Once again, the forces promoting the coup d’etat in Brazil expose their vilest facet, that of prejudice and persecution, by condemning without evidence of crime former President Lula, in order to prevent him from being a candidate for the Presidency of the Republic in 2018. All the surveys indicate his chances of winning in the first electoral round.

By Socorro Gomes*
{Português}

Sentencing Lula, without any evidence and in complete violation of his civil rights, to nine and a half years of imprisonment, demonstrates the dimension of the ignominy and hatred with which the oligarchies fabricated the plot of the coup against Brazil, against the Brazilian men and women.

Brazil is finally understanding it! It is imperative for the democratic stability and the pacification of Brazilian political life that justice prevails and the legitimate right of the Brazilian people to freely vote for the president of their choice be respected and that this monstrous injustice against the strongest Brazilian leadership be repaired.

Solidarity forces have restated their denunciation of the coup d’état in Brazil, the annulment of all democratic guarantees and, at the same time, the direct attack on the rights of workers, only made possible due to the aggression against democracy. It does not seem a coincidence that the conviction of Lula was announced one day after the approval of an ultraconservative labour reform that made the Brazilian people be thrown back to decades past of arduous struggle.

But sustaining constant chaos serves the vain attempt to hamper popular mobilization.

The offensive seems to have finally hit its target, although its strategy of dismantling an entire legacy is continuous, with a retrograde and servile agenda of historical setbacks with a conservative and increasingly fascist speech.

Lula represents a historical rupture in Brazil with a past of misery and subservience to the empire, breaking with anti-patriotic neoliberal policies.

Millions of Brazilian men and women have left extreme poverty, millions of jobs have been created and essential rights have been secured in recent years, in a process aimed at deepening democracy. At the same time, the country has invested in strategic sectors to strengthen its sovereignty and its international projection, with a qualified foreign policy of solidarity, regional integration, approximation with African and Arab brotherly peoples and the promotion of important multilateral projects that challenged the imperialist and its financial institutions’ attempts to dictate the future of the world.

The unjust and cowardly condemnation of comrade Lula is part of the coup’s central objectives: to politically eliminate the country’s strongest leadership and to destroy a still incipient and fragile democratic state of the rule of law to condemn Lula, a popular and cherished vote-winner.

The goal is to impose the project rejected by the Brazilian people in all the last four presidential elections in the country. Condemning Lula, taking away from Brazilians the right to freely decide who will govern the country, opens the way to impose the neocolonialist project, which would otherwise be slyly rejected.

This coup will not stop there and will continue to seek to subdue the destinies of the nation to the agenda of the United States and the select financial oligarchy.

The coup in Brazil is part of the same plot in which the campaign of siege to Bolivarian Venezuela is. The coup is devised and executed by the most reactionary among the conservative forces, which is seeking power at any cost.

The methods are the same as those of other coups, imposing misery on the people, instigating an atmosphere of tensions and confrontation – already actual in Venezuela and imminent in Brazil – and in close alliance with the conservative media, as well as with the imperialists’ sponsorship, which is widely known and proven.

The World Peace Council has already denounced that these are signs that the new “regime changes” are no longer done primarily with tanks on the streets, but in formats allegedly legitimized by the false and cynical discourse of protection of democracy and security, or a fallacious and unsubstantiated legal narrative.

For this reason, peace-loving forces and defenders of democracy have mobilized to strengthen the struggle against the coups d’etat already perpetrated or in preparation, denouncing the historical setback and subservience to the empire that the reactionary forces have tried to impose on the peoples.

In order to strengthen our common struggle, by embracing and amplifying the urgent call for the sovereignty of our peoples, we are strengthening a great joint mobilization against the neo-colonization project already accelerated by the same reactionary forces that impose chaos and barbarism on our homeland. The peoples will continue to stand and fight for democracy, justice and national sovereignty.

*Socorro Gomes was a councilor of Belém (Pará), federal deputy of Pará (1991-2006) and regional delegate of labor in the Federal State of Pará, Brazil. Currently, she is the president of the World Peace Council.