CounterSpin interview with Maria Luisa Mendonça on Brazil’s president under fire

Transcript

‘Brazil Is One of the Most Unequal Countries in the World’

Under a constant regime of vicious propaganda issuing from the country’s media, chiefly TV, many people are now shouting for Rousseff’s resignation. “Out with Dilma!” reads the demand on this guy’s face.

Janine Jackson interviewed Maria Luisa Mendonça for the April 22, 2016, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript.  

Maria Luisa Mendonça: “This is not an impeachment, because there is no legal basis for the impeachment right now.”

1. CounterSpin Maria Luisa Mendonça Interview

MP3 Link

Maria Luisa Mendonça: Thank you very much.

Retweeted by NBC‘s Chuck Todd (3/17/16)

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?

Mendonca

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.

JJ: What do you think makes Dilma Rousseff vulnerable to this at this time? I mean, Brazil is in a state of real economic crisis at this point. Do you think that is what is created the opportunity for this to happen now?

MLM: Exactly. This is exactly what happened. Right after the elections last year, Brazil suffered a speculative attack from the financial sector. Interest rates now have increased from 7 percent to more than 12 percent, almost doubled in the last six months.

But there was no specific reason for the financial crisis. It was not like in the United States, that there was a housing bubble. In the case of Brazil, it’s pure speculation. There was not enough reason for suddenly the economy—we were growing one day and the next day, we were in a financial crisis. And the government had to double interest rates and start imposing austerity measures in an economy that was growing just the month before. So I think there was kind of an orchestrated speculative attack to make the economy more vulnerable.

In case after case we see how the media in capitalist hands wreaks havoc with the country’s political system, bending it to its will.  “All the major TV networks and newspapers are against the government. It’s as if you had only Fox News. Can you imagine that? And the Workers Party didn’t invest as much in alternative media, didn’t deal with the problem of media monopoly in Brazil. Just to give you an idea, the protests against the government were orchestrated by the major TV networks. They were reporting live all day, and calling people to go to the streets and protest against the government…”

And, of course, there is also the interest of foreign oil companies. Because Brazil has huge oil reserves, and there is a fight and a debate now about the right of the state oil company Petrobras of having priority to explore the oil reserves, and there is a lot of pressure from multinational oil companies to be able to explore those reserves as well.

JJ: Brazil has intense inequality. There is a real class division in Brazil, is there not? Not that there is not in the United States, but it’s quite pronounced, and it’s important to understand that fact as we look at what’s going on there today.

MLM: Yes, exactly. Brazil is one of the most unequal countries in the world. And our critique of the Workers Party government was that they didn’t go too far in terms of structural reforms. They were able to implement large social programs that made it better, the situation, the economic situation, that the inequality was better during those years, and unemployment was in a very low level. So the country was growing, there was a sense of optimism, there was more investment in education, on health programs. Although, you know, there are lots of problems, inequality, poverty still. But they were implementing policies [such] that the presence of the state in the economy was larger than in the previous neoliberal governments, that imposed austerity measures and privatization.

But now what we see in the future, of what the opposition parties are defending, is more austerity, more of the kind of structural adjustment policies that we think will make the situation even worse.

JJ: Glenn Greenwald pointed to the role of media in Brazil, if folks are getting some of their understanding of the situation from Brazilian media. And he noted that, if you think about the role that Fox News played in promoting the Tea Party protests, and then imagine that those protests were promoted not just by right-wing networks like Fox but also by all the networks, all the magazines, the New York Times, the supposed alternative media—that that is kind of what the media looks like in Brazil. What can you tell us about the role that the big media are playing within Brazil?

MLM: Yeah, that’s a key role. All the major TV networks and newspapers are against the government. It’s exactly how you described. It’s as if you had only Fox News. Can you imagine that? And the Workers Party didn’t invest as much in alternative media, didn’t deal with the problem of media monopoly in Brazil. More than 90 percent of the funding goes to about six major media conglomerates in Brazil.

Just to give you an idea, the protests against the government were orchestrated by the major TV networks. They were reporting live all day, and calling people to go to the streets and protest against the government. It was very open that they’re supporting the coup—we are calling this a coup—and at the same time, when we had millions of people protesting against the coup, there was almost no coverage at all of that. So it’s very biased, and they’re very active to try to get rid of the president. Really, that’s what is going on.

JJ: Let me just ask you, finally, I understand that Dilma Rousseff is coming to the UN on Friday. I hear also that—I think it’s now nine ministers in the cabinet have quit, including the sports and tourism minister. (This is four months before the Olympics.) What do you see happening?

MLM: Well, the OAS, the UN, UNASUR, several multilateral organizations have expressed their concern about the process that is going to undermine democracy in Brazil. And we hope that the Obama administration and the US government also would be able to voice their opposition to this process that we are calling a coup. Because it’s very similar to what happened in Honduras and Paraguay. So we hope that at this time, the US administration will play a positive role and would support the result of the elections that elected President Dilma Rousseff in Brazil, that that should be respected.

JJ: We’ve been speaking with Maria Luisa Mendonça from Brazil’s Network for Social Justice and Human Rights, and also from the University of Rio de Janeiro. Thank you very much, Maria Luisa Mendonça, for joining us today on CounterSpin.

MLM: Thank you. Thank you very much.