‘Brazil Is One of the Most Unequal Countries in the World’
‘Brazil Is One of the Most Unequal Countries in the World’
CounterSpin interview with Maria Luisa Mendonça on Brazil's president under fire
By Janine Jackson
Apr
28
2016
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Maria Luisa Mendonça: “This is not an impeachment, because there is no legal basis for the impeachment right now.”
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Janine Jackson: The situation in Brazil—where President Dilma Rousseff faces impeachment charges spurred by legislators, many of whom are themselves under investigation for corruption—is hard to grasp at a glance, but glances are all we get in US media. And when it comes to Latin America, elite media haven’t been shy about their disaffection for leftist governments, sometimes going to great lengths to paint them as delusional and dangerous to the region, and somehow to the US.
So how do we assess the situation in Brazil without that particular filter? Here to help us with that is Maria Luisa Mendonça. She is director of Brazil’s Network for Social Justice and Human Rights, and a professor in the international relations department at the University of Rio de Janeiro. She joins us now by phone. Welcome to CounterSpin, Maria Luisa Mendonça.
Maria Luisa Mendonça: Thank you very much.
JJ: NBC’s Chuck Todd retweeted an image of some of the people protesting in the street for Dilma Rousseff’s impeachment, and it was labeled “The People vs. the President.” And that’s kind of the picture you get from a quick look at US media. Is that a fair picture of what’s happening in Brazil? What would be a clearer picture of events there?
MLM: Yes, that’s not at all a clear picture. What we have been seeing in the media in the United States is a very simplistic version, basically saying that there are accusations of corruption against the government, and people were protesting against the government. What is missing is that there have been huge demonstrations in favor, in support of the government, and against what we are calling a coup.
This is not an impeachment, because there is no legal basis for the impeachment right now. The president has not been accused of any corruption crimes, and the opposition parties themselves are the ones concerned with the recent investigations of corruption. Because the government gave more autonomy to the federal police, and several opposition leaders are being accused of having, for instance, hidden accounts in Switzerland, in offshores with millions of dollars. That has been documented.
The accusation they are using against the president is that she used a type of budget mechanism to borrow from public banks and then invest in social programs in Brazil, which is a very common mechanism that is being used by other administrations, previous administrations in Brazil, by state governors. And every country in the world issues bonds to pay for social spending. The United States does this.
So there is no legal basis for the impeachment, and there is a lot of support for the government. In fact, because the opposition has not been able to win elections in more than a decade, and they never accepted the result of the elections that happened just last year that re-elected Dilma Rousseff, they are trying to subvert the electoral process and take power.
More:
http://fair.org/home/brazil-is-one-of-the-most-unequal-countries-in-the-world/