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Following an appearance in a recent IPA news release, Maria Mendonca, the director of Brazil’s Network for Social Justice and Human Rights, penned this article for AlterNet in which she discusses the unintended consequences of what she calls “impeachment theater.”

She writes: “The impeachment is aimed at distracting from the very real crimes perpetrated by the congressmen sanctimoniously casting judgment on the president. Since the beginning of the process, it was clear that the main charge brought against president Dilma Rousseff, based on an accounting mechanism characterized as “fiscal pedaling” (“pedaladas fiscais” in Portuguese), had the barely hidden objective of curtailing investigations of corruption against Congress members and implementing a conservative agenda that has consistently been rejected by the majority of Brazilian society in presidential elections since 2002.”

“This type of manipulation would not be possible without the support of Brazil’s major media outlets, which have mostly abandoned even the pretense of objectivity. The good news is that there is a growing number of independent, alternative media sources, which present accurate information from diverse perspectives.”

Mendonca recently wrote “Brazil’s Parliamentary Vote Is A Coup,” for The Progressive. She is also the editor of the book “Human Rights in Brazil“.

Following an appearance on a recent IPA news release Maria Luisa Mendonça was interviewed by The Real News, KPFA Pacifica Radio’s “Rising Up with Sonali“, FAIR’s “Counterspin” and RT UK’s “Going Underground” about the ongoing impeachment process against Dilma Rousseff in Brazil. She explained that social movements critical of the government are “Now taking the streets and protesting because it’s clear to us that we’re facing a parliamentary coup, very similar to what happened in Honduras and Paraguay recently.” She emphasized that there is no legal basis for an impeachment: “The President has not been accused of any corruption crimes,” unlike the opposition. Mendonça is a 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.

A new report details how Harvard University and U.S.-based pension fund TIAA are involved in forest fires burning in a key ecosystem — the Brazilian savannah (Cerrado). The report is based on satellite imagery and fire data from NASA to construct maps that show the correlation between the location of TIAA and Harvard farms in the Cerrado and fire hot spots. The maps show active fires and burnt forests next to and within TIAA and Harvard farms.​

A coalition of TIAA clients as well as environmental and human rights organizations are demanding that financial corporations stop speculating with forests and farmland. On October 18, Altamiran Ribeiro of Brazil’s Land Pastoral Commission, who works with the affected communities, and a group of TIAA clients delivered a petition with about 40,000 signatures to the Washington, D.C. office of TIAA. The petition calls on TIAA’s Trustees to hold the corporation accountable by stopping it from buying farmland globally, and especially in Brazil, and demanding that TIAA meet with communities to repair the damage. The petition and previous reports are available at: https://www.stoplandgrabs.org/en-us/.​

MARIA LUISA MENDONCA, marialuisam222 at gmail.com ​
Mendonça is a PhD in Human Geography and is director of the Network for Social Justice and Human Rights in Brazil and visiting research scholar at the CUNY Graduate Center.​

She said today: “Land speculation by pension funds and endowment funds, such as TIAA and Harvard University, is stimulating land grabbing and causing displacement of rural communities and environmental destruction. These corporations promote extensive mono-cropping of agricultural commodities, which cannot be sustainable. This agricultural system is based on chemical inputs and fossil fuels, constituting a major cause of climate change. The main area targeted by this process, the Cerrado (Brazilian savannah), is a unique ecosystem because of its rich biodiversity, river springs and rain cycles, which are connected to the Amazon and the Central-South regions of the country.”​

JIM GOODMAN, r.j.goodman at mwt.net, @familyfarmco​
Goodman is Board President of the National Family Farm Coalition.​

He said: “Short-sighted, power-hungry governments allow and incentivize corporate agribusinesses and land speculators to control the global food system for their one and only priority — profit. Burning off rain forests and savannas of Brazil and consolidating massive tracts of farmland in the U.S. will only cause more famine, more environmental devastation, and more economic suffering for family farmers and rural communities. These corporations and the financial institutions that support them, whether in the U.S. or in Brazil, must be held accountable.”​

JEFF CONANT, jconant at foe.org, @FoEint​
Conant is Senior International Forests Program Manager at Friends of the Earth U.S.​

He said today: “When financial actors like Harvard and TIAA invest in vast tracts of land in fragile ecosystem like Brazil’s Cerrado, they are promoting exactly the kind of agro-industrial development and corporate land concentration we need to move away from in the era of ecological collapse and climate apartheid. That their landholdings appear to be literally on fire should be a wake-up call to these firms and their beneficiaries that the business model they promote is the farthest thing from sustainable or responsible.”

