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The New York Times reports today: “In a stunning twist in the effort to impeach President Dilma Rousseff of Brazil, the new speaker of the lower house of Congress has changed his mind — less than 24 hours after announcing that he would try to annul his chamber’s decision to impeach her.”

MARIA LUISA MENDONÇA,  marialuisam222 at gmail.com
Currently in the U.S., Mendonça is director of Brazil’s Network for Social Justice and Human Rights. She is also a professor in the international relations department at the University of Rio De Janeiro.

She said today: “The procedures to impeach president Dilma Rousseff in Brazil are looking more like tragic theater every day. Yesterday, the speaker of the lower House, Waldir Maranhao, canceled the decision taken by the plenary on April 17, which approved the impeachment, pointing to several illegal measures in that vote. Late last night, Maranhao canceled his own decision. Earlier yesterday, the speaker in the Senate, Renan Calheiros, ignored Maranhao’s decision to cancel the April 17 vote, and declared that he would move ahead with the Senate vote, which could make the whole impeachment process illegal. Last week, the Supreme Court accepted charges of corruption against former House speaker, Eduardo Cunha, who orchestrated and conducted the impeachment vote on April 17, in which the accusations against the president were rarely mentioned during the vote. Most Congress members declared that they were supporting the impeachment in the name of God, their families, and one of them even praised a former military commander who tortured several political activists during the military dictatorship in Brazil.

“President Dilma Rousseff is accused of using a common financial mechanism to cover social program expenses in the federal budget by borrowing funds from public banks, which previous administrations also used, as well as local administrations. On the other hand, most Congress members in favor of the impeachment face serious investigations of corruption.

“Media outlets in Brazil play a key role in this process, calling demonstrations against the government. A key player is Globo TV, which is known for supporting the military dictatorship that lasted more than 20 years in Brazil. Globo executives were recently mentioned in connection with the Panama Papers, and in the investigations against FIFA for illegal procedures in negotiating broadcast rights of soccer games.

“At the same time, large demonstrations against the impeachment and in defense of the democratic process that elected president Rousseff have been ignored by mainstream media. If the electoral process is undermined in Brazil, major political institutions will lose credibility, including the National Congress and the Judiciary, given the contradictions and irregularities that can put democracy at risk. The vice-president, Michael Temer, who hopes to assume the presidency, will not have legitimacy as his popularity is extremely low and he is currently facing corruption charges.

“The main agenda for impeaching President Rousseff is to stop investigations of corruption against Congress members and media executives, and to implement severe austerity measures and cuts in social programs, which will increase social inequality and economic instability.”

A new report details how Harvard University and U.S.-based pension fund TIAA are involved in forest fires burning in a key ecosystem — the Brazilian savannah (Cerrado). The report is based on satellite imagery and fire data from NASA to construct maps that show the correlation between the location of TIAA and Harvard farms in the Cerrado and fire hot spots. The maps show active fires and burnt forests next to and within TIAA and Harvard farms.​

A coalition of TIAA clients as well as environmental and human rights organizations are demanding that financial corporations stop speculating with forests and farmland. On October 18, Altamiran Ribeiro of Brazil’s Land Pastoral Commission, who works with the affected communities, and a group of TIAA clients delivered a petition with about 40,000 signatures to the Washington, D.C. office of TIAA. The petition calls on TIAA’s Trustees to hold the corporation accountable by stopping it from buying farmland globally, and especially in Brazil, and demanding that TIAA meet with communities to repair the damage. The petition and previous reports are available at: https://www.stoplandgrabs.org/en-us/.​

MARIA LUISA MENDONCA, marialuisam222 at gmail.com ​
Mendonça is a PhD in Human Geography and is director of the Network for Social Justice and Human Rights in Brazil and visiting research scholar at the CUNY Graduate Center.​

