The Corporatists Who Want Venezuela's President Ousted
Venezuela President Nicolás Maduro. (Jeso Carneiro / CC BY-NC 2.0)
Gleisi Hoffmann grew up in a Catholic household in Curitiba where, after
giving up plans to become a nun, she entered the student movement,
affiliated with the Brazilian Communist Party (PC do B) and was elected
President of the Curitiba, Parana State and National High School Students
Unions. Afterward, she became a lawyer, affiliated with the Workers Party
(Partido de Trabalhadores/PT) and began a political trajectory that
culminated with her serving as Dilma Rousseffs chief of staff (2011-2014),
senator, and her current position as national president of the PT.
In 2015 she was accused of corruption as part of the US Department of
Justice/Brazilian Public Prosecutors Offices Lava Jato investigation,
headed by Jair Bolsonaros current Justice Minister Sergio Moro. According
to a plea bargain testimony made by a convicted criminal in exchange for
sentence reduction, she was accused of receiving bribes from Petrobras state
petroleum company. The case came up to the Supreme Court in 2017, where it
was thrown out by unanimous decision due to lack of material evidence.
On Jan. 10, Hoffmann traveled to Venezuela to participate in the
inauguration ceremony for President Nicolas Maduro. That week, she was
broadly attacked in the media. I managed to catch up to her on Jan. 19 to
give her a chance to explain to an English speaking audience why she felt it
so important to go to the inauguration.
Brian Mier: Your visit to Nicolas Maduros inauguration in Venezuela was
widely criticized in the Northeven by Anglo journalists who write for
supposedly progressive publications such as the Guardian. You published a
statement about your visit, saying that anyone who criticized it does not
understand the concepts of sovereignty and self-determination. Judging from
the way the Anglo media responded to your visit, I believe that a lot of
people in the historically imperialist nations of England and the US really
do not have a good understanding of these concepts. Why are the concepts of
sovereignty and self-determination important and how do they relate to your
recent visit to Venezuela?
Gleisi Hoffmann: Sovereignty is related to the non-recognition of a higher
body in the external order. In other words, the nation has supreme authority
there is no hierarchy among nations. Self determination is the right that
a people have to govern themselves, to make their choices without foreign
intervention. This is why I mentioned that the US government and those who
criticized me dont understand sovereignty and self-determination because
they believe that forces from outside Venezuela should solve their problems.
We believe the opposite. Only the Venezuelan people have the capacity to
solve their problems, through a process of dialogue, learning and
relationships. My trip to Venezuela, therefore, was related to what the
Workers Party thinks about sovereignty and self-determination. No other
nation or external body has the right to preach for violence and
intervention and meddle in the affairs of another nation. We can, on the
other hand, support building dialogue, drawing together the opposing parties
and encourage a peaceful solution to conflicts. This is what President Lula
always did.
BM: I would like to ask you about lawfare the use of the legal system to
engage in character assassination and political persecution. Just as Lula is
a victim of this process, you were persecuted for years in a US Department
of Justice/Brazilian Public Prosecutors lawfare operation, Lava Jato, led by
Bolsonaros current Justice Minister Sergio Moro. Beforehand a lot of people
thought you would run for President. Personally, I saw the legal/mediatic
character assassination that was carried out against you as an attempt to
block you from running. How did this lawfare process affect your life?
GH: Lawfare has evolved into a system of political persecution and an
instrument of certain sectors of Brazilian society to access power. It is
not just Brazilian society it is a phenomenon that we are seeing in all of
Latin America. It has spread out across the continent, unfortunately. I was
deeply affected by the case against me. I was absolved of all the charges
they mounted against me by a unanimous decision of the Supreme Court, but
before this happened I passed through a series of public embarrassments. My
house was invaded by the police. My husband was arrested and released. There
were protests against me the criticism in the press was always acidic I
was persecuted on social media and my children were harassed in public. It
was a very painful process. But I was very relieved that this situation was
clarified when my final appeal was analyzed and I was absolved of all
charges. However, it still causes problems for me in my social relations and
my political trajectory.
BM: What are the risks of having a highly politicized ultra-conservative
like former Lava Jato investigator, prosecutor and judge Sergio Moro running
the Justice Ministry?
GH: Minister of Justice Sergio Moro is now responsible for political
persecution. In other words, he is that one who will eliminate rivals and
enemies of the system and he will do this using lawfare. He will do this by
mounting and directing investigative processes against people who oppose his
government or who can create obstacles to what they are trying to accomplish
in terms of negotiations and projects.
BM: Was the U.S. involved in these lawfare processes?
GH: I have no doubt about the interests and involvement of the United States
in the Lava Jato investigation process in Brazil. I dont know if their
objective was to persecute the PT, but certainly they engaged in the
operation to advance the commercial goal of opening Petrobras to the North
American petroleum companies, and they succeeded. These are very strong
business interests. And certainly if they manage to weaken or destroy
whoever engages in political opposition and is not aligned with their
concept of international relations, they will not hesitate to do this.
BM: What is the role that the international petroleum industry played in the
2016 coup, in the character assassination and persecution of Lula and the
coup attempt that appears to be underway in Venezuela?
GH: US government got involved in the Lava Jato process in Brazil due to its
interest in accessing our petroleum. We have huge offshore petroleum
reserves in the pre-salt layer. We recently developed a way to extract it
very cheaply due to the technology that was developed by our state petroleum
company, Petrobras. We developed an extraction process and policies for use
of this petroleum that were very different from what is done with normal
commercial petroleum wells. We developed specific laws and a sharing regime
to give limited drilling concessions. We created a fund for saving part of
the money that was raised through this drilling and we allocated part of the
profits to the public education system, In other words we acted with
sovereignty over our petroleum. This was not interesting to the North
American petroleum companies, that wanted to come here and extract the
pre-salt petroleum the way that they work in other places around the world
by making a bid and keeping all of the oil without having to be accountable
to the Brazilian government or the Brazilian people. Therefore I have no
doubt that this coup process is totally connected to facilitated access to
Brazilian petroleum- so much so that immediately after the 2016 coup which
deposed President Dilma ( and there are interviews with Edward Snowden
showing that Brazil, President Dilma and Petrobras were subject wire tapping
and communications monitoring from the US Government) a law was ratified
in Congress changing the rules for exploitation of the pre-salt petroleum
reserves. Now they are working on another one, changing the regulations for
auctioning off the wells. So this is clear. Above all the coup government
minimized and greatly weakened Petrobras, forcing it, after the Lava
Jatoinvestigation, to sell off its assets.
Lula is a great leader of the Brazilian people and he always worked for our
sovereignty and our self-determination without ever disrespecting any other
country. So they knew that Lula would have been a huge resistance to these
interests that they had here. He would have mobilized popular support
against these foreign interests and he would have, in fact, been elected
President. They arrested him to prevent him from being elected.
This is all evident in Venezuela as well. Venezuela has the worlds largest
petroleum reserves. It is a lot closer to the US than the Middle East. It
has a strategic geographical position in Latin America. Since Chavez took
over the government over 20 years ago, Venezuela has adopted a different
posture in relation to the commercialization of its petroleum and also in
relation to its internal policies. And this has greatly displeased the
Americans because Venezuela has not aligned with them. So all of this talk
about democracy in Venezuela, about Maduro being a dictator, in reality,
masks very strong commercial interests in accessing the petroleum. Its the
same thing that happened in Iraq. Nobody discusses whether Iraq has
democracy or whether the Iraqi people are doing well these days, they have
simply forgotten. The Americans succeeded in positioning themselves in Iraq
to access the petroleum and the situation was resolved. So paying close
attention and taking a position in favor of Venezuelas sovereignty and
self-determination is essential now. The problems with the opposition should
be resolved through a process of mediation and debate and a peaceful
solution.
BM: You visit Lula frequently. How is he?
GH: Lula is well. Lula is a political, emotional and physical fortress, even
though he survived cancer and so many other problems in his life. Of course
he is 73, so this imprisonment has consequences on his disposition. But he
is politically well and has a clear vision of his role in history and what
we have to do here to defend Brazil what we have to do to position
ourselves on the side of the Brazilian people. We have no perspective on
when he will be released. All legal measures were blocked. We have done
everything that we could legally and we are fighting politically. Lulas
imprisonment is political. Its not based on legal facts because no proof
was mounted to back up his conviction. His condemnation was not made on the
basis of material evidence. There is not even a clearly defined crime. So
this is very serious. But, unfortunately, since we are victims of lawfare
here in Brazil, I dont see any perspective for a rapid release of Lula. We
are going to fight a lot, and we will always defend our former President to
Brazilian society.
BM: What can the international community do to help?
GH: The international community can and is helping us. It is fundamental
that supporters of democracy, intellectuals and people who understand Lula
and Brazils story show their support, and many already have. I also think
that the Nobel Peace Prize for Lula even just his nomination would serve
as recognition of his innocence. I have no doubt that if he won the Nobel
Peace Prize it would be out of recognition of what he means for Latin
America and the World in terms of pacification of conflicting relationships.
Lula was very important not only from the external point of view of peace
building, but from the internal point of view when he gave the Brazilian
people access to dignified living conditions.
Brian Mier / Brasil Wire
In this article:
#brazil coup #brazil lava jato #Gleisi
#brazil coup #brazil lava jato #Gleisi
