Corruption Part 2 – How to Get Away with Murder in Brazil

Step 1 – make friends with the President

Step 2 – become a minister

Step 3 – enjoy your immunity

This may sound a little flippant, but it’s not too far from the truth.  According to law, ministers may only be prosecuted by the STF (Supremo Tribunal Federal – Supreme Federal Court) thereby offering a measure of legal immunity.  In what sounds like the plot from a very poorly written soap opera, this is being exploited to prevent ex-president Luíz Inácio Lula da Silva (commonly known as Lula) from being prosecuted in the LavaJato investigation into corruption.

A small version of the inflatable caricatures of Lula

On 4^th March 2016, Lula was detained for questioning by Federal Police over suspicions of money laundering.  Due to the depth of corruption in upper levels of Petrobras and PT (the Worker’s Party, founded by Lula) many people in Brazil have long suspected that Lula must have been involved in corruption or at the very least have been aware and done nothing, so his questioning came as no surprise to many people, and many anti-corruption protests are characterised by large inflatable caricatures of Lula wearing convict clothes. 

On Friday 11^th March, it was announced that prosecutors were seeking the arrest of Lula in relation to charges of fraud and money laundering.  At around the same time, it because apparent that PT was planning to make Lula a minister to protect him from prosecution by Judge Sérgio Moro, the leading investigator of Operação Lava Jato. 

On Tuesday 15^th March, following massive protests on Sunday 13^th, Lula flew to Brasilia for talks with president Dilma which were completed on Wednesday 16^th March.  It was announced that chief of staff, Jaques Wagner, would stand down with “greatness and selflessness on the day of his birthday” to cede his post to Lula.  Some media outlets suggest that the purpose of this is to help protect president Dilma from impeachment proceedings and Dilma herself claims that the appointment is to start the economic recovery, but the timing of the decision and announcement is completely transparent: to protect Lula from prosecution as part of Lava Jato.

Sérgio Moro, Federal Judge in charge
of Operação Lava Jato

Within hours of the move, Judge Sérgio Moro released phone recordings that suggest, as was already widely suspected, that Lula’s appointment is to prevent his arrest.  In the recording, Dilma offered to send Lula a copy of his appointment “in case of necessity” – where the only conceivable occasion where this document would be necessary would be an attempted arrest.  Dilma has now said that she will refer the judge to the Supreme Court for political interference, a move that, to me at least, sounds a lot like “I’m telling my mummy on you.”  There was anger in Congress with opposition leaders accusing Dilma of breaching the constitution, chanting “resign, resign.”

...and for Lula

Protestors against Lula...

Of course, the anger was not contained to Congress as all this led to wide-spread protest across the country on Wednesday evening.  In every major city, people were in the streets wearing green and yellow, waving flags.  In São Paulo, protestors in Avenida Paulista, the principal avenue of the city, blocked traffic in both directions.  The police estimated that there were 5,000 protestors by 8:45pm and by the end of the night, this number has risen to 70,000.  In Brasilia, around 2,000 people protested at the presidential palace singing the national anthem.  In São Bernardo do Campo 200 protestors gathered outside Lula’s house, while a separate group of PT supporters also “protested.”  Given that Lula was being protected, it’s hard to see exactly what they were protesting – simply showing support for Lula by contributing to the noise that would keep him from sleeping!  To me, this form of demonstration to support the government seems reminiscent of demonstrations of support help under dictatorships, such as in Iraq and Libya.

 

Protestors in Brasilia.  The banner reads "we are with Sérgio Moro"

The protests even spread to smaller towns, such as Pato Branco.  At around 9:30pm, around the time of the official announcement, people around the city centre started banging sauce pans and flashing their house lights in protest.  On the streets, drivers were continually sounding their horns.  The banging continued for an hour, while the car horns were still going until 11pm.  After this, there was still the occasional angry beep.

Social media was awash with anger at the appointment and sadness for the state of Brazil.  Many people posted modified pictures of the Brazilian flag, sometimes showing tears, sometimes with the colours exchanged for black with the word “luto”, Portuguese for “mourning.”  A message quickly spread suggesting that everyone angry with Lula’s appointment should wear a black shirt on Thursday 17^th March.

