Set 09 2023 | Nº. 83

Editorial

President Lula made significant changes to his cabinet this week, welcoming into his administration members of political parties that supported former president Jair Bolsonaro in last year’s election. The nominal aim of this reshuffling was to make it easier for the government to enact its legislative agenda by appeasing the centrão, the sizable but loose bloc of generally conservative parties that exist for the sake of acquiring and holding onto power rather than advancing a clear ideological agenda. One of the new cabinet ministers is a member of the same party as Tarcísio de Freitas, the governor of São Paulo, widely considered to be one of Bolsonaro’s most likely heirs on the national stage. In a way, then, Lula’s cabinet moves this week might be seen as a sign of political dexterity. In one fell swoop, Lula drew Tarcísio’s own party closer, making it harder for a future potential rival to criticize his government, and created goodwill with unfriendly partisan leaders Congress.

On the other hand, however, Lula’s moves brought fresh disappointment for some on the left. The second cabinet minister removed from her position was Ana Moser, a decorated former volleyball star serving as Minister of Sports. Moser had long aligned herself with progressive causes and was widely seen as an ideal person for the position she occupied from the beginning of Lula’s third term. She was also one of very few women in the cabinet. In a statement, Moser expressed "sadness and consternation” at the decision. For his part, Juliano Medeiros, president of the leftwing Party of Socialism and Liberty (PSOL) tweeted that Moser’s “appointment was a recognition that the sports ministry should be headed by someone committed to democracy, development, and social justice. I doubt that the new minister has these commitments.” Medeiros added: “Contrary to what some think around here, the more centrão in the government, the further we are from fulfilling the program elected at the polls – and not the other way around.”

Medeiros’ critique reflects a broader concern about the progressive character of Lula’s government, one also stoked by the recent rulings of Cristiano Zanin. Zanin, who served as Lula’s personal lawyer during the tense years of Operation Lava Jato, has not been more conservative than expected since joining the Federal Supreme Court last month. Looking ahead to next year’s municipal elections, the PSOL settled this week on a candidate for mayor in the city of Rio de Janeiro, setting up a leftwing challenge to the incumbent who is all but certain to have Lula’s support. This dynamic is not new for Lula. He has always argued for the need to ensure governability—a process that necessarily involves compromise—in order to get anything done in political system largely dominated by entrenched conservative forces. This is the unpalatable reality Lula’s leftwing supporters are once again having to contend with.  

Highlights

• OPERATION CAR WASH: Dias Toffoli, a justice of the Supreme Court, announced on Wednesday, September 6, the annulment of the most important set of evidence that supported Operation Lava Jato (Car Wash), namely, the spreadsheets used by the construction company Odebrecht to distribute bribes to politicians in Brazil. This evidence, which served as the basis for numerous convictions, including that of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, had already been considered void in specific Supreme Court decisions. Now, Toffoli has declared the absolute invalidity of these files, for having been manipulated outside the standards of good conduct. The decision was technical, but loaded with political significance. The justice classified the once powerful and unquestionable Lava Jato Operation as “one of the biggest judicial errors in the country’s history” and said that it was the “egg of the serpent” that led to threats against democracy, carried out by Jair Bolsonaro and his followers and sympathizers, including Senator Sérgio Moro, who was the judge responsible for the case at the 13th Federal Court in Curitiba, Paraná.

• CONSEQUENCES. Toffoli's decision is yet another victory for Lula and yet another defeat for Moro in the long battle between the two main protagonists of Lava Jato. Toffoli ruled that the AGU (Attorney General of the Union) investigate the responsibilities of the Union and State officials who exceeded their duties in the course of the Lava Jato investigations. Minister of Justice Flavio Dino also said that he will place the Federal Police in charge of "ascertaining the criminal responsibility of public agents." The investigations threaten Moro, who, after leaving Lava Jato, became Bolsonaro's justice minister and then senator. Another important character in the operation, Prosecutor Deltan Dallagnol, who was responsible for formulating Lava Jato's accusations and acted in collusion with Judge Moro, already had his mandate as federal deputy revoked in June.

• PLEA BARGAIN. President Bolsonaro's former aide-de-camp, Lieutenant Colonel Mauro Cid, proposed a plea deal with the judiciary. Cid has been in prison for 120 days for having falsified vaccination certificates against Covid-19, including the certificate of Bolsonaro and the former president's wife, Michelle. The military is still investigating  the case of the sale of jewels of the Office of the Presidency of the Republic. The proposed agreement still needs to be ratified by  Alexandre de Moraes, a justice of the Supreme Court, for it to be valid. Cid may have information capable of determining Bolsonaro's degree of responsibility not only in cases of falsification of vaccine certificates and the sale of jewelry owed by the State, but also in plans to subvert the democratic order, which culminated in the attempted invasion of the headquarters of the three branches of the government on January 8. 

