BRAZIL Lula: "We can take power"
Hinchberger, Bill
Late for our interview, presidential candidate Luis InAcio "Lula" da Silva exploded into the room like the proverbial gangbuster. He sported a lit cigar, probably the fruit of his time spent...
...If I had spent more time in Sdo Paulo, if Mario Covas (the first round candidate of the Brazilian Social Democratic Party, PSDB) had adhered to the campaign earlier...
...I don't blame Sdo Paulo Mayor Luiza Erundina [of the PT...
...They were playing their last hand when we had no time left to react...
...None...
...I think Collor is telling businessmen, "Look, you have to lose your rings or else they're going to rip off your fingers...
...How does the PTfit into this scheme of things...
...That is fantastic...
...Look at Panama...
...Our meeting was wedged in between two others, giving it a sense of urgency, as if he were still campaigning...
...The Right in Peru also advanced due to the inability of the Left to unite, the advance of Sendero Luminoso, and the fact that the Right has presented itself as capable of putting a flag of peace on each corner and a flag of development in every factory...
...NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICASPresident Fernando Collor de Mello: "The result of a big lie" Are those the principal reasons for your defeat: TV Globo and the lack of resources...
...But this is an illusion, because it begins with the assumption that if you are a good boy, the United States will throw money at you, as it did at Germany after World War II...
...I am not impressed by the success of the Collor Plan...
...Human beings are not robots...
...If I understand the culture of Brazilian businessmen, they didn't have all of their money deposited in money-market and savings accounts [which were frozen...
...Besides, NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS Bill Hinchberger is the editor of Third World, a bimonthly magazine published in Brazil.the president cannot play the role of emperor and retain all of the country's money in his hands, releasing it when he feels like it to those social segments that he feels like giving it to...
...But we are against handing over our ports to the private sector...
...Are the two countries comparable...
...The people did not put an end to communism...
...Fidel Castro could easily convene elections and I think he should...
...Second, because it is a continent with a backward-thinking business class: The Latin American business person is stuck in the last century...
...think that this lie won the ns-despite the unity of the Left unoff...
...Businessmen were already charging twice the true value of their products and had been doing so since January...
...In my opinion, Chamorro's victory over Ortega was a result of the high level of democratization in Nicaragua...
...We think that Brazil's policy is similar to that of Argentina in this respect...
...I've analyzed it a thousand times...
...In your press conference following the elections, you said that you hadn't had time to analyze your defeat...
...But there is something that we must take into consideration: Elections are not a synonym for democracy...
...That an income distribution policy was needed, that we need a dream of ajust, egalitarian society...
...And to do this, you must involve social movements, labor unions, political parties...
...He decided to go it alone-just like Collor...
...In 1986 he was elected to Congress with more votes than any candidate had ever received for that post...
...In the context of events in Eastern Europe and throughout the world, it is significant that a party with the characteristics of the PT came forth to run in elections on an equal basis [with the Right...
...The problem is that you can't look for a single factor...
...At the age of 11 he went to work in the factories, later earning a high school equivalency diploma...
...And while the standard for prices was set according to figures for March 12, salaries were set according to figures for February 15...
...I think that so-called neo-liberalism has won important victories, even in Eastern Europe...
...People don't live on bread and beans alone...
...5What do you think are the prospects for joint action on the part of Latin American debtors...
...They can even lower their prices 20% or 30% and offer sales...
...What is your reaction to the defeat of the Sandinistas...
...You can't have three television sets, but you can have one...
...Bureaucratization doesn't work anywhere, not in capitalism, not in socialism, not in the factory, not in the labor union...
...What is the position of the PT regarding Collor's economic plan...
...Lula's background is unlike that of any other successful Latin American politician...
...Elections are merely an instrument of democracy...
...I think the government confiscated lots of money, but in my Inllnr'Q nlin hrnllnht Innn linna fnr narnninumrnnt hannfite in .an Paidn opinion it took money from the socalled middle class and not from the rich...
...But today it is obvious that England's problems did not disappear...
...But the opposite is true...
...he doesn't favor income distribution...
...Businessmen didn't lose anything...
...We are convinced that what fell in Eastern Europe was not communism...
...Real democracy goes like this: If everyone is equal before the law, everyone must eat well, have a good home, have a good salary, have the right to leisure, the right to study, the same opportunities...
...TV Globo is Brazil's enormous private television network...
...The desire for growth is part of human nature...
...Along with the election of Collor and the victory of the Right in Peru, does it signify a surge of the Right in Latin America...
...We have come out against the plan...
...Of course, the PT generated lots of expectations, and in the first year we weren't able to do what we had hoped to in Sdo Paulo, so this did hurt us...
...For example, if you convene free and direct elections with an inflation rate of 36,000%-that's very dangerous, as is holding elections while there is obligatory military service opposed by all families...