Some of the posts on social media, the general themes are mourning and
fighting corruption

As an outsider, looking in on this system, I find it entirely unbelievable that anyone under a criminal investigation could be raised to a ministerial position within government.  Regardless of whether he is guilty or innocent, surely he should be suspended pending investigation and appear in court to determine the facts of the matter.  If he is proven innocent, then he would be free to continue with his life, take up any position in government and return to normal – the innocent have nothing to hide.  By making him a minister and thus immune from prosecution, PT is implying (strongly) his guilt and show no shame in protecting him.  Which, to my mind, raises important questions about the motives of the party and their involvement in the Lava Jato scandal.

If Lula is innocent of the charges brought against him, then it is baffling that he would choose a course of action that, far from clearing his name, implies guilt.  If he is guilty, then he’s (figuratively) just got away with murder.

Corruption

This is one of the hardest posts for me to write, partly due to the complexity and enormous scale of the problem here but also because this is Brazil’s single biggest problem and has the potential to bring the country to its knees – indeed, it is already coming close to that.  I imagined writing a post about this someday – preferably once I had really got to grips with the political system here and my Portuguese was good enough to understand all the subtle nuances – but current events are guiding my hand.

Corruption - dragging the country down

Corruption is not a new problem here, it dates back to colonial times, and doubtless came to Brazil along with the European settlers and immigrants.  It has become so endemic that some people have come to accept it as inevitable and permanent.  Sometimes, when you hear about a politician taking bribes, or money being diverted from where it is needed most, people say “uh, that’s just Brazil”, “all politicians are corrupt”, “what can we do about it?”, “it’ll never change”  and life continues as normal.  I think that this is a large contributor to the “complexo vira lata” or mutt-complex, a kind of pessimistic feeling of inferiority that some sociologists have identified in the Brazilian collective psyche. 

I am glad to say that this acceptance of corruption is gradually changing.  People are starting to realise that when corrupt politicians embezzle money or accept bribes to offer lucrative contracts to companies, it is their money that is being stolen, it is their schools, hospitals and public services that are suffering, it is their roads and infrastructure that are crumbling and going to waste.  In 2013, the giant awoke and millions of Brazilians from all over the country took to the streets to protest against the corruption that was surrounding preparations for the 2014 World Cup – an event that was supposed to be a showcase for this football-loving country.  Stadium construction was slow, new roads and railway lines that had been promised and paid for were not appearing (in their place, construction sites or, in some cases, nothing at all) money was being diverted from schools and hospitals and people had had enough.  Why should they host the World Cup at such a cost?

Operation Car Wash - uncovering more names

The latest scandal to embroil the government involves a massive ring of corruption involving the state-owned petroleum company, Petrobras.  A low level investigation into a car wash uncovered a huge network of corruption suspected of laundering more that R$10 billion (US$ 2.7 billion, as of March 2016) involving the several construction companies and politicians linked to Petrobras.  The investigation, known as Operação Lava Jato (operation car wash) has been ongoing since March 2014 and has led to the questioning and arrest of several executives of the companies and politicians.  Recently, former president Luíz Inácio Lula da Silva (commonly known as Lula) has been questioned by the Federal Police and, as of 11^th March 2016 prosecutors were seeking his arrest on suspicion of money laundering.

President Dilma and former Prisedent Lula

It has long been suspected that president Dilma Rousseff (who chaired the board of Petrobras from 2003 to 2010) and former president Lula must have been aware of this criminal activity, if not been actively involved, which has led to protests against them and their party, PT (Partido dos Trabalhadores – worker’s party – the party that has been in Government since 2003) calling for her impeachment.  This was complicated further when the leader of the Chamber of Deputies (lower house of the Congress,) who called for her impeachment, was investigated for receiving more than US$40 million in kickbacks and bribes.  The fall-out of this turned into a series of childish accusations between politicians, essentially accusing the opposing party of being more corrupt and hence in the wrong.  In addition, the party has rallied around Lula, attempting to make him a minister to offer him immunity from arrest.

