|
Brazil's Coordination of Social Movements (CMS) issued a Letter to the Brazilian People, calling for a mass mobilization "against the political destabilization of the government" and against corruption.
The letter suggests that "the elites began a campaign to destabilize the government and President Lula."
According to the coordinator of the Landless Rural Workers' Movement (MST), João Pedro Stédile, the social movements are very worried about the country's situation.
"We met and are proposing to the branches of government as a whole that they use this moment of crisis to produce changes in various areas.
"We hope that the government directs its political action to seek support in society. This is what we intend to tell the President tomorrow," he said.
Stédile also declared that the social movements do not believe in the "story of the big monthlies" - the alleged scheme of monthly allowances paid by the PT to legislators from the PL and the PP.
The president of the Central Workers' Union (CUT), Luiz Marinho, added that "the amount of money involved is exorbitant," and he said he does not believe in the "PT's capacity to raise and mobilize this sum."
The letter also calls for a thorough investigation of all the charges of corruption that are being analyzed by the National Congress and punishment of the guilty parties, as well as changes in economic policy. Priority is given to social rights and democratic political reforms.
The members of the CMS hope to deliver the document to the president of the Senate, Renan Calheiros. They also hope to meet with President Lula.
The CMS is composed of 42 organizations, including the MST, the CUT, and the National Students' Union (UNE).
ABr - www.radiobras.gov.br
 |
Subscribe to this comment's feed
The small, coastal town of Condé is located just a twenty minute's drive from João Pessoa, the capital of Paraíba. The Northeast of Brazil has historically been a place of encounter and mixing between peoples. For millenia groups of indigenous people fished, farmed, migrated and sometimes fought along this large, fertile area. 
The Brazilian diplo-MÁ-cia (bad diplomacy) carries on its accelerated course towards the non-acknowledgment of human rights, although sometimes it takes pleasure in saying that it does precisely the opposite. The visit of Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is another example of a diplomatic omission that verges on hypocrisy. 
On July 4, 2006, representatives of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay met in Caracas to sign the protocol for the entrance of Venezuela into the Southern Common Market (Mercosur). After two and a half years, the protocol was approved by the legislative bodies of Argentina and Uruguay, and as of now it may be only days away from being ratified by the continent's economic megalith, Brazil. 
Some sectors of the fight against AIDS have suggested that Thabo Mbeki, the former president of South Africa, committed genocide through his absence from the fight against the illness in his country throughout his two terms. 
One hundred and eleven years after Brazil abolished slavery, the number of workers deprived of their freedom is still huge. They raise cattle, produce charcoal, sugar cane or timber. Some of them, most undocumented Bolivians, work in basements of small apparel factories in São Paulo and other metropolis. 
On November 7, 2009 a few friends and I had an opportunity to take a look inside a Brazilian jail outside the city of Rio de Janeiro. We were able to take some amateur footage of our experience on video (see link below). It's no surprise, of course, that the typical Brazilian jail lacks some of the functionality of those in North America or Europe, but our experience that day was quite shocking. 
Depletion of the Amazon Rainforest is not a new concern facing environmentalists, biologists, ecologists, and a growing number of the Amazonian indigenous peoples. For decades they have feared for the fate of the world's most biologically diverse and species-rich hothouse. 
Geisy Arruda made history this week in Brazil, but for all the wrong reasons. What began as a poorly planned fashion statement has become a worldwide tale. Geisy decided to wear a pink mini-dress to her private college in São Paulo state, and after that, all hell broke loose. 
The push of vigilante groups in Rio de Janeiro's favelas (shantytowns) in the last three years is the most important and alarming information of the just-released study by the Rio de Janeiro University's Violence Research Center (Nupev-Uerj). 
A dispute over drug trafficking territory in Rio de Janeiro has intensified lately, leaving in its wake unprecedented acts of violence, such as the downing of a police helicopter in the northern zone of the city on October 17. Three policemen died and another two were injured. This event has drawn the attention of the international media, who are raising the issue of public security for the 2016 Olympics to be held in Rio.