In this week's News from Brazil:

Interview with Dom Tomás Balduíno from the magazine “Isto É”, Jan. 16, 2008

“Lula Has Sold Out”
Ex-ally of the PT (Worker’s Party), the bishop says that the government and the social movements are in opposition with each other on issues such as bio-fuels and agrarian reform.

By Aziz Filho

The bishop emeritus of Goiás, dom Tomás Balduíno, remains, at age 85, one of the most decisive voices of the left-wing of the Catholic Church.  Founder of the Indigenous Missionary Council (Cimi), co-founder and ex-president of the Pastoral Land Commission (CPT), the old “traveling companion” of the PT criticizes the moderation of Lula’s governance, fiercely defends agrarian reform, and justifies the violent acts of the Landless Movement with a popular saying that can sound polemical: “Violence is legitimate when nonviolent means have been exhausted.”  In an interview with ISTOÉ, dom Tomás warns of the tension in Pará, praises Hugo Chávez, and says that President Lula no longer generates any expectations of change in the country.  “Lula has sold out”, he says. 


ISTOÉ:  Was the end of the CPMF (financial transactions tax that has subsidized the country’s public healthcare system since 1993) good for Brazil?

Dom Tomás:  It was a regrettable loss because the country lost its best instrument for collecting money from the wealthy.  This defeat occurred because the government did not open the eyes of society to this fact.  It got to the point where the government was taking money from the rich in order to give it to other rich people, it took money from banks in order to give it to other banks, paying the debt.  As a result, it was left without any moral force with which to show the people how this tax was effective. 

ISTOÉ:  Taxing financial operations is a good way out?

Dom Tomás:  It is a positive measure, but the government continues  to lack a dialogue at the base.  The government lost this practice.  All governments with a popular base are able to raise awareness in the population when they are in confrontation with the exploitative class.  Lula showed that he no longer has this ability.  He benefits from strong popular acceptance, but he does not dialogue with the people.

ISTOÉ:  Did the Lula government fight the large landowners more than his predecessors?

Dom Tomás:  In the fight against large landowners, Lula made no difference whatsoever.  It is true that he did not suppress the social movements, like Fernando Henrique did, and he dialogued—he did not close the doors.  But what has really progressed in the country is not social—it’s the market, capital. Lula is not progressing in the expropriation of land.  On the contrary, the course given to agribusinesses is reducing the space for agrarian reform.  The expropriations are far below the goals that he himself had set.  Today, agrarian reform is an issue that has left the agenda for consideration.

ISTOÉ:  It wouldn’t be due to the fact that rural mechanization is obligatory for the country to enter into global trade?

Dom Tomás:  If we judge our development through a European lens, it could be true, but it is necessary to see our reality, to get answers from the desires and hopes of the Brazilian masses.  Neo-liberalism is predatory, devastating.  It might favor the wealthy minority and the European world, but here it has been augmenting the disparity, the inequalities.  The Lula government, which is in alliance with capital, feels stimulated by the forces which have the power to command in society.  It follows another line, which does not attend to the appeals of the popular masses.  Our universe is another one—it is of the rural folk, the indigenous, the Latin-American, which preserves its mystique, its grandeur. 

ISTOÉ:  Don’t the invasions of the Vale do Rio Doce and the hydroelectric power companies put public opinion against the rural movement?

Dom Tomás:  I do not condemn these actions.  They are violent, yes, but the objective is to create an impact, like in the case of the eucalyptus seeds of Aracruz Celulose.  They complain, send correspondence, make claims, submit petitions, and they are not seen, nothing happens.  When they break a window, then people appear.  I have the utmost respect and admiration for those who risk their skin in actions such as these. 

ISTOÉ:  But isn’t it a road similar to terrorism?  Violent acts in order to call attention?

Dom Tomás:  No.  It’s a different thing.  “Violence is legitimate when nonviolent means have been exhausted,” goes a saying, one of those great works of humanity without a known author.  Before a deaf government, only an act such as this gets its attention.

ISTOÉ:  If the idea of a third term for Lula were to return to the political agenda, would you support it?

Dom Tomás:  Lula has sold out.  I don’t speak for myself, but for the popular organizations which I know.  Don’t think about maintaining Lula in order to change or improve the country.  We are going to be living the post-Lula era shortly.  How it’s going to be, I do not know, but there is no expectation of another election for Lula.  Perhaps this can be negotiated by the leadership, but not by the popular forces.  The popular movement does not see Lula continuing, they don’t want a third term.  This does not mean that we want these other candidates that are appearing.  There is a general perplexity about the future.  A flash of inspiration has not yet emerged.

ISTOÉ:  Why are you so disappointed with the government?

Dom Tomás:  There had been the expectation of the popular organizations in years past of coming together, creating a party, and dreaming with the leaders of the government.  Today the climate is one of deception, discouragement, even paralysis.  I had hoped for much more from Lula; and it wasn’t just me.  All the rural organizations had hoped for more from the recuperation of Incra (national institute for agrarian reform), in the updating of the criteria and indices of productivity and of the limits of property for the purpose of expropriation.  All of this would have favored agrarian reform, which has been treated as a compensatory measure.  In other words, where there is a conflict, the government goes and expropriates.  This is not agrarian reform.

