Impeachment Moves Bankers’ Coup Forward in Brazil

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff called a press conference on the Monday after the Chamber of Deputies had voted to impeach her, to reiterate that she has “the will, force and courage” to confront an impeachment so irregular it constitutes a “coup d’etat.” Rousseff pointed out that she had been impeached for accounting measures which are not a crime and have been used by every president before her, in a proceeding presided over by “those who carried out illegal acts and have accounts abroad.”

The impeachment vote was a real Jacobin mob scene, with shouting, cheering, and singing of soccer songs by whooped-up backers of impeachment, who made speeches about voting on behalf of their mothers, brothers, nephews, children and grandchildren, to end “corruption.” Dilma was not accused of corruption, but with violating budget austerity regulations, but that made no difference, after two years of systematic assault by a re-run dubbed “Car Wash” in Brazil of the Queen’s “Mani Pulite” (Clean Hands) operation, which was used in the early 1990s to destroy Italy’s political system, strip it of its sovereignty, and throw it under the boot of the City of London and Wall Street.

Brazilian politicians, businessmen, and scientific leaders have been subjected to pre-trial jailing on the basis of “confessions” of bribery obtained as plea bargains from alleged witnesses. Those “confessions” are then selectively leaked by the “Car Wash” judges and published in the major financier-owned dailies as proven fact, while British and U.S. Thatcherites (including the Koch brothers and the Atlas Foundation) finance a network of activists leading mass marches, largely of the white upper class, against “corruption.” Roberto Caldas, president of the Inter-American Human Rights Court, associated with the OAS, correctly denounced this operation to replace courts of law by trial by public opinion.

“In a courtroom, everyone has a right to defense with equal time, with equality of arms. In the public arena, without arms, it is like throwing these citizens to the lions,” Caldas told Carta Capital on April 14.

Many of the leaders of the drive to impeach Rousseff are themselves already under investigation for corruption, and are next in line to be indicted. With London demanding that any new government impose unending austerity (in the words of the London Economist: “painful spending cuts and tax rises… reforms to unaffordably generous pensions and the rigid labor market”), expect this nation of 200 million people to descend rapidly into utter chaos, if the British operation is not defeated at the source.

Despite her willingness to fight against the ongoing coup, Rousseff has so far failed to identify the actual source and strategic intent the operation, continuing her stated policy of treating the coup attempt as entirely a domestic fight.

Not so the Russian government. Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova issued a statement Monday pointing to foreign meddling in this process: “Russia and Brazil have a strategic partnership and successful experience of long-term cooperation in various multilateral formats: the U.N., G20, BRICS. We express hope that any problems that may arise in this politically difficult time for our partner will be solved within the constitutional legal framework, without outside interference,” Sputnik news service reported from the statement.