Coup in Brazil: Six Crucial Facts in the Persecution of Lula

Brian Mier
Brasil Wire
Fri, 13 Apr 2018 05:11 UTC

Six facts currently being censored through omission in the Northern media about Lula's Supreme Court Judgement.

© Senado Federal / Flickr

Supporters of former Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva put up banners outside the Supreme Federal Court in March

1. The issue at stake today is not related to a "battle against corruption" but whether the Supreme Court will uphold the 1988 Constitution, which stipulates that the accused have the right to play out their appeals processes in freedom.
2. There is no material evidence against Lula. It's not a matter of "the opinion of his defense lawyers. It's a fact that can be read by anyone in his judgement and has been confirmed and repeatedly commented on by Queen Elizabeth's Barrister and UN Council Geoffrey Robertson and hundreds of legal scholars, including conservatives.
3. Whereas there is no physical evidence connecting Lula to any personal enrichment or bribes of any kind, there is a mountain of physical evidence implicating illegal collaboration between Brazilian prosecutors and the US Department of Justice. The media is ignoring, for example that defense lawyers filed a motion of dismissal two weeks ago based on this illegal collaboration.
4. Operation Car Wash/Lava Jato is a product of the US Department of Justice, FBI and SEC designed to prevent a leftist candidate from being elected president this year and to continue and deepen the hand over of Brazilian natural resources like petroleum and water to northern Multinationals.
5. The US Department of Justice has collected nearly $1 billion in fines from Brazilian companies, shutting down several of them in the process and causing 500,000 job losses in a destabilizing move leading up to the 2016 Coup.
6. Chief Lava Jato prosecutor/judge Sergio Moro is under investigation for the lawfare crime of political persecution against Lula by the UN Human Rights Commission.

Maybe 5 years from now the Guardian, New York Times and Washington Post will engage in public hand wringing and apologies for their collaboration in the destruction of Brazilian democracy. These apologies, if they ever come, will be too little, too late.

Comment: Not surprisingly, these facts are also entirely missing from the Brazilian media. Brazil's media behemoth Globo and its associates have been fully engaged in the impeachment of Dilma Roussef in 2016 and in the persecution against Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva that finally resulted in his arrest on April 7th.

In 1964 Globo supported the US-backed military coup in Brazil. In 2013, 49 years later, Globo issued an apology saying it was an error. Maybe half a century from now they will apologize again. Fortunately many have since learned that these are crocodile tears.

However, some facts are too plain to be hidden: while the current president Michel Temer (made incumbent after Dilma's impeachment) has an approval rating of 5% and a rejection rate of over 70%, voting polls indicated that Lula would have won in any scenario in the upcoming 2018 presidential elections.