MARIA LUISA MENDONÇA, marialuisam222 at gmail.com
Maria Luisa Mendonça, co-director of the Network for Social Justice and Human Rights in Brazil, is currently a visiting scholar at the CUNY Graduate Center in New York City. She recently appeared on an accuracy.org news release: “Why is the Amazon Burning?” and was just interviewed by WNYC.

CHRISTIAN POIRIER, MOIRA BIRSS, via Rania Batrice, rania at amazonwatch.org, @AmazonWatch
Program director of Amazon Watch, Poirier said: “While the raging fires in the Amazon have rightfully grabbed the attention of the G7 leaders, we must ensure a long-term global response that lasts long after these headlines pass.”

“Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro must take immediate, comprehensive steps to not only extinguish these fires but also address the root causes of this environmental catastrophe: the roll-back of environmental and indigenous rights protections and the recklessness of the profit-seeking agribusiness industry.”

“This burden isn’t on the Brazilian government alone. We are all global citizens of our shared planet and must take shared responsibility for its preservation. As such, American and European corporations must take responsibility for their complicity in this tragedy by encouraging and funding deforestation in Brazil. We must keep the pressure on the Brazilian government to ensure the protection of the Amazon and its native peoples, who are on the front lines of defending the rainforest, and look inward to do our part in protecting our rainforests and planet for generations to come.” See his interview on The Real News.

Birss, Amazon Watch’s finance campaign director said: “Indigenous people of the Amazon have been sounding the alarm about risks to the rainforest for years and resisting the destruction — sometimes at the cost of their own lives. Now that the world is finally paying attention, it’s important to also understand that governments and companies around the world are emboldening Bolsonaro’s toxic policies when they enter trade agreements with his government or invest in agribusiness companies operating in the Amazon.”

Leila Salazar-López, the executive director of Amazon Watch, just co-wrote the piece “We are facing a global emergency in the Amazon. Here’s what we can do” for CNN.

See Amazon Watch’s recent reports: “Complicity in Destruction: How northern consumers and financiers sustain the assault on the Brazilian Amazon and its peoples” and Part II.

The group has called for a global day of action targeting Brazilian embassies and offices of corporations profiting from Amazon destruction on Sept. 5.

In January, accuracy.org warned in a news release that the far-right Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro “Wants to Plunder the Amazon. Don’t Let Him.”

Now, under Brazil’s far-right leader, the New York Times is reporting Amazon protections are being slashed and forests fall as Sao Paulo, the largest city in the Western Hemisphere, is plunged into darkness during the day as thick smoke from Amazon wildfires blankets the city.

As environmental defenders — often while fighting agribusiness — are being violently silenced, National Geographic is reporting that a “world food crisis looms if carbon emissions go unchecked, UN says.”

Open Democracy is reporting: “Leaked documents show Brazil’s Bolsonaro has grave plans for Amazon rainforest.”

MARIA LUISA MENDONÇA, marialuisam222 at gmail.com
Maria Luisa Mendonça holds a PhD in Human Geography from the University of São Paulo, is co-director of the Network for Social Justice and Human Rights in Brazil and is currently a visiting scholar at the CUNY Graduate Center in New York City. She said today: “The international community needs to send a strong message to the far-right government in Brazil because its policies are stimulating unprecedented environmental destruction in the Amazon, with dramatic consequences to climate change around the world. Destroying the Amazon to open space for agribusiness will not bring economic development to Brazil because [its] agricultural system is a main cause of climate change. The expansion of mono-cropping of agricultural commodities is destroying soil fertility, biodiversity, wildlife and water sources. We need to preserve our natural resources and create an ecological agriculture system, protecting land rights of indigenous and small farming communities.”

ALEXANDER MAIN, main at cepr.net, @ceprdc
Director of international policy at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, Main has written extensively on Brazil and has been tracking movement on the issue on Capitol Hill.