She said today: “Land speculation by pension funds and endowment funds, such as TIAA and Harvard University, is stimulating land grabbing and causing displacement of rural communities and environmental destruction. These corporations promote extensive mono-cropping of agricultural commodities, which cannot be sustainable. This agricultural system is based on chemical inputs and fossil fuels, constituting a major cause of climate change. The main area targeted by this process, the Cerrado (Brazilian savannah), is a unique ecosystem because of its rich biodiversity, river springs and rain cycles, which are connected to the Amazon and the Central-South regions of the country.”​

JIM GOODMAN, r.j.goodman at mwt.net, @familyfarmco​
Goodman is Board President of the National Family Farm Coalition.​

He said: “Short-sighted, power-hungry governments allow and incentivize corporate agribusinesses and land speculators to control the global food system for their one and only priority — profit. Burning off rain forests and savannas of Brazil and consolidating massive tracts of farmland in the U.S. will only cause more famine, more environmental devastation, and more economic suffering for family farmers and rural communities. These corporations and the financial institutions that support them, whether in the U.S. or in Brazil, must be held accountable.”​

JEFF CONANT, jconant at foe.org, @FoEint​
Conant is Senior International Forests Program Manager at Friends of the Earth U.S.​

He said today: “When financial actors like Harvard and TIAA invest in vast tracts of land in fragile ecosystem like Brazil’s Cerrado, they are promoting exactly the kind of agro-industrial development and corporate land concentration we need to move away from in the era of ecological collapse and climate apartheid. That their landholdings appear to be literally on fire should be a wake-up call to these firms and their beneficiaries that the business model they promote is the farthest thing from sustainable or responsible.”

In January, accuracy.org warned in a news release that the far-right Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro “Wants to Plunder the Amazon. Don’t Let Him.”

Now, under Brazil’s far-right leader, the New York Times is reporting Amazon protections are being slashed and forests fall as Sao Paulo, the largest city in the Western Hemisphere, is plunged into darkness during the day as thick smoke from Amazon wildfires blankets the city.

As environmental defenders — often while fighting agribusiness — are being violently silenced, National Geographic is reporting that a “world food crisis looms if carbon emissions go unchecked, UN says.”

Open Democracy is reporting: “Leaked documents show Brazil’s Bolsonaro has grave plans for Amazon rainforest.”

MARIA LUISA MENDONÇA, marialuisam222 at gmail.com
Maria Luisa Mendonça holds a PhD in Human Geography from the University of São Paulo, is co-director of the Network for Social Justice and Human Rights in Brazil and is currently a visiting scholar at the CUNY Graduate Center in New York City. She said today: “The international community needs to send a strong message to the far-right government in Brazil because its policies are stimulating unprecedented environmental destruction in the Amazon, with dramatic consequences to climate change around the world. Destroying the Amazon to open space for agribusiness will not bring economic development to Brazil because [its] agricultural system is a main cause of climate change. The expansion of mono-cropping of agricultural commodities is destroying soil fertility, biodiversity, wildlife and water sources. We need to preserve our natural resources and create an ecological agriculture system, protecting land rights of indigenous and small farming communities.”

ALEXANDER MAIN, main at cepr.net, @ceprdc
Director of international policy at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, Main has written extensively on Brazil and has been tracking movement on the issue on Capitol Hill.

On Wednesday, Rep. Hank Johnson wrote a letter signed by 12 other members of congress to Attorney General William Barr “asking the Department of Justice (DOJ) to explain the scope of its involvement in the tainted and politicized case against Brazil’s former president Lula da Silva, and Brazil’s broad ‘Lava Jato’ (Car Wash) corruption investigation.”

“There is strong evidence that Brazil’s former president Lula was the target of a highly political operation involving the current Justice Minister that was intended to keep him off the ballot in last year’s elections, which he almost certainly would have won,” Rep. Johnson said. “We need to be sure that DOJ was not party to this tainted process.”

