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I love /GLW /and read it cover-to-cover when it arrives here in Durban
each week. But Stuart, just let me quickly query you on this opening
line: "In what has been widely condemned as a US-backed right-wing power
grab..."
The point I want to ask you about, and would ask Stedile if there's a
chance (as next week I'll be in Sao Paolo and Rio), is /why on earth
would it be useful to invoke Washington (and the potential for a US
attack on other BRICS) as a way of fighting this coup?
/The first reaction of Stedile was to say that the coup has Obama
fingerprints, and one reason for overthrowing Dilma is her role in
building the BRICS bloc. As I understand it, this was a technique for
delegitimising the coup plotters, by linking them to imperialism.
As I understand it, and could be wrong, /the only evidence associated
with Washington's imperialist pro-coup agenda in Brazil is a ten-year
old WikiLeaks State Department cable which reflects Temer's role as a
mole. Back then.
/But Dilma must have known this (it's been public since 2010 when these
cables were leaked) and she chose him as her VP, and in any case
thousands of foolish people had the same role, surely. Is that all the
evidence that the international left has to use the description
"US-backed"? (Correct me if I'm wrong - but that seems thin. We can
surely do better?)
It seems to me that since Stedile (and quite a few others) started
making this allegation about the US role around 12 May, they have had
these problems:
1) lack of evidence aside from the 10-year old memos
2) the other four BRICS have done nothing, and indeed India is publicly
welcoming Temer to the next BRICS Summit in Goa
3) other Latin American countries have been much more forceful in
condemning the coup, again showing in contrast how little the BRICS
offer each other solidarity in such situations
4) the need to activate progressives in places like South Africa and
India, to protest at Brazilian embassies, is made more difficult by
invoking the "BRICS coups" hypothesis, since at least in South Africa
and India, the progressive movements would largely love to see the end
of their present regimes and are quite suspicious of BRICS (since all
the BRICS have done in the public eye is spout anti-imperialist rhetoric
while in practice signing on to imperialism's climate, IMF, world
finance and world trade deals in recent months)...
As a result, until seeing this GLW article, I had a sense that Stedile
and the various commentators who are invoking the "US-backed" coup
thesis, were changing their tune the last few days, once the new
evidence of why the coup is a corruption cover-up strategy had emerged.
So, I'm just asking about the rationales we invoke, because obviously
the line of argument taken up by comrades around the world will affect
our sensibilities regarding solidarity.
Here's my perspective:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/05/27/imperialisms-junior-partners/
Cheers,
Patrick
On 2016/05/28 05:31 AM, Stuart Munckton via Marxism wrote:
https://www.greenleft.org.au/node/61843
_________________________________________________________
Brazil's coup gov't 'has revealed its true intentions', MST leader says
Saturday, May 28, 2016
In what has been widely condemned as a US-backed right-wing power grab
to impose harsh neoliberal measures, Brazil's Workers' Party (PT)
President Dilma Rousseff was forced to stand aside by Brazil's Senate on
May 12 while she faces impeachment procedures.
However, the “institutional coup” has been met with widespread protests
and the new administration is facing a host of problems.
This includes the resignation of the coup government's planning minister
following revelations he directly conspired to have Dilma removed to
halt corruption investigations against a range of politicians and
business executives, including himself.
/*João Pedro Stédile*/ is leader of Brazil's Landless Rural Workers
Movement (MST), one of the world's largest social movements. In an
article translated by Federico Fuentes and abridged from Links
International Journal of Socialist Renewal
<http://links.org.au/node/4701>, he looks at how the coup government has
revealed its true intentions.
***
It only took a few hours for the provisional government of the
coup-plotters to install themselves and demonstrate their intentions
through the composition of its cabinet, the plans it has announced and
its public declarations.
The Senate only forced Dilma to temporarily step aside and provisionally
installed [vice-president] Michel Temer. Some lawyers say the
constitution stipulates that the vice-president cannot reshuffle the
cabinet. He should be limited to administrative acts until the merits of
the case against Dilma are decided.