• SEPTEMBER 7TH. Brazil celebrated the 201st anniversary of its independence. The date is traditionally marked by civic-military parades in all the state capitals and other large cities. In the capital, Brasilia, Lula paraded in an open car, passed the troops in review and was accompanied on the speakers’ platform by Rodrigo Pacheco, the president of the Senate, and by Rosa Weber, the chief justice of the Supreme Court. This year's celebration was the first since Jair Bolsonaro left the presidency. Bolsonaro was in the army reserve and associated his government with militarism, treating the traditional armed forces parade as a ceremony of support for him and his government. This year's parade was marked by the resumption of the civic date as one that is associated with the defense of democracy in the country.

• CONFIDENTIAL VOTE. Lula has been under pressure from left-wing movements and social organizations to nominate a Black woman for the vacancy that will open up on the Supreme Court in October, when Chief Justice Rosa Weber retires. The last nominee by Lula for one of the eleven seats on the Supreme Court was his former personal lawyer, Cristiano Zanin, who disappointed the most progressive sectors by delivering a series of votes considered conservative last week. Pressured by the votes of his last nominee and also by the desire to nominate a Black woman, Lula defended on Tuesday, September 5th, that the votes of the members of the Supreme Court become secret. The president's speech had negative repercussions among members of the court and legal experts who commented in the country’s main newspapers. The Minister of Justice Flávio Dino, said, however, that this is a debate that takes place in different parts of the world and should take place in Brazil as well.

• LULA'S POPULARITY. An opinion poll released on Wednesday, August 6, by IPEC shows that 40 percent of Brazilians consider Lula's government “great” or “good”. For 32 percent the current government is “average,” while 25 percent consider it “bad” or “terrible.” Among respondents who have less access to formal education, Lula's approval reaches 54 percent. The poorest also have a more positive opinion of Lula: among those earning up to one minimum wage, 49 percent consider Lula “great” or “good”. Among those who earn more than five minimum wages, the “bad” or “terrible” rate is 39 percent.

• G20 SUMMIT. On Sunday, September 10, Brazil will assume the rotating presidency of the G20 at the group's summit in New Delhi, India. On that occasion, the Brazilian president will propose the creation of a task force composed of representatives of the 20 member countries of the group to combat hunger. There are more than 780 million people facing food insecurity in the world, which should serve as an argument in support of the Brazilian proposal. From a formal point of view, the country only assumes the rotating presidency on December 1, 2023, but Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India should make a symbolic handover of office to Lula during the summit.

• NATURAL DISASTERS. At least 36 people died in what is being classified by the government of the state of Rio Grande do Sul in the extreme south of Brazil, as "the greatest natural tragedy on record" in the region. A total of 79 cities were affected by heavy rains and floods that left more than 5,000 people homeless. Extreme natural calamaties have been increasingly frequent in the country and mainly affect poor people and economically more vulnerable communities, usually located in areas close to the slopes of hills and ebbs of rivers and other water courses

NEWS FROM SOCIAL ORGANIZATIONS AND MOVEMENTS:

A BLACK WOMAN ON THE SUPREME COURT. A group formed by more than 250 organizations of the Black movements launched this week a campaign called “Have a coffee with them, Lula”. The idea is to collect signatures to ask the president to have individual meetings with Black women who could be nominated for one of the 11 vacancies on the Supreme Court. The vacancy will open in October, after the retirement of Chief Justice Rosa Weber. Among the organizations that are part of the campaign are the Instituto de Referência Negra Peregun, the Geledes Instituto da Mulher Negra, Instituto Cultural Steve Biko, and Instituto Marielle Franco.

DEATH OF JOSE GREGORI. The National Human Rights Movement published on Monday, September 4, a note of condolence for the death of José Gregori, considered by the organization as “one of the main protagonists in the construction of public policy on human rights in Brazil.” The former national secretary for human rights (1997-2000) and former minister of justice (2000-2001) was 92 years old. The Arns Commission, of which Gregori was one of the founders, published articles by Luiz Carlos Bresser-Pereira and Paulo Sergio Pinheiro on Gregori's legacy.

TIMEFRAME. Greenpeace Brasil is close to reaching the mark of 500,000 signatures against the approval of the so-called “time frame”. As of Wednesday, September 6, the campaign launched on the internet had more than 489,000 supporters for the petition against the law, which, if approved, will restrict the demarcation of indigenous lands in Brazil to the regions that have been claimed as such up until 1988.

BOOK LAUNCH. On September 7, Alberto Kopittke from the civil society organization Cidade Segura (Safe City), launched the book “An Evidence-Based Public Safety Manual.” The event took place at the headquarters of the Inter-American Development Bank in Washington. The book had already been launched in Porto Alegre in July and in São Paulo in August.

