Brazil's ex-president Lula sentenced to prison after corruption conviction

[sandensea]

Source: The Guardian

Former Brazilian leader Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who rose from childhood poverty to become a two-term president, has been convicted on corruption charges in the first of five graft trials he faces. He was sentenced to nine and a half years in prison, but will remain free on appeal.

The ruling marked a stunning fall for Lula, Brazil’s first working-class president, who left office six years ago with an 83% approval rating. The former union leader won global admiration for transformative social policies that helped reduce stinging inequality in Latin America’s biggest country.

Judge Sergio Moro found Lula guilty of accepting 3.7m reais ($1.2m) worth of bribes from engineering firm OAS SA, the amount prosecutors said the company spent refurbishing a beach apartment for Lula in return for his help winning contracts with the state oil company Petroleo Brasileiro, or Petrobras.

Federal prosecutors have accused Lula, who first took office in 2003, of masterminding a long-running corruption scheme that was uncovered in a probe into kickbacks around Petrobras.

Lula’s legal team has previously said they would appeal any guilty ruling. They have continuously blasted the trial as a partisan witch-hunt, accusing Moro of being biased and out to get Lula for political reasons.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jul/12/brazil-president-lula-convicted-corruption

[nikibatts]

1. this is really sad. He did a lotto help his people in the face of right-wing opposition.

[sandensea]

3. He may in fact have been railroaded to prevent him from running next year.

There's no doubt he'd win if he ran.

The right-wing regime in neighboring Argentina (whose president is a personal friend of Cheeto's) is trying to do the same thing to former President Cristina Kirchner - but have been unable to due to utter lack of proof (the RW judge assigned to the case admitted as much when he dropped the main case, although there are others).

Like Lula, Mrs. Kirchner is heavily favored in polls - and would only be precluded from running if convicted of something or other.

Politics is a real contact sport in Latin America.

[madokie]

2. My better sense tells me

that this is a partisan witch-hunt. The powers to be doesn't want it to seem a kid from the poor side of town can make it to the Presidency. IMO

[sandensea]

4. That's indeed what it looks like.

Particularly given the fact that Temer's regime -and most of their allies in Congess - are up to their necks in the Odebrecht/Lava Jato bribery scandals themselves.

Politics in Latin America, as I mentioned above, are a real contact sport.

[madokie]

6. I don't trust

anything coming out of Latin America as it seems

I'll leave it at that

[sandensea]

8. Politics in the region were once described as "a jungle"

"compared to which the real jungles are but a well-tended garden."

Bitchy Mitchy and his congresscritters are pushing U.S. politics in the same direction, sadly.

[Judi Lynn]

11. Outstanding observation. It will be great to remember, as well as accurate. Thank you. n/t

[sandensea]

16. Why, thank you Judi.

Such imagery, right?

[Judi Lynn]

19. Not a fascist in sight! Tremendous. Beautiful. Like sending one on an e-vacation. Relaxing. n/t.

[sandensea]

22. It is, isn't it. That's jazz fusion composer/acoustic guitarist Danny Heines.

His high water mark in the genre was in the 1988-91 period; but he still records and performs I understand.

This piece in particular sounds so "Brazilian" in part thanks to the Cuíca - the percussion instrument that makes that peculiar squeak in the background.

Many Brazilian composers scorn it in no small part because it's a very Afro-Brazilian instrument. To be fair, it can be overused (as in Black Orpheus); but interwoven into the down beats as an accompaniment, it gives any tune a distinct and, I think, perfectly delightful accent.



A Brazilian percussionist and his Cuíca.

[Judi Lynn]

23. Yay, it's Oswaldinho! Never knew the source of that music. Thank you, sandensea.

[Judi Lynn]

10. They've known for a long time he intends to run for election next time. They want to prevent it.

Lula da Silva was well loved across Brazil, popular around the world.

The powerful bloody right-wing has remained rigidly present, in the Senate, controlling business, newspapers, tv, radio since the end of the military dictatorship in 1985. The dictatorship imprisoned Brazil's President Dilma Rousseff as a political enemy, tortured her for years. They also imprisoned former President Lula da Silva's brother. The Catholic Church gathered accounts by survivors of torture and published them in a book named "Nunca Mais" or "Never More" years ago, leaving no doubt whatsoever the right-wing fascists in Brazil are vicious to human beings they don't want in their country. They are also, at all times, rabid racists.

A quick Wikipedia summary:


The Brazilian military government was the authoritarian military dictatorship that ruled Brazil from April 1, 1964 to March 15, 1985. It began with the 1964 coup d'état led by the Armed Forces against the administration of the President João Goulart, who had assumed the office after being vice-president, upon the resignation of the democratically elected president Janio Quadros, and ended when José Sarney took office on March 15, 1985 as President. The military revolt was fomented by Magalhães Pinto, Adhemar de Barros, and Carlos Lacerda (who had already participated in the conspiracy to depose Getúlio Vargas in 1945), Governors of Minas Gerais, São Paulo, and Guanabara. The coup was also supported by the Embassy and State Department of the United States.[1]
The military dictatorship lasted for almost twenty-one years; despite initial pledges to the contrary, military governments in 1967 enacted a new, restrictive Constitution, and stifled freedom of speech and political opposition with support from the U.S. government. The regime adopted nationalism, economic development, and Anti-Communism as its guidelines.