But the last thing the coup-plotters and their accomplices in the
Supreme Court are doing is respecting the constitution. As [former
president Ignacio] Lula [da Silva] said, it is as if “you went on
holidays and left someone to provisionally look after your house, and
they sold it and remodelled everything inside”.
The cabinet of the coup-plotters is a festival of thieves. All men,
white, hypocrites and rotten. The Rede Globo [media conglomerate]
campaigned intensely over the past few months, insinuating that Dilma
should be deposed due to the levels of corruption in her government.
The middle class that mobilised in the streets clamoured for the return
of the military dictatorship to put an end to the corrupt PTers.
Well, among Temer's newly appointed ministers, there are no less than
seven facing corruption charges. As politician Ciro Gomes said, “they
handed over the government to a trade union of criminals” and no one had
the courage to put them on trial.
The measures announced or already taken by the coup government are a
tragedy for Brazilian people. But they are coherent with its neoliberal
plan to reduce the cost of labour, hand over our resources, privatise
what they can and redirect public funds that were going to education,
health and social security to business owners.
They have already proposed a provisional measure that allows for the
potential privatisation of all state companies, such as [oil company]
Petrobras, electricity companies, ports and airports. They will probably
start with the electricity companies and recently found reserves of
deep-water oil.
In response, there will be a national protest on June 6 in Rio de
Janiero to denounce this attack on our national sovereignty.
In terms of social security, they want to impose a minimum retirement
age of 65 for men and women, and a pension no longer tied to the minimum
wage.
In terms of health care, they have announced cuts to the Universal
Health System (SUS) and the end of the More Doctors program that covers
50 million poor Brazilians living in areas where no white coats had gone
before. They are even talking about cutting the Emergency Mobile
Attention System (SAMU).
In terms of interest rates, nothing has been said about the R$500
billion [about A$195 billion] designated each year to bankers through
the payment of the internal debt. This is why they put two bankers in
charge of looking after the chicken coop.
In agriculture and land reform, they had no problems closing the
Ministry for Agricultural Development and its programs for peasants.
The coup government has made it clear to the people what its interests
are and how it will act.
That is why all the popular movements and organisations that are part of
the Popular Brazil Front and the People Without Fear Front, along with
other coalitions, have united behind the slogan “No to the coup, Temer Out!”
None of us will accept a process of negotiation or sit at the table with
representatives of an illegitimate and unpatriotic coup government.
Thankfully, Brazilian society and the international community has
quickly understood the nature of this illegitimate government. And the
slogan “No to the coup, Temer out!” has reverberated in numerous events,
public acts and ceremonies.
Outside the country, hundreds of protests have occurred in front of
Brazilian embassies. The international media that continues to follow
the manual of listening to both sides, demoralised the local media by
denouncing the character of the coup.
Personalities from around the world have spoken out. Pope Francis drew
attention to the “soft coups” underway in some countries, although he
did not directly cite Brazil. The respected US academic Noam Chomsky, as
well as Nobel prize winners such as Adolfo Perez Esquivel and Rigoberta
Menchu, and even artists at the Cannes film festival have expressed
their solidarity and denounced the coup.
In Brazil, public protests have multiplied as diverse sectors take to
the streets, including high school students, artists and intellectuals.
For the first time, they occupied more than 20 offices of the National
Arts Foundation across the country, forcing the coup-plotters to
reinstate the Ministry of Culture. Young people have returned to the
streets to protest.
And where are those who supported the coup? The “greens and yellows”
against corruption? They are embarrassed, at home. They have disappeared.
Certainly, from now on the popular mobilisations will increase in size
and numbers of sectors mobilised. The Popular Brazil Front has organised
a calendar of mobilisations and activities across the country for the
next few months.
Within the trade union movement, the drums have begun to sound in
preparation for a general strike, paralysing productive activities in
opposition to the measures of the coup government.
Moreover, solidarity with Dilma is increasing, despite the criticisms we
have made during of her term. She has been invited to participate in
many mass activities in Brazil, where we will loudly and clearly say
that 54 million voters — the majority of the Brazilian people — elected
her to govern the country until 2018.
_________________________________________________________
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