...He was polp to project the image of a man ted to ending corruption...
...We are against handing over our petroleum, steel, communications...
...We don't believe the debt can be solved on a country-bycountry basis: Either it will be solved for everyone or it won't be solved at all...
...They'll all be privatized...
...We already start out behind...
...I think he's going to have a serious problem...
...Both start from the assumption that we must hand over our national patrimony as part of a definitive solution to the foreign debt problem...
...eived 31 million votes under tely adverse conditions without :nt resources...
...Is it true that you told Castro during his visit to Brazil in March that he should call elections...
...The Sandinistas should have first resolved these two problems and then convened free and direct elections...
...In 1988, the party won over 30 mayoralties-including that of South America's largest city, Sdo Paulo...
...He sported a lit cigar, probably the fruit of his time spent with Fidel Castro the week before...
...The state has to retain absolute control over these sectors because they are strategic...
...ernment influence at election time in October...
...In your opinion then, what does the plan do...
...Instead he will travel throughout Brazil, to campaign for other PT candidates in the October state and Congressional elections and lead the PT's ongoing critique of President Fernando Collor de Mello's drastic economic plan...
...It is their ability to participate in important decisions and to enjoy a policy of just income distribution...
...I think that we have to recognize that the only way out is to act collectively...
...Withdrawals from money-market accounts were extensive...
...In both Brazil and Argentina, the predominant thrust of economic policy is concem with international creditors...
...I was...
...But it is easy to run into a brick wall that way...
...There are a number of reasons why...
...When he intervened in the banks, he did not coordinate his actions with the Left, nor with APRA...
...I'll explain why...
...It lies 24 hours a if we lived in a fantasy world...
...We might minimize our problems for a few years, but they will return with even greater force-and at that point we won't have the strategic sectors in our hands...
...That's the culture that we want to inculcate in the rest of society...
...But opinion polls show the public favors the plan...
...But I think that Garcia went looking for a fight without a base of support, not even within his own party, APRA...
...What about Cuba...
...The edited version of the debate shown on TV Globo at the end of the campaign was the work of Globo magnate Roberto Marinho...
...But it is important to say that even with the democratic criteria that governed the elections, had the Sandinista Front won, the United States still would not have acLula autographs the doorman's lapel at the opera cepted the results and would have continued the blockade...
...First, because it is a continent governed by corrupt individuals...
...They are trying to sell a Thatcherite neo-liberal model by saying that 10 years ago England solved all of its problems by selling its state-owned companies...
...This had been taking place since the beginning of the year...
...Although Lula is a virtual shoo-in for re-election, he has declined to run...
...It will de-nationalize our economy...
...But I think that the Sandinistas, from my political perspective, committed some errors...
...He doesn't have an open mind...
...The International Monetary Fund (IMF) said that it was satisfied with Menem's measures and then with Collor's, the American government congratulated them both, and the World Bank thinks that the measures are extraordinary...
...I venture to say that few times anywhere, has anyone with a leftist program like ours come as close as we did to winning...
...You stand the role that the Globo telenetwork plays in forming politinion in Brazil...
...We don't need to examine capitalism in Germany but capitalism here in Sdo Paulo...
...They are predestined to be construction workers, and their children will be construction workers, and their grandchildren will be construction workers and somewhere down the line somebody will turn to crime...
...The most important instrument of democracy is not people selecting their representatives...
...That's why we supported Lech Walesa and Solidarity...
...She wasn't being judged...
...Before trying to sell the idea that capitalism is defeating socialism, using Germany as an example, you should look at capitalism on our continent...
...We in the PT favor the privatization of all those companies not considered strategic...
...For a week after its announcement, virtually nobody who opposed the plan was given a chance to speak out...
...The independence of our countries is tied to the courage we have to resolve the foreign debt issue...
...The Left appears to be in crisis in many parts of the world...
...What opportunity does the son or daughter of a cleaning woman or a construction worker have to compete with the son or daughter of the owner of a company...
...is the result of a big lie...
...The plan began to be dismantled the week after election day...
...Argentina has also been going through some rough economic times, and certain people in Brazil see their future reflected in events there...
...The objective of the United States was not direct elections but the destruction of the Sandinista Front...
...No, I didn't, partially out of respect...
...But it is extraordinary for a Brazilian who earns $50 a month...
...It was at this time that Collor d as the "Hunter of Maharaorrupt bureaucrats...
...What's strange is that many businessmen are happy with Collor's plan...
...If you ber the Constitutional Assem987-1988), when leftist forces a footing, a battle took place in lia...
...We proved that if the Left believes in what we call the social movement, if it believes in what we call base organizations, it can take power through the vote...
...I think you understand very well how the Collor plan is being sold in the media...
...is is Latin America's problem...
