Banana Pundits

Cisco Costa: A Brazilian environmentalist made quite a scene at a protest this weekend. I am wholly ignorant of the merits of his cause, but I have to point out that this is a rare occurrence in Brazil. This sort of self-sacrifice for protest is, as far as I know, unheard of. Most likely, the man was imitating the famous Vietnamese Buddhist protests of the sixties.

Environmentalist who set himself on fire in Mato Grosso do Sul dies

The environmentalist who set himself on fire in protest yesterday at downtown Campo Grande died this morning. Francisco Anselmo Barros, president of Fuconams (Mato Grosso do Sul Nature Conservation Foundation) was hospitalized at Campo Grande’s Santa Casa and had burns on 100% of his body.

He was part of a protest against a state government project which proposes the installation of alcohol processing plants at the High Paraguai Basin, which is part of Pantanal. Amidst musical and artistic performances, Barros set two mattresses on the floor, wrapped himself around them, doused them in gasoline and set them on fire.

The environmentalist had first, second and third degree burns. He was hospitalized at the Intensive Care Center and was breathing with the aid of machines.

Francelmo’s gesture (as the environmentalist was called by his friends) surprised people next to him. Jorge Gonda, who was also at the protest, said Barros was participating regularly in the act and then handed him a briefcase and told him he would be right back.

Soon there were flames on the sidewalk drawing everybody’s attention. There was a long time before people realized there was a person inside the fire. There was panic and people used a fire extinguisher and clothes and blankets from nearby stores to try to stop the fire.

Environmentalist left letters to friends and family

Douglas Ramos, Fuconams’s juridical director, helped the man without knowing it was his friend, so bad were the wounds. Inside the briefcase he gave Gonda, the environmentalist left a series of letters to friends, family members and the press, where he spoke of giving his life for the Pantanal. In the letter to the press he left criticism against state power.

Another letter had recommendations for his wake. He asked that it happened at the May 13th Street chapel, in downtown Campo Grande. It is expected his body will be released before 3PM today and the service will happen at dusk.

The environmentalist, who was also a journalist, had positions at the Municipal Counsel for Environmental Control, was a member of the Brazilian Association of Tourism Journalists, of the War School Graduates Association, executive director of Saber publishing house, executive director of the Association for the Promotion and Support of Art and Culture in General. He was also affiliated with the Brazilian NGO Forum, to the Brazilian NGO Association and a participant of the Living Rivers Network, the Pantanal Network, the Aguapé Environmental Education Network, the Cerrado Network, the Socio-Environmental Institute, the World Wildlife Fund, Conservation International and SOS Rainforest and a coordinator of the Mato Grosso do Sul Environment and Development Forum and the Pantanal Defense Forum.

Solon Brochado: It didn’t take long to run tests on the rooster that died in Marília yesterday. This afternoon, the São Paulo State’s Health Secretary released a note discarding any possibilities that the bird may have died from the avian flu. This piece by Terra doesn’t mention what could have killed it, though, and says the birds remains will be sent to another laboratory for futher testing.

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Solon Brochado: The avian flu scare has finally reached Brazil. This wednesday, a rooster died with symptoms that resemble those caused by the H5N1 virus. Experts say other respiratory diseases that affect birds have similar symptoms and that it will probably be a false alarm.

If it’s confirmed, though, it won’t be very good news for the Ministry of Agriculture, that’s already having a hard time dealing with the foot-and-mouth disease outbreaks in Mato Grosso do Sul’s cattle. And it certainly won’t be good news for Brazil’s exports, since poultry, cattle and pork exports are expected to reach the US$ 8 billion mark this year.

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Solon Brochado: This is not exactly Brazilian news, but it is so fitting to our reality that I just had to post it. It seems some Latin-American movie directors are tired of making political movies, and demand the right to make comedies, dramas and such.