"There will not be a coup, there will be justice"

This ill-feeling then spilled out to the supporters of the various parties involved.  A significant proportion of the population that are fed up of this corruption have come to associate it largely with PT, more specifically with president Dilma and former president Lula – a popular argument is that as chair of the board of Petrobras, Dilma must have at least been aware of the corruption, making her complicit, or if, as she claims, she was unaware of the corruption, then an incompetent CEO and president.  Supporters of PT, on the other hand, believe that the party has done no wrong and that the protestors are elitist and attempting a coup d'état to remove PT from office.  They point to allegations (proved or otherwise) of corruption in other parties as a bizarre justification of their support for PT.  This is one of the most perplexing issues of the whole debate – in the face of criminal investigations by the Federal Police and Judiciary, how can these people blindly follow and defend politicians without awaiting the conclusion of the investigations?  And more to the point, how can a political party attempt to divert a criminal investigation into one of their members?  By not distancing themselves from the accused and actively attempting to block the investigations, they only appear to be implicating themselves.

Protest in São Paulo

On Sunday 13^th March, a massive series of protests was held across several cities in Brazil; most notably in São Paulo and Brasilia, but in practically all major cities, even down to smaller cities like Pato Branco.  Estimates of the number of protestors vary, with claims of between 500,000 and 1.5 million in São Paulo and 1 million in Rio de Janeiro.  (It is practically impossible to obtain an accurate estimate as the numbers themselves tend to be used as political propaganda.)  The protestors, dressed in the green and yellow of Brazil and waving flags, were calling for ex-president Lula’s arrest, the impeachment of president Dilma and political reform. 

In response to PT’s accusations that the impeachment being sought and that these protests were a political coup d'état against the party, many protestors carried banners that called for an end to corruption from all parties, explicitly naming PT and PSDB (the largest opposition party.)  Indeed when Aecio Neves, the leader of PSDB what narrowly lost to Dilma in the 2014 election, and Geraldo Alckmin, Governor of São Paulo state, attended the protest in São Paulo, they were booed and soon left. 

So what was the result?  The honest answer, is that I don’t know.  The Lava Jato Investigation is ongoing, prosecutors are still seeking the arrest of Lula, PT are trying to make him a minister (thus immune to all investigations except by the Supreme Court – this doesn’t look suspicious at all…), social media is still full of people criticising PT, criticising PSDB, criticising supporters of PT, criticising supporters of PSDB (assumed and actual supporters) demanding an end to corruption, demanding more transparency…  As I said at the beginning of the post, corruption is Brazil’s single biggest problem and it won’t go away overnight.  But I, as well as a sizable majority of Brazilians, hope that the country is on the right path; that those involved in corruption will go to jail; that the political system will be reformed to increase transparency and thus reduce corruption; that the economy will improve and that this great country will finally realise its potential.

Protest in Brasilia with large inflatable Lula as a convict

Why We're Not Going to the World Cup

If you like football, what could be better than a World Cup in Brazil?  Being there...

Go back a year or so and Sheila and I had a plan, we would go to Brazil for as much of the world cup as possible, enjoy the atmosphere and go to one Brazil match and one England match.  I'd been told about the atmosphere in Brazil during any world cup and with them hosting, we were sure the atmosphere would be electric.  We would watch the games with friends in bars, surrounded by people passionate about the beautiful game, share the celebrations and collectively commiserate the losses (well, I do support England...)  Neither of us had seen our national team playing live and this is something that should surely be put right.  The only doubt in my mind was whether or not England would qualify!  It was not unlikely that they would be left at home.

We visited Brazil in September 2012 for a week or so.  We were surprised to see that Guarulhos (São Paulo's main international airport) was chaotic as ever, this close to the World Cup.  We imagined thousands of football fans flooding into the country through here and Rio de Janeiro and wondered how they would cope.  Finding the hire care office was a challenge and that was being accompanied by a Brazilian; the staff in the immigration line seemed clueless; the signs in the airport were confusing at best.  How would they cope with masses of foreigners, many of whom would not speak a word of Portuguese?  Don't worry, we thought, with all the investment in infrastructure - every major stadium in the country was being renovated, surely they had budget for infrastructure? - it must improve.  By this point, Fantastico was running features on what must improve if Brazil is to play host to the World.

We drove from São Paulo to Curitiba, which was a hair raising experience.  The road is nicknamed Rodovia do morte - motorway of death - for good reason.  The tight turns in the mountains and some psychotic lorry drivers made it a real edge-of-the-seat experience.  Next I'll take the easy option and fly, as I'm sure most fans would do anyway. 

