May 19 2023 | Nº. 67

Editorial

On the evening of Thursday, May 18, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva touched down in Japan to attend the meeting of the G7, the annual summit of the world’s most prosperous democratic nations. Lula, who has said he wants to discuss environmental and energy issues, as well as Ukraine and equitable global development, was invited to participate by Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida. India, Australia, and South Korea are among the other non-G7 countries in attendance. Lula’s presence is intriguing given Kishida’s stated hope that the G7 might do more to deepen ties with the Global South. This year, BRICS economies—represented at this year’s G7 summit by Brazil and India—exceeded the G7 in terms of contribution to global GDP. Next year, Brazil will assume the rotating presidency of the G20, opening an opportunity for Lula to continue exercising a visible role on the world stage. Given Russia’s ongoing war against Ukraine and the fact that large countries like Brazil, China, and India have each sought to present themselves as potential mediators, the G7 summit seems poised to acknowledge the importance of listening more closely to what leaders like Lula have to say. 

The trip to Japan marks Lula’s sixth venture abroad since taking office in January. Restoring Brazil’s image abroad was a major emphasis during last year’s presidential campaign, and it is arguably the area in which Lula has already most delivered. His foreign policy is not without critics, but the president is clearly confident in international settings. Indeed, this will be his seventh G7 summit, having attended every year during his previous two terms from 2003 to 2009. He will insist, as he long has, that Brazil is a model of democracy, preservation, and economic inclusion that other countries should emulate. The government issued three priorities for this trip that signal the breadth of topics on which Lula wants to weigh in: food security, combating climate change, and strengthening the global health system. The president’s main aim is reportedly to encourage discussion about providing developing countries with greater resources to fight hunger, a challenge Lula also talked about frequently ahead of his election. 

Lula’s trip also comes on the heels of Celso Amorim’s visit to Ukraine. Amorim, Lula’s former foreign minister and most trusted advisor on international affairs, met with President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kiev last week. The Lula government has been criticized by some for its stance on the war and purported unwillingness to explicitly criticize Russia’s aggressiveness toward its much smaller neighbor. Before meeting with Zelensky last week, Amorim had already visited Russia. Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira met with his Russian counterpart in Brasília last month. In calling for an immediate end to the fighting and suggesting concessions on both sides, critics note, Lula muddies the water of culpability (he has, in fact, frequently denounced Russia’s invasion). It is almost certain that the G7 will produce a statement on the war, though its content, and the extent to which Brazil and India have any influence, remains to be seen.  

Highlights

• COLLOR CONVICTED. At least 6 of the 10 current members of the Brazilian Supreme Court decided on May 18 that former president Fernando Collor is guilty of corruption and money laundering. The case's rapporteur has asked for 33 years of imprisonment, but this is something to be decided in a later vote at the court. Collor was the first Brazilian president to be impeached in 1992. The current conviction is linked to the senator's involvement in a scandal investigated by Operation CarWash.

• DALLAGNOL LOSES MANDATE. On May 16, the Superior Electoral Court annulled the electoral mandate of federal congressman Deltan Dallagnol from the right-wing political party Podemos. Before being elected to Congress, Dallagnol had been responsible for coordinating the Lava Jato (Car Wash) task force, a mega judicial operation that was originally created to fight corruption in Brazil, but which, over the years, became a tool of political persecution directed particularly against the current president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

• LAVA JATO. Dallagnol’s impeachment is the hardest blow to Lava Jato’s image since April 2021, when the Federal Supreme Court annulled Moro’s convictions against Lula, which, at the time, paved the way for the Workers’ Party’s triumphant return to the Presidency in October of the following year. The decision to cancel the mandate of Dallagnol was unanimous. All seven judges that make up the Superior Electoral Court voted to remove him from office. Dallagnol blamed corrupt politicians and the Lula government for the decision. When making this statement, Congressman Eduardo Bolsonaro, son of former president Jair Bolsonaro, and other far-right politicians, were by his side.