The dictatorship reached the height of its popularity in the 1970s, with the so-called Brazilian Miracle (helped by much propaganda), even as the regime censored all media, tortured and banished dissidents. In March 1979, João Figueiredo became President, and while combating the "hard-line" and supporting a re-democratization policy, he couldn't control the chronic inflation and concurrent fall of other military dictatorships in South America. Brazilian Presidential elections of 1984 were won by opposition civilian candidates. In 1979 Figueiredo passed the Amnesty Law for political crimes committed for and against the regime. Since the 1988 Constitution was passed and Brazil returned to full democracy, the military have remained under control of civilian politicians, with no role in domestic politics.

Brazil’s military regime provided a model for other military regimes and dictatorships around Latin America, systematizing the “Doctrine of National Security,”[2] which "justified" the military’s actions as operating in the interest of National Security in a time of crisis, creating an intellectual basis upon which other military regimes relied.[2]


. . .

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazilian_military_government

[sandensea]

12. Lula is certainly no stranger to this tactic.

You may recall, Judi, that the dictator in the early '80s, Gen. João Figueiredo, had Lula jailed over some trumped-up "incitement" charge.

The real reason: Figueiredo (like the neighboring Argentine dictatorship) was forced to call elections as a result of his own regime's economic disaster, and he didn't want the likely winner - Lula - to be on the ballot.

Conviction on some charge or other is the easiest way to accomplish that.

[Judi Lynn]

17. So good you brought this information forward. Lula has fought hard against them so long, hasn't he?

Very few people could have accomplished nearly as much, considering where Lula actually started in this world, so desperately poor among so many desperately poor Brazilian people.

He has been a very strong man a very long time, and not through criminal associations like the right-wingers. They've been trying so hard, so long to silence him, as there is no one, no one at all nearly as bright, and beloved within the right wing. Right-wingers don't really have sane, emotionally balanced supporters, do they?

Thank you for introducing a name unfamiliar to people who didn't know about Lula's earlier life. "Gen. João Figueiredo." He really looks like a thin-lipped, hardened, cold, vicious fascist, too, just as one would expect.

- click for images -

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-sOR6iDlJEfw/UKYySgGEN2I/AAAAAAAABg8/9-_BO4ilhPA/s1600/joao+figueiredo.jpg

http://img.r7.com/images/2012/11/02/18_19_04_464_file?dimensions=800x600&no_crop=true

(Could really make one shudder!)

[sandensea]

18. And guess what: he's still fighting

https://www.democraticunderground.com/110856310

[Judi Lynn]

20. Had not heard that, yet, until reading your link. Stupendous, he is right on this immediately.

The human beings love him, the ghouls do not.

The outcome of this measure is going to be enormous for so many people: so much good can be done, will be done, if he succeeds.

Great to get some good news immediately following the rotten news!

In the end, good will prevail, by its nature!

[nycbos]

5. Unfortunately politics have become very tribal.

The first posts immediately assume that someone who is left wing can't be corrupt and it is a "which hunt." Notice that is the same phrase Trump supporters used.

From my understanding this corruption probe in Brazil has involved politicians from all parties.

[sandensea]

7. It's not that they 'can't' be corrupt - it's the hypocrisy and, in some cases, lack of hard proof.

The Odebrecht and Lava Jato investigations in Brazil have linked most of the Temer regime, as well as their allies in Congress, to these very same bribery schemes - but Brazil's courts have made it clear that Temer is untouchable.

Not all judges were on board of course; but those that aren't have become A LOT quieter since planes began falling from the sky (http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/19/americas/brazil-judge-killed-plane-crash/index.html).

[nycbos]

9. That is a different story.

I should have used the phrase "some" on the left instead of implying it was everyone.


And hypocrisy is an important point. I just remember reading articles that said that Brazilians often have a low opinion of their politicians because they think that both the left and the right are corrupt. If I understand correctly Rousseff had a dismal approval rating when she was ousted but Temer's is even lower.

Unfortunately for Lula, even if we was acquitted and won the election he would not have been able to do what he did the first time he was in office. Oil prices are much lower.

[sandensea]

13. Excellent points all.

I'm not an expert on Brazil; but I am somewhat acquainted with their ins and outs - and your assessment fits perfectly.

And you're right about the tendency toward a left/right tribalism. As with all things, one has to try to be objective.

Rio's incredible, btw (drink bottled water though, and STAY AWAY from clinics if you can at all help it).

[nycbos]

14. I am not an expert on Brazil either.

I am going on news stories I read in the past.

[sandensea]

15. Those I like to take with a grain of salt.

The problem is that the AP and other news agencies almost always just copy news stories from the largest news outfits in any given Latin American country.

And those in turn are almost always run by their elite (typically landowning) families. Suffice it to say that many of them make Faux News look like Democracy Now.

[Blue_Tires]

21. Car Wash continues the dragnet...

[burrowowl]

24. K&R!!!!!!