Latin directors defend the right to laugh

The Latin-American cinema reclaims its right to shoot any theme and to not being sentenced to be only a voice of social denunciation, said filmmakers Felipe Cazals and Jorge de Bernardi, who are taking part in the 20th edition of the Latin-American Movie Festival of Trieste.

“Latin America is seen in Europe as the continent that has to make politically commited movies, a cinema of social denunciation, with problems of a political nature”, says Rodrigo Díaz, the festival’s director. “It is an aberration”, comments the mexican director Cazals.

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Cisco Costa: The Workers’ Party has announced it will sue Veja magazine. From Linha Aberta, the party’s newsletter:

PT will take Veja magazine to court

The Workers’ Party (PT) will sue Veja magazine for the claims published in its latest edition, alleging that the party received money from Cuba for its 2002 presidential campaign.

The announcement was made by the party’s national chairman, representative Ricardo Berzoini (São Paulo), during the party’s meeting this Monday the 31st in Congress. Berzoini said that a complaint will be filed against the magazine for libel and slander.

According to the party’s leader in Congress, Henrique Fontana (Rio Grande do Sul), “one can no longer accept this sort of empty, flighty, proofless accusation coming from unreliable sources”. He called the allegations “fantastic, irresponsible” and as having the sole purpose of “feeding an environment of partisan political dispute within the country”.

Solon Brochado: You would’ve thought this kind of thing only happened in Romania, but it turns out vampires are a problem in Brazil as well. From 2003 to 2004, over 40 people have died from rabies transmitted by hematophagous bats in the North. It is quickly becoming a major public health issue for the region, specially since the Health Ministry says it doesn’t know how to handle the situation.

UPDATE: New Scientist picked up the story and has a report on the attacks, with the quality you’ve come to expect of them.

Bats multiply attacks in the Amazon

The number of people attacked by bats in the Amazon region has increased ninefold in two years. That’s what data from the Health Ministry show. In 2004, there were 8.258 agressions, while only 852 in 2003. And the number of deaths rose in last weeks.

The data was obtained after 21 people died in April 2004 due to an outbreak of rabies transmitted by the animal. There was, then, a concern from the health agencies to monitor the attacks on people.

The ministry admits the attacks aren’t new, but that there was no monitoring by state agencies, since they didn’t know the extent of the problem.

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Solon Brochado: The whole “bloggers vs. big media” battle that’s been going on in the US is meaningless in Brazil. If someone did a survey of most-read or most-influential political blogs in Brazil, at least the first 10 would be written by mainstream media journalists.

With the current political crisis, these blogs have seen a surge in audience. In Brazil, opinion is a very rare commodity in a newspaper, that’s usually more hard news than anything. So the journalists’ blogs have become a great source of opinion and rumours coming from those who are actively involved in the whole crisis coverage.

And now, the same journalists are talking about how the Brazilian blogosphere is, at last, becoming a relevant part in the country’s news sources. Take this piece at Folha Online, for example. It is an overview of a chat with the newspaper’s Nelson de Sá, who has a weekly column called “All the Media”.

Brazilian blogosphere took shape with the crisis, says Nelson de Sá

Journalist Nelson de Sá said last thursday that the Brazilian blogosphere has taken shape with the political crisis. According to Nelson de Sá, it is possible that next year blogs will present some maturing and, as has happened in other countries, will start being part of some campaigns.

“I have the feeling that, as has happened in the recent elections in the US, United Kingdom and Iran, political blogs will seem ever more partisan - and will even, in some cases, begin to take part in the campaigns”, said Nelson de Sá, who participated in a Folha chat with 297 readers.

The journalist also adressed the media’s role in the political coverage. In Nelson de Sá’s opinion, the media is at a crossroads, where the impartiality myth, “that was alredy questionable, is in check”. “You have only to follow the American blogosphere, the most vibrant and powerful there is, to feel the change”, he said.

Frankly, I think this is all bulls**t. For starters, the Brazilian blogosphere was doing well before the crisis, thank you. It just so happens that there weren’t many political bloggers, but there have been quite a few geeks, writers and musicians keeping blogs around for some years now.

