wash operation.
For Bolsonaro’s far-right supporters, this is a sign of the Supreme Court’s complicity in impunity and its willingness to turn the country back to the dark days of lawlessness. They have often called for the court to be impeached or removed. They railed against the court’s 6-5 decision, which allowed for Lula’s release, as an unconscionable act of impunity. The hashtag #STFVergoniaNacional (#SupremeCourtNationalShame) was trending on Twitter. At a right-wing rally in Curitiba, the day after Lula’s release, protesters threw tomatoes at blown up pictures of the six Supreme Court justices who voted for the decision that would release Lula.
For Bolsonaro’s base, Lula is the head of a cabal, the epitome of Brazil’s corrupt and criminal political system, which has run Brazil into the ground. For his supporters, he is a hero who has once again returned to bring them hope and lift them out of despair.
Now, Lula says, “I’m back.”
The day after his release, he led a huge rally outside the ABC Metalworkers union, where he got his start, in Sao Bernardo do Campo, São Paulo. Speaking to a sea of red-clad supporters, Lula told the crowd, “Biologically speaking, I’m 74 years old, but I have the energy of a 30-year-old.”
He attacked Bolsonaro for pushing privatization, cutting pensions and social programs, and for his alleged ties to the paramilitaries accused of killing the black LGBT Rio de Janeiro city council member Marielle Franco, last year. He announced that the left would take back the presidency in 2022 and confirmed that he would be touring the country.
“I want to build this country with the same happiness that we built it when we governed this country,” Lula told supporters. “The only thing I’m certain of is that I have more courage to fight than before I left.”
Economy in mind, Bolsonaro softens tone on China
AP. November 13, 2019
BRASILIA, Brazil (AP) — What a difference a year makes.
In the months before last year's presidential election in Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro described China as predatory and thumbed his nose at the Chinese government by visiting Taiwan, Beijing's archrival.
Now, as a more pragmatic president, Bolsonaro is welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping to an international summit that begins Wednesday in Brasilia, the capital.
The first item on the agenda for Bolsonaro, a far-right leader who has sometimes tried to hang the communist label on his political rivals in Brazil, is a bilateral meeting with Xi. It's a sign of how Bolsonaro views China as critical to his ambitions to rejuvenate Brazil's sluggish economy.
Gone is last year's fiery campaign trail rhetoric about China being a rapacious power intent on exploiting Brazilian resources.
China is, after all, Brazil's biggest trading partner.
As China expanded rapidly in the 2000s, eventually becoming the world's second largest economy, it relied on commodities from producers. Brazil, Latin America's largest economy, shipped soybeans, iron ore and crude to satisfy China's voracious appetite. Those three products account for more than 80% of Brazil's exports to China.
Xi's visit for a meeting of leaders of the BRICS emerging economies (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) is his first to Brazil since 2014.
But his relationship with Bolsonaro has already been blossoming.
Just last month, Bolsonaro traveled to Beijing for economic and other accords, including the exemption of Chinese nationals from Brazil visa requirements. Xi received him at his car and they walked side-by-side on a long, red carpet.
"Bolsonaro discovered how important China is to Brazil and that he can do business with China. And he's more or less happy with that," said Mauricio Santoro, professor of international relations at Rio de Janeiro's state university, UERJ.
Before he became president, Bolsonaro praised the U.S. and President Donald Trump. He often said China can buy from Brazil, but not buy Brazil itself — rhetoric that continued for a while after he took office Jan. 1.
The hostile remarks didn't last, though.
Brazil is dependent on foreign investment, especially from China.
Confirmed Chinese investments in Brazil between 2007 and 2018 totaled almost $60 billion, more than any other Latin American country, according to the Brazil-China Business Council, a Brazilian research center.
Investments faltered in 2018 ahead of Brazil's election, part of a broader decline stemming from investor caution.
After Bolsonaro won the presidency, he took his first trip abroad to the U.S., then in the midst of a growing trade dispute with China. But Brazil didn't get caught in the middle.
"Brazil has all the reasons to work with both countries and not pick sides," said Pepe Zhang, associate China director at the Washington-based Atlantic Council. "So far, it's doing a good job."
In August, amid Western criticism of Brazil's handling of fires raging in the Amazon, China defended Brazil. Bolsonaro described China's support as "priceless."
As Brazil-Chinese diplomacy advances, there are delicate issues to navigate.
The U.S., for example, is pressuring the Brazilian government to exclude Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei from its auction next year to provide a 5G network.