Arriving in Curitiba is always a relief.  This is a city that has been very well organised and has been recognised as one of the world's best examples of urban planning.  The bus network is well thought out with dedicated bus lanes, bendy buses and covered bus shelters (to keep out the constant threat of rain) and a fare collector so that boarding and disembarking is a quick and efficient affair.  If you prefer to drive, you face that same problems as any other city in the world.  It's not the easiest of places to find your way around if you are first time visitor (three letters for you: GPS) but it's no more difficult than any other city I've driven in.  Indeed, I have experienced a lot worse in London, Brussels, San Francisco.... But if you're only visiting for a short time, there is no need to hire a car, the bus network will more than suffice.

Arena da Baixada before it was torn down

As supporters of Atlético Paranaense, Sheila and I were happy that the Arena da Baixada had been chosen as one of the venues.  Dare we hope that England or Brazil would play there?  (Turns out, no.)  The Arena was a great example of a modern stadium; good access in and out of the ground, good seating and a great atmosphere.  All it was lacking was a stand along the South side of the pitch.  Aparently the owner of a school there was Coxa fan and blocked the building of another stand.  I heard this story, but have no idea whether it's true.  With the world cup coming, the club announced plans to upgrade the stadium: finally, they would have that fourth stand.

To our surprise, the renovations went beyond simply building a fourth stand.  Instead, the stadium that was built in 1999 was torn to the ground and rebuilt from the ground up.  I feel I must reiterate this point; the Arena da Baixada which was considered among Brazils most modern and best appointed stadia was torn down to be rebuilt from scratch.  To add insult to injury, the construction project was plagued by delays to the point that it found itself in the spotlight of the world-wide media as an example of how poorly the preparations for the World Cup were being managed.  For the people of Curitiba who are rightly proud of their city's reputation for efficiency, this was a huge embarrassment; there was even suggestions that the games to be held in Curitiba would be moved to another venue.  Thankfully, this appeared to spur on the works and not long ago, the stadium hosted a test friendly with invitations to all the workers that rebuilt the stadium

The Arena da Baixada is by no means the only stadium to suffer setbacks, the story of the crane collapse in São Paulo that resulted in the death of two workers was well reported around the world.  But this pails into significance against the corruption that has overshadowed the preparations.  The country promised massive improvements to infrastructure in order to cope with the influx of visitors.  There was talk of a new high speed train line between São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, improvements to public transport, Curitiba would get an underground train network.  None of this has happened, the money seems to evaporate somehow...

Then we come to schools and hospitals.  Or maybe we don't...  Instead of private investment, many of the stadia were upgraded with public money.  When these projects inevitably went over-budget, with whispers about contracts being offered to friends and family or being delayed until the last minute so that the costs increase or maybe even due to money being pocketed (who does it hurt?  what's the harm?) then more money is taken away from schools, roads and hospitals.  After all, the last thing anyone wants is for the stadia to not be ready in time, embarrassing the government. 

Finally, in June 2013, the Brazilian people had enough.  In the midst of the Confederations cup, millions of people went onto the streets to protest against corruption and the high cost of hosting the World Cup.  The protests started in reaction to an increase in bus fares but soon grew to include corruption and police violence.  Social media allowed news to spread faster than traditional media (in fact Rede Globo, the Brazilian telecoms giant, appeared to ignore the protests on the first weekend) with people sharing photos and video of protests (see below) and police reactions under twitter hashtags such as #changebrazil (as well as #mudabrasil) and #semviolência (without violence.)  One such video that I cannot forget shows a gathering of protestors chanting ' sem violência' then being attacking by police with pepper spray, rubber bullets and truncheons. The protests spread to every major city in Brazil with many expats abroad demonstrating and forcing the issues into the global consciousness.

So, in light of all this, how can we go to the World Cup?  I have no doubt that the games will go ahead and they will be as exciting as always.  Indeed, we will be watching every England and Brazil match on TV, as well as many more. I don't want the World Cup to be a fiasco; part of me feels that the best thing is in fact to go, to feed the economy that should be paying for these projects.  But to go would be to justify the excessive expenses that Brazil cannot afford; to justify rebuilding entire stadia to satisfy FIFAs demands and to divert funds away from needy projects; to justify massive diversions while kids in the country's poorer regions go to schools that have broken chairs, no toilets and no electricity - watch video.

Brazil has the potential to be a great country, indeed many people have been raised from poverty into a growing middle class, but the speed of change is hampered but these levels of corruption.  By not going to the World Cup, we are not really protesting, but after our initial enthusiasm we no longer have an appetite for it.