On Wednesday, Rep. Hank Johnson wrote a letter signed by 12 other members of congress to Attorney General William Barr “asking the Department of Justice (DOJ) to explain the scope of its involvement in the tainted and politicized case against Brazil’s former president Lula da Silva, and Brazil’s broad ‘Lava Jato’ (Car Wash) corruption investigation.”

“There is strong evidence that Brazil’s former president Lula was the target of a highly political operation involving the current Justice Minister that was intended to keep him off the ballot in last year’s elections, which he almost certainly would have won,” Rep. Johnson said. “We need to be sure that DOJ was not party to this tainted process.”

Main and Mendonça have been on a series of accuracy.org releases about the increased authoritarianism in Brazil in recent years, beginning with an effective coup against Dilma Rousseff. In “Confessing to Brazilian Coup * U.S. Complicity,” in 2016, Main noted: “The Obama administration continues to celebrate and support the new, illegitimate rightwing government of Michel Temer which took power following the baseless impeachment of elected president Dilma Rousseff. On Sept. 22, Vice President Joe Biden met with Temer and ‘commended [him] for his commitment to maintaining Brazil’s regional and global leadership role during the recent period of political change in Brazil.’”

Today, Main adds that “the U.S. Department of Justice’s record of enthusiastic support for ‘Lava Jato’ prosecutors who — as an ongoing Intercept investigation has revealed — colluded with a corrupt judge (and current justice minister) to put Lula in jail and keep him off the ballot, raises serious questions regarding the extent to which the U.S. government has been involved in anti-democratic political interference in Brazil under the guise of judicial cooperation.”

MARIA LUISA MENDONÇA, marialuisam222 at gmail.com
Maria Luísa Mendonça, director of the Network for Social Justice and Human Rights in Brazil said today: “As Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro visits Washington, D.C. this week, we must point out his record of racism, misogyny and homophobic views. Bolsonaro represents an extremist tendency that finds in Trump a strong ally. He has expressed support for the military dictatorship and its torturers, saying that Brazil’s regime at that time did not go far enough in killing political opponents. Recent investigations about the assassination of Rio de Janeiro state legislator Marielle Franco suggest links between Bolsonaro’s family and militia members accused of killing her.”

ALEXANDER MAIN, main at cepr.net, @ceprdc
Director of international policy at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, Main said today: “Venezuela will undoubtedly be at the top of the agenda in the meeting between Bolsonaro and Trump. The current U.S. strategy for regime change in Venezuela — based on supporting Juan Guaido’s claim to the Venezuelan presidency and trying to trigger a military coup against the Maduro government — has not been working.  The Trump administration’s single-minded goal is to persuade South American allies to join the U.S. in imposing crippling economic sanctions on Venezuela. There are also signs that Trump and his team — which now includes hawkish Iran-Contra hand Elliott Abrams — would like to see Venezuela’s neighbors, Colombia and Brazil, intervene militarily in Venezuela, with possible U.S. logistical support. While there exists resistance to these plans within Bolsonaro’s government, the Brazilian president, who is one of Trump’s biggest international fans, is likely to commit to taking on a much more aggressive policy towards Venezuela.”

See past Institute for Public Accuracy news releases on Bolsonaro.

Huffington Post reports: “Brazil Elects Far-Right Authoritarian Jair Bolsonaro As President.”

MARIA LUISA MENDONÇA, marialuisam222 at gmail.com
Maria Luísa Mendonça, director of the Network for Social Justice and Human Rights in Brazil said today: “We will have very difficult times ahead in Brazil with increasing intolerance, violence, racism, sexism, homophobia and repression against progressive movements, universities and indigenous communities, stimulated by a discourse of hate that characterizes Bolsonaro and his supporters. At the same time, we saw a new wave of hope for progressive politics in the campaign of Fernando Haddad and Manuela D’Ávila, which was built by the mobilization of millions of people. We saw a great deal of diversity in Haddad’s campaign, who received support from artists and intellectuals in Brazil and abroad. We need international solidarity to protect democracy and basic rights in our country.” See the piece in Ms. Magazine: “What’s at Stake for Women in Brazil.”