Feature Article

by Mila Burns

The coup in Chile, 50 years later

On September 11, 1973, Salvador Allende addressed his fellow citizens for the last time before dying by his own hand while bombs exploded at the La Moneda presidential palace. Chileans listened over the radio to the democratically-elected socialist blaming his fall on “foreign capital, imperialism, united to conservatism.” He nominally pointed to members of the military, but did not directly mention the United States, who had been plotting to overthrow his government or Chilean leftist groups who had been pressuring him to fast-deliver his promise of a “Chilean path to socialism.”

Fifty years later, Chileans still debate the causes of the coup that inaugurated the Augusto Pinochet dictatorship, a violent regime that lasted 17 years, murdered over 2,000 people, tortured more than 30,000, and left a trail of economic failures. President Gabriel Boric announced his plans for a 50th anniversary commemoration that clearly condemned the coup. Among the organizers that he appointed was Patrício Fernandez, who resigned after being criticized for saying that “history can continue to debate” why the coup happened. 

When it comes to the Chilean September 11, the narrow strip of land between the Andes Mountains and the Pacific Ocean is large enough to fit numerous contradictions. According to a CERC-MORI poll conducted in May, 60 percent of Chileans consider that Pinochet will be remembered as a dictator. However, 36 percent argue that he modernized the economy, and the military was right to overthrow Allende. 

In October 2020, Chileans rushed to the polls amid a pandemic to scrap the constitution designed during the Pinochet administration. Last year, however, over 60 percent of the population rejected the change. In 2019, during the Estallido Social de Chile (Chile’s Social Outburst) thousands protested against neoliberal policies established during the authoritarian regime. Nonetheless, some of the leaders of the country were Pinochet’s heirs. The head of National Defense was Javier Iturriaga del Campo, whose uncle, Pablo Iturriaga, was accused of human rights violations. Andrés Chadwick, minister of the Interior during the first government of Sebastián Piñera, was a member of the Pinochetista youth group Frente Juvenil de Unidad Nacional (Youth Front of National Unity) and of the legislative commission of the military junta. Piñera is Chadwick’s cousin and the younger brother of José Piñera Echenique, who served as Pinochet’s minister of Labor, Social Security, and Mining. He was one of the Chicago Boys, the pupils of U.S. economist Milton Friedman who championed privatizations and laissez-faire policies.

This polarization has accompanied the country since the narrow election of Salvador Allende, in 1970, with 36 percent of the vote. At the time, the Chilean constitution determined that in case of a victory by a plurality, Congress needed to confirm the winner. Allende was only declared president after he signed the Estatuto de Garantias Constitucionales (By-laws for Constitutional Guarantees), promising to preserve the democratic regime. 

Allende’s program expressed a deep commitment to social and economic reforms. His policies envisioned the nationalization of banking and key industries—including U.S.-owned cooper mines—accelerated agrarian reform, and increased government control over the economy. Terrified, businesspeople, media conglomerates, and the governments of Brazil and the United States decided to act. The United States suspended loans. The CIA provided support to opposition groups and spent millions of dollars in covert operations that created an acute sensation of crisis through propaganda and support to strikes and protests against the government. Shortages of consumer goods became frequent, and inflation escalated. Many Chileans seem to attribute that to Allende’s incompetence, forgetting the heavy investments to deliver President Nixon’s demand to make the Chilean economy “scream” to “prevent Allende from coming to power or to unseat him.” 

The playbook came from Brazil. The Marches of the Empty Pots—large demonstrations reuniting thousands of upper-class women beating pots in protest against Allende’s economic policies—was led by the group El Poder Feminino (Feminine Power), inspired by the Brazilian Campaign of Women for Democracy (CAMDE). Furthermore, the Brazilian government considered training guerrilla groups in the Andes to fight against Allende and provided money, weapons, medicine, expertise, intelligence reports, and even torturers to the enemies of the socialist government. In Chile, Brazil internationalized its model of State terror and political repression much earlier than the infamous Operation Condor, a campaign implemented in 1975 by the Southern Cone dictatorships with the support of the United States, which resulted in 60,000 deaths and 400,000 imprisonments. The interchange of ideas, strategies, military supplies, and diplomatic policies between Brazil and Chile facilitated the fall of Allende, the strengthening of the Pinochet regime, and the intergovernmental terror campaign carried in the Condor years. 

The lack of consensus on the condemnation of the coup can seem like a formality. It is, however, instrumental in the solidification of Chilean democracy. So is accountability. Gabriel Boric launched a “Truth and Justice” program to investigate forced disappearances under Pinochet. The United States and Brazil should follow suit. Recognizing the state’s errors and responsibilities is part of good government and one of the few effective ways to prevent the memory of terror from fading.

Mila Burns is Assistant Professor at Lehman College (CUNY) and Associate Director at the Center for Latin American, Caribbean, and Latino Studies at The Graduate Center (CUNY)

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