• REASON QUESTIONED. Dallagnol was removed from office because the judges understood that he resigned as a prosecutor and became a candidate for Congress in order to escape the judgment of disciplinary proceedings that had been opened against him. There is a Brazilian law, called Lei da Ficha Limpa (Clean Slate law), which prohibits employees of the government from running for public office when they have any Disciplinary Administrative Proceedings (PAD) against them. The deputy's defense argues that no PAD was ever opened against Dallagnol, who resigned as prosecutor before these administrative proceedings against him were judged. Some jurists interviewed by the press consider that the Electoral Justice adopted a broad interpretation of the law to reach the conviction, against which an appeal is possible.

• ALL EYES ON MORO. Daniel Cear, a columnist from the Brazilian news portal IG, said he had heard that former Lava Jato judge and now senator, Sérgio Moro, would be setting up a support network in the United States to leave Brazil in case he loses his mandate and/or if other changes are filed against him. The information was attributed by the political columnist to friends and party colleagues of Moro’s. According to these sources, cited by the portal, Moro would be studying the possibility of declaring himself to be politically persecuted for his role in Lava Jato. As of the afternoon of May 18, the news had not appeared in the major newspapers, nor had it provoked clarifications on the part of Moro on social networks.

• JEAN WYLLYS BACK. While the rumor circulates about a possible self-exile of Moro, former left-wing congressman Jean Wyllys has announced his plans to return to Brazil. Wyllys left the country in December 2018 to escape death threats made by people linked to the extreme Bolsonarist right. Wyllys's return to Brazil was the subject of an extensive report in the column by journalist Mônica Bérgamo from the newspaper Folha de São Paulo, who heard the news from the Paulo Abrão, the executive director of the Washington Brazil Office (WBO). Abrão was one of the people responsible for having ensured that the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights of the Organization of American States issued a precautionary measure to protect Wyllys.

• CONGRESSIONAL INVESTIGATION OF THE MST. The Lula government suffered a major defeat in the Chamber of Deputies, where a Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry was set up on May 17 to investigate the Landless Workers’ Movement (Movimento Sem Terra, MST), a social movement that fights for agrarian reform and maintains historical links with the Workers’ Party and other leftist parties and governments. The opposition dominates the Commission's main positions, including that of the rapporteur, Congressional representative Ricardo Salles, a lawyer linked to agribusiness and Bolsonaro's former minister of agriculture who became famous for his public attacks against the environment and Indigenous peoples.

• FUEL PRICES. On May 16, Petrobras, a state-owned Brazilian multinational corporation, announced a 12.7 percent reduction in the price of gasoline and diesel and 21.3 percent decrease in the price of cooking gas. The measure should have a strong impact on Lula's popularity and on many sectors of the economy in which the price of fuel and cargo transport makes a difference. The announcement was possible due to a change in Petrobras' pricing guidelines. Since 2016, the prices of the petroleum and gas products were indexed to international rates. Because they have been on the rise, consumer prices have also increased for the Brazilian population while profits for shareholders reached more than US$ 37 billion in 2022. From now on, the government will “abandon market references,” which, in practice, should mean government subsidies.

• NICHOLS IN BRAZIL. On May 18, the US State Department issued the following press release: “Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs Brian A. Nichols will travel to Brazil, May 21-26. In Brasília, Assistant Secretary Nichols will participate in the U.S.-Brazil Human Rights Dialogue and in meetings on the U.S.-Brazil Joint Action Plan to Eliminate Racial and Ethnic Discrimination and Promote Equality (JAPER). He will also participate in a groundbreaking ceremony for the new U.S. embassy building. In São Paulo, Assistant Secretary Nichols will meet with business and industry leaders. He will speak at the Fundacão Getulio Vargas law school. In Recife, Assistant Secretary Nichols will engage with human rights defenders, Afro-Brazilian leaders, and LGBTQI+ rights organizations.”

Feature Article

by Ana Claudia Cortez

The role of religion in drug treatment policy

“When I was 10 years old, I was introduced to drugs […] and ended up in Praça da Sé in São Paulo, Brazil […] It was there that I earned the nickname "Joãozinho Caixão" (a nickname meaning "John Coffin") after committing my first homicide at 13 years old. Following my arrest […] I learned how to rob and kill while in prison […] and continued to commit many more homicides. After years of living a life of crime, I decided to seek treatment at a Therapeutic Community (TC). Throughout my life, I had always been someone who followed orders, and at the TC, I followed the rules and routines while discovering who I truly was […] I have been in a state of abstinence for 38 years now […] and I believe that God has played a role in my transformation. The TC helped me forgive myself and find God”.

