Essential Afro-Latino/ Caribbean Current Events

[Yehuda]

For Covid-19 Vaccines, Latin America Turns to China and Russia

Western-made shots are scarce, and Beijing and Moscow are stepping in to fill the vacuum

By Ryan Dube and Luciana Magalhaes
Feb. 24, 2021 12:10 pm ET

People who had received a dose of Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine waited in a vaccination center near Buenos Aires last week. JUAN MABROMATA/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES

LIMA, Peru—Across Latin America, governments are desperate for coronavirus vaccines as the only way out of a pandemic that has ravaged economies and left hundreds of thousands of people dead.

But instead of looking to the U.S. for help, Latin America is so far relying on Washington’s global rivals: China and Russia.

In Argentina and Bolivia, authorities have begun vaccinating with Russia’s Sputnik V, which will soon arrive in Mexico. Chile began inoculating this month with 4 million doses of China’s Sinovac vaccine, which President Sebastián Piñera said gave Chileans hope they would emerge from the pandemic. Peruvians celebrated as television stations broadcast this month’s arrival of a commercial flight carrying China’s Sinopharm vaccine.

In Brazil, President Jair Bolsonaro disparaged Chinese vaccines. But his government agreed to use millions of doses of Sinovac’s CoronaVac vaccine after it became clear in January it was the best shot for Brazil to emerge from a pandemic that has killed almost 250,000 people, the second-worst death toll after the U.S.

“The view of many in Latin America is that this is not simply talk, but action from China,” said Margaret Myers, who follows Chinese relations with Latin America at Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington policy group. “I think this will have a major impact.”

Thomas Shannon, a former U.S. under secretary of state for political affairs who oversaw American policy in Latin America, said providing vaccines to the region permits Moscow to expand ties that were severed after the Cold War.

“So what the coronavirus has done and what the vaccines have done is give Russia another opportunity to build relationships in South America,” he said.

The rollout in Latin America, home to 650 million people, will give China and Russia an early foothold in a multibillion-dollar vaccine market. As health experts now warn of a drawn-out pandemic, updated vaccines will be needed to combat new variants of the coronavirus.

It is also a geopolitical advantage for China and Russia. The vaccines could boost their standing in a region where Beijing wants access to oil, copper and soybeans and Moscow has been building stronger diplomatic and economic ties. For the foreseeable future, the region is dependent on Chinese and Russian vaccines.

“It places them in a position to go head-to-head and challenge the dominance of Europe and the U.S. in many of those countries because vaccines are it,” said Monica de Bolle, a Brazilian who is a senior fellow at Peterson Institute for International Economics. “You can’t have functioning economies without vaccines.”

Russia has had long-standing political interest in the region, supporting Venezuela, Cuba, Bolivia and others. It has more recently forged economic interests through joint energy projects in Brazil and Bolivia, and in 2018, signed a contract with Argentina to develop nuclear energy.

Bolivia's President Luis Arce, above, greeted the first batch of Russia’s Sputnik V Covid-19 vaccine at an airport on the outskirts of La Paz last month. Workers unloaded the shipment, below. PHOTO: DAVID MERCADO/REUTERS

PHOTO: DAVID MERCADO/REUTERS

Kirill Dmitriev, head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund, the country’s sovereign-wealth fund that promotes Sputnik V abroad, called Latin America “one of our key target regions.”

“Sputnik V is the vaccine for all humankind,” he said.

China’s Foreign Ministry said its vaccine cooperation with Latin America demonstrates its “profound friendship” with the region, and that it will continue to cooperate to help Latin America emerge from the pandemic.

“In promoting vaccine cooperation with Latin American and Caribbean countries, China never seeks geopolitical goals and economic interests, nor does it attach political conditions,” the ministry said. “What we think about most is to make vaccines a public product that people of all countries can access and afford, and really become ‘people’s vaccines.’”

Latin America’s early reliance on Chinese and Russian vaccines emerged out of necessity as the U.S. and other developed nations bought up nearly all the Western-made shots, from companies such as Pfizer Inc. and Moderna Inc.

Those vaccines were developed with a new and more-advanced technology that mobilizes immune defenses by using genetic molecules. Russia and China’s vaccines use more traditional methods, with China’s shots using a killed or weakened version of the virus to prompt an immune response. That has allowed China to share its technology with other countries to produce its vaccines, which don’t have the capability to turn out the Western vaccines.

In Brazil, China’s Sinovac is transferring technology allowing the São Paulo-based Butantan Institute to produce the doses. Brazil, as well as Argentina, hope to also begin producing Sputnik.

Medical workers outside a hospital in Lima, Peru, earlier this month. PHOTO: MARTIN MEJIA/ASSOCIATED PRESS

The Russian and Chinese vaccines also have a leg up on their Western competitors in developing countries because they don’t require ultracold temperatures for shipping and storage. In Bolivia, Sputnik shots were shipped to the Amazon in a poultry truck. Though vaccine pricing is confidential, Chinese and Russian officials have called theirs cheaper than Western vaccines.

Polls show Latin Americans are skeptical toward the Russian and Chinese vaccines. In Brazil, 47% of people said they would take the Sinovac shot, compared to 74% for vaccines made in the U.S., according to a Datafolha poll in December.

Both China and Russia have faced delays in rolling out vaccines, underscoring the challenges in meeting demand in developing countries. Many Latin American countries also have agreements to receive shots from Pfizer and AstraZeneca PLC, though it is unclear when those will arrive.

Latin American officials say they don’t care where the vaccines come from, as long as they work.

“We didn’t ask anyone about the ideology of the vaccine, we only asked if it saves Argentine lives,” said President Alberto Fernandez of Argentina, the first major country outside of Russia to begin using Sputnik.

People who have gotten the shots view them as a godsend.

“We have a lot of faith, a lot of optimism that this is going to prevent us from getting infected,” said Rosanna Ayasta, an intensive-care nurse at the Santa Rosa Hospital in Lima, Peru, where more than 400 doctors and nurses have died from the virus. Ms. Ayasta received China’s Sinopharm vaccine.

In Brazil’s jungle city of Manaus, Monika Barbosa, a physiotherapist who works in the critical care unit at Santa Júlia Hospital, described elation after receiving her Sinovac shot. “I wasn’t afraid, regardless of where it comes from,” she said. “I trust it.”

China’s ambassador to Brazil, Yang Wanming, has celebrated his country’s efforts to provide vaccines in social-media posts.

“China is with Brazil in this fight against the pandemic,” he wrote recently on Twitter. “Unity and solidarity are the correct paths to defeat the pandemic.”

A woman who had received a dose of a Chinese Covid-19 vaccine sat outside her home in Rio de Janeiro this month. PHOTO: BRUNA PRADO/ASSOCIATED PRESS

The allure of China’s medical diplomacy is potent, prompting lawmakers in Paraguay last year to propose dropping their country’s recognition of Taiwan in hopes of receiving assistance from China. The only South American country to recognize Taiwan, Paraguay has no diplomatic relations with China. The senate voted against the motion, and a few days later Taiwan donated medical supplies to Paraguay.

In Brazil, some observers worry their country is already too dependent on China, its main export market and an important investor in communications. The recent delay in the delivery of an ingredient needed to manufacture the Sinovac shots caused deep concern, frustrating Brazilian state governments that face immense pressure to speed up vaccinations.

“Brazilians are completely dependent on the Chinese. There is no other alternative for Brazil right now,” said Rubens Ricupero, a prominent former Brazilian diplomat.

Some officials, though, welcome China’s deepening role. Since taking office in 2019, João Doria, the powerful governor of São Paulo state and a political rival of Mr. Bolsonaro, has opened a commercial office in Shanghai and become China’s pointman in Brazil for supplying vaccines to other states. China shuns Mr. Bolsonaro, who had been aligned with the Trump administration.

China’s vaccines should strengthen diplomatic relations, Mr. Doria said in an interview.

“Here, we will certainly not forget the gestures, attitudes, coherence, the respectful way in which the Chinese government, Chinese authorities and Chinese companies have treated São Paulo,” he said.

—Juan Forero, Georgi Kantchev and Raffaele Huang contributed to this article.

