I wrote this letter 3 years ago and sent it to The Guardian, when they asked Brazilians about their perceptions about our coup d'Etat. I'm publishing this letter today, to help people understand why Lula isn't wrong when he says this coup was an US' plan all along.
This coup actually began before 2010's election, when José Dirceu was arrested using the dominion of the fact theory. He was Lula's natural successor and was taken down with strategic timing, leaving little room for the party to find another candidate for 2010's elections. Dilma was chosen in a hurry and elected due to Lula's charisma, because people knew nothing about her. However, she was protected, during her first turn, by the World Cup. There was too much money involved to start a boycott on her ruling. Although, São Paulo began to sink it's own economy since 2011, to press Brazilian GDP down. To understand SP's central role in this play, let's highlight a few details first.
The industry federation of São Paulo is the engineering force behind Alckmin's administration and this coup. Before 2013, when the first protests erupted, Sâo Paulo was literally burning up in civil unrest. Executions of drug dealers, policemen executed, burning buses terrifying the people, some commercial zones were put under curfew by criminals and PCC (first command of the capital, the biggest organized criminal faction in Brazil) was freely ruling the capital. The mayor of São Paulo dismounted a famous slum called crackolândia, where crack addicts and dealers were concentrated for years and that measure spread criminals and addicts all over the town, taking violence to extreme levels. This was the context behind 2013's "20 cents" protests at São Paulo city.
The news about São Paulo's unrest were everywhere in the news until the day the protests erupted. Not a single word was written after that about the pre-existent social chaos. The entire conflict vanished, literally. No more buses burning, nor daylight executions, assaults, rapes... There were only Brazilian citizens pacifically protesting at the streets against the raise on the bus tickets. In the meanwhile, the Metropolitan Transpot Union was holding elections and two factions (officially called parties) were shooting each other at the streets, literally!, to see who would win the "voting" for the presidency of the union. Yes, you read it right. Little words on the news about that, by the way. The protests were a very useful smoke curtain. And when the protests weren't useful anymore, the Black Bloks appeared. Their "job" was to spread fear among the protesters. They vandalized stores and banks, always followed closely by the best photographers available. Great pictures of the police violence were all over the news and the internet, so the protests began to cool down.
2014, the World Cup became the excuse. Pessimist news about delays on the constructions, the cost of the building and even their usefulness were daily reported. While people were learning about the corruption of the transportation sector and the reasons why transport was so expensive and ineffective, the media steered the corruption indignation speech after the Cup. Any kind of pessimist propaganda was welcome, while any attempt of bringing awareness about what Brazil was gaining from the Cup was violently discredit. at this point, the cry for nonpartisan mobilizations, a characterist of the 13's protests, was higher than ever, but completely hypocritical, because politicians and media were using the protests to manipulate people's demands.
A good example can be taken from the protests for better public health care. When Dilma brought the doctors of the "Mais Médicos" program, as a direct response to such demand, those protesting didn't recognized the effort and the television began a conspiratory campaing focused their news on ONE Cuban doctor woman holding some weird denounces. She got under senator Caiado's protection, a well known pro-slavery ruralist, and both accused Dilma and Castro of slavery... Later, we found out she had an American boyfriend and moved out to US after the "scandal". A little later, the Cuban blogger Yoani Sanchez showed up with some bizarre companions in Brazil and raised more suspicious about Cuba. It didn't take long and Mariel's port was all over the news, testifying the link between Dilma and dictators. insisted on that speech for a while and soon she became a terrorist who fought against the legitimate and "loved" military regime. Dilma was accused of proposing talks with ISIS and other terrorists when she stood up against Gaza's slaughtering and after that, the words used against her only decreased "quotabillity".
Dilma's first 4 years as president held, simultaneously, 40 thousand infrastructure's constructions. Some huge works, lots of small ones, but they were simply ignored by the news. Even today, most of Brazilians think she didn't built one single bridge during her rule. The Anita Garibaldi bridge, an old promise to the south of the country, was inaugurated without one single report on the tv. The 3rd biggest bridge of its kind and no word about it on the news. Also, the São Francisco transposition was completely hidden by the news. This huge piece of engineering work is a historical promise, in project since Brazil was an empire, it was 82,5% done and already benefitting millions of Brazilians, making us breaking records every harvest season. No words in the papers. We left the hunger map behind, we overcame misery... Not a single word. Dilma was being boycotted and sabotaged in every front.
When she managed to get reelected, despite of all the efforts to drop her popularity, Aécio Neves got really mad. He had his own interests on that election and he would also be used by those behind the coup to topple Dilma 2 years later. He is a very controversial politician with lots of uninvestigated scandals on his back. When he was governor of Minas Gerais, he persecuted and arrested journalists, closed journals and influenced the demission of those who questioned him publicly. He is from Alckmin's party, PSDB, and his grandfather was Getulio's justice ministry and the primeminister who officialized the military regime in 1964.
In 2015, Aécio audited the election and found no fraud. The suspicious about the fraud was all over the news, but the audiction results were bearly commented. Petrobras scandal got the priority over the news, instead. All we heard was about PT politicians involved. There were many other parties, much more deeply involved in the schemes, but only PT politicians matter here. The goal was to make the people believe PT was the source of Brazilian corruption and taking them out would solve this problem for good. Every time another party was bring to the conversations, accusations of getting payment from PT were made. If you wanted to be listened about this subject, you would have to begin acknowledging PT is corrupt and then you could say whatever you wanted to say. It worked like some kind of self proclaiming nonpartisan, otherwise, you would be accused of being paid by PT to defend it.
When the voting for the impeachment happened, most of the supporters were described as belonging to the top classes of society. Although, people is so discontent with the political context and they are so clueless about what politics really are, the solutions available simply can't fix the problem they caused. What all this manipulation created was some sort of new political engagement yet to show its results, because people are still unaware of the Congress role on this play.
The only good solution to this crisis would be to hold new elections to the legislative, but that is the only solution they will never embrace and I think I don't need to explain why. All this happening isn't meant to fix anything.
For our politicians, the only goal here is to protect the old schemes from modernity, nothing else. They will change every suspicious name, enlight every practice, but in the end, what they want is to stop the changes Brazil have being implementing over the last 2 decades. We, the people, got too self-governing to our Jesuit roots and it must stop now. They will do whatever they can to bring Brazil back to what it was before PT start ruling. In the meanwhile, US spread its comercial and political influence in our country, steering the political desicions, holding extra oficial meetings with judges and federal policemen, providing them with "courses" and financing ONGs to keep the popular mobilization at hand for when they need it.
Dilma has to go, because she won't protect corruption for them and she won't give up our sovereign for the US. What happens in Brazil in the next months will affect the entire planet and will help mankind to step further into the future or to retreat deeper into the past. I hope we can count on the people's of the world help and attention, because this battle for democracy isn't only ours and its consequences have the potential to affect how people is treated all over the planet. We are meant to be an example. Let's hope it turns out to be a good one.
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