Main and Mendonça have been on a series of accuracy.org releases about the increased authoritarianism in Brazil in recent years, beginning with an effective coup against Dilma Rousseff. In “Confessing to Brazilian Coup * U.S. Complicity,” in 2016, Main noted: “The Obama administration continues to celebrate and support the new, illegitimate rightwing government of Michel Temer which took power following the baseless impeachment of elected president Dilma Rousseff. On Sept. 22, Vice President Joe Biden met with Temer and ‘commended [him] for his commitment to maintaining Brazil’s regional and global leadership role during the recent period of political change in Brazil.’”

Today, Main adds that “the U.S. Department of Justice’s record of enthusiastic support for ‘Lava Jato’ prosecutors who — as an ongoing Intercept investigation has revealed — colluded with a corrupt judge (and current justice minister) to put Lula in jail and keep him off the ballot, raises serious questions regarding the extent to which the U.S. government has been involved in anti-democratic political interference in Brazil under the guise of judicial cooperation.”

MARIA LUISA MENDONÇA, marialuisam222 at gmail.com
Maria Luísa Mendonça, director of the Network for Social Justice and Human Rights in Brazil said today: “As Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro visits Washington, D.C. this week, we must point out his record of racism, misogyny and homophobic views. Bolsonaro represents an extremist tendency that finds in Trump a strong ally. He has expressed support for the military dictatorship and its torturers, saying that Brazil’s regime at that time did not go far enough in killing political opponents. Recent investigations about the assassination of Rio de Janeiro state legislator Marielle Franco suggest links between Bolsonaro’s family and militia members accused of killing her.”

ALEXANDER MAIN, main at cepr.net, @ceprdc
Director of international policy at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, Main said today: “Venezuela will undoubtedly be at the top of the agenda in the meeting between Bolsonaro and Trump. The current U.S. strategy for regime change in Venezuela — based on supporting Juan Guaido’s claim to the Venezuelan presidency and trying to trigger a military coup against the Maduro government — has not been working.  The Trump administration’s single-minded goal is to persuade South American allies to join the U.S. in imposing crippling economic sanctions on Venezuela. There are also signs that Trump and his team — which now includes hawkish Iran-Contra hand Elliott Abrams — would like to see Venezuela’s neighbors, Colombia and Brazil, intervene militarily in Venezuela, with possible U.S. logistical support. While there exists resistance to these plans within Bolsonaro’s government, the Brazilian president, who is one of Trump’s biggest international fans, is likely to commit to taking on a much more aggressive policy towards Venezuela.”

See past Institute for Public Accuracy news releases on Bolsonaro.

DIANA JOHNSTONE, diana.johnstone at wanadoo.fr
Johnson is a U.S. political writer based in Paris, France. She focuses primarily on European politics and Western foreign policy. Her writings regularly appear at Counterpunch. Recent pieces include “Macron’s Mission: Save the European Union From Itself,” “The Single Party French State … as the Majority of Voters Abstain” and “Nuclear Weapons Ban? What Needs to be Banned Is U.S. Arrogance.”

Her father was Paul H. Johnstone, who for two decades was a senior analyst in the Strategic Weapons Evaluation Group in the Pentagon. His memoirs, with her commentary, was just published in the book From Mad to Madness: Inside Pentagon Nuclear War Planning. Edward S. Herman states: “In excellent background and updating accounts Diana Johnstone shows that no lessons have been learned from earlier mishaps and near misses; that with its new aggressiveness and upgrading of nuclear weapons the U.S. political class has opened a new round of nuclear madness.”

