Rumors that Lula's 2002 presidential campaign got money from foreign countries are old news. There was talk in Congress and also from intelligence sources that Libya's  leader Muammar Gadafi sent help to the PT in 2002, through companies of his country, which were interested in investing in the Brazilian Northeast. There was also talk, about the Colombia's Farc and Taiwan, in China. No one had mentioned Cuba, however.

"Follow the money"

The devil is that Cubans, Libyans, Colombians and Chinese were all duped and made a serious mistake. They lost their investments if they imagined that by donating millions of dollars they would see a president in opposition to the United States in the Brazilian government. They must all be feeling regretful since Lula turned into neoliberalism's most faithful follower. Fidel Castro should ask for his money back and then apply it in the industrialization of his own country instead. After all, the island is no consumer's paradise.

The irony is that the United States, this time,  did not meddle in the Brazilian politics. Neither the CIA nor the American multinationals sent a miserable cent to the PT campaign, in contrast to the millions sent for destabilizing the João Goulart government in the 60s and promoting the military regime.

In 2002, for fear of Lula, Washington saved some good money. And even profited handsomely with the current economic policy, of religious payment of the interests of a debt that has already been paid a thousand times.

History has such contradictions. We have paid a thousand times the USA investment in the establishment of the military governments. Poor Cubans, Libyans, Colombians and Chinese, if they really sent money, they were left in the lurch.

The charges are very serious. If they are substantiated, they might force the ruling Workers Party to close shop through judicial means.  Opposition legislators might also bring back the proposal to impeach the President. Such a move won't be easy, however, since we seem to have only testimonial evidence.

From what magazine Veja has published, Cuba's money came in whiskey and rum boxes, imported by the Cuban embassy in Brasília. In so being, the solution is to follow the money, that is, follow the money, if not from its origin at least through its trajectory.

It will have been changed by some doleiro (illegal dollar dealer) or deposited in some account overseas. If it is true, someone will have left traces that cannot be erased. If it is a lie the role of victim will very well fit the President who will try re-election. And if things stay the way they are, that's our bad luck, because nobody can take this festival of speculations, denials and charges anymore. 

A Fools Country

A long time ago the Lone Ranger was created and became a big hero. He had a friend called Tonto (in Portuguese the word means fool) a legitimate Indian, with a feather on his head and everything else.

Years went by and the Lone Ranger became old and fat. He might even have died although it may always reappear in one of those Hollywood blockbusters. 

The real winner was Tonto who has multiplied and even quit being an Indian. He never fails. Let's make a comparison: the Lone Ranger is the neoliberalism, the Tontos are all those who attack us while defending neoliberalism. 

The most recent of them just showed up this weekend, in an article in which he wrote that without a strong reduction in public expenditures, in a few years Brazil will become economically unviable. 

Which public expenditures, paleface? The highways have become a pothole field. The railroads that were not wiped out by the State have vanished. The government spends way more in publicity than in basic sanitation. Nobody thinks about building a new hydroelectric, what makes us anticipate another national blackout in a few years.

Our ports have become inadequate to let pass the products for export. Budget curtailments brought back foot and mouth disease to our animals, and tuberculosis, to our men, women and children.

The State has no money to invest in public safety. The Armed Forces are systematically left to die an inglorious death. The favelas (shantytown) grow disproportionately.  Public hospitals were turned into slums and the public schools will soon establish the fifth shift.

All of this means that the government is not investing enough. Plans to cut public expenditures even more might be a dream of Finance Minister Antônio Palocci and company, but such measure very soon will lead us to social disintegration.

In an effort to save the Lone Ranger, who is already dead, they are turning Brazil into a country of Tontos...

Carlos Chagas writes for the Rio’s daily Tribuna da Imprensa and is a representative of the Brazilian Press Association, in Brasília. He welcomes your comments at carloschagas@hotmail.com.

Translated from the Portuguese by Arlindo Silva.

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