ALEXANDER MAIN, main at cepr.net
Director of international policy at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, Main was recently on an Institute for Public Accuracy news release: “Is Brazil Slipping Back into Fascism?“

The Washington Post reports that Jair Bolsonaro, a “far-right former military man won nearly half the votes in Brazil’s presidential election on Sunday, raising the strong prospect that he could take the helm of Latin America’s largest nation in a runoff later this month.”

MARIA LUISA MENDONÇA, marialuisam222atgmail.com
Maria Luísa Mendonça, director of the Network for Social Justice and Human Rights in Brazil said today: “The election results in Brazil show the risk of a discourse based on fear and manipulation, which benefited a candidate who is openly misogynistic, racist, homophobic, who defends torture and the return of the military dictatorship. Brazilian women have organized against him in the social media campaign #EleNão (#NotHim) that has attracted more than 4 million participants. Progressive forces will continue to organize to defend democracy in Brazil, and to send a strong message to the world against fascism.”

ALEXANDER MAIN, mainatcepr.net
Director of international policy at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, Main said today: “How did we end up with these terrifying election results in Brazil, a country that not long ago was seen as a beacon of progress within the developing world? Attacks on Brazil’s democracy have played a major role, in particular the unconstitutional removal of president Dilma Rousseff and the unjustified imprisonment of former president Lula da Silva, who had been widely expected to win the election before being barred from running. The rightwing ‘coup’ against Dilma and Lula, promoted by elite sectors eager to implement neoliberal ‘shock therapy’ measures, had the unintended effect of creating a political opening for fascism.”

For more, see “How a homophobic, misogynist, racist ‘thing’ could be Brazil’s next president” in The Guardian by the Brazilian journalist Eliane Brum.

DIANA JOHNSTONE, diana.johnstone at wanadoo.fr
Johnson is a U.S. political writer based in Paris, France. She focuses primarily on European politics and Western foreign policy. Her writings regularly appear at Counterpunch. Recent pieces include “Macron’s Mission: Save the European Union From Itself,” “The Single Party French State … as the Majority of Voters Abstain” and “Nuclear Weapons Ban? What Needs to be Banned Is U.S. Arrogance.”

Her father was Paul H. Johnstone, who for two decades was a senior analyst in the Strategic Weapons Evaluation Group in the Pentagon. His memoirs, with her commentary, was just published in the book From Mad to Madness: Inside Pentagon Nuclear War Planning. Edward S. Herman states: “In excellent background and updating accounts Diana Johnstone shows that no lessons have been learned from earlier mishaps and near misses; that with its new aggressiveness and upgrading of nuclear weapons the U.S. political class has opened a new round of nuclear madness.”

MARIA LUISA MENDONÇA, marialuisam222 at gmail.org
Mendonça is coordinator of the Network for Social Justice and Human Rights in Brazil and director of the Feminist Alliance for Rights at the Center for Women’s Global Leadership at Rutgers University. She said today: “Most news stories about the sentence do not explain the actual case against former president Lula da Silva. Even when they quote his lawyers, they fail to include the most important point, which is the fact that there is no concrete evidence that Lula is the owner of an apartment that is portrayed as a key part of an alleged bribe to Lula by a construction company that is accused of involvement in a corruption scheme. A basic question for anyone who defends justice and democracy, independently of their political affiliation, should be: why is someone sentenced to nine and a half years in prison if the prosecutors were not able to produce concrete evidence of a crime? The fact that Lula is still the most popular politician in the country and is ahead in the polls for the 2018 presidential elections raises serious questions around the motivation behind his sentence.

“Similarly, president Dilma Rousseff — also of the Workers’ Party — was impeached last year even though there was no case of corruption against her. Her political opponents used a common budgetary practice observed under previous administrations to justify her impeachment. Even observers who disagree with the Workers Party’s positions need to look further into the specific cases targeting Workers’ Party leaders and ask whether their main purpose is to justify political maneuvers and undermine electoral democracy in Brazil.”