The U.S. State Department says that Huawei poses cybersecurity risks and that it will review the way it shares intelligence about Venezuela with Brazil if Huawei is allowed to provide 5G service.
The U.S. and Brazil consider Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro to be illegitimate and want him to resign.
China, eager for repayment of the billions of dollars in oil-backed loans it extended to Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's socialist administration, continues to support his regime.
Bolsonaro knows he won't find common ground with Xi on Venezuela when they meet, and will likely focus on luring more Chinese investment and trade, said Santoro, the international relations professor.
Bolsonaro, a fringe lawmaker until his campaign, earned the nickname " Trump of the Tropics" for his rejection of politically correct discourse, and many of his supporters came to see him as a crusader willing to impose morality on a political system rife with corruption and a society suffering from violent crime.
But he has been more reined in on the economy. He handed the reins of economic policymaking to a University of Chicago-trained economist who is taking steps to improve business conditions, reduce trade barriers of Brazil's protected market, and carry out a vast privatization program.
Some Brazilians were concerned that Bolsonaro as president would assume a "bipolar vision of the world" and closely align with the U.S. at the expense of China relations, said José Pio Borges, president of Cebri, a Brazilian research center that studies China.
"Now, after all these reunions and initiatives, it's clear that Brazil wants to have relationships with everyone," Borges said.
BRASILIA, Brazil (AP) — What a difference a year makes.
In the months before last year's presidential election in Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro described China as predatory and thumbed his nose at the Chinese government by visiting Taiwan, Beijing's archrival.
Now, as a more pragmatic president, Bolsonaro is welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping to an international summit that begins Wednesday in Brasilia, the capital.
The first item on the agenda for Bolsonaro, a far-right leader who has sometimes tried to hang the communist label on his political rivals in Brazil, is a bilateral meeting with Xi. It's a sign of how Bolsonaro views China as critical to his ambitions to rejuvenate Brazil's sluggish economy.
Gone is last year's fiery campaign trail rhetoric about China being a rapacious power intent on exploiting Brazilian resources.
China is, after all, Brazil's biggest trading partner.
As China expanded rapidly in the 2000s, eventually becoming the world's second largest economy, it relied on commodities from producers. Brazil, Latin America's largest economy, shipped soybeans, iron ore and crude to satisfy China's voracious appetite. Those three products account for more than 80% of Brazil's exports to China.
Xi's visit for a meeting of leaders of the BRICS emerging economies (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) is his first to Brazil since 2014.
But his relationship with Bolsonaro has already been blossoming.
Just last month, Bolsonaro traveled to Beijing for economic and other accords, including the exemption of Chinese nationals from Brazil visa requirements. Xi received him at his car and they walked side-by-side on a long, red carpet.
"Bolsonaro discovered how important China is to Brazil and that he can do business with China. And he's more or less happy with that," said Mauricio Santoro, professor of international relations at Rio de Janeiro's state university, UERJ.
Before he became president, Bolsonaro praised the U.S. and President Donald Trump. He often said China can buy from Brazil, but not buy Brazil itself — rhetoric that continued for a while after he took office Jan. 1.
The hostile remarks didn't last, though.
Brazil is dependent on foreign investment, especially from China.
Confirmed Chinese investments in Brazil between 2007 and 2018 totaled almost $60 billion, more than any other Latin American country, according to the Brazil-China Business Council, a Brazilian research center.
Investments faltered in 2018 ahead of Brazil's election, part of a broader decline stemming from investor caution.
After Bolsonaro won the presidency, he took his first trip abroad to the U.S., then in the midst of a growing trade dispute with China. But Brazil didn't get caught in the middle.
"Brazil has all the reasons to work with both countries and not pick sides," said Pepe Zhang, associate China director at the Washington-based Atlantic Council. "So far, it's doing a good job."
In August, amid Western criticism of Brazil's handling of fires raging in the Amazon, China defended Brazil. Bolsonaro described China's support as "priceless."
As Brazil-Chinese diplomacy advances, there are delicate issues to navigate.
The U.S., for example, is pressuring the Brazilian government to exclude Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei from its auction next year to provide a 5G network.
The U.S. State Department says that Huawei poses cybersecurity risks and that it will review the way it shares intelligence about Venezuela with Brazil if Huawei is allowed to provide 5G service.
The U.S. and Brazil consider Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro to be illegitimate and want him to resign.
China, eager for repayment of the billions of dollars in oil-backed loans it extended to Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's socialist administration, continues to support his regime.
Bolsonaro knows he won't find common ground with Xi on Venezuela when they meet, and will likely focus on luring more Chinese investment and trade, said Santoro, the international relations professor.
