Lula and the spectacle of Lava Jato

Three years after its inception, Operation Lava Jato has made it abundantly clear that it intends to corner former President Lula and wipe the Workers' Party (PT) off the map. To this end, the Curitiba Task Force has resorted to baseless plea bargains, preventive detentions and illegal interrogations, the release of wiretaps without judicial authorization, and leaks of investigations, among other arbitrary actions denounced by respected voices in the legal world.

During this period, investigators limited themselves to linking Lula to bank accounts that never materialized, properties and land that were never in his name, and now they have gone so far as to question the possibility of his appointment to a ministerial position in Dilma's government, as if the personal decision of the then president-elect were something illegal.

The Lava Jato strategy is nothing new. Once again, they tried to turn public opinion against Lula and the PT in the week leading up to the former president's testimony before the court in Curitiba. It's the same recipe used in May, when witness Leo Pinheiro recanted his previous statements in favor of the former president and fabricated a story so absurd and unsubstantiated that it delivered what the investigating judge wanted. The sentence issued months later used this testimony as irrefutable proof, dispensing with the testimony of 73 other people who vehemently denied the accusation.

Therefore, one can already foresee what lies ahead. The 13th Federal Court will convict Lula as many times as it has to judge him, and to do so, it will not hesitate to trample on due process and constitutional guarantees in its path.

At this stage of the operation, the brutality and political positioning of state agents are above the law. What matters now is intensifying the production of headlines in time to influence the prevention of the return of the political project that lifted millions of people out of poverty in a decade and showed those in power that there is a formula to pull the country out of backwardness and distribute wealth that goes beyond their own self-interest.

Lula's caravan through the Northeast demonstrated the magnitude of its significance to the people, even though it was ignored by the mainstream media, especially Globo network, the main sponsor of the coup against democracy. The former president only receives attention in this media when it's to be defamed, when some whistleblower emerges with a new accusation that, even without evidence, occupies prominent positions in the news.

This week, we once again had an example of this manipulation. Former minister Geddel was arrested with R$ 51 million in his apartment, and the Globo media group's newspaper featured a headline on its front page highlighting the names of Lula and Dilma, with Geddel's suitcases of money right below. Anyone looking at that image and the headline would attribute one thing to the other, when in fact there was no connection between the two events. This is "Lava Jato journalism," where inferences constitute the perfect crime, even though it's all just a grotesque charade to deceive and divide public opinion. It's journalism of confusion, not of information.

Now, the silver bullet was sought with Antonio Palocci's testimony, diligently scheduled the week before Lula's testimony. More of the same. Many accusations without any proof, moreover, without eyewitness testimony, only hearsay, "I was told," "I was informed"... It's regrettable that Palocci lent himself to this, trying to incriminate Lula to save his own skin. Nothing regarding the financial system, nothing regarding the media.

The problem with this strategy, focused on destroying the greatest political leader in the country's history, is that it doesn't only affect him or the PT (Workers' Party). It affects the majority of the Brazilian people, because this alliance, this collusion, between biased judicial forces, the mainstream media, and financial capital, is allowing for reforms and setbacks in the rights and achievements of the Brazilian people. This was the case with Constitutional Amendment 95, which froze investments and spending on health and education for 20 years, with the labor reform recently approved by Congress, and with the pension reform, which affects the poorest, those who most need the State to guarantee them a minimum of dignity.

They will not intimidate us! We will continue our struggle to resist the coup, for democracy and for the basic rights of the population. For a country that develops economically, making the income of the poorest grow more. We will continue to defend Lula and the PT, because this means defending Brazilian democracy and the interests of the majority of the people.