Newsbriefs

Lula takes Presidency in Brazil

SAO PAULO, Brazil — Former union boss Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva won Brazil's presidential election runoff by a landslide on October 27th, marking a historic shift to the left in Latin America's largest country.

Ruling party candidate Jose Serra conceded defeat, hours after Mr. Lula da Silva's Workers Party had declared its candidate the winner. With 95 percent of the vote counted, Mr. Lula da Silva — a former shoeshine boy who rose to become the head of a labor union — had 61.5 percent to Mr. Serra's 38.5 percent, the government's Supreme Electoral Tribunal announced. Thousands of Lula da Silva supporters gathered in the streets of Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, waving his party's red flag in celebration.

Mr. Lula da Silva, popularly known as Lula, just missed a victory in the first-round election on Oct. 6, forcing a runoff against Mr. Serra.

Brazil had never elected a leftist president. Its last leftist leader was Joao Goulart, a vice president who assumed power in 1961 when the centrist president resigned. Mr. Goulart served 2½ years and was deposed by a right-wing military coup.

Lula first ran for president in 1989 as the candidate of the Workers Party, urging landless farm workers to invade private property and calling for a default on Brazil's foreign debt, which now stands at $230 billion. However, in the three subsequent presidential campaigns, Mr. Lula da Silva moderated his radical tone.

Mr. Lula da Silva has criticized current President Fernando Henrique Cardoso's unbridled free-market policies but is believed to be considering several fiscal conservatives as members of his economic team.

Latin American “Axis of Evil!”

An influential lawmaker has called on President George W. Bush to support the ouster of left-wing Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez, warning of the formation of a potential "Axis of Evil" in the Americas. Just days before Brazilians elected radical populist Lula da Silva as their president on Oct. 27, House International Relations Committee Chairman Henry Hyde (R-Ill.) sent President Bush a powerfully phrased letter warning that a triumvirate of political extremists leading economic powerhouse Brazil, oil giant Venezuela and the terrorist-sponsoring regime of Cuba constitute an emerging "Axis of Evil" that the United States must stop.

Citizens protest Bechtel and FTAA

SAN FRANCISCO, CA. – With concerned Bay Area residents demonstrating outside the world headquarters of Bechtel Corporation in San Francisco, numerous activists occupied the building’s lobby for three hours on October 28. They demanded that Bechtel withdraw its support for the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) and drop its $25 million lawsuit against Bolivia, a suit stemming from the company’s botched water privatization scheme in Bolivia’s third largest city. A banner was also hung outside the building, proclaiming “Water for Life, Not for Profit: Bechtel Drop the Lawsuit/El Agua es nuestra ¡carajo!” while dramatic and colorful street theatre performances educated passers-by.

The action at Bechtel, one of the world’s largest construction companies, coincided with massive demonstrations in Quito, Ecuador as civil society groups try to shut down the gathering of world leaders scheduled to meet there from October 28 to November 1 to hammer out details of the FTAA text. The FTAA is a “free trade” agreement that would expand the reach of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) to 34 countries across South and North American and Caribbean (except Cuba). It would expand the rights granted to corporations through NAFTA, making it the largest free trade zone in the world and the most far-reaching trade and investment agreement ever signed.

150,000 March in El Salvador against Privatization

The Salvadoran government illegally fired Alirio Romero, Secretary-General of the STSEL electricity workers union, and four other union activists. In response three union activists began an indefinite hunger strike. They are camped out in front of a government building, with permanent support from unions and organizations in the Salvadoran social movement. Meanwhile, 150,000 doctors, healthcare workers, patients and their supporters marched today in opposition to the planned privatization of health care in El Salvador.

With the beginning of official negotiations for the CAFTA free trade agreement between the US and Central America just around the corner Salvadoran President Francisco Flores seeks to privatize health care and other basic services, such as electricity. Flores' privatization plan would allow multinational corporations, like HMO's from the United States, to "invest" in public health care and leach public resources away from the ISSS, leaving the public hospitals without any funding. Union leaders refer to the plan as "Pay or Die,” as it would make health care a luxury for the privileged few with the capacity to pay for it.

Faced with such a generalized popular uprising, the right-wing government has fallen back on repression. Police have threatened and harassed marches and demonstrations, and in one incident violently dragged 15 STISSS workers by their hair out of a hospital that the union had taken over. A death squad calling itself the "Extermination Commandos" has targeted some 35 doctors and their families with anonymous death threats. The government is illegally withholding salaries from striking workers, trying to starve them back to work. More than 30 ISSS workers have already been fired and 342 more doctors could now be fired for participating in the strike.

Giuliani to get $4.3 Million for Crime Prevention Advice

Former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani will receive US$4.3 million from private sources to advise Mexico City on crime prevention. Carlos Slim, the wealthiest man in Mexico, heads a group of entrepreneurs who will pick up the tab. Giuliani is famous for his "zero tolerance" policy that reportedly reduced crime by 65% during his administration, but increased complaints of police misconduct by a similar percentage. The former mayor is famous for outlawing car window washing, panhandling and other "quality of life crimes."

Recent Attacks in Guatemala

In response to increasing human rights attacks in recent months, NISGUA coordinated a public campaign involving almost 70 organizations in the US, Europe, Mexico, and Canada. They placed and ad in Prensa Libre, a leading Guatemalan newspaper, to express their profound concern about the increasingly violent environment facing human rights activists in Guatemala.

In the weeks preceding the ad, there had been a drastic increase in blatant attacks and threats to human rights worker. These include the assassination of Guillermo Ovalle of the Rigoberta Menchu Foundation; persecution against members of the forensic anthropologist teams carrying out scientific work in the search for and exhumation of clandestine cemeteries; the kidnapping and beating of Domingo Yaxon Guarcax of the National Coordination of Guatemalan Widows; threats against Bishop Alvaro Ramazzini and other priests that labor in areas heavily affected by the internal armed conflict and the persistent agrarian crisis; and threats against members of the Association for the Integral Development of Victims of Violence in the Verapaces Maya Achi, including Jesus Tecu and another key witness in the genocide cases against Generals Lucas Garcia and Rios Montt.

The ad reiterated NISGUA’s full support for the peace process in Guatemala and urged the Guatemalan state authorities to take an active role in investigating human rights crimes and to combat illegally armed groups and all cells of power that threaten citizens’ right to life, dignity, work, and development.