Strong public opinion support for Lula

Viva Lula!!

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Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva administration approval rating stands at 41,9%, according to a public opinion poll released this week.

The poll from the Sensus Institute and contracted by the Brazilian Transport Confederation CNT, indicates that Mr. Lula’s administration support remains strong in the 41% range. Last August it had dropped from 48,3% to 41,6% in October.

Similarly the negative assessment of his administration exhibits minimum variation from 12,3% last October to 12,9% in the first week of December.

As to President Lula da Silva’s personal approval it remains strong: 70,5% last October and 69,9% the first week of December.

http://www.falkland-malvinas.com/Detalle.asp?NUM=2972


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Amr Moussa, Secretary General of the Arab League, right, talks to Brazilian (news - web sites) President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva upon his arrival at a meeting with Arab representatives at the Arab League headquarter in Cairo Tuesday, Dec.9, 2003. Silva is on a two-day visit to Egypt among a regional trip to boost Brazil's economic ties with Arab nations. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil)

in Iraq right now, Lula would be a dead man. I still think Chavez is doomed.

if he is overthrown it would be a bloodbath

However, I've been watching things for a long time now,
and I think Bush is fucked in Latin America. He has a
lot more than Chavez to worry about. Lula is not as loud
as Chavez, but he isn't going to obey either. And we have
our lips so tightly wrapped around Chavez's oil spigot we
cannot afford another interruption, and Chavez will not be
removed quietly. Iraq was supposed to fill that void, but
that isn't going to happen any time soon, and Bush is toast
if another oil shock occurs. It is not an accident that the
Latin American leaders are getting together and telling the
US to shove off NOW. I'm waiting to see what happens with
the CAFTA thing.

yes, we could all be doomed.

Postings at other boards from folks who have lived in LatAm speculate that Colombia is the next to go left. Someone from Colombian posted this recently:
__________________________________
"...a ray of hope, with the new Mayor of Bogota, Cali and the Narino Governor. All they are center_left people.

I think Colombia is going to left turn completely and I guess it's the right thing and the right time. Check very well these names: Luis Garzon. Antonio Navarro-Wolf, Antanas Mockus. Anyone of this names will be the next Colombian presdient. All the four are Center-left.

Note: If the Colombian Militaries, well trained in the School of the Americas, do not decide to kill them. "
__________________________________

you better believe that will be where a nest of "terrorists" is suddenly discovered.
Another reason to de-select George.

worst human rights record in the hemisphere. 85% of the military aid we send goes to the military who in turn trains and advises the paras. 70% of the atrocities have been done by the paras, and the atrocities being commited are done in the areas with the richest resources (READ: OIL and PRECIOUS METALS)!!

Now Uribe, with close ties to the paras, wants them to disarm. The 2nd group layed down their weapons this week and human right orgs around the globe are outraged because Uribe doesn't want them prosecuted for human rights abuses. We're talking here about horrific acts against civilians--some involving chain saws!! This is what the US supports in Colombia. This is our tax dollars at work.

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..Role of Paramilitaries

The Colombian army has long been accused of cooperating with the paramilitaries because both sides share a common enemy in the guerrillas. The paramilitaries, financed by drugs and large landowners, use massacres and torture to fight the rebels in areas that have been neglected by Colombia's thinly stretched armed forces.

U.S. and Colombian officials defend the training plan, saying it will protect oil flow along the pipeline, which provides an important source of revenue for the Colombian government. The additional income from the protected pipeline will allow the Colombian government to step up efforts to combat the rebels and paramilitaries, the officials argue, as well as the drugs that flow to U.S. streets.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/0915-07.htm


Loose translation: The United States seems destined by providence to plague the Americas with misery in name of the freedom.

while it represented the continuation of past policies and very consistant tendencies, who did "Plan Colombia" start under?

Unfortunately, that's not the answer to everything.

called Inside Plan Colombia: Drugs, Democracy and War by Grace Livingstone. Here's a bit from an interview with her.

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Mariela Kohon: In your recently published book Inside Colombia, you state that Plan Colombia has been turned from a peace plan into a ‘battle plan’ and that ‘the military element is by far the most important’. What is Plan Colombia and what do you mean by this statement?

Grace Livingstone: There were two versions of Plan Colombia. The first version was written in Spanish by Colombians in May 1999. It was not particularly radical, but it was a peace and development plan which aimed to dissuade peasants from growing coca crops or joining armed groups by investing in alternative rural development and education. It did not mention drugs trafficking, military action or spraying crops with pesticides.