ALEXANDER MAIN, via Dan Beeton: beeton at cepr.net
Main is senior associate for International Policy at the Center for Economic and Policy Research. He said today: “The sentencing of former president Lula da Silva to over nine years in jail, takes place against a backdrop of unpopular neoliberal reforms forced on the population by a corrupt, unelected government. The sentence against Lula has understandably dominated the news cycle and eclipsed another major piece of news: the Brazilian Congress’ decision to approve government sponsored labor reforms that will lead to the dismantling of workers’ rights in every sector of the economy. It will vastly reduce basic worker protections and job security by opening up all professions to temporary contracts, eliminating limits to the amount of hours that employees can be required to work, as well as other draconian modifications to existing labor laws.

“This is but one of a series of reforms that have taken place since president Dilma Rousseff was removed from office through an illegitimate impeachment process that allowed rightwing political forces to seize executive power and embark on an economic program rejected by a vast majority of Brazilians. Shortly after the impeachment, the government of Rousseff’s illegitimate successor Michel Temer pushed through a constitutional reform that will lead to major cuts in health, education and other public sector programs. Massive protests were met with violent state repression.

“Now, Brazil’s conservative sectors are intent on staying in power and reversing the progressive advances made in recent years. At this stage, only one politician poses a serious threat to their agenda: former president Lula da Silva who is currently the frontrunner in polls despite facing a relentless judicial campaign headed by Judge Sergio Moro. And so, while Lula faces a nearly ten-year sentence based on flimsy charges and no evidence, president Temer remains in power, even as concrete proof of his involvement in major bribery schemes has emerged in the press. Lula has appealed the sentence. The upcoming determination of the appeals court will provide an indication as to whether Brazilians can still trust the judicial system and whether there is still some prospect of a democratic future for the country.”

MARIA LUISA MENDONÇA, marialuisam222 at gmail.org
Mendonça is coordinator of the Network for Social Justice and Human Rights in Brazil and director of the Feminist Alliance for Rights at the Center for Women’s Global Leadership at Rutgers University.

She said today: “Brazil has been in the headlines again, since the May 17 release of recordings of president Michel Temer and former senator Aecio Neves negotiating bribes with the chairman of JBS, the world’s largest meat producer. The revelations bring a new round of political instability to Brazil, and the biggest wave of protests since the impeachment of president Dilma Rousseff last year.

“Both Temer and Neves played a key role in the impeachment of president Dilma Rousseff. Neves lost the presidential race against Rousseff in 2014 and his allies in the legislature introduced impeachment charges shortly after Rousseff’s term began. Temer, who had formerly been vice president, took over as president following a controversial impeachment process that removed Rousseff even after a special prosecutor cleared her of charges, leading many to call the impeachment a parliamentary coup. Today Temer only has a 5 percent approval rate as a result of pushing for Constitutional amendments to dismantle pension, retirement, labor and environmental laws. After a general strike last month, other large protests have erupted last week, calling for Temer’s resignation and for general elections.

“Democracy is under threat because Temer’s resignation opens the possibility for Congress to choose a new president, undermining the right to vote and creating further political instability. Pro-democracy demonstrations now are using the same slogan that became the symbol of large protests in the 1980’s, after a long period of military dictatorship (1964-1985): ‘Diretas já!’ (direct elections now!). The international community needs to support democracy in Brazil and denounce repression against social movements.”

ALEXANDER MAIN, via Dan Beeton: beeton at cepr.net
Main is senior associate for International Policy at the Center for Economic and Policy Research. He said today: “Brazil’s democracy is in tatters and the human rights situation is rapidly deteriorating. Protests against the illegitimate government of Michel Temer have grown following new corruption revelations, and the government has responded with increasingly brutal repression. In Brasilia, the army was deployed to confront protesters, and security forces have reportedly fired live ammunition at crowds. In recent days, dozens of protesters have been injured, some critically. Meanwhile, in other parts of the country, attacks against social movements have greatly intensified over the past year. Security forces are reportedly implicated in the May 24 massacre of 10 rural workers in the northern Brazilian state of Pará (bringing the total number of rural workers murdered in land conflicts to 36 in the first five months of this year, according to the Pastoral Land Commission). Unfortunately, this spiral of state-sponsored violence is unlikely to abate, with the country’s increasingly unpopular rightwing forces determined to hang on to power at all costs while at the same time pressing ahead with aggressive neoliberal reforms certain to generate more economic misery for the majority of Brazilians.”