Bolsonaro, a fringe lawmaker until his campaign, earned the nickname " Trump of the Tropics" for his rejection of politically correct discourse, and many of his supporters came to see him as a crusader willing to impose morality on a political system rife with corruption and a society suffering from violent crime.
But he has been more reined in on the economy. He handed the reins of economic policymaking to a University of Chicago-trained economist who is taking steps to improve business conditions, reduce trade barriers of Brazil's protected market, and carry out a vast privatization program.
Some Brazilians were concerned that Bolsonaro as president would assume a "bipolar vision of the world" and closely align with the U.S. at the expense of China relations, said José Pio Borges, president of Cebri, a Brazilian research center that studies China.
"Now, after all these reunions and initiatives, it's clear that Brazil wants to have relationships with everyone," Borges said.
Brazil's Bolsonaro to quit divided PSL party, found new one
Reuters. November 12, 2019
BRASILIA (Reuters) - Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro will quit his fractious right-wing Social Liberal Party (PSL) and start a new one by March 2020, PSL lawmakers Daniel Silveira and Bia Kicis said on Tuesday after meeting with the president.
The PSL, which Bolsonaro joined as a vehicle to win the elections in October, is split down the middle over control of the party, though it is not clear how many of its 53 representatives and three senators will follow the president.
A meeting will be held on Nov. 21 to begin setting up the new party, which will be called Movimento pelo Brasil, or Movement for Brazil, Kicis told Reuters by telephone.
The split came to a head last month with an exchange of insults between the president and PSL founder Luciano Bivar, who has not wanted to hand over the reins to Bolsonaro and his sons.
At stake is 390 million reais ($94 million) in public campaign funds for municipal elections, an unprecedented war chest for the PSL, which rode Bolsonaro’s coattails to grow from a single lawmaker in Congress to the second-largest bench.
While senators, governors and mayors can freely switch parties, lower house lawmakers are subject to rules that bar them from continued access to the campaign funding if they swap parties.
“Several representatives plan to follow the president. We are prepared to lose the campaign funds because we want to found a new party to follow him,” Kicis said.
Bolsonaro needs to gather 500,000 signatures to start a new party, and his supporters are confident he can achieve that through social media, a tool that greatly aided his successful run for president last year.
One of the PSL’s three senators, Senator Soraya Thronicke from the farm state of Mato Grosso, told Reuters she has not made up her mind yet.
If she stayed in the PSL, only one senator would follow Bolsonaro, his son Flavio Bolsonaro.
The breakup of the PSL is not expected to affect Brazil’s economic reform agenda, which has ample backing in Congress.
But starting a new party could politically weaken Bolsonaro, who switched allegiances among eight parties during his 28 years in Congress before joining the PSL last year.
BRASILIA (Reuters) - Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro will quit his fractious right-wing Social Liberal Party (PSL) and start a new one by March 2020, PSL lawmakers Daniel Silveira and Bia Kicis said on Tuesday after meeting with the president.
The PSL, which Bolsonaro joined as a vehicle to win the elections in October, is split down the middle over control of the party, though it is not clear how many of its 53 representatives and three senators will follow the president.
A meeting will be held on Nov. 21 to begin setting up the new party, which will be called Movimento pelo Brasil, or Movement for Brazil, Kicis told Reuters by telephone.
The split came to a head last month with an exchange of insults between the president and PSL founder Luciano Bivar, who has not wanted to hand over the reins to Bolsonaro and his sons.
At stake is 390 million reais ($94 million) in public campaign funds for municipal elections, an unprecedented war chest for the PSL, which rode Bolsonaro’s coattails to grow from a single lawmaker in Congress to the second-largest bench.
While senators, governors and mayors can freely switch parties, lower house lawmakers are subject to rules that bar them from continued access to the campaign funding if they swap parties.
“Several representatives plan to follow the president. We are prepared to lose the campaign funds because we want to found a new party to follow him,” Kicis said.
Bolsonaro needs to gather 500,000 signatures to start a new party, and his supporters are confident he can achieve that through social media, a tool that greatly aided his successful run for president last year.
One of the PSL’s three senators, Senator Soraya Thronicke from the farm state of Mato Grosso, told Reuters she has not made up her mind yet.
If she stayed in the PSL, only one senator would follow Bolsonaro, his son Flavio Bolsonaro.
The breakup of the PSL is not expected to affect Brazil’s economic reform agenda, which has ample backing in Congress.
But starting a new party could politically weaken Bolsonaro, who switched allegiances among eight parties during his 28 years in Congress before joining the PSL last year.
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