...Although I may be the most important figure in the PT, everyone calls me companheiro just like everybody else...
...Despite his sophistication in dealing with the press, in person Lula belies his humble past, his demeanor reminiscent of many other laborers one might meet in a corner bar discussing soccer over a few beers after a day of work...
...It also weakens small business, lowers the real wages of the working class, and hands over our state-owned companies to powerful economic interests...
...That's their destiny...
...We overturned all of the myths of Brazilian politics...
...The following year he helped found the Unified Workers Central (CUT), which now represents 18 million workers...
...There was an invasion and then the president went on n hlnoer trike hbe in for s annre s is the political game of illusion ruling class wants to play...
...Together with other union leaders, Lula founded the Workers Party in 1980 to bring the struggle of working people to the national political arena...
...I don't think what happened in Eastern Europe is bad...
...Sarney's Cruzado Plan in February 1986 was more successful.* Sarney registered a 90% approval rate...
...I think lots of people had money outside the country and had invested in gold, dollars and real estate...
...But he solved the problems of education, health, the dignity of the people...
...In 1975 Lula assumed leadership of the Metalworkers Union, and in 1978-1979 he led the union in a series of strikes that challenged the military dictatorship and revived the labor movement...
...She wasn't the candidate...
...We don't accept that people have to ask for the boss' blessing or call him or her Sir or Madam...
...Impetuous and daring...
...A research institute linked to the University of Sdo Paulo showed that prices, which were frozen on March 14, do not provide an accurate standard because they had already been raised excessively...
...The military removed him from office and imprisoned him...
...He is from a family of poor farmers in the northeastern state of Pernambuco...
...There are hundreds of factors: scheduling, the lack of options and money, the media...
...They determine power...
...The advance of the Right in Peru is due to the devastating effect of Alan Garcia's administration...
...That's why we use the term companheiro [comrade] in the PT...
...he isn't even able to think in terms of creating a consumer society that would guarantee his survival...
...Of course, Cuban society is not good for an Italian who earns $3,000 a month, nor for a Brazilian who earns $2,000...
...You can't remain stagnant for 40 years...
...We are not concerned that the polls showed an 80% approval rate for the plan because I am sure that the 80% of the public in favor of the plan does not understand it...
...We set aside the idea of formal democracy in favor of real democracy...
...Last December, in Brazil's first direct presidential election since 1960, Lula received 31 million votes, roughly 47% of the total...
...And in 1982 he made an unsuccessful bid for governor of Sdo Paulo state...
...We basically lost the elections in Sdo Paulo...
...Now you've had plenty of time...
...We're already familiar with this practice, as are people in other parts of Latin America...
...Our basic assumption is that the workers are losing...
...I'm not a bit sad...
...So our, my, concept of democracy is a bit wider...
...I shouldn't bad-mouth Garcifa because he was the first Latin American president to call and congratulate me for getting into the runoff...
...Collor outspent us by far...
...It is very difficult to passjudgement on the policies of other countries, but it appears that Menem's policies led to a certain euphoria among the population at the beginning of his term, and two months later they brought frustration...
...Because we understood that bureaucratization is an animal that should be extinct...
...We did not compromise our socialist convictions...
...Bureaucratization is an animal that should be extinct" We did not stop short of saying that we would take from the rich to give to the poor if necessary...
...Based on past experience, I am forced to conclude that the basic concern of the plan is to help resolve the problems of our creditors who want to receive billions of dollars...
...Like many from that droughtridden, impoverished region, the family migrated to Sgo Paulo where Lula attended primary school...
...Without any false modesty, I think the PT has a role to play on this issue among the Latin American Left...
...We weren't preFor a presidential campaign on le of a continent-sized country azil...
...So the price freeze doesn't hurt business...
...I think that Fidel Castro has problems...
...Already, hundreds of small businesses have gone broke, thousands of workers have been laid off, large companies have announced "collective vacations...
...I think that there is a process of "massification" of anti-leftist ideas...
...I think that the Nicaraguan people voted for peace...
...It is very difficult to develop a continent-wide policy in Latin America...
...They only understand it from TV Globo's perspective.** We think that the plan has an electoral objective,just like the 1986 Cruzado Plan, which is to guarantee the Collor gov* The 1986 Cruzado Plan's price freeze was so popular with Brazilian consumers that Sarney's party swept the November 1986 gubernatorial and federal and state legislative elections...
...In 1980, we were already criticizing bureaucracy...
...Resting on the pillars of organized labor, the progressive Catholic Church and other social movements, his Workers Party (PT) has flourished in recent years, emerging as the leading force on the Brazilian Left...
...They had power in their hands and held elections in the most democratic way possible without resolving certain problems already in existence...
...I have a special affection for Cuba...
...If in the past the climate was anticommunist, today it is anti-leftist...
Vol. 24 • June 1990 • No. 1