But more than that, it is just too convenient that “the Brazilian blogosphere took shape” just because traditional journalists began to have an audience for their blogs. Not that I have anything against journalists keeping blogs, being a journalism student myself. But as mainstream as blogs may become, I don’t think there’s much of a blogosphere to be praised if it is made only of the same journalists that give us the news everyday.

Solon Brochado: New developments in the Castro-Lula front. First, the Cuban government has officially denied that it donated US$ 3 million for Lula’s campaign. The opposition, on the other hand, sees the opportunity for a new attack on the Workers’ Party, and intends to broaden their front even more.

Cuba denies US$ 3 million donation to the PT

The Cuban government this saturday denied having sent US$ 3 million for Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s presidential campaign, as reported in “Veja” magazine.

On a note released in Havana, the Cuban government says it is a piece of slandering and asserts it never interfered with Brazilian internal affairs. “The Cuban government blames this propagandistic maneuver on the agressive imperialist plans against Cuba and Lula.”

According to the note, the accusation “was made in advance of the north-american president George W. Bush’s arrival in Brazil. The objective is to change focus from the ever bigger problems he is facing, pressed by corruption investigations on important leaders of his party and among his closer circle of collaborators”.

The accusation was also denied by the Cuban embassador in Brazil, Pedro Núñez Mosquera. To him, “those who orchestrated this campaign of lies on Cuba and the Brazilian government seek to endanger the bilateral relations among the two countries, characterized by fraternal dialogue, mutual respect, and not interfering with our nations’ internal affairs”.

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Solon Brochado: Obviously, the Workers’ Party national president, Ricardo Berzoini, didn’t have good things to say about Veja’s story Cisco mentioned on the last post. But while his PSDB and PFL conspiracy theory is what you would expect from someone in his position, it must be said that, ever since Lula took office, Veja has been practicing the worst kind of partisan journalism you could expect from such a renowned magazine.

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Cisco Costa: Veja, Brazil’s main weekly news mag, has quite a scoop this week: Lula’s campaign received money from Cuba. According to the story, three million dollars were sent in 2002 and transported around the country in whisky boxes. The story is too large, so I will only translate the final paragraph and, after the jump, a short account of it by Folha de São Paulo.

This is the last paragraph, and it explains why the news, if confirmed, is even more important than it sounds:

Law 9096, approved in 1995, says that a political party is forbidden from receiving resources from overseas. If this occurs, the party is subject to having its register canceled by the Electoral Justice, meaning the party will have to close down. The candidate of this party — in this case, president Lula — cannot be legally blamed, since he has been certified as elected for a long time. Receiving foreign money, however, is not that simple. “This is the most serious thing there is”, says professor Walter Costa Porto, a specialist in electoral law and former minister of the Supreme Electoral Court [in Portuguese, Tribunal Superior Eleitoral, or “TSE”]. “It’s so serious, so incredibly serious, that it’s the first of the four cases the law says will lead to the discharge of a political party’s register. It’s an assault to the country’s sovereignty. It’s lethal”, says the former minister. If official investigations confirm that the PT received Cuban money, and the political party has its register canceled, the Brazilian political scenery will be wiped out by a Katrina: this is because PT members, without party, would not be able to run for anything in the 2006 election. Not even president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

This last bit needs a bit of explaining. Because Brazilian politicians would often change political affiliations, frequently after being bribed to do so, the electoral law forbids someone to run for anything if he has changed political parties during a certain period before the election. 2006’s cutoff date was September 2005. Since, in Brazil, one cannot run for anything if he is not registered in a political party — there are no write-ins or independent candidates — if the ruling Workers’ Party’s register was canceled, every single one of its members would be legally forbidden from running for next year’s general elections for President, Governor, Federal and State representatives and 1/3 of the Senate.

Needless to say, as unlikely as it is that this would happen, the very possibility that it can happen is a very big deal.

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