MARIA LUISA MENDONÇA, marialuisam222 at gmail.org
Mendonça is coordinator of the Network for Social Justice and Human Rights in Brazil and director of the Feminist Alliance for Rights at the Center for Women’s Global Leadership at Rutgers University. She said today: “Most news stories about the sentence do not explain the actual case against former president Lula da Silva. Even when they quote his lawyers, they fail to include the most important point, which is the fact that there is no concrete evidence that Lula is the owner of an apartment that is portrayed as a key part of an alleged bribe to Lula by a construction company that is accused of involvement in a corruption scheme. A basic question for anyone who defends justice and democracy, independently of their political affiliation, should be: why is someone sentenced to nine and a half years in prison if the prosecutors were not able to produce concrete evidence of a crime? The fact that Lula is still the most popular politician in the country and is ahead in the polls for the 2018 presidential elections raises serious questions around the motivation behind his sentence.

“Similarly, president Dilma Rousseff — also of the Workers’ Party — was impeached last year even though there was no case of corruption against her. Her political opponents used a common budgetary practice observed under previous administrations to justify her impeachment. Even observers who disagree with the Workers Party’s positions need to look further into the specific cases targeting Workers’ Party leaders and ask whether their main purpose is to justify political maneuvers and undermine electoral democracy in Brazil.”

ALEXANDER MAIN, via Dan Beeton: beeton at cepr.net
Main is senior associate for International Policy at the Center for Economic and Policy Research. He said today: “The sentencing of former president Lula da Silva to over nine years in jail, takes place against a backdrop of unpopular neoliberal reforms forced on the population by a corrupt, unelected government. The sentence against Lula has understandably dominated the news cycle and eclipsed another major piece of news: the Brazilian Congress’ decision to approve government sponsored labor reforms that will lead to the dismantling of workers’ rights in every sector of the economy. It will vastly reduce basic worker protections and job security by opening up all professions to temporary contracts, eliminating limits to the amount of hours that employees can be required to work, as well as other draconian modifications to existing labor laws.

“This is but one of a series of reforms that have taken place since president Dilma Rousseff was removed from office through an illegitimate impeachment process that allowed rightwing political forces to seize executive power and embark on an economic program rejected by a vast majority of Brazilians. Shortly after the impeachment, the government of Rousseff’s illegitimate successor Michel Temer pushed through a constitutional reform that will lead to major cuts in health, education and other public sector programs. Massive protests were met with violent state repression.

“Now, Brazil’s conservative sectors are intent on staying in power and reversing the progressive advances made in recent years. At this stage, only one politician poses a serious threat to their agenda: former president Lula da Silva who is currently the frontrunner in polls despite facing a relentless judicial campaign headed by Judge Sergio Moro. And so, while Lula faces a nearly ten-year sentence based on flimsy charges and no evidence, president Temer remains in power, even as concrete proof of his involvement in major bribery schemes has emerged in the press. Lula has appealed the sentence. The upcoming determination of the appeals court will provide an indication as to whether Brazilians can still trust the judicial system and whether there is still some prospect of a democratic future for the country.”

RACHEL SMOLKER
Research biologist at the Global Justice Ecology Project, Smolker said today: “In just the past week [the U.S. government] permitted field testing of a eucalyptus genetically engineered specifically for biofuel production, a $375 million DOE grant was made to fund three major bioenergy research centers, BP and DuPont fronted most of $400 million for a ‘world class’ biofuel plant in the U.K., and the U.S. Senate passed a bill to mandate a target of 36 billion gallons of biofuel by 2022. The pace at which biofuels are being promoted is staggering.