This is an excerpt from one of the interviews I conducted for my Ph.D. research with a person who was treated at a TC in Brazil. TCs are private and mostly religious organizations that provide accommodation and offer on-site treatment for people with disorders resulting from the problematic use of psychoactive substances. These organizations deliver services based on coexistence between peers, abstinence, discipline, and spirituality, combining religious practices with assistance from specialized professionals, especially psychologists and social workers.

According to data from the Institute of Applied Economic Research (IPEA), approximately 2,000 TCs in Brazil offer around 83,600 vacancies in their programs. Of them, 83 percent of these organizations are religious, with 40 percent being Pentecostal, 27 percent Catholic, 7 percent mainstream Protestant, and 9 percent other religions. Additionally, 90 percent of these TCs perform prayer, worship, and Bible reading activities as a fundamental part of their treatment.

In recent years, TCs have been critical stakeholders in influencing drug treatment policies in Brazil, confronting (secular) groups that defend non-on-site treatments, particularly those based on harm reduction practices to wean patients off the drugs gradually. These organizations have influenced drug treatment policies in Brazil through different strategies, such as lobbying, electing their representatives to legislative bodies, and directly engaging with bureaucracies, including inserting their representatives into the State bureaucracy.

One of the main demands of TCs to the Brazilian government has been the recognition and maintenance of their religious practices as a treatment method.. This has been one of the major sources of conflict between TCs and the Brazilian state in negotiations over public funding.

Organized into federations, TCs have been presenting their demands to government bodies and have achieved significant gains in recent years. In 2011, during Dilma Rousseff’s administration (2011-2016), these organizations began receiving federal funding, and in 2015, the Regulatory Framework for TCs was published, in which the Brazilian government recognized and regulated their work, including allowing religious practices to be part of treatment procedures. Despite significant progress under Rousseff’s government in expanding public resources invested in TCs, it was during Michel Temer´s administration (2016-2018) and especially in Jair Bolsonaro´s term (2019-2022), that TCs had even more success.

During Temer's administration, guidelines on psychiatric hospitalizations were revised, prioritizing abstinence as the main care strategy for people who engage in abusive use of psychoactive substances in Brazil. However, it was during Bolsonaro's administration that TCs had their most important victories. 

The first one was the transfer of responsibility for actions related to the prevention and care of drug abuse from the Ministry of Justice and Public Security to the Ministry of Citizenship, led by Osmar Terra, one of the major advocates for TCs in Brazil.

Another significant victory for TCs during Bolsonaro’s administration was the approval of Law 13.840/2019 (not coincidentally authored by Osmar Terra), which included TCs’ services in the National Drug Treatment Policy.

According to Conectas and CEBRAP, between 2017 and 2020, the federal government's payments to TCs increased by 116.38 percent.

Recently, Lula’s government has signaled its intention to continue financing TCs by creating the Department of Support for Therapeutic Communities. However, this decision has been criticized by movements that advocate for non-site models of care, such as the Federal Council of Psychology, the “Rede Nacional Internúcleos da Luta Antimanicomial” (National Network of the Struggle against Mental Asylums), and others. Many of these criticisms stem from reports of human rights violations that have occurred within Brazilian TCs. In 2017, the National Mechanism for Prevention and Combating Torture inspected 28 TCs across Brazil and uncovered several human rights violations committed by these organizations, including but not limited to deprivation of liberty, infringement upon religious freedom, and torture. 

The TCs case in Brazil brings up important reflections on the relationship between religion and politics. Religious groups, especially major ones, have a significant influence on the construction and implementation of public policies. This creates challenges for the separation between religion and state. Churches and religious organizations play a vital role in social action in Brazil, particularly in serving the poor. However, the regulation and oversight of these organizations are necessary to prevent violations of religious freedoms and human rights. Hopefully, the Lula government can make progress in this area.

Ana Claudia Cortez is a Ph.D. candidate in Political Science at the University of São Paulo (USP) and a Junior Researcher at the Center for Metropolitan Studies (CEM/CEBRAP). Currently, she is a visiting research fellow at Brown University, USA.

Feature articles express the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors or WBO.