Speaking to
Tariq Ali, Alfredo Saad Filho, Professor of Political Economy, SOAS,
describes the situation in Brazil nearly one year after the coup to
remove former President Dilma Rousseff from office, revealing three
key targets for which the neoliberal regime had staged this coup.
As he
pointed out:
He [Michel
Temer] is the most unpopular president in recorded history in Brazil.
He has nothing to show for himself except survival, but for one
thing. He has managed to implement the program of the coup. And the
program of the coup was, first of all, change the oil exploration law
to weaken Petrobras, the state oil company and allow transnational
companies to exploit oil in Brazil.
They have
also changed labor law. Labor law has been essentially abolished to
the point that the ILO [International Labour Organization] and trade
unions complain that currently, the law is essentially legalizes
slavery. It is possible to have slaves in Brazil today in legal terms
because the workers have been left bereft of almost any form of
protection.
And the
government has a third commitment, which is a change in social
security law and pensions, to restrict pensions and cut the rights of
workers.
This is what
they wanted to achieve by removing Dilma Rousseff and the PT
[Workers' Party] from office, and they are doing it.
Filho also
said that Lula da Silva, the predecessor of Rousseff in the
presidency and the PT party, is still the most popular politician in
Brazil, despite the media attacks. He also claimed that the
accusations against him were staged to get him out of the political
game for good.
In July, the
International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) reported
that:
The
decision by Brazil’s corruption-riddled parliament to eliminate a
swathe of protections in the country’s labour laws will impoverish
millions of people and leave workers completely at the mercy of
employers who will have unilateral power to set wages, holiday
entitlements, working hours and bonuses.
[...]
Sharan
Burrow, ITUC General Secretary, said, “This unprecedented
dismantling of labour law is a recipe for corporate greed, with a
small group of powerful oligarchs who want to turn back the clock to
Brazil’s feudal past set to reap huge profits at the expense of
ordinary working families. These same industrialists were the
cheerleaders for the illegitimate ouster of President Dilma. They are
the main beneficiaries of expected cuts to pension entitlements and
of the 20-year austerity law, which deprives Brazil’s poor of
social security, health and decent education.”
[...]
Brazil’s
most popular politician, former President Lula Da Silva, has
meanwhile been given a 9½ year prison sentence by populist judge
Sergio Moro, despite the lack of any real evidence to justify the
judgement. Moro is a frequent guest on the Globo media conglomerate,
which is owned by the Marinho family, one of the country’s richest
families with combined wealth of over USD 10bn.
As described
previously, the constitutional
coup against Dilma Rousseff in Brazil, as well as,
the usual
actions of the Right opposition in Venezuela
against Nicolás Maduro with the help of the US finger, are far more
obvious.
The special
weight of these countries, together with Argentina, in Latin America,
is extremely important for the US imperialism to regain ground in the
global geopolitical arena. Especially the last ten to fifteen years,
each of them developed increasingly autonomous policies away from the
US close custody, under Leftist governments, and this was something
that alarmed the US imperialism components.
Brazil
appears to be the most important among the three, not only due to its
size, but also as a member of the BRICS, the team of fast growing
economies who threaten the US and generally the Western global
dominance. The constitutional coup against Rousseff was rather a
sloppy action and reveals the anxiety of the US establishment to
regain control through puppet regimes. This is a well-known situation
from the past through which the establishment attempts to secure
absolute dominance in the US backyard.
It appears
that after Greece, Brazil is becoming a champion in entering rapidly
the neo-feudal era through the violent termination of Democracy by
the neoliberal regime.
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