“Behind the corporate ‘greenwash’ that biofuels will help solve the problem of global warming is an unfolding environmental and social catastrophe. The idea that we can solve our problems by permitting huge multinational corporations to grab up agricultural lands and cut down forests in order to install massive industrial plantations of fuel feedstocks is ludicrous and extremely dangerous. The direct and indirect impacts on food, soils, water, indigenous people and biodiversity are already evident. Any greenhouse gas emission savings is far outweighed by the emissions caused by deforestation and industrial agriculture. The oil, biotechnology and agribusiness industries see massive profits and are forging alliances to consolidate food and fuel production under one collosal industrial roof.”
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MARIA LUISA MENDONÇA
Maria Luisa Mendonça is based in São Paulo and is in the U.S. until Saturday at the U.S. Social Forum in Atlanta. She is director of the Social Network for Justice and Human Rights and co-wrote an article titled “The Myth of Biofuels.” She said today: “Now there is a real concern in the U.S. about global warming and that’s good because the U.S. is responsible for 25 percent of all air pollution, so of course it’s important that the U.S. public take responsibility for that. But no alternative energy source would meet the current demands for oil in this country. Right now there are about 770 cars for each 1,000 people in the U.S., so this is not a sustainable sort of society. So before we talk about alternative sources of energy, we need to talk about massive good-quality public transportation — and then talk about the impacts of the current sources for biofuel and bio-diesel and ethanol.

“In the case of ethanol, the main sources now are sugarcane and corn, and both have several problems in terms of environmental destruction because any type of extensive agricultural process will have an impact in terms of the amount of water you need, the soil pollution with pesticides, and of course the ground water pollution. In the case of sugarcane there is also the problem of burning sugarcane which causes air pollution as well. And in the case of bio-diesel, which is mainly made from palm oil and soybeans, this is causing a great deal of deforestation, destroying the rain forest in Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Malaysia and Indonesia. So using agricultural land for biofuels is not really sustainable.

“In addition to all environmental issues, we have also serious labor rights violations in the case of cutting sugarcane. …

“Biofuels can actually make global warming worse in the case of Brazil, because in the case of Brazil carbon emissions are not as much because of our lifestyle, like in the United States. Carbon emissions for Brazil are for the most part because of the destruction of the rain forest in Brazil, so putting more pressure on expensive agriculture will only mean more destruction of the rain forest and therefore more emission of carbon and more global warming.”
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For more information, contact the Institute for Public Accuracy at (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan at (541) 484-9167.

MARIA LUISA MENDONÇA
Maria Luisa Mendonça is in São Paulo where Bush will be arriving this afternoon; protests are expected.

She is director of the Social Network for Justice and Human Rights and can address a host of issues pertaining to Brazil and Latin America. Most recently, she co-wrote an article in the newspaper Brazil de Fato titled “The Myth of Biofuels,” which states: “The acceleration of global warming is a fact that places in risk life on the planet. It is necessary, however, to demystify the principal solution presented at the moment and … the supposed benefits of biofuels. …”

“The ‘efficiency’ of our production is due to the use of cheap labor — even slave labor. … Besides the destruction of the environment and the use of agricultural lands for the production of biomass, there are other polluting effects in the process, such as the construction of transport infrastructure, warehouses for storage, which demand a great quantity of energy, of in-puts (fertilizers and agro-toxics) and of irrigation to guarantee the increase of production. … The expansion of biofuels production puts at risk food sovereignty and can deeply aggravate the problem of world hunger. In Mexico, for example, the increase of corn exports to sustain the ethanol market in the U.S. caused an increase of 400 percent in the price of the product, which is the population’s main food source.”

Senator EDUARDO SUPLICY
Suplicy is a Brazilian Senator representing the State of São Paulo, where Bush will be arriving. He was the sponsor of the “Citizen’s Basic Income” legislation that was signed into law in 2004. The law is grounded in the concept that an unconditional and guaranteed minimum income is the simplest and most effective step toward the eradication of poverty.
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CATHERINE LUTZ
The International Conference for the Abolition of Foreign Military Bases is being held in Ecuador.