US officials re-wrote the draft entirely in October 1999. Their involvement was so extensive that the final version of Plan Colombia was published in English – not Spanish. Strengthening the authority of the state (by re-equipping and expanding the armed forces) became the main objective. An intensive militarised crop spraying campaign was also introduced. The US basically transformed Plan Colombia to meet their own perceived security needs – that is, the need to combat the Colombian guerrillas. It was used as a vehicle to step up counter-insurgency aid and US military involvement in Colombia at a time when combating drugs was the only acceptable pretext for intervention.

Some have argued that Colombia’s recently elected president, Alvaro Uribe Velez, with the backing of the US, is imposing ‘state terrorism’. What are your thoughts on this?

Colombia’s human rights record was so appalling in the 1990s that the US Congress banned all military aid to Colombia, except counter-narcotics aid. Of course, the counter-drugs aid found its way to counter-insurgency units and to the paramilitaries, but at least US politicians showed some awareness of the human rights problem. The ban also stemmed from a desire not to repeat the horrors of US foreign policy in Central America in the 1980s. Under the auspices of fighting communism, an illegal and cruel war was launched in Nicaragua, thousands were ‘disappeared’ in El Salvador and 200,000 people were murdered in Guatemala.

http://www.redpepper.org.uk/Dec2003/x-Dec2003-Livingstone.html

my comment about de-selecting George as the last part, I think that in terms of general U.S. policy it might not make much difference, but that in some ways it will.

Although U.S. policy for a long time has been undemocratic in relation to Latin America, there has been a ratcheting up of certain tensions with Bush and specifically with the excuse being used of fighting terrorism.

One example is the claim (later disproved) that Cuba was using labs to produce biological weapons. This was particularly ironic since the labs that were claimed to be doing this were related to the ones that produce a vaccine for Hepatitis that is not used in the U.S. because of the embargo, but is used in Europe.

In relation to Colombia, I don't have any specifics. I was thinking more of the general philosophical tenor of Bush and the possibility of terrorism being used as an excuse for other political aims.

It does seem clear that Uribe is, uh, in decline.
His bullshit is wearing thin from scraping up against reality.
But Uncle Sugar is not about to abandon him just yet.
I would have thought Ecuador or Bolivia or Peru, in something like
that order. OTOH the situation in Colombia is MUCH messier than
anywhere else in LA, and Bolivia should be quiet for a bit while
the new guys settles in. Ecuador could go the next time there is
something to focus resentment.

Interesting articles at the COHA site. Gutierrez and vp with drug accusations up the ying yang, Toledo down to 14% in the pols. Article there about CAFTA too. :-)

I read that Uncle Sam gets more oil from Venezuela, Colombia, and Ecuador as all the mideast combined. I also read that the Venezuelans think that the US wants an "Israel" in this hemisphere--someone they support and who would protect US interests.

http://www.coha.org/

Pinochet did his brainwashing well. :(

they're gonna try, again, to bring him to court on war crimes. They need to charge Kissinger at the same time.

Can you imagine someone like Lula standing a chance of getting elected in the United States? I'm thinking specifically of the fact that he was so poor at one point that his first wife died in childbirth because they couldn't afford health care. We will elect people like Clinton who was poor as a child, but can you imagine electing someone who was poor as an adult? Little chance of that.
So which country has the real democracy? Obviously this is a rhetorical question!
Lula should be an inspiration to us all. I'm sure he is in the rest of the world.

who also told me that racism is a felony.

Lula is an inspiration for sure. We get the Village Idiot and Brazil gets Lula!! Lucky them! Bravo!

...(a) private health plans are allowed but more or less regulated. My job gives me full coverage (except medication) for a family of 4, all for US$ 50. Yeah, fifty.

(b) The horror stories I hear about refusal to treat and infinite debts are unlike anything that could happen here.

So, it's not OUR system that is GOOD...

The deductable means that if I get sick I pay the first $2500. $50 for a family of 4 in Brazil sounds very good. :-)

Unfortunatley, 43.6 million of my fellow 'muriKans were without any insurance in 2002 and I'm sure it's probably worse this year.

I'd pay more for the same coverage if it wasn't through the employer.

Edit: no (nt). There is (t).

I remember Greg Palast telling the tale on Democracy Now. I would surely like to use the information in an article I would like to write next month.

Newsweek published a piece following the coup in which the identified the owner of the plane as being Gustavo Cisneros. I think it is important to expose this repeatedly because Bush I and Cisneros are longtime fishing buddies. Good luck!!


http://mondediplo.com/2002/05/09venezuela

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=20&ItemID=2321

http://www.redpepper.org.uk/inv-archive/June2002.html

http://www.counterpunch.org/landau01112003.html

http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/articles.php?artno=1050

also Google search

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