ISTOÉ:  Do you have hope that the country will change course?

Dom Tomás:  Hope never dies.  Looking at the bases of the people and of society, which retains the vigor of the Latin American people, I see that there is a potential, a wealth of life, of transformation, that points to a different future.  This is already present in the diverse social forums and in the meetings and assemblies of the rural organizations.  We have the examples in Ecuador, Bolivia, and Venezuela.  The people are very alive, despite decades and decades of domination by the elite and of the formation of the State for the service of the elite.

ISTOÉ:  Is the only alternative to capitalism for Latin America populism or personalism, like that of Hugo Chávez in Venezuela?

Dom Tomás:  I don’t call it populism, but rather charismatic leadership, which Lula exemplifies, too.  In terms of popular organization, we have more wealth than any other Latin American country.  I think this mobilization is good, valid, and necessary, but there arrives a moment in which it becomes necessary to have a leadership of consensus of the majority. You can call it populism or whatever, but it must be this way.  In the case of Venezuela, it’s Chávez.  He has his flaws, but he responds in great part to the demands of the popular bases, thwarting the interests of the elite, who would like to see him dead, and of the American empire.  In the case of Bolivia, this kind of leadership is found in Evo Morales. 

ISTOÉ:  Why are you against the redirecting of the São Francisco river?

Dom Tomás:  For the same reasons as Dom Luiz Flávio Cappio (bishop of Barra, in Bahia) and a hundred other bishops.  The project is for the wealthy elite and is not going to eliminate the thirst of the diffuse populations of the northeastern semi-arid land.  They are doing this for the exportation of fruits to Europe, of crabs in captivity, and for the irrigation of sugarcane and the large urban centers.  There is an alternative proposed by the National Water Agency, which is much cheaper and uses local resources.  It basically involves rainwater, along with the good use of the subsoil, and above all, the retention and distribution of the water. The water accumulated in dams evaporates without a distribution system for those who need it.  It is three times less expensive than this grandiose project that doesn’t benefit the population.  This business of saying that the water from the project will reach 12 million people is not true: it will go to the elite.  The other simpler proposal would benefit 44 million people.

ISTOÉ:  And why didn’t the government opt for this alternative project?

Dom Tomás:  It was stifled by the government itself.  In the Brazilian semi-arid, it rains much more than in other semi-arid lands.  In Spain, there is a similar area in which the people live well because the water has been rationed, with a system of service adequate for the population.  Here the culture is of water waste, even in the Northeast.  When one speaks of the recovery of water service, it is in the same line as the drought industry, which channels the money to the elite.

ISTOÉ:  Exports and agribusiness don’t generate employment for the northeastern people?

Dom Tomás:  All projects generate employment, but we are speaking of water.  It is one thing to increase the size of the cake in order to later, perhaps, share it.   It is another thing to bring water directly to the people who need it.  The water from the project will be excessively expensive, pumped from a height of 300 meters in order to feed three states.  It will be the most expensive water in the world.

ISTOÉ:  Did the Lula government reduce the rural conflict?

Dom Tomás:  The conflict continues intensely, especially in the North.  In the state of Pará, the result of the project of Governer Ana Júlia Carepa (PT), Peace in the Countryside, was the imprisonment of 200 farmers in 2007 with heavy police violence.  It was a disarmament of the farmers requested by the fazendeiros (large landowners), who wanted to vaccinate their cattle and were disrupted by the occupations.  The government placed the police in support of the fazendeiros.  The farmer is viewed as a bandit.  Coincidentally, in one of these raids the police discovered a fazendeiro’s war arsenal.  This will end in battle.

ISTOÉ:  The government didn’t diminish the death rate in these conflicts?

Dom Tomás:  It diminished a little, but there is a growing tension, above all in Pará, due to the fact that Incra is creating settlements in distant public lands which are unhealthy, full of malaria, and in primitive forests.  This is not the future of agrarian reform.  It ends up benefiting the timber merchants and obstructing the lives of the riverside dwellers.  It is interesting that, instead of expropriating areas close to consumer centers and schools and hospitals, the government is doing agrarian reform in the sense of deporting people far away.  It is agrarian reform in the form of deportation.  This generates tension and perpetuates slave labor. 

ISTOÉ:  Mechanized agribusiness, throughout the world, is an important generator of foreign trade.  Is it different for Brazil?

Dom Tomás:  They take the land that could be used for agrarian reform and produce ethanol for export.  It is a step backwards, a return to the colonial system of exportation.

ISTOÉ:  Even if ethanol reduces pollution?  The balance of the sugarcane culture is negative?

Dom Tomás:  With regards to the earth, it is negative to call it “clean energy”.  The Via Campesina (international peasant movement) says it’s clean from the car’s exhaust pipe to the air.  But until it gets to that point, it is so dirty that it even includes slave labor.  It removes the land from those who need it to live.  It attacks the environment, transforming the forest into a monoculture.  The cerrado (a dense low vegetation found in northern and central Brazil), which balances the planet and is the water tank of our hydrographic basins, is being transformed into a monoculture of eucalyptus, sugar cane, soy, or cotton.  Ethanol compensates the markets of the First World, which needs the energy for their motors, but from us it takes away the chance to solve our problems.  Agribusinesses have an important value, but it can’t be the priority of rural public policy.