Professor of anthropology at Brown University and the Watson Institute for International Studies, Lutz said today: “Officially, a quarter of a million U.S. troops are massed in 737 major bases in 130 countries in facilities worth $115 billion. …

“While the bases are literally weapons depots and staging areas for warmaking and ship repair facilities and golf courses and basketball ourts, they are also political claims, spoils of war, arms sales showrooms, toxic industrial sites, laboratories for cultural (mis)communication, and collections of customers for local bars, shops, and prostitution.” Lutz is editor of the forthcoming book, Bases, Empire and Global Response.
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JAMES PETRAS
Author of numerous books including Social Movements and State Power: Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Ecuador, Petras said today: “Bush’s visit to Latin American is an effort to recoup declining imperial influence by consolidating ties with both the rightist client regimes (Uribe in Colombia and Calderon in Mexico) and the pseudo ‘center-left’ neo-liberal regimes of Vazquez [in Uruguay] and Lula [in Brazil]. The purpose is to integrate these client regimes into the U.S. economic and diplomatic orbit and to construct an anti-Chavez coalition. Given that Bush has no popular support in Latin America, he will only meet with client rulers behind closed doors with heavy security protecting him. Parallel to Bush’s visit, President Chavez will visit Argentina where tens of thousands of people will attend a mass public meeting to welcome him.” Petras is professor emeritus at Binghamton University.
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MARK WEISBROT
An economist and co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, Weisbrot writes frequently about economic and political developments in Latin America. His most recent article is “President Bush’s Trip to Latin America is All About Denial,” which states: “Latin America’s economic growth over the last 25 years has been a disaster — the worst long-term growth failure in more than a hundred years. From 1980-2000 GDP per person grew by only 9 percent, and another 4 percent for 2000-2005. Compare this to 82 percent for just the two decades from 1960-1980, and it is easy to see why candidates promising new economic policies have been elected (and some re-elected) in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Uruguay, and Venezuela. They also came close to winning in Mexico, Peru, and Costa Rica.”
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For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020, (202) 421-6858; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167

NJOKI NJOROGE NJEHU
Director of 50 Years Is Enough Network, Njehu will be in Cologne with other members of the Jubilee 2000 movement. “So far the proposals the G-7 have put forward are woefully inadequate,” she said. “They are still maintaining adherence to IMF structural adjustment programs as qualifying criteria for countries to receive minimal levels of debt relief. We want food, medicine, shelter, schools that work and clean water… The international Jubilee 2000 movement and people in impoverished countries have called for debt cancellation by the year 2000… Thousands will be in Cologne on Saturday [June 19] to deliver this message to G-7 heads of government. The debts must be canceled.”
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MARIA LUISA MENDONCA
Director of the Brazil Program for Global Exchange, Mendonca said: “Brazil sends more money to the World Bank than it receives. The IMF and World Bank are busy encouraging the government of Brazil to protect foreign investors and speculators while unemployment is 20 percent and rising; 400,000 small-scale farmers lost their land in the last four years; and salaries have remained stagnant for the past five years. The G-7 meeting holds no promise of positive change for Brazil’s poor and working-class majority.”
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ELLEN FRANK
Associate professor of economics at Emmanuel College in Boston, Frank said: “The economic policies that G-7 countries have — through the IMF — forced on the developing countries do benefit some groups in the United States. Multinational corporations are big winners since they reap huge profits from the resulting lower prices of raw materials, even as they charge the same prices for finished products. But small businesses and most workers are hurt by the global instability: export markets have collapsed for many goods, and wages have fallen worldwide.”
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WILLIAM DARITY JR.
Darity, professor of economics at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, said Thursday: “Every one of the G-7 countries has a problem of inter-group, race and/or ethnically based employment, income and social status disparities. Illustrating the continuation of the ‘last hired, first fired’ phenomenon for African Americans, it took years of sustained economic growth in this country to make inroads on black youth unemployment. Similarly, Germany’s Turkish and other immigrant workers, France and the U.K.’s African, Middle Eastern and South Asian workers, Japan’s Korean workers and Canada’s non-white workers are in the same position as minority workers in the United States. But the G-7 leaders focus exclusively on commercial policies and they refuse to challenge the economic interests of the groups who benefit most from those policies.”

For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy: Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; David Zupan, (541) 484-9167