Massive Protests In Brazil
By Countercurrents.org
19 June, 2013
Countercurrents.org
Massive protests errupted in Brazil yesterday. The protests began with demands for bus fare hikes to be revoked. It has turned into a nationwide demonstration against bad governance. In Sao Paulo, about 65,000 people took to the streets. The largest march was in Rio de Janeiro, where some 100,000 people marched peacefully through the city centre. Towards the end of the evening in Rio, there were violent clashes between groups of protesters and police.
The Rio de Janeiro state assembly was attacked, shops were vandalized and a car was set alight. There were isolated incidents in Sao Paulo, Brasilia, Porto Alegre and other cities.
Many complained of the huge amounts spent on construction for the World Cup and the 2016 Olympics, which will be hosted by Rio de Janeiro.
"We need better education, hospitals and security, not billions spent on the World Cup," said one mother who attended the Sao Paulo march with her daughter.
The most striking image was of protesters on the national congress building. To further humiliate the country's political leaders, the demonstrators breached security at the iconic Oscar Niemeyer-designed National Congress building, clambering onto the roof.
In the capital, demonstrators chanted: "I give up on the World Cup. I want money for education and health."
In a night of protest - some of it violent, much of it peaceful - it was the most visually striking image of the gap between many Brazilians and the politicians for whom they often hold nothing but contempt.
In Sao Paulo, there was another incentive to protest: anger over police tactics at earlier demonstrations, most notably last Thursday.
The police were widely accused by witnesses of firing rubber bullets at peaceful protesters, with many officers hiding their name-tags to conceal their identities.
Among the more than 100 people injured in the unrest were journalists from national news organizations who said they had been deliberately targeted.
The authorities promised to investigate the allegations, and ruled out the use of rubber bullets at the latest protest.
But for people watching, the images of a young couple being clubbed to the ground by a snarling policeman that appeared on the front of many magazines and papers was all too much.
Brazil's political establishment has been caught on the hop by a movement that has grown more daring by the week. Perplexed and taken back, they now have to decide how to respond, and to do so in a country that is in the glare of an international spotlight.
The demonstrations are Brazil's largest since 1992, when people took to the streets to demand the impeachment of president Fernando Collor de Mello.
Eager to ease tensions and prevent future protests, mayors and officials in at least five cities including important state capitals such as Porto Alegre, Cuiaba, Joao Pessoa Recife and other cities announced plans on Tuesday to lower bus fares.
Sao Paulo Mayor Fernando Haddad, a prominent figure in Rousseff's left-leaning Workers' Party, said in a meeting with leaders of the protest movement on Tuesday that he is considering a cut in bus fares but needs to find ways to compensate for the loss in revenue.
The current wave of protests began with smaller-scale protests earlier this month, with marches in Sao Paulo against a hike in the price of bus fares, from 3 reals ($1.40) to 3.20. The protests have been organized mostly by university students through social media. The organizers called the movement Passe Livre (or Free Access).
Within weeks, it had galvanized tens of thousands of people, many of them young, to take their anger onto the streets.
The litany of politicians accused of corruption continued, even if sometimes the courts snatched at their heels. Political corruption, as always, loomed large, with politicians accused of giving themselves high salaries and appointing relatives to phoney jobs in the capital, Brasilia. For some, evictions to facilitate the big sporting events are part of a wider injustice.
The focus of all this discontent seems to be spread across a wide range of issues: the costs of hosting the World Cup and the Olympics sat alongside demands to invest more in education and health.
Brazilian president Rousseff feels proud of protesters: The country has woken up
Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff said she is proud of the tens of thousands of people taking to the streets to demand better education, schools and transport. "Brazil has woken up a stronger country," said Ms Rousseff.
Rousseff said her government is listening attentively to the many grievances expressed at the demonstrations. "My government hears the voices clamoring for change, my government is committed to social transformation," Rousseff said. "Those who took to the streets yesterday sent a clear message to all of society, above all to political leaders at all levels of government", she said in her first comments since Monday night's demonstrations.
Rousseff is said to view the current protests as "legitimate" and part of the nature of democracy.
"It is good to see so many young people, and adults – the grandson, the father and the grandfather – together holding the Brazilian flag, singing our anthem and fighting for a better country," said Ms Rousseff.
She said her government had lifted "40 million people into the middle class" but more needed to be done to improve access to free health and education.
Rousseff said in a televised speech in Brasilia: "The size of yesterday's demonstrations shows the energy of our democracy, the strength of the voice of the streets and the civility of our population."
A leftist guerrilla in her youth who was jailed for conspiring against Brazil's military dictatorship, Rousseff said the sight of so many young Brazilians marching for their rights moved her.
Rousseff looks to Lula
Rousseff traveled to Sao Paulo on Tuesday to meet with former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, her predecessor and political mentor. A former metalworker and union boss who led massive protests in the late 1970s, Lula remains an important power broker in Brazilian politics.
Polls show Rousseff remains widely popular, but her approval ratings have begun to slip in recent weeks for the first time since taking office in early 2011.
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