For Covid-19 Vaccines, Latin America Turns to China and Russia

 

[Yehuda]

 

[Yehuda]

Cuba is one step closer to launching its own anti-COVID vaccines

Cuba is the only country in the Latin American and the Caribbean region that is working to develop its own vaccines against COVID-19. The country has four vaccine candidates. Two of them, Soberana 02 of the Finlay Vaccine Institute (IFV) and Abdala of the Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (CIGB), will begin the third phase of clinical trials in March

February 25, 2021 by Tanya Wadhwa

Cuban anti-COVID vaccine candidate Soberana 02 of the Finlay Vaccine Institute (IFV). Photo: Granma

Throughout 2020, Cuba played a significant role in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic globally. The small island nation sent over 50 contingents of doctors and healthcare professionals to about 40 countries around the world to assist them in their fight against the disease. Due to the country’s extraordinary efforts to help humanity in one of the worst public health crises to date, thousands of organizations and individuals from across the globe have joined a campaign calling on the Nobel Committee to award the Nobel Peace Prize to Cuba’s Henry Reeve Medical Brigade.

In 2021, the Caribbean country is prepared to add a new milestone in its inspiring history. While the rest of the Latin American and the Caribbean countries are focusing their efforts on importing vaccines, Cuba is the only country in the region focused on developing its own vaccines against COVID-19. Cuba is working in parallel on four possible vaccines: Soberana 01 and Soberana 02 of the Finlay Vaccine Institute (IFV), and Abdala and Mambisa of the Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (CIGB). Two of these, Soberana 02 and Abdala, showed positive results during the second phase of clinical trials and will advance to the third phase in March. If these vaccines yield desired results, Cuba will become the first country in the region to develop its own vaccines.

In August 2020, Cuba became the first country in the region and the 30th in the world to announce a vaccine candidate against COVID-19 with Soberana 01. The same month, following the pre-clinical studies on animals, Cuba’s Center for State Control of Medications, Medical Equipment and Devices (CECMED) authorized the IFV to start human trials. In November 2020, the CECMED gave authorization to the IFV and the CICG to begin clinical trials of Soberana 02, Abdala and Mambisa.

Soberana 01, Soberana 02 and Abdala are injectable vaccines, administered by intramuscular route into the deltoid muscle, while Mambisa is a nasal spray vaccine, applied through the nose. The four vaccines work in a similar way. The difference between them is that each one has different formulations. The two Soberana vaccines use an antigen obtained from mammalian cells in various formulations, while Mambisa and Abdala use an antigen taken from yeast, also in various formulations.

Soberana 01 entered the second phase of trials this month and Mambisa is still in the first phase of trials. Meanwhile, Soberana 02 and Abdala are closer to being approved for a mass emergency use in March. Both the vaccines have shown a high immune response against coronavirus in the second phase. They have also shown few and mild adverse events such as mild pain around the site of injection.

Both Soberana 02 and Abdala are protein-based vaccines that contain part of the coronavirus. Unlike Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, they do not require deep freezing, and are more economical and viable options for poorer countries that often lack the equipment to keep that many doses frozen. Countries, such as Iran, Venezuela, Vietnam, India and Pakistan, have already shown interest in acquiring Cuban vaccines.

Soberana 02 requires three doses to be administered at two-week intervals. Abdala, on the other hand, requires two doses at an interval of three weeks.

In the third phase, Soberana 02, which seems to be leading the race, will be tested on some 150,000 people in Cuba and Iran. Cuba and Mexico are also communicating about the possibility of carrying out phase III trials in Mexico as well. The details regarding Abdala’s phase 3 trials have not been made public yet.

The socialist government of President Miguel Díaz-Canel is optimistic about the results. In case of success, Cuba hopes to produce 100 million doses of Sovereign 02 this year, with which it aims to vaccinate its entire population of over 11 million people and start exporting to other countries by the end of the year. Administration of anti-COVID vaccines will be free and voluntary in the country.

In a press conference, in the beginning of February, the president of the state-owned pharmaceutical company BioCubaFarma, Eduardo Martínez, also said that the country’s vaccines showed very positive results and assured that the country might obtain “more than one vaccine.”

At the same time, the director of the IFV, Vicente Vérez Bencomo, said that after receiving validation from the WHO, the country will produce its first batch of one million vaccines in April.



The four vaccine candidates are a proof of the power of Cuban biogenetic engineering and biotechnological advancements. Cuba began investing in biotechnology and medical science in the 1980s, as part of Commander Fidel Castro’s vision to make the nation self-sufficient in the face of the US embargo that made it difficult to obtain medicines produced abroad.

As it is part of Cuba’s long history of medical innovation rooted in humanism, internationalism and solidarity, the country has already announced to donate vaccines to poor countries. Additionally, the IFV’s director, Vérez Bencomo, has announced that all foreigners who arrive in the country and want to be vaccinated with Cuban candidates will be able to do so.

The names of the vaccines are a tribute to the revolutionary history of the country. Soberana means sovereign in English, a nod to the country’s autonomy and self-sufficiency in the face of the US’ six-decade-long commercial blockade. Abdala is named after a dramatic poem written by Cuba’s national hero José Martí in 1869. Mambisa refers to a woman guerrilla fighter who fought in the Cuban war of independence against Spain in the second half of the 19th century.

Cuba is one step closer to launching its own anti-COVID vaccines

 

[Yehuda]

A powder keg of violence and destitution in Colombia

By Socorro Ramírez | February 2021

In Colombia, violence is far from having disappeared with the peace accords. In port regions where poverty of historically neglected ethnic groups abounds, the presence of extractive multinationals is combined with that of armed gangs. The state only seems to have one answer: militarization.

Buenaventura, a municipality located 116 kilometers from Cali, the capital of Valle del Cauca, is the largest seaport on the Pacific Ocean. Currently, it moves between 40 and 50% of Colombia's foreign trade and constitutes the point through which the country is related to the Asia-Pacific region. Declared a special port district, it has a series of remarkable characteristics: its cultural, forest, fishing and timber wealth are evident. Its importance is such that there are those who intend to modernize it to surpass the port of El Callao in Peru and that of Valparaíso in Chile and thus make it the capital of the Pacific Alliance, launched in 2011 from the Caribbean, in Cartagena.

However, Buenaventura is a port without a city or a community. There are situations that explain why.

After decades of economic liberalization and free trade, different private and corporate interests that control large companies, free zones, port services and logistics operations have come together in the Buenaventura area. Its expansion has guaranteed private gains, but has not translated into benefits for the community. The wealth generated and the vision of development that it feeds contrasts with the perspective of the local population, who live with a port built behind them. The locals, generally part of black and indigenous communities, defend from their ancestral points of view a local development based on antagonistic criteria to those of private interests. They put emphasis on cultural, environmental and social protection against the extractive economy that comes from outside.

Outside, mainly United States interests, fuel animosity against the inhabitants of the area, whom they refer to as a "hindrance to progress." For years, there has been pressure for them to leave their community territories and to remove, for example, those who inhabit low-sea areas. Racial discrimination and regional segregation, as well as the attempts to co-opt some leaders to support these external dynamics, have fractured identity processes, especially those of Afro-descendants. Added to this is the violence, uncertainty and powerlessness to overcome problems that persist and affect these collective struggles in defense of ethnic-territorial claims in Buenaventura and its rural area.

A situation similar to that of Buenaventura is experienced by the people of Quibdó, Alto Baudo, Tumaco, El Charco and La Tola in the other three departments of the Colombian Pacific coast — Chocó, Cauca and Nariño — where there is a serious ethnic, environmental land problem involving coca crops, irregular extraction of natural resources and violence. The State is unable to control these marginal territories, provide security, stimulate legal economic alternatives, or strengthen the legitimate authority to regulate political, economic, and social activities and control different expressions of violence. Its absence — or rather its traumatic presence — makes it easier for delinquents and criminal gangs to act, as well as irregular armed groups that dispute the control of drug trafficking, fuels and illegal mining and the logging of forests. The State hardly appears at critical moments, sets up security councils and increases the presence of the public force. It only approaches the region from a militaristic security perspective.

Although the collective territories and the organizations of predominant black and indigenous communities on the Pacific coast were recognized by the Colombian Constitution of 1991, the white and centralist culture that prevails in Bogotá and in several of the departmental capitals does not help to consolidate forms of regional and local government protected in the processes of territorialization and worldviews of ethnic communities. The so-called "Humanitarian Agreement Now" started in Chocó and has tried to defend the need to take advantage of the construction of territorial peace, a crucial point in the peace agreement between the national government and the defunct Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), to stimulate policies that, from the perspective of the Pacific communities, reverse these structural realities of looting and violence.

For years, local communities have been denouncing the increase in insecurity due to the actions of criminal groups that are fighting for territorial control, as well as waves of violence in streets, neighborhoods, houses and estuaries. While the Calima Paramilitary Bloc has committed all kinds of massacres — from torture and assassinations to dismemberment and disappearances — the National Liberation Army (ELN) and dissidents from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) are trying to expand in the suburban area.

The local armed gang La Local being divided into two groups (the "Spartans" and the "Shotas") has contributed to the latest wave of violence. So far in 2021 they have generated 38 violent clashes and have tried to subdue local communities, using or destroying organizations and social leaders. These disputes within the gangs mainly affect the black population, who are dispossessed and have contributed to a 200% increase in murders compared to the previous year. The rape of women and the deaths and injuries of children from wounds caused by anti-personnel mines and explosives have increased. Likewise, there has been an increase in displacement, confinement and forced recruitment. Shopkeepers being extorted and robberies are part of everyday life in the region.

In the 1990s, a powerful organization of social movements demanded the application of transitory article 55 of the Constitution and Law 70 of 1993 to recognize and regulate the territories of black communities in riparian zones of the rivers of the Pacific Basin. The population has been carrying out uninterrupted marches, strikes and civic strikes. The most resounding one was, without a doubt, the 21-day strike in 2017. This latest measure of protest led to the creation of the Fund for the Integral Development of the Buenaventura Special District, consisting of different programs. Since 2017, Buenaventura was included as a place of application of the Development Programs with a Territorial Approach (PDET), contemplated in the Peace Agreement, to stimulate a process of urban and rural structural transformation, the protection of multiethnic and multicultural wealth, biodiversity, the peasant and family economy and community organizations. In the 2019 local elections, Víctor Hugo Vidal, one of the leaders of the 2017 civic strike, was elected as mayor, defeating the patronage exercised by traditional economic and political elites.

On February 10, 2021, more than 80 thousand people formed a human chain and marched 22 kilometers holding hands. There they launched the SOSBuenaventura initiative, rejecting violence and demanding protection for community leadership, security, social investment and peace.

Since the 1970s, different national governments have formulated plans for the Buenaventura region and the areas linked to the Pacific. During the last twenty years, these initiatives have been replicated more and more and have appealed to new formulations for regional development. However, every plan remained on paper. The resources they contemplated were insufficient or were not transferred. There is no continuity from one central government to the next that allows the assumption of commitments acquired on behalf of the State so that a systematic process of listening and collecting local initiatives is achieved and, with the help of these communities, their development can be guaranteed. Not only does planning predominate from the national and departmental capital apart from community institutions and their visions, but non-compliance with those plans and the agreements signed by successive governments with local communities prevails. The lack of social investment and corruption increase this accumulation that generates frustration, mistrust and aggravates the situation in the most marginalized territories that are the scene of different types of violence.

Over and over again, governments have militarized Buenaventura by land, water, and air to protect ships, containers, cranes, and the road that connects it to the rest of the country. Some social spokesmen have been sent bodyguards and armored vehicles for protection. But many times the state stigmatizes social leadership and members of the public force end up being bribed by irregular armed gangs. In addition, the simplification of the situation leaves crimes in impunity and does not generate neither a State nor a market, services or citizenship. The problem of a key port for the country with a population affected by poverty, statelessness and violence is underestimated.

The current president, Iván Duque, reduces the problem to "the fight of drug traffickers who kill each other" and his motto is el que la hace la paga ("don't do the crime if you can't do the time"). The Interior Minister announced that everything will be normalized with rewards for the capture of criminal gangs and the increase of 150 police officers and two military detachments. The prosecutor announced the unification and exclusive control of methodologies for counting the murders of social leaders and members of the former FARC, but he turned it into a game of numbers and categories, thus making its seriousness invisible.

The three entities of the transitional justice system — the Special Jurisdiction for Peace, the Truth Commission and the Unit for the Search of Disappeared Persons — request an urgent integral state presence, beyond the public force. The Ombudsman's Office launches successive alerts. Bishop Rubén Darío Jaramillo told El Espectador: “People feel that the authority is the bandits. Every time there is an event there is another security council, they bring a few more policemen, they act and capture some of these people, but the problem continues. It is like putting cloths of warm water on a fever caused by an infection”.

International alerts have just been activated, one in the United Nations Security Council through the representative in Colombia of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, who presented the report of the Verification Mission on the Peace Agreement with the former FARC. In addition, there were four calls from the United States. The United States Department of State and the chairman of the United States House Committee on Foreign Affairs called on the government to take decisive action in the face of deep-seated problems and racism that fuel violence and inequality. Human Rights Watch showed unprotected leaders and defenseless communities, and a state incapable of making itself felt in those places. The organization WOLA recalls, at the same time, that the Free Trade Agreement between the United States and Colombia of 2012 helped to promote huge projects in Buenaventura without benefits for its population, that the U.S.-Colombia Labor Action Plan includes ports as a sector priority but soon abandoned the improvement of the rights of dockworkers. The requests to the Joe Biden administration to pressure Colombia to implement the Peace Agreement involving ethnic minorities and their marginalized territories are multiplying more and more.

Until now, uncertainty and hopelessness are the growing feelings in Buenaventura. The Colombian State must approach the territorial realities. Local organizations need to articulate around a local collective vision and empower themselves to influence and be heard. Otherwise, centralism will continue to make decisions that will aggravate the situation in the peripheral territories.

A powder keg of violence and destitution in Colombia

 

[Yehuda]

Converting Reputation into an Asset for Revenue Generation

Vice Chancellor outlines The UWI’s new Strategic Vision to address it’s Financial Future

March 3, 2021
By Earl Bousquet

The University of the West Indies (The UWI) has a visionary Ten-Point Strategic Plan for self-sufficiency and globalization that will see enrollment multiply, services offered beyond the Caribbean and its now-globally-branded reputation capitalized for revenue.

But its success will depend on the region’s governments paying outstanding debts and revisiting contributions and investments in education and the university developing brand new relationships with international partners and the region’s private sector.

The Plan was presented in detail to journalists Tuesday (March 2) by UWI Vice Chancellor Professor Sir Hilary Beckles during a virtual press conference ahead of a series of meetings across the region yesterday and today to discuss their commitments to the university’s financial future.

The UWI has over the past three years achieved the launch of a ‘reputation revolution’ that’s given it high ranking among the universities worldwide and the next phase involves ‘Converting the Reputation into Revenue’ to ensure ‘Caribbean people have the first-class university.’

The plan will establish new presence at continental levels and cultivating alliances with new global partners, while enhancing investment in capitalization of its services in the region, starting with creation of a state-of-the-art medical school in Trinidad & Tobago.

The region being overpopulated with offshore medical schools and The UWI best able to provide quality medical care — and backed by its admirable record of establishing its COVID-19 Task Force way ahead of the arrival of the first positive case in the Caribbean — the plan is to invite regional private sector investment in the medical school, to be floated on the stock market to raise the US $60 million needed.

Having digitized teaching between campuses and across non-campus territories through the UWI Open Campus, the new plan also foresees a move ‘From Open Campus to Global Campus’, with the current Open Campus enrollment of 8,000 and the 50,000 enrolled at the three campuses to be multiplied to 100,000 to 200,000 including students and services in Europe, North America, Latin America, as well as Australia.

Collecting only 60 cents on every government dollar and losing an average 40% of related outstanding debts written-off after being rendered uncollectable by auditors, the governments had worked-up a collective debt of approximately $115 million in 2014-2015, which has been reduced in the last five years to $51 million in 2020-2021.

Planning to reduce expenditure by 10% in the next year and increasing it by an equal amount the following year, the plan is to get governments to improve the revenue stream by on-time direct contributions that would amount to half the income and the rest shared between the private sector (20%), student fees (15%) and the remaining 15% from ‘international engagements.’

But the stark reality is also that in the current global economic climate ‘poverty is increasing alongside economic growth’ in some parts of the region and some 75% of The UWI’s students are from working class families.’

The region is also at the bottom of the ladder in terms of university enrollment among young people vis-à-vis 60% in North America and 40% in Latin America.

The VC noted the region’s working class need technical skills that The UWI can also provide.

He was therefore ‘very proud’ that Guyana’s President Irfan Ali – ‘a UWI graduate’ — had invited the university to help train 4,000 Guyanese Public Service officers to prepare for a new development plan for the new oil-rich CARICOM member-state.

The Vice Chancellor has no doubt the $500 million restructuring plan can easily be achieved if the governments in debt pay-up to relieve the university of the burden of overly depending on collection of students’ fees and allow it to concentrate on developing ‘The Entrepreneurial UWI.’

Indeed, the figures he rolled out convinced the journalists.

He said the region’s governments were aware of the value of the human resources and the services The UWI offered.

In addition, the UWI COVID-19 Task Force’s early actions and advice having helped save ‘thousands of lives’ would assure enough regional private sector support for the US $60 million needed to capitalize the proposed medical school on the stock market, which could provide 30% of the university’s revenues in two to three years.

But the figures also suggest that quite a lot will depend on the Jamaica government being able to pay-up on its outstanding debts.

Headquartered in Jamaica, the Mona Campus is the largest campus and attracts the most expense and costs – and responsible for 60% of The UWI’s outstanding debts, making it the lowest contributor and the highest debtor.

The VC said he would like to see Jamaica’s economic growth get to a stage where it can again boast a surplus, which would be in the interest of all sides.

The plan was put together by the university’s best thinkers, researchers and planners and did not necessarily require more cash from governments, as the proposition is to ultimately reduce overall government contributions from as much as 90% to only 50%.

The Vice Chancellor’s presentation left little room for questions, save for clarifications and/or amplifications, as he closed with the observation that The UWI’s role today (and tomorrow) ‘is not only to educate, but also to save lives…’

What was very clear too was that having navigated The UWI over five years and achieving so much in so little time, Sir Hilary’s leadership is absolutely vital to the success of the proposed strategic plan.

It can only be hoped, therefore, that in the wider regional interest, after the governments hosting campuses and non-campus units are presented with this plan (yesterday and today), they will realize that the Vice Chancellor’s leadership will also be absolutely essential to the success of the mission for converting the university’s reputation as a revenue-generating asset, while running the region’s premiere non-profit educational entity as a business, towards the development of ‘a public Caribbean university.’

Converting Reputation into an Asset for Revenue Generation

 

[Yehuda]

 

[Yehuda]

Lava Jato Dies, Lula Is Reborn: Behind The Supreme Court Ruling

MARCH 9, 2021
By Brian Mier

On March 8th, Brazilian Supreme Court Minister Edson Fachin dismissed all Lava Jato related charges against former President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva. The ruling came as a surprise to some, since Fachin has been accused of pro-Lava Jato bias in past rulings, and leaked Telegram messages, published by the Intercept in 2019, shows task-force chief Dalton Dallagnol talking about a 45 minute meeting with the Supreme Court Minister, shouting with glee and bragging to fellow prosecutors, “Fachin is ours!“.

After last month’s Supreme Court ruling, that all 6 terabytes of Telegram conversations obtained by hacker Walter Delgatti in the so called “Operation Spoofing” were admissible as evidence in the Triplex apartment case against Lula, something had to be done to stop the bleeding. As Delgatti said in a recent interview, Dalton Dallagnol never erased any of his chats. For 5 years, he had been sharing audio messages from Sergio Moro and other important political figures with fellow prosecutors, and Delgatti recorded all of them. Furthermore, as earth shattering as the Intercept revelations were, Delgatti had only shared 57 gigabytes of information with them, and he says they refused an offer for more and only released a small portion of what he had shared. As soon as the defense lawyers began filing for new motions of dismissal along with press releases containing relevant sections of newly revealed Telegram conversations, continuing the cases against Lula became politically unsustainable.

Lula’s defense team filed its first motion of dismissal for illegal collaboration with US government authorities in February, 2018, months before the Intercept began publishing excerpts from the Telegram leaks. It was based on a July 2017 speech by US Assistant Attorney General Kenneth Blanco bragging about how informal communications with Lava Jato officials helped streamline the investigation against Lula. Informal communications between public prosecutors and foreign government officials violates Brazilian sovereignty laws.

It’s second motion for dismissal based on illegal collaboration with US officials was filed the week after the Supreme Court ruled on the admissibility of Delgatti’s hacked telegram conversations. One of the justifications was a comment made on the day of Lula’s imprisonment by Lava Jato task-force chief Dalton Dallagnol, that it was a “gift from the CIA.”

As the defense team filed motion after motion, more and more damning information came out. The task-force knowingly used forged plea bargain testimonies, with Dallagnol jokingly calling them, “outsourced.” Most importantly, newly released conversations were compromising members of the Supreme Court. One message, released on March 4th, shows Supreme Court Minister Carmen Lucia informally ordering the Lava Jato task force to keep Lula imprisoned, after a judge from the 4th Regional Federal Court issued a habeas corpus.

Meanwhile, Supreme Court investigations were underway against former judge-turned Justice Minister Sergio Moro and Lava Jato task-force leader Dalton Dallagnol. If allowed to proceed, based on the compromising conversations implicating Minister Fachin published in the Intercept there is a good chance that he could have become further compromised. This explains why one of the most sympathetic Supreme Court Ministers to the entire Lava Jato investigation made the decision to drop all charges against Lula, in a ruling which weakened the investigations against Moro and Dallagnol.

Once the decision was made, finding a justification to drop charges was easy. Over the course of the last 5 years, Lula’s defense lawyers issued dozens of motions to dismiss in a remarkably consistent fashion. After all, none of the charges against Lula had any material evidence – they were all based on coerced plea bargain testimonies by jailed businessmen who, in every case, changed their stories multiple times before receiving partial illicit asset retention, greatly reduced sentences and transfer to house arrest. In the Triplex apartment case, Moro was forced to sentence Lula for “indeterminate acts of corruption“, because no material evidence was every produced showing that Lula had owned or slept in the apartment, or that the alleged illegal reforms had taken place. Furthermore, prosecutors were unable to establish any quid pro quo because the alleged benifits took place years after Lula left political office.

The easiest way for Fachin to throw out charges was on the issue of illegal Forum Shopping – breaking rules to transfer a case to a venue more favorable to the prosecution. Lava Jato’s initial justification for trying a São Paulo case in Parana, was arguing that the apartment was connected to a kickback scheme in Petrobras Petroleum company, which has operations nationwide. Once the case was transferred to Curitiba, however, this charge was immediately dropped for lack of materiality (a nuance that was apparently lost on the Guardian, which related false Petrobras corruption allegations against Lula until the eve of his imprisonment). The week after the Petrobras charges were dropped in 2016, Lula’s defense team filed its first motion to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction – the apartment was located in a different court region and Lula has never lived in Curitiba. The defense team has filed dozens of motions for dismissal due to various problems of an incredibly weak case, which as Mark Weisbrot wrote in January, 2018 in the New York Times, would have never held up to a minimum level of scrutiny in the US. On March 8, Fachin chose the forum shopping issue as justification for dismissing all charges against Lula. In other words, Moro was unqualified to preside over the investigation, let alone rule on it, and Dallagnol and company had no legal authority to investigate Lula on the crimes in question – something Brazil’s most important jurists have been writing about in the top legal blogs and independent press for the last 5 years, that was completely ignored by English language Brazil correspondents in top newspapers like the Guardian and Washington Post.

Lula is now a free man, free to run for political office, but there is definitely going to be a push back. Fachin has ruled that, although all of the Lava Jato charges against Lula are null and void, the plea bargain testimony could be used to file new charges against him in a Brasilia district court. The conservative Brazilian media is making a big deal about this, but there are two reasons why I don’t believe it represents a serious threat: 1) in the case that new charges are filed, the Operation Spoofing telegram leaks have already been ruled admissible by the Supreme Court, and powerful forces in both Brazil and the US government would rather that body of compromising information stay under wraps; and 2) even if charges are filed, it is highly doubtful that Lula could be tried, convicted and lose two appeals before next year’s election season, taking into consideration that Lava Jato broke all kinds of speed records convicting Lula to jail and remove him from the 2018 presidential elections, but even this took over 2 years and they were only able to do it through a Supreme Court Order, made under duress from Military General Vilas Boas, to make an exception to the 1988 Constitution and imprison the former President before his appeals process played out.

Meanwhile, the corporate journalists who worked to normalize the kangaroo court procedure against Lula and rise of neofascist Bolsonaro are in full spin mode, running damage control as Lula opens a double digit lead over all over potential candidates for the 2022 Presidential elections, with the lowest rejection rate of any potential candidate.

Lava Jato Dies, Lula Is Reborn: Behind The Supreme Court Ruling

 

[Yehuda]

 

[Yehuda]

IN-DEPTH ANALYSIS OF CHAVISMO’S COMMITMENT TO COMMUNES

Franco Vielma
18 Feb 2021, 1:20 pm.

El Presidente Nicolás Maduro promovió personalmente el Congreso Nacional de Comunas 2.0 (Foto: Prensa Presidencial Venezuela )

When the National Congress of Communes 2.0 closed this February 10, President Nicolás Maduro, who was very involved in the development of the event, delivered two key projects of law to the President of Parliament, Jorge Rodríguez: the Law of Communal Cities and the Law of the Communal Parliament.

These projects were presented during the political campaign for the parliamentary elections, and they have been expressly drawn up by the Communes’ teams that participated in Congress through 698 proposals.

From these, a total of 406 were registered by the spokespersons of Communes and Communal Councils, while 292 corresponded to the representation of social movements.

Chavismo and the apparent incongruity of dollars and Communes

In terms of the media landscape, an apparent incongruity is presented between the side of Chavismo that makes banking mechanisms more flexible to allow operations in dollars, and another Chavismo that makes huge leaps towards the Communes.

It’s important to escape from this narrative, this Manichean trap, by analyzing the national reality.

Basically, the economic blockade against the country has significantly degraded the State’s ability to arbitrate internal economic factors and sustain the entire system, as had been the tradition in a hundred years of oil rentierism. At present, the model for sustaining the economy and the core factor of the country’s politics and income is dying, disfigured by the pressures of the blockade.

This unique situation for Venezuela’s politics and economics forces the management of the State to be particularly guided by pragmatism, especially in the economic sphere, in ways that have not been seen in more than 20 years that Chavismo has been in power.

Chavismo has had to implement and tolerate a set of rule changes, based on superior factors and forces that it cannot control, precisely because the economic capacities of the State have been decimated. In this sense, it’s convenient to highlight not only the external blockade, but also the advance in the domestic economy of phenomena such as the partial dollarization of commercial activities, as well as flexibilities in economic policy, and mechanisms to revitalize the internal apparatus beyond the management of the State, which have been accepted by the government itself.

Hence, what some consider acts of “regression” for the Chavista leadership are acts of congruence and pragmatism in response to conditions imposed by circumstance. For Chavismo, these conditions require adaptation, otherwise Venezuela risks being overwhelmed by total economic paralysis faced by the blockade.

(Foto: Prensa Presidencial Venezuela )

In this context, Venezuela launches these two projects of community laws, demanded for years by those that fought for the construction of Communes in the country.

President Maduro proclaimed that the Communes are features of the “new State” that must germinate, consolidating the national political space in a framework of resistance. “We have to build the forces of the future, the moral and new strength of the country—the communal forces, the popular forces, those of the working class, and rectify everywhere where mistakes have been made,” said Maduro.

Maduro foresees that, for this year, the goal of building at least 200 Communal Cities will be met according to the principles of the proposed laws. He spoke of development priorities for Communal Cities, among which he listed: the drafting of simple laws that serve the people; local public services, controlled by the popular power; and the role of the Communes in productive activity.

In other words, the proposal consists of political and economic empowerment, self-managed by the Communes, within a framework of economic and financial aggressions that have broken the traditional forms of economic and political management in the country, which emerged within the rentierist, representative, vertical and clientelistic State that defined national life for decades.

There must be an acknowledgment of circumstances. Chavismo understands that in some areas it has to compromise, while in others it has to move forward, and that these situations are imposed by the forces that cannot be controlled, but rather must be managed. Just as in a context of war, which is what there is against Venezuela, there is a relation between the apparent setbacks and the advances, because they are based on tactics.

There’s a recognition of the dismantling of the traditional rentier State, which demands a transformation of the forms of government, and the acceleration of mechanisms of political and economic management beyond the State.

Seen like this, there are no incongruities. The national political and economic moment itself, with all its contradictions, has been the motive force for the clear leap forward towards the Commune.

A strategic approach on several front

The intention is ambitious; it consists of reverting from the depths, from the very bowels of the country, the local management models—not under the condition that oil be at 100 [per barrel oil price] as was intended in another era, but under the most exasperating conditions that the country’s economy has known throughout its history.

Hence, the advance in politics, in the country, now becomes a clearly strategic factor for Chavismo. Collapsing rentierism imposes new forms of public management in matters of state services, in sensitive areas such as the distribution of domestic gas or access to drinking water.

It’s also a fact that the reduced capacities of the State, the reduction of its institutional muscle, now requires concrete and firm action from the sectors organized from below, to be managed by and from the communities.

It’s also relevant to mention that the national economic recovery we aspire to, given the reduction of the economic capacities of the State, should not remain in the exclusive hands of private capital, if such a thing is possible, since private capital by nature can only recover itself and it leaves little for national aspirations. Chavismo continues to look at the economic and productive potential of the Communes as incipient economic actors, but with the capacity to impact local economies through the production and distribution of goods and services. That’s another point to consider.

(Foto: PROINPA )

The launch of the Communal Parliament Law consists of a political empowerment that will be essential for the development of local life, to re-politicize and revitalize the participatory nature of Chavismo. Next, the Communal Cities Law will establish management mechanisms from and for the Communes, and create a stable environment for the management of public services, social production and the flow of goods and services.

Along these lines, Maduro has opted to “oil” the resource base for these efforts. He said that the devaluation induced in Venezuela forces the State to use the petro as an instrument, with which it will create another milestone in national life, another achievement unique to Venezuela: Chavismo aspires to build spaces for local self-government, financing this great aspiration through the use of a sovereign cyptocurrency.

Perhaps the latter doesn’t mean much because of our tendency to trivialize national politics, but let’s look at it in comparison to similar accomplishments.

We know about bitcoin and that, in Denmark, it’s used to buy pizzas for delivery, for example, and that now it can be used to buy a Tesla vehicle. Due to its characteristics, bitcoin is frequently called a “counter-hegemonic instrument,” opposed to world finance as we have known it. In a way it is, because of its distinct name, but its contribution will be enormous for capitalism in the future.

What to say then of the petro and the capacity it could have to finance and favor the construction of socialism in Venezuela, for self-management and deep democracy, in the country that’s the greatest epicenter for imperialist pressure in the Western Hemisphere?

(Foto: MINCOMUNAS )

The expectation is that, in the medium term, the Communes and Communal Cities will create an environment for local and political management removed from bourgeois political organization models. Additionally, through the use of the petro and its incorporation into daily operations, channeling the exchange of goods and services will revitalize the local economic space.

The appearance of these bills at this time is a product of what Venezuela has faced in recent years. The adverse situation itself has driven these proposals. In Venezuela, the damage that has occurred in the years since the economic boom has put an end to paternal management models, and made way for the everyday management of public policy with limited resources, one day at a time, in a state of permanent contingency, relying on the leadership of the base forces to execute them. The CLAP, UBCH, Community Councils and the vanguard feminist political fabric in the communities have been crucial to dealing with the population’s deficiencies and demands.

Hence, the natural forces of internal politics have made it possible to make this leap, a commitment of President Maduro’s. Although this year of regional elections could mean a withdrawal of the alternative management forces [the Communeros], for the president he hopes for the opposite, and that is another strategic front to consider.

This is a venture that will bear fruit, after much trials and tribulations, when the dispute between the old State and the emerging communal State is consummated. You’ll stumble, you’ll meet obstacles, let us not doubt it. But today the success of this venture rests on the accumulated experience that Chavismo has in organizing within the core of the nation.

In-Depth Analysis of Chavismo’s Commitment to Communes

 

[Yehuda]

Did the black population advance politically under Lula?

The political field was another arena of engagement between Lula and the black population. The creation of the Racial Equality Statute, the Special Secretariat for Policies to Promote Racial Equality and the November 20 holiday are milestones of this process. For some experts interviewed by Alma Preta in 2018, the Lula administration represented a milestone in the fight against racism in Brazil. For others, the policies left something to be desired.

Text: Pedro Borges | Image: Agência Brasil

On January 9, 2003, in the first month as President of the Republic, Lula decreed the inclusion, in the school calendar, of the holiday of November 20, the date of the death of Zumbi dos Palmares.

During the administration ran by the main leader of the Workers' Party (PT), other measures were taken, based on historical guidelines of the black movement, such as the creation of the Racial Equality Statute and the Special Secretariat for Policies to Promote Racial Equality (SEPPIR).

Alma Preta decided to talk to activists from the black movement, of different political backgrounds, in order to evaluate the Lula administration's actions for the Afro-Brazilian community.

This article is made public when the ex-president, accused of corruption, defends himself in the legal sphere of a process that may culminate in his arrest. Lula, who also remains in the race to run for this year's election, remains in the lead of the electoral polls and has the support of part of the black population.

The Afrodescendentes e Politica survey, carried out by the BAP Panel, points out that 22% of the black voters in São Paulo would probably vote and 19% would certainly vote for Lula in this year's presidential race. On the other hand, 34% say they would not vote for him under any circumstances, 6% probably would not vote, 17% may or not vote and 4% did not know how to answer.

Senator Paulo Paim (PT) believes that support for the ex-president is justified by Lula's recognition of black men and women as legal subjects.

“Due to pressure by the black movement and Lula's developmentalist sensibility, several public policies for the black population were made”.

Federal Deputy (PT) and former Minister of Social Assistance from 2003 to 2007, Benedita da Silva recalls that actions taken during the Lula administration in areas such as education and the economy contributed to the advancement of the black population.

“During the Lula and Dilma administrations, for the first time in 500 years, the income of the black population increased by 51.4%, while that of the white population increased 27.8%, according to the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE)”.

Tago E. Dahoma, member of the Marcus Garvey Training Course, believes that the advances under the administration, given the support from the black movement and Afro-Brazilians, were timid.

“We can see that policies under Lula were for the most part universal and, consequently, they resonated with the black population. But when it comes to something that needed to be made specifically for us, few things were done”.

What do activists think about the Racial Equality Statute?

The formulation of the Racial Equality Statute is one of the highlights of the relationship between Lula and the fight against racism.

According to the text, promulgated on July 20, 2010, the Statute has the objective of “guaranteeing the black population the realization of equal opportunities, the defense of individual, collective and diffuse ethnic rights and the fight against discrimination and other forms of ethnic intolerance”.

The project, authored by Paulo Paim, is a tool in the fight for the rights of black people, according to the senator.

“It is a milestone in the history of black people, a watershed. Certainly, the history of struggles and public policymaking will be divided between before and after the approval of the Racial Equality Statute”.

Benedita da Silva adds and points out that the Statute had important political ambitions, interrupted by the impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff.

“The Statute pointed to a future where black people's participation in society and government match our relative share of the population. As we know, unfortunately, the 2016 coup interrupted this gradual process of liberation of the black population”.

The state president of PSOL and coordinator of Círculo Palmarino, Juninho Junior, has some reservations about the Statute and recalls that its text went through a series of changes during its approval in the legislative branch.

“The Statute's original text was built based on the demands of the black social movement. But, while it was being processed in the Chamber and the Senate, it underwent several changes”.

From the first document, the chapter on the regularization of quilombola territories, the session for Afro-Brazilian women, and the forecast of quotas for black actors and actresses in advertising and television programs were removed.

The missing part most felt by activists, however, is the revocation of a national fund to promote the Statute and the fight against racism, as explained by Dennis de Oliveira, a professor in the School of Communications and Arts at the University of São Paulo and member of the Quilombação anti-racist network.

“We have made progress in establishing legal frameworks and public policies, but we have not made progress in the budget allocation that guarantees the full execution of these policies and legal provisions. Therefore, I believe that in the specific case of the Statute, it ended up becoming a letter of good intentions, but of little practical result, even under the Lula administration.”

Another criticism of the Statute is the “authorizing” condition of the document, which does not oblige public managers to put into practice what the text proposes.

Tago E. Dahoma, on the other hand, says that, after so many changes, some organizations of the black movement itself asked for the discontinuation of the process of approval of the landmark.

“The government did not stood up for the Statute in the Chamber, despite the massive support of segments of the black movement in government, saying that this was part of the democratic game. They washed their hands of it and, consequently, more than 10 years of political construction and mobilization were wasted”.

And SEPPIR?

The Special Secretariat for Policies to Promote Racial Equality (SEPPIR) was created in 2003, during the Lula administration, the result of a previous agreement between the black movement and the Workers' Party (PT).

The secretariat was created to coordinate, articulate, formulate and monitor public policies aimed at Afro-Brazilians. Among the proposals developed by the ministry, the National System for the Promotion of Racial Equality (SINAPIR) and the National Ombudsman for Racial Equality can be highlighted.

The institution represented an advance for part of the black movement, as the space would be excellent for articulating the racial agenda with other ministries, such as Finance, Education, Culture, among others.

“SEPPIR is extremely important and fulfills its historical role. The existence of a Racial Equality Secretariat recognizes that racism exists in Brazil and because of this, it is a major step forward”, says Beatriz Lourenço, member of the Alternative Black Front.

Activists, however, criticize the lack of investment and structure that the secretariat received. Published research shows that SEPPIR's budget was low and fell as the years of PT administration followed.

Lula, during the signing of the Racial Equality Statute (Photo: SEPPIR)

In the 2011 and 2012 biennium, funds sent to SEPPIR totaled R$ 42 million, an amount 26% lower than the 2009 and 2010 biennium, when the number reached R$ 57 million. It is worth mentioning that the amount still suffered a cut, according to a determination of the Annual Budget Law (LOA), and that SEPPIR also reduced the forecast of funds for some projects, due to the reduction of the transfer.

Even though some programs do not require financial investment and can be developed through political articulation, of the 28 proposals defined by SEPPIR for 2012, only 9 had budget allocation. Among those that did not receive funds, some are: “Implementation of the National Policy for Health Care of the Black Population”, “Implementation of system for monitoring, counselling and encouraging policies to promote racial equality”, “Support for the production and dissemination of communication materials with anti-racist and anti-sexist content”.

Juninho Junior emphasizes the importance of financial resources for the implementation of planned policies and states that the lack of investments can lead to an emptying of the initial proposal.

“We used to make jokes about it. You have a Ferrari, a hell of an instrument, with no investment, no gas, no relevance, no budget, no conditions to really affect things”.

The absence of black people in other ministries is also mentioned in a negative light. Outside SEPPIR, other black ministers in the Lula administration were Benedita da Silva (Social Assistance), Gilberto Gil (Culture) and Marina Silva (Environment)

Beatriz Lourenço criticizes the reduction of the black movement to the fight for racial equality. According to her, the fight against racism is beyond any secretariat.

“We are capable of discussing anything. So, although it seems like a huge step forward, having a Racial Equality Secretariat doesn't change much when you do not alter the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Labor and the Ministry of Planning, Budget and Management”.

Benedita da Silva, a former minister and today a federal deputy, makes a reservation about the absence of black ministers and points to the need to see the government coalition built, made up of parties that were not committed to the racial issue. To exemplify the point presented, she recalls the management she had at the head of the Rio de Janeiro government.

“When I was governor of Rio de Janeiro, for example, I appointed seven black men and women to the first echelon of my government, which was composed of 30 secretariats, and countless other undersecretaries for positions in the second echelon, because the composition of the my government, which had the Workers' Party (PT), the Communist Party (PCdoB) and the Socialist Party (PSB), allowed this type of decision”.

Regardless of the actions aimed directly at the black population and the absence of black people in the first echelon of the government, Edson França, National Vice President of UNEGRO and member of the Central Committee of PCdoB, believes that the achievements of the black population in the Lula administration are beyond what is conventionally called racial equality.

“If we zero in on the racial issue, we are unable to assess how the Bolsa Família program of the Lula administration and the strengthening of the minimum wage have benefited the black population”.

In 2013, after a 10-year review of the Bolsa Família program, the federal government showed that of the 13.8 million families served by the program, 73% declared themselves black. Another important indicator is that 68% of the families benefited by the program were headed by black women.

Egbomy Conceição, Eloi Ferreira, then minister of SEPPIR, and Lula (Photo: SEPPIR)

Black Awareness Day

The consolidation of November 20 as a special day in the anti-racist struggle in Brazil is a historical demand of the black movement, which dates back to the beginning of the 1970s. The date was established by Lula on January 9, 2003 in the country's official calendar and it is a way of remembering the resistance of Zumbi and the entire Quilombo dos Palmares.

Black Awareness Day, as a national holiday, was approved by the Constitution and Justice Commission of the Chamber of Deputies, on October 5, 2017. The text that went to the plenary session of the Chamber, however, remains stalled and has not yet been voted on.

Although not a national holiday, the date is remembered by five states in the nation, such as Alagoas, Amazonas, Amapá, Mato Grosso and Rio de Janeiro. Rio Grande do Sul has a law that celebrates the day, but does not define it as a holiday. There are 1,045 municipalities in the country that celebrate the day, according to a survey by SEPPIR, carried out in 2015.

Dennis de Oliveira highlights the date as a demonstration of the strength of the black movement.

“November 20 is the only holiday created by a Brazilian social movement. 1 May, International Workers' Day, is a date proposed by the international labor movement. This alone demonstrates the importance and recognition of the historic struggle of the black movement since slavery, which places us as subjects of history”.

Did the black population advance politically under Lula?

 

[Yehuda]

How did part of the black movement react to Lula's speech?

The former president made a speech in line with the main concerns of the population such as the effects of the pandemic on the economy, which also coincide with the demands of sectors of the organized Black Movement

March 11, 2021 | Text: Juca Guimarães | Editing: Nataly Simões | Image: ABC Metalworkers' Union

Issues that are part of the demands of the organized Black Movement were touched by former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva during a speech on March 10. The press conference took place after Minister Edson Fachin, of the Federal Supreme Court (STF), annulled the convictions against Lula, which made him eligible again.

In his speech, Lula, 75, spoke about problems that the country is going through and that concern the population, such as the effects of the pandemic on the economy. In this aspect, he was right, according to Regina Lucia dos Santos, from the state coordination of the Unified Black Movement (MNU) of São Paulo.

“The part about the economy is extremely relevant. Unemployment, for example, affects mostly black people and the peripheries. The increase in poverty and hunger directly affects black people. He was right to say that we need to increase investments and encourage the consumer market; improving productive capital is a hope for black people”, she says.

According to Regina, the ex-president's stance on arms control and the direct mention of the black youth genocide was also positive. “I thought he spoke in an incisive way that the market need not fear the policies that are in his plans for the social field. On the other hand, the organized black movement needs to take a position so that this speech materializes in proposals in the debates that must take place on the broad front we must create”, she explains.

The militant noted that Lula's speech was in line with what black activists have proposed in the last two years, since the inauguration of President Jair Bolsonaro in January 2019. “He was concerned about the things that affect us. It may seem like he was speaking in general terms, but if you look at the numbers of the pandemic and the economic crisis, we will see that black people die more, are more hungry and are more exposed to violence”, stresses Regina.

On his part, educator Douglas Belchior, from UneAfro Brasil, an organization that is part of the Black Coalition for Rights, highlights that Lula's speech was straightforward at crucial points and points to an evolution of a view on race, but still needs an approximation with society's demands on racial tensions.

“Lula is a popular leader who will always be an option in the elections because he is a statesman and a democrat. However, from the point of view of the debate on race, his range is not much different from the rest of the left. It has its limitations that he himself recognizes and says he is reading more about the topic. He needs to know more about the contribution of the black social movement to Justice in our country and the accumulation of knowledge of our historical black leaders, which was important for the construction of the progressive field in Brazil and the left-wing parties”, he says.

According to the educator, the contribution of the organized black movement is fundamental to understand the reality of Brazilian society. “It is also the way to come to solutions. There is no social justice policy that can be done without a profound look on race, since it is society's first demand. Racism structures the country's political relations, generating problems and inequality”, reinforces Belchior.

On the excerpt of Lula's speech regarding the disarmament of the population, militant Simone Nascimento, of MNU, noted that the ex-president should have done a more thorough proposal. “He said we should disarm the population and arm the police. He showed a lack of progress in the debate on Public Security, which desperately needs to be debated with the organized black movement. We know that police violence and brutality are tools of the State against the black population and the genocide of black youth”, she ponders.

Although Lula is already appointed as Bolsonaro's main opponent in the 2022 electoral dispute, the former president has not been cleared of the charges made by former judge Sérgio Moro in Operation Lava Jato. Minister Fachin's annulment decision moved the jurisdiction from the state level — from Paraná — to federal, in Brasília. The current suspension of the former Justice Minister, Moro, is also pending before the Supreme Federal Court.

How did part of the black movement react to Lula's speech?

 

[Yehuda]

 

[Yehuda]

March 18th-Day of Solidarity with Haiti

March 17, 2021

Mar 18, 2011: Thousands of Haitians welcome home President Aristide and Mrs. Aristide on their return from 7 years forced exile

Ten years ago on March 18, 2011, former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide, his wife and colleague, Mildred Trouillot Aristide, and their two children, returned from forced exile in South Africa. Tens of thousands of people lined the streets of Port-au-Prince and poured into the courtyard of their home to greet them, seeing in their return a renewal of hope for a democratic and just Haiti.

In honor of that day and to demonstrate our resolve to support the people’s movement in Haiti, we the undersigned organizations join with Haiti Action Committee to call for a Day of Solidarity With Haiti on March 18, 2021.

Over the last month, hundreds of thousands of Haitians have put their lives on the line to demand an end to the dictatorship of Jovenel Moise. The demonstrations have involved the breadth of Haitian society, from residents of the poorest neighborhoods to students, women’s organizations, nurses, doctors and lawyers — all of whom have experienced the terror unleashed by the Moise regime. The popular movement in Haiti is calling for a transition government, a government of public safety (Sali Piblik) that promotes the security and welfare of the Haitian people, that ends the repression against popular organizations, and that moves the country peacefully towards genuine free and fair elections.

Moise and his right-wing PHTK party have been ruling by decree for over a year, and are pushing to enact illegitimate constitutional reforms that would give him even more authority. Even though his official term of office ended on February 7th, he has announced his intention to remain in power for one more year.

The Moise regime represents a continuation of the U.S.-orchestrated 2004 coup that ousted the government of President Aristide, Haiti’s first democratically elected president. The coup aimed at restoring the power of the tiny Haitian elite that was threatened by Aristide’s progressive policies and his attempt to bring about a new Haiti — one in which the majority would rise from “misery to poverty with dignity,” and in which the phrase “Tout Moun Se Moun” (Every person is a human being) would become a reality.

From the very beginning, the Moise regime has been illegitimate. He first came to power through a U.S.-U.N. organized fraudulent election that was annulled only after widespread protests. The next round was also replete with fraud and voter suppression and was denounced widely in Haiti as an “electoral coup.” In protest, Haitians staged over 60 straight days of massive demonstrations and mounted legal challenges that were cut short by occupation authorities. In the end, the U.S., U.N. and the O.A.S. imposed Moise as president, leading to the crisis in Haiti today.

Feb. 14, 2021 over 100,000 denouce Jovenel Moise dictatorship in Port-au-Prince

In November, 2018, as Moise consolidated his power, Fanmi Lavalas Political Organization, the party founded by Aristide that has long represented the interests of Haiti’s poor majority, issued a statement titled Crisis And Resolution, demanding an end to the dictatorship. It read, in part:

“The population is rejecting the usurpers who have derived their power from the fraudulent elections and who have discredited themselves with multiple scandals involving corruption and impunity. Our people are facing savage repression that continues to create victims among the disadvantaged masses, and that is heightening the insecurity that is poisoning daily life for the majority. Fanmi Lavalas Political Organization continues to stand firmly with the Haitian people to “chavire chodyè a” (overturn the cauldron). No cosmetic solution will bring an effective and lasting solution to the crisis in which we are plunged. This system has run its course. It cannot be patched up. It must be changed.”

These words ring even more true today. Moise’s rule reminds Haitians of the terrible days of the Duvalier dictatorships. It has been marred by repeated acts of blatant corruption and repression. Billions of dollars in funds designated for social programs and infrastructure development, provided through Venezuela’s Petrocaribe program, instead went into the pockets of government officials. U.S. and U.N.-trained Haitian police and affiliated gangs or death squads have carried out massacres in one opposition neighborhood after another, with the backing of high government officials.

Community residents protesting the lack of basic services have seen their homes burned to the ground, as happened in the Port-au-Prince neighborhoods of Lasalin, Tokyo, Site Vensan, and Bele among others. Kidnappings and gang rapes have become the order of the day, as government-affiliated gangs prey on the population. No one is safe, including street vendors and market women with little to no funds.

While the country descends into state-sponsored terror, impunity remains the order of the day. Well-known perpetrators with arrest warrants such as G-9 death squad leader Jimmy “Barbecue” Cherizier, wanted in connection with the massacre at Lasalin in 2018, go about freely and even receive police protection. In a disgraceful statement, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on October 20, 2020 credited the G-9 with reducing homicides — while the G-9 was murdering residents of Bele and burning their homes — thus giving a U.N. seal of approval to these crimes.

Without the support of the U.N., U.S., E.U. and the O.A.S. — the so-called Core Group that exercises control over Haiti — the Moise government would fall. That is why the first action of the Biden Administration in relation to Haiti was so appalling. State Department spokesperson Ned Price announced in February that the U.S. government would support Moise remaining in power until February 7th, 2022, giving Moise another year to attempt to dismantle all opposition. Millions of US dollars have already been provided to the Moise dictatorship to fund his murderous security forces, as he ratchets up repression in his efforts to keep his PHTK party in power.

As Haitians rise up once again to demand democratic governance, security and economic and social justice, we echo their call.

Please continue emails, tweets and phone calls to U.S. representatives, demanding:

1. End U.S. recognition and support for the dictatorship of Jovenel Moise
2. End U.S. funding of the criminal Haitian police and security forces
3. End the U.N./U.S. occupation of Haiti
4. Support the Haitian people’s movement for democracy and self-determination

Direct these demands to the following officials and to your Congressional Representative and Senators:
US Representative Gregory W. Meeks, Senior Member, House Foreign Relations Committee: tweet @RepGregoryMeeks; ph: 202-225-3461
;

Secretary of State Antony Blinken: tweet @SecBlinken; ph: 202-647-4000; email https://register.state.gov/contactus/contactusform;

President Joseph Biden: tweet@POTUS; email Contact Us | The White House

Initiated by Haiti Action Committee

Signed:

Advancing the Research

AFRICANS DESERVE REPARATIONS NOW!

Afrikan Children’s Advanced Learning Center

All-African People’s Revolutionary Party

ANSWER-Act Now to Stop War & End Racism-Bay Area

Arab Resource and Organizing Center

Avotcja & Modúpue

BAYAN-USA

Bay Area Alliance for a Sustainable Puerto Rico

Bay Area CISPES

Bay Area Youth Arts

Caminante Cultural Foundation

Chiapas Support Committee (Los Angeles – College Students)

Chiapas Support Committee Oakland

Code Pink

Comité en Pro del Pueblo de Chiapas

Communist Workers League

Destiny Muhammad Project

EastSide Arts Alliance Collective

East Bay Sanctuary Covenant

Ecumenical Peace Institute/Clergy and Laity Concerned

End Solitary Santa Cruz County [California, USA]

Freedom Archives

Global Exchange

Haiti Emergency Relief Fund

Hastings-to-Haiti Partnership

Human Agenda

International Action Center

International Committee of the National Lawyers Guild

International Committee for Peace, Justice and Dignity

International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network

John George Democratic Club

Justice Vanguard

Kemet Foundation

Malcolm X Grassroots Movement

Marcus BookStores

National Boricua Human Rights Network

National Lawyers Guild

National Lawyers Guild – SF Bay Area

New Afrikan People’s Organization

Nicaragua Center for Community Action

Pan-African Peoples’ Organization

Pax Christi Northern California

Peninsula Peace and Justice Center

PEOPLE’S EYE PHOTOGRAPHY

Phavia Kujichagulia N Maat

Puerto Rican Cultural Center

San Francisco Bayview National Black Newspaper

San Jose Peace and Justice Center

Sisters of St. Francis, Alameda, CA

Students for Haiti Solidarity

Task Force on the Americas

Veterans for Peace Chapter 69 – San Francisco

Western States Legal Foundation

Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom US

Workers World Party

#SolidaritywithHaiti #StandwithHaiti #SupportdemocracyinHaiti #humanrights #blacklivesmatter #Haitianlivesmatter #Aristide #Lavalas #stopmassacresinHaiti #USstopfundingdictatorshipinHaiti #USstopfundingpoliceterrorinHaiti #US/UN/CoreGroupStopSupportingDictatorshipinHaiti #US/UN/CoreGroupOutofHaiti!

March 18th-Day of Solidarity with Haiti

 

[Yehuda]

Brazilian Supreme Court Authorizes Investigation of Sergio Moro

BRIAN MIER, MARCH 23, 2021

For years, the media treated far-right Lava Jato Judge Sergio Moro as a superhero. Now he’s facing felony charges

by Brian Mier

In a landmark ruling on March 23, 2021, the Brazilian Supreme Court Second Working Group ruled that Sergio Moro, the judge who imprisoned former President Lula and opened the door for the presidential victory of Jair Bolsonaro – later serving as his Justice Minister – is suspect of felony judicial impartiality.

In a roller coaster day which saw recent Bolsonaro Court appointee Nunes Marques turn the tables only to have Minister Carmen Lucia reverse her vote at the last minute, Moro will now be subject to a full investigation as to whether his election season imprisonment of Lula for indeterminate acts of corruption with no material evidence presented, based on an investigation that he was allowed to supervise and rule on with no jury, was politically motivated.

As Supreme Court President, Minister Carmen Lucia was sympathetic to both the 2016 coup against Dilma Rousseff and the exception to the Brazilian Constitution made to enable Lula’s 2018 imprisonment. Her last minute reversal, therefore, shocked many – to the euphoria of supporters of the former President and the dismay of Globo TV network, which gave heroes–treatment to former Judge Moro for years.

While specifying that her ruling only applies to the former triplex apartment case, which was reversed by the Supreme Court earlier this month due to illegal forum shopping by the Lava Jato task-force, Lucia gave 4 justifications for the argument that Moro did not act as an impartial judge while convicting former President Lula:

1) Creating a spectacle over Lula’s March 4, 2016 testimony in the triplex apartment case.

On this day, Lula had already agreed to voluntarily come in for questioning, but Moro ordered a heavily armed Federal Police escort for the former President and invited all of the TV networks to film it, timing the event so it could be transmitted live on the morning news programs. This seemed like such a clear example of bias at the time that Brasil Wire published an article about it on the day that it happened.

2) Ordering illegal wire tapping of Lula, his defense team’s law office and his family members.

For a period of over a month, under Sergio Moro’s orders, the federal police illegally wire tapped Lula’s defense team’s law office in order to create a org-chart to map out future possible moves of the defense. This crime would have resulted in the immediate debarring of any judge who authorized it anywhere else in the world, according to defense lawyer Valeska Martins in this 2018 interview.

3) Selectively editing sections of illegally wire tapped conversations to damage Lula’s reputation and leaking them to the media during the pre-trial and trial periods.

Proof that this editing was done deliberately was revealed by the hacker Wagner Delgatti in 2019.

4) Selectively editing excerpts of sealed plea bargain testimony (that had already been dismissed as evidence by a São Paulo judge) made by Antonio Palocci to damage Fernando Haddad’s image and releasing it to Globo one week before the 2018 first-round presidential elections, as we documented in October, 2018.

In the middle of Brazil’s worst public health crisis in history, on a day in which over 3000 people died due to the illegitimate Bolsonaro government’s criminal mishandling of the Covid 19 pandemic, the Supreme Court ruling appears as a glimmer of hope to millions of Brazilians who have entered into despair during the past 5 years watching the US DOJ/SEC/FBI backed Lava Jato investigation commit sabotage against key sectors of Brazilian industry, slander the reputation of the Workers Party and its leaders and empower the rise to the presidency of a genocidal maniac who is facing charges of crimes against humanity in the Hague.

This March started with former President Lula fighting to appeal criminal convictions in a court located in a city and state he never lived in, and former Judge Sergio Moro cited by polling agencies as a possible presidential hopeful for 2022. It’s closing with Lula completely free of all Lava Jato charges with restored political rights, leading all polls for the presidency while judge whose charges were reversed is facing a felony investigation.

Brazilian Supreme Court Authorizes Investigation of Sergio